I know it’s just a story which didn’t actually happen exactly so, especially since there are so many versions of it, but whenever I would read that Gautama sat under a tree BY THE ROAD until he became enlightened and that took some time since in some versions he almost died of hunger/thirst, I thought that a woman couldn’t do that. I can’t imagine a woman, alone, sitting by the road being left in peace by men passing by. A man, who didn’t seem to have anything to steal on him would be of no interest, but a woman, even an old one… that’s a different story. One of Gautama’s age would have definitely been harassed and/or abussed, even killed.
Around 50000 women or girls were killed by a partner or family member in 2025, according to the UN report. Worldwide there were 147 women killed each day, one every 10 minutes…
71,227 rapes were recorded by police in 2024. By the end of 2024, charges had been brought in just 2.7% of these cases. Convictions were even less. This does not include war zones where rape is used as a weapon and 92% of victims are women. And rape is still not reported in many cases due to shame or persecution of the victim by the authorities and society.
Women who are imigrants, minorities and/ or live in poor or secluded conditions are increasingly more at risk.
So this fantasy written in the book “Sing and be happy” about the benefits of singing the mantra Hare Krishna, where a hermit monk was so famos in the nearest town that the lord there sent the most beautiful prostitute to seduce him in order to denigrate him, but he instead “saved her soul” and as he left, she remained a hermit in his stead singing Hare Krishna day and night. Like, sweet. We are going to leave aside the mental masturabtion of men “saving” women from unfavorable conditions they have created, tolerated or ignored, and think about what is the most likely action the lord would have taken should she have failed in her task. Since in the story she also became a famous hermit people were going to for advice or blessings, how would this lord feel about that since he felt threated by the monk previously there? Even if the lord wouldn’t do anything, presuming he was just pleased the monk left, she was very beautiful, living in a cottage …alone. Yeah, sure. She was singing Hare Krishna. How much does one have to smoke and what to believe the mantra shilded her from men’s abuses?
Similarly, there is a story about Tara, when she was still a mortal princess, that she faced alone a band of thieves who were charmed by her compassion and gave up their evil ways. Maye that’s where Brandon Sandrson got his inspiration for Shallan from Stormlight Archives. Sanderson’s story is more believeble, after all Shallan had a sword which could materialize out of nowhere, than the stories about all the women saved by whichever guru or whatnot, who gave up everything they owned and were just wondering the world in bliss, sometimes naked, because why not? I can acctually understand the explanation for the nakedness and going back to our roots as humans and feeling no shame regarding the body. That is indeed blissful, and I do wish women could go about naked, but in this society? Not likely to end well, no matter her energies as some priviledged “spiritual” ladies would believe, that a woman’s energy attracts abuse just because they were fortunate enough to be the 2 in 3 women who weren’t subjected to that and they are under the dilussion that they did something better than the others.
All this intro, to say that I’ve read “The Goddess obscured” by Pamela Berger, which traces the influence of the Grain Neolithic Goddess, deemed by Marija Gimbutas as Bird Goddess, throughout history until the present day worship of the Virgin Mary.
Actually Gimbutas’ Bird Goddess was rather the Goddess of both flora and fauna, more of a life Goddess which predates agricultural Neolithic civilizations, along side the Death Goddess. The Fertility Goddess was more of a agricultural rising Goddess, but Berger’s Grain Goddess encompasses features from all of them.
She traces how this Goddess turned to Bendis (Tracia/ Dacia), Athena (Greece), Mokosh (slavic people), Isis (Egypt), Anat (Cannan/ Palastine), Inanna (Sumer) and so on.
Then came Christianity and wiped out all Gods, but one. However, the Goddesses turned to saints. Whenever a custom was too engraved in people’s lives, the church absorbed it and turned the Goddess into a saintly figure more suited to the dogma.
What I would like to point out, is that the early saints and the myths around them refered mostly to nuns running away from lord trying to rape them and the way they escaped was by making grain grow really fast to hide their tracks. The stories are known as The Grain Miracle. The story of Mary escaping with Jesus follows a similar narrative. Up until the 1500s, there are all sorts of stories like this. However, some people are trying to convince us now, that because there was no written law before 1486, stating that a lord could rape a newly wed woman, that didn’t happen. The law from 1486 states that lords are forbbiden to sleep with the wifes of their peasants. Saying that there is no evidence this happened before the law was passed is like saying marital rape didn’t exist until it was made illegal in [insert different times depending where you are if you are privilegde enough to not live somewhere where it is still permited or even legal in 2026, like in South Sudan]. Bleah…
Surely there was no written law which would allow a lord to sleep with another woman than his wife since the Middle Ages were under church rule, but this doesn’t mean the custom didn’t exist and with all the stories repeating this narrative, I am going to go ahead and trust the oral information because this was the means women used to circulate information and I simply choose to believe women at this point where there is no means to know what really happened except the writings of men who are known to denigrate and dehumanize whomever they want to take advantage of, abuse, oppress, exploit, steal from and kill, while justifing their miserable deeds.
