Raise a Glass to Real Grrrl Power: Women in Solidarity Part IV: The Final 3 Themes

In this image as opposed to word-dense post, let's take a look at some alternatives to female rivalry and competition from the past and present in a slide show of sorts following these themes which sprang from the screen on True Blood:

• women sharing support, connection & compassion
• allies, helpers & guides
• women united in ritual

WOMEN SHARING SUPPORT, CONNECTION & COMPASSION

Psychoanalyst Jean Baker Miller has written that, "women stay with, build on, and develop in a context of attachment and affiliation with others" (Lowinsky, 1992, p. 55). Essentially, we need other women to become, and be, ourselves. The media and popular entertainment often show us a terrain of women's interpersonal relationships with one another pockmarked by strife and discord. Let's take a look at a few  images from True Blood to the contrary:


Tara experiences the support of other women rape survivors


 

Arlene hires Holly





Holly provides Arlene with moral support and empathy



Sookie and Jessica have a warming relationship

  



These True Blood images have some counterparts from archaic history.

As you can read in the notes associated with the left-hand image below, it depicts two women; perhaps sisters, mother and daughter, or lovers. The image comes from a temple in India; it is a representation of the way in which women were often shown together interacting in loving and beautiful ways in ancient times. It is much the same with the right-hand image depicting two women pouring libations together. The left-hand image comes from the book Shakti Woman by Vicki Noble - the author suggests that only under patriarchy did women become estranged from one another and competitive in relation to men. The image on the right comes from expert on female iconography Max Dashu's website http://www.suppressedhistories.net/index.html 

 

Looks kinda like Tara and Sookie in the shot below, huh?

ALLIES, HELPERS & GUIDES

Sookie's encountered quite a few allies, helpers, and guides of the female persuasion in Season 3 of True Blood:   


Claudine outstretches a helping hand to Sookie



Sookie & Claudine



Janine oversees Sookie's Lou Pines makeover




Tara orchestrates Sookie's escape from
the King of Mississippi's captivity






Yvetta helps Sookie escape from Eric's dungeon

 Do you see any parallels between the True Blood images above and these ones:

As Austen (1990) writes, on the left we see Nut, the Egyptian Goddess of  Death and Rebirth welcoming a dead noblewoman into her arms juxtaposed with an image representing the woman who was placed inside the coffin. When the casket was closed, the deceased would be able to look directly into the eyes of the Goddess who welcomed her into eternity. Nut, the Mother who gives life, was waiting to comfort and nurture.

On the right, we see Isis leading Queen Nofretari. This scene, dated to 1300 B.C.E. is painted on a wall of the queen's tomb and the inscription reads: Isis speaks: Come, Nofretari, beloved of the Goddess Nut, without fault, that I may show thee thy place in the sacred world (Austen, 1990, p. 48).
 

Here, we see ancient and contemporary images of divine and mortal allies, helpers, and guides which stand in stark contrast to the images of female conflict and rivalry we've seen.  

On her website "The Suppressed Histories Archives: Real Women, Global Vision" Max Dashu speaks of elder women leading and guiding younger women in womanhood initiations and coming of age ceremonies. These are cross-cultural rites of "seclusion, vision-seeking, body-painting, instruction by elders, and the dance of new women before the entire community, in sacred regalia, with cowrie strands, masks, beaded veils, layers of cloth, new belts or the long skirts of adult women...These rites are now being reclaimed - in some places they were never lost, in many they were crushed, and in others, where they were turned to enforcing masculine dominance, many women are choosing to change harmful practices while keeping the sacred core of the most ancient traditions" http://www.suppressedhistories.net/catalog/spheres.html.

Not only have women led each other in becoming, they have led and continue to lead each other, their families, and their communities in overcoming. 

