Biscocho, Isabelle Ann P.

Reflection: Goddess Remembered

MAWD (WD201) 01 March 2017

Towards a Culture of Life: A Reflection on Donna Reads Goddess Remembered

It is practically impossible to watch Philippine news without ever coming across a story that
reads three dead, ten injured, because of an unfortunate police shootout done in the name of
the war of drugs. One can safely bet an entire years salary that at least one of the anchors
will have to apologize for the graphic images that are being shown in the height of dinner
time; the reds and the purples and the blues blooming upon usually dark brown flesh
effectively mosaiced by the TV editors. It is a ritual, almostto have to have a segment
dedicated solely to drug-related deaths or war-on-drugs induced crimes, filled with cuts of
bereaved families wailing to the high heavens about the injustice done to their loved ones.

This makes one ask: has the world always been like this? Has the very earth weve been
standing on for millennia always been bathing in the crimson blood of its supposed stewards?
Have humans always been stuck in an endless cycle of war, where deaths are avenged by
more deaths and murder is excusable if done in the name of something honorable?

Donna Reads Goddess Remembered longs to contest this notion. The 1989 documentary
introduces a nation of an egalitarian earth, of a pre-history where humanity peacefully
coexisted with nature; where women were revered as goddess figures and deemed magical
due to their reproductive capacities. It shows the plausible remnants of a non-violent society,
bound by patience and acceptance on what Mother Nature can give; a society that roots its
customs on what Mother Earth can willingly provide for her waiting children.

From their discussions, one can freely assume how much herstory has been obscured in favor
of history: a researcher can dig as deep as she could and still come up with barely any
additional information on ancient matriarchies, or societies left untouched by the grimy hand
of patriarchy. Even Lerner herself had said that matriarchies never really came into existence,
that the most the world had were communities where females are given basic respect. But,
really, who is she to say when more than half of our non-recorded past has been erased from
mainstream consciousness? Why must we, as feminists, abide merely by what is presentby
the history written by bearded, mostly white, men who have been routinely erasing the
prominent roles of women in a plausible fear that the female, once made aware of her innate
power and ability that went far and beyond the reproductive, would start an uprising?

Goddess worship is a concept that has been constantly pushed to the backseat of many
theological discussions, especially those that root from the west. The Greek, Roman, and
Norse pantheons are made mostly of males who jump on the next beautiful girl they lay their
eyes on, turning them into animals or monsters or stone if their affections are not well
received. Asian mythology gives us a greater selection of goddesses, but their roles and
delegations only revolve around birth and the home. Not to mention the fact that a lot of non-
western history remains untranslated, and much of the worlds female-centric religions have
been relegated as satanic witchcraft by the very patriarchal rule of Christianity.

Heck, even the version of the Christian creation story where woman was noted as mans
savior is usually removed from many versions of the bible, and only those who have taken
intensive lessons in theology would be able to encounter it in their lessons.
Perhaps this is why violence has constantly been normalized in our society. In aid of this
reflection, I will focus on discussing my own Catholic religion, where the very first sons of
this Earth have drenched the soil with blood in just the first few chapters. The God presented
in the old testament is a god that wipes out populations with floods, sends fire from the
heavens to cleanse rid an entire city of sinnersa far cry from the God of Love most
believers know of today. Ive learned from my theology classes in college that it is actually
rather un-Christian of Christians to always be quoting the laws of the Old Testament as a
form of justification to their actions or what not, as it completely disregards the salvific act
done by Jesus Christ in the New Testament, which is, first and foremost, the very basic tenet
of the religion. But peoplenot just menare wont to twist and deform what is written to
serve their own selfish purposes, hence why we have people like Manny Pacquiao or Alan
Peter Cayetano quoting bible verses like the Senate was an extension of Sunday School.

Herstory has been obscured, erased, and pushed away from the mainstream consciousness
that the very notion of having a female-centric pre-history can come off as shocking to most.
Goddess Remembered can easily be misconstrued as a romanticization of a past that we arent
even sure existed. Is it a call to go back to a long-gone matriarchy that may actually just be a
figment of our imagination? Is it a move to revert from what modernization has wrought onto
this earth and revamp all laws to mirror the pre-commercial societies of before? Is it a motion
to reconsider all our past advances and begin the radical revolution to reclaim the natural?