Being a noble woman in the middle ages wasn’t any good either, since you could be forced or raped into marriage. Even today, rape victims are forced to marry their rapists in some societies. This is not culture, nor is it tradition. It’s just men reinforcing their sickening power and control over women.
As a matter of fact, Herodot would have us believe that pre indo-european peoples were having this habit of the leader sleeping with virgins. However, there is no archeological proof that virginity mattered in prehistorical civilizations. Also, there is enough proof that neolithic people were matriarchal, so not necessarily led by men. If, however, a man was chosen by several women, it could be most likely for his genes, so for procreation reasons. This seems to me, to be the main role of men back then, very much like a lion. No wonder, they deemed the lion king of animals. Also, the neolithic statuets depictig male figures, show them in emotional states which makes me think, emotions and passions were considered rather a masculine attribute at the time. Honestly, if we look at men now we can see that it is stilm the case, only that they arevnit aware of their emotions anymore and usually blame them on others (women usually) insteas of taking responsibility for what they feel. Apparently, Hermes might acctually predate indo-europrean Gods, and since he is a trickster God, I’m amused by the idea that men were trolls since …well, forever. This is not a bad thing. Humour is good. It only turned bad when men started to believe their nonsense and waging war and violence on others for no good reason.
There is a narrative which blames technological advances in agriculture and thr possibility of hoarding as causes for the shift to patriarchal societies, but Neolithic societies had agriculture for 2000 years before the indo-europeans came and they were by all evidence quite advanced, but were still living in a partnership with everything in common rather that one owning all. I do not believe this evolution to be organic, but rather enforced.
Herodot also said Thracians were violent savages, but they had music and poetry, so how savage could they have been? Violent, I guess, since they are part of the first indo-european wave of conquerors to reach Europe and asmiliate most of the Balkan populations, but so were all the others. The same Herodot says Thracians didn’t value virginity. I think it is very likely the people they asmilated did not either judging by how hard it was to diminish the customs of those Neolithic civilizations, with some lasting even to today in a modified form.
The one which is most obvious is the Goddess carried around in a cart to insure fortune to (back then fertility of) the land. When I was in Andalusia, in 2022, after Easter, there were weekly processions of different Virgin Marys, each church parading its own in a cart throughout the cities in a great procession. Also, people may be praying more to virgin Mary than to Jesus or God directly, even today. In Andalusia, for sure.
The book “The Goddess obscured” unfortunately repeats a lot of the patriarchal rehoric as facts, but even so, it does crack a bit thr narrative by highlithing as much as possible the traces of the pre historian Goddessess.
Berger repeats the narrative where women became more important as agriculture appeared. However, they were important as hunteresses also. Thirty years ago, they didn’t have that interpretation of women found with weapons in the grave, but they did know of all the hunting/ war godesses of the forst indo-european civilizations, which were later replaced by Gods or given a God husband who obscured their importance as the primary provider. It also seems to me that women domesticated animals. They were associated with wolves, snakes and goats, all vilified by Christianity.
There are reports of all sort of sacrifices to the Neolithic Goddesses, which I have a hard time understanding, especially when it comes to Bird Goddess which is life. However, the only accounts we have come from Roman or Greek scholars, and as Beger also points out, those people were out of touch with regular/ peasant life, so their depictions are probably misinterpretation. There is an account for intsance of a ritual where only women were allowed to participate, described by a man. Like how relatable can that be. Add the bias of the conquerors’ superioirty and it was probably very different than what actually happened.
I am pretty sure they did sacriface animals to the Goddess, no matter how much I deslike the idea. It could have been out of recognition of death as part of life (you have to kill to survive) and their way of showing gratitude to nature for allowing thier existance. I do not believe the Neolithic civilozations were perfect, just that they were closer to (our) nature and more connected and peaceful. And they probably had none to minimal language because, like other animals, they could feel eachother. Imagine, no need for small talk 🤩
Anyway, they used to sacrifice a lamb to the Fertility Goddess in spring, around Easter time (not a fixed date back then either), after the sowing was done. 😉
The joy of creating 
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