Max Dashu speaks of rebel shamans - indigenous women in solidarity with one another - confronting empire. "Priestesses, diviners, and medicine women stand out as leaders of aboriginal liberation movements against conquest, empire, and cultural colonization". http://www.suppressedhistories.net/catalog/shamanliberators.html

Dashu's visual presentation Rebel Shamans introduces us to female shamans and leaders who led resistance movements; here are some of those she covers:

Wanakhucha, the mganga priestess who led the Zigula exodus out of slavery in Somalia; Veleda of the Bructerii (Netherlands), Dahia al-Kahina (Tunisia), the Kumari of Taleju (Nepal), Jeanne d'Arc (France), Tang Saier (China), Juana Icha (Peru), Kimba Vita (Congo), Maria Candelaria (Chiapas), Queen Nanny of the Maroons (Jamaica), Cécile Fatiman (Haiti), Antonia Luzia (Brazil), Toypurina (Tongva Nation, California), the Prophetess of Chupu (Chumash Nation), Wanankhucha (Somalia), Lozen (Apache Nation), Teresa de Cabora (Mayo, Sonora), Nehanda Nyakasikana (Zimbabwe), Muhumusa (Uganda), Nomtetha Nkwenkwe (Xhosa, South Africa), Alinesitoué Diatta (Senegal). Please visit her website for more information and images!

Here's a book on my reading list: The Bond Between Women: A Journey to Fierce Compassion by China Galland. According to the editorial review, Galland draws inspiration from her travels in Asia and Latin America where she meets women of extraordinary activism who are battling the scourge of child prostitution, demonstrating against murderous dictatorship, and quietly, but no less dramatically, working to increase literacy amongst poor women and children and de-polluting rivers.

These are women joined to one another in their work for justice and healing, like the mothers of the "disappeared" in Argentina who bear witness against the government that stole the lives of their children. You can see some of these mothers of the disappeared united in struggle and rememberance in the U2 concert footage below; on U2's album The Joshua Tree there is a song called "Mothers of the Disappeared" which you'll hear along with the video:




Pretty moving, right?

WOMEN UNITED IN RITUAL

On her website Max Dashi writes that spiritual spheres of power have been crucial staging areas for women's political leadership, for challenging systems of domination, and for making change. Women can connect to one another and form bonds through spiritual and ritual expression; these images from True Blood illustrate that:

In Arlene's time of need, Holly joined with her in a powerful ritual that even if it wasn't effective in terms of eliminating her unwanted pregnancy, gave her renewed sense that she could trust another woman and feel empowered to control her body.  

Look at these images from archaic history of women joined in ritual; the first comes from Elinor Gadon's The Once and Future Goddess - here we see females, maybe Goddesses, maybe her priestesses, joined together in the esctatic dance that was part of Goddess religious devotion. The second is a plate from Max Dashu's Suppressed Histories illustrating a similar scene:  

 Do you see any resemblance between these ancient images of woman-centered religious activity and the one from True Blood below?

We can see that traditions of women's solidarity have lived in our past and continue to live in our future; both in the new mythology of True Blood and in our real lives as well.

So what, you ask?

I'll talk about why women's solidarity matters in the fifth and final installment of this Real Grrrl Power series!

Stay Tuned!

~ Rachel

References

Austen, H. I. (1990). The heart of the goddess: Art, myth and meditations of the world’s sacred feminine. Berkeley: Wingbow Press

Gadon, E. W. (1989). The once and future Goddess. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco

Lowinsky, N.R. (1992). Stories from the motherline: Reclaiming the mother-daughter bond, finding our feminine souls. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.

Noble, V. (1991). Shakti woman: Feeling our fire, healing our world. The new female shamanism. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Raise a Glass to Real Grrrl Power - Women in Solidarity Part III - Theme 2 - Female Competition and Alternatives to It

In this third installment of the Real Grrrl Power series, we'll be putting female rivalry and conflict in perspective by taking a look at images of women's relationships in True Blood and their parallels in the art, stories, narratives, and histories of the past and present in the context of the theme:

• Female Competition Manifested in the Classic Love Triangle & Alternatives to It 

It's time to put back on that good 'ol metaphoric thinking cap!

FEMALE COMPETITION MANIFESTED IN THE CLASSIC LOVE TRIANGLE

According to the media (and maybe real life too), if it's not men (and it often is), there's got to be something we're vying for; jockeying for position, scrambling over each other to get. That dream home, ideal career, status, respect, friends, money...or maybe it's the coveted E! Fashion Police vote for who wore that outfit better in the catty "Bitch Stole My Look" segment of the show.

When it comes to the classic love triangle, True Blood's given us plenty of that enduring tug-of-war to go around; the writers over at HBO seem to be pretty equal opportunity as far as who's pulling on either side - be it male or female.