To assume all of those, I believe, is missing the point. For starters, idealizing the past
(whether it be existent or not) is problematic in itself. Not to mention, the deification and
idolization of the woman is another form of dehumanization. Aside from this, there is still
something inherently heteronormative in assigning the nurturing, the natural, and the life-
giving to the female form, when, in my opinion, it should be a basic tenet of humanity.

What Goddess Remembered wants us to realize, I believe, is that we shouldnt be constricted

by the history we have in our midst. We always have to keep in mind that aside from being
the victors story, human history has been written by aged men who have their own personal
needs (and egos) to satisfy. Weve been repeatedly made to undergo a cycle of violence under
the notion that it is the norm, that it is what has always been, and the documentary presents us
with an alternative way of looking at our origins. Violence has not been the norm of the
unwritten age. There was a time where coexistence, not competition, formed the laws of the
land. There was a time where respect was given to all human beings, no matter what genitals
they were born with, no matter what gender they choose to express. This current world order
in which we live is the furthest it could be from the natural and it is woefully absurd and not
self-serving to call it as such when we do not have access to more than 20,000 years of our
invisible past.

Instead of working to return to that idyllic matriarchy, feminists of today must work to
rewrite history unto herstory, forming it and shaping it to a more inclusive ourstory of
humanity. We must work on pushing what has been hidden from societys conscious back
into the mainstream. It is well and good that film and TV have been coming up with movies
and shows that highlight the historical achievements of women (Hidden Figures is a good
place to begin), but so much still has to be done in order for the woman to gain a substantial
role in written history, beyond the normative roles she has constantly been put under.

Those in the realm of religion have heaps to do. Catholicism, for one, reeks of blatant
heteronormativity that it is almost unthinkable for a feminist to thrive within its rigid walls. It
is fortunate that I have liberal professors who operated on the notions of liberation theology
and even normalized the idea of a feminist rewrite of the bible as an exercise of faith. But not
everybody is as lucky, and majority of Catholic universities secretly abhor even the very
notion of Jesuit theology. So, there is much to be done in this single realm of belief. Catholic
feminists have a lot to do to piece and sew their ideology with their faith.

Let us work to have more bibles that talk of Eve as savior, as equalbeyond flesh removed
from Adams rib. Let us move to have more theologians talk about Marys importance
beyond mother, beyond wife, beyond the immaculate conception. Let us push to normalize a
God that abides by neither gender, and bring about the discourse of love and kindness and
acceptance instead of vengeance and hatred and spite. And thats just for Christianity.

Perhaps, then, we could transition from a culture of violence to a culture of life. The
documentary has mentioned that Patriarchy operates on fear, and I believe that the feminist
counter to that argument would be a dialectic of hope. Though I may not agree with
Dinnerstein and her position that the nurturing and life-giving role is essentially a womans, it
is a good stepping stone in finding the solution to the present cycle of violence. What it needs
is a less heteronormative and more all-encompassing call: that nurture and care and the need
to preserve life are all basic tenets of humanity, and that it is absurd to still be fighting for the
right to live, to breathe, to choose, and to exist at this day and age.

Our world views, our systems of thought have been so laden with patriarchal fear and
supposedly human violence that it is quite hard to turn the tables and push for a more
peaceful alternative. But where Goddess Remembered fails in bringing a strong and highly
believable background for its claims, it more than makes up for giving feminists hope that the
argument where patriarchy is deemed as timeless and natural is indeed invalid. Patriarchy
clearly began somewhereit began with history, when herstory ceased to be told and sang.
This just means that patriarchy will inevitably meet its timely end (hopefully as soon as
possible)it is up to feminists to provide, with our existing knowledge and with the culture
of violence removed from our dialectic, an alternative world older to replace it with.

We can begin with the war on drugs. A first move could be decriminalizing drug addiction,
and treating it more as a mental health problem. Instead of the righteous genocide the state
is putting forth, we should put a bigger focus on reformative and rehabilitative institutions
whose main goal is to have these victims return to their human lives. It is just unfortunate that
our president is a misogynist who is stubborn to boot and refuses to listen to case studies on
the war on drugs done by other, bigger narco states. But we shouldnt be disheartened.
Goddess Remembered reminds us that in our veins flow the blood of many strong women
celestial or godly or humanand this is a battle we can win.

Maybe then, in the hopefully near future where the death tolls would mostly come from
natural causes, the primetime news would report more on development achievements,
economic wins, and human success, ushering in hope and a more hopeful generation.