Unless you've been living under a rock, under twelve feet of snow, under a polar ice cap, you're at least somewhat aware of the Team Eric or Team Bill  battle (with occasional interlopers like Sam and Alcide) that's raging amongst True Blood fans which references the love triangle Sookie's in the middle of:..

We've also got other male-female-male triangles like those between Hoyt, Jessica, and Tommy and Jason, Crystal, and Felton; both of which erupt in violence, as proof that True Blood doesn't envision this particular breed of rivalry and conflict as being exclusive to women.

  

...but for the purposes of this post, let's stay focused on triangulated relationships as they play out on True Blood when two women fight over a man.

They're not always traditional love triangles in the sense that there's romantic involvement between all interested parties and involved players. Take the constellation of conflict surrounding Jessica Hamby's on-again-off-again relationship with Hoyt Fortenberry. 

There's the push-and-pull between Jessica and Summer over Hoyt; Jessica broke it off with Hoyt but still has feelings for him, feelings Hoyt reciprocates - but in an extremely immature move - exploits when he intentionally parades his new girlfriend in front of Jessica while she's a captive audience during her hostessing shift at Merlottes:

Jessica and Summer are now cast as rivals, with Maxine Fortenberry as the fourth side on this love triangle; although not a romantic rival herself (whew!), she co-opts Summer into her quest to lure Hoyt away from Jessica by any means, casting herself as the meddlesome and manipulative mother who selfishly can't cut the apron strings on her adult son even though she has been less than a model parent to him:

Maxine's manipulative machinations (isn't alliteration great?) suggest the image of woman as a crafty, treacherous, deceitful creature willing to employ Machiavellian means (enough alliteration?) to get her way...


...like Lorena (OK, I'll cut it out with the alliteration now - although in my defense, that one wasn't deliberate) who is seen as a scheming rival to Sookie for Bill's affections; she is seen as constantly trying to steal Bill from Sookie and after participating in the conspiracy to kidnap him, she thought she had succeeded. Here Lorena seems quite satisfied with herself as - from the confines of the bedroom they shared for the night (or day, as it were) - Bill calls Sookie to ostensibly end their relationship and sever all ties with her for good:

Lorena and Sookie's rivalry was bitter; it ended in a manner which - albiet in the extreme - speaks to the tears, pain, anger, and suffering such acrimonious competitions between women often do:

It seems that to come out victorious, one woman must utterly destroy - or at the very least maim - the other:

(WHY) ARE OUR LIVES DEFINED BY COMPETITION?

What inhibits or constricts women's bonds with one another? Could it be that the patriarchal family ethic - which emerged during the early 19th century primarily as a means of controling and regulating women's productive and reproductive labor, placing them in their husband's home and subordinate to him as the male head-of-household (Abramowitz, 1996) is partly to blame?

In mainstream Western culture, contemporary social structures - including the current models for marriage and family - are deeply rooted in the patriarchal family ethic. According to Abramowitz, the roles deemed most appropriate for women within this one-man-one-woman paradigm revolve around creating a comfortable retreat for the market-weary breadwinner, socializing children, managing household consumption, offering emotional nurturance to nuclear family members, and taming male sexuality (Abramowitz, 1996). 

It seems to me that this type of system implies women don’t need other women; our connection to men, or more specifically, to one man - a husband or significant other - should be the central relationship in our lives. 

In her groundbreaking work on Biblical society and the eventual suppression of women's rites (and rights), Merlin Stone (1976) traces how men's needs to establish the paternity of their children and protect their property rights were closely intertwined and led to the formula of 1 woman (whose premarital virginity was strictly enforced and sexuality tightly controlled to ensure knowledge of paternity and protect lines of inheritance) + 1 man and their children (that he could be relatively confident were his) being set as the normative family structure. In like fashion, the institution of marriage and its correlate the nuclear family are the widely-accepted default settings for life within modern Western society.

In such a context it's not hard to see how women might be pitted against one another in competition for a man, or the best man, within the limited pool of potential mates.

ALTERNATIVES TO RIVALRY & COMPETITION AMONGST WOMEN

How does this square with experiences which speak to a fuller realm of possibilities in terms of women’s interpersonal dynamics with each other, such as those of public intellectual bell hooks, who offers, “I had not known a life where women had not been together, where women had not helped, protected, and loved one another deeply.” (pg. 12, 1984, 2000)? or Lowinsky's (1992) contention that contrary to the patriarchal family ethic, when women tell the stories of our own lives, we discover that we don’t usually cut ourselves off from our mothers when we reach adulthood. She also offers that the mother’s place in her daughter’s life is not superseded by a relationship to a man as psychoanalytic theory has assumed, but that the mother-daughter bond is a continuing and important aspect of adult women’s lives.

In generations past the nuclear family (1 woman + 1 man and their children) may have seemed absolutely integral to our society, but today we are witnessing alternative family compositions gaining greater tolerance and acceptance within the mainstream. According to Noble (1991) a more expansive vision of family and family life may ultimately prove to be positive by allowing women to turn once more to one another and rely on the group form that women can create together.

What models have existed - or still exist - for such dynamics?

Let's delve into the history of the human family; we can frame the archaic cultures of Catal Huyuk or ancient India as examples of different ways of living and being; a key difference between these ancient societies and the society within which we live today is that no one woman was (or was expected to be) dependant on a single man for her survival. 

As Noble (1991) writes, women did not live in isolated units with a man and her children. In these ancient communal societies women lived together, and practiced their religion together as a fundamental way of life. "They cooked, made art, raised children, gathered food, healed the sick, and birthed the next generation together" (p. 197). The men within these societies were mobile hunters and traders, and returned to the women and children regularly. There is no evidence to suggest that relationships between men and women were anything but harmonious.

Fast forward to the present. Let's keep in mind that as Christ (pg. 39, 1997) suggests, “Experience is not only a resource; it can also be a limitation.” Like her, I am a white, middle-class, heterosexual woman of a certain age, background, and experience. In this vein, it makes sense that deeper inquiry into the experiences of women from traditions and backgrounds that are different than my own may enrich my understanding of a wider range of possibilities in terms of how women interact with each other...it might even further a critical interrogation of feminism itself.

How, you ask?

Here's an example: Could it be that a bit of ethnocentrism is at work in the assertion that all (or even most) modern women compete for men to gain access to what is held up as norm; the nuclear family headed by one man with one subordinate women – and see other women as standing in our way? Might this issue, which is connected to the concept of isolation within marriage and the nuclear family, be one that has been identified as a problem by the primarily white, mid-to-upper class feminists of the 2nd wave as if it were a universal women's issue?

bell hooks (1984, 2000) challenges this assertion of the early and mid-20th century women’s movement; she writes that women of color had not flocked to feminism en masse in order to experience the solidarity with other women that white mid-to-upper class women were experiencing for the first time, because they themselves had always been in community with women. Indeed, she recalls being unable to relate to the joyous reveling that she witnessed white women experiencing in their togetherness when she first entered women’s studies classes at Stanford University in the early 1970’s, because isolation from other women had not been part of her own experience.

hooks' memories of a life lived in closeness with other women stand in contrast to those of most of her white contemporaries, but are echoed by Luisah Teish (pg. 11, 1985):

Now I began to take special notice of the women in my community. It seems I had a mother on every block. This, of course, was a double-edged sword. On one side, I would not go hungry or fall down sick without “Auntie, Cousin, Sister, or Big Moma” So-and-So doing something about it. On the other hand, if I committed a transgression six blocks away from home I could get at least five scoldings and two whippings before I got home to receive the final one. When a woman had a baby in my neighborhood, the neighbor women “slaughtered a fatted calf” so to speak, and fed her other children, cleaned her house, and visited regularly for the next two weeks.

In light of the tightly woven matrix of bonds between Black women described by hooks and Teish, it seems plausible to believe that modern models for the creative dynamic of women in living in community with one another exist today.

Carrying along this idea, Rushing (1996) states her research has convinced her that there is an unbroken circle of women’s lives from Africa across the Atlantic into the Americas. African women expect their closest emotional bonds to be with their natal family, the women they grew up with, and the children they bear. She cites weak emotional bonds between husbands and wives. Although many Western white middle and upper class women may harbor similar leanings, they are expected by society to bond with and relate primarily to their husband.

Rushing sees this pattern of marriage and family life repeating in African-American women, “I re-see not only African-American extended family relationships, beauty parlors, the pivotal role of women in our churches, and the whole valiant history of the “Negro” women’s club movement” (pg. 124, 1996).

These are just a few examples of women living in cooperation as opposed to competition and conflict with one another. Can you think of others? Perhaps you are living such a model of solidarity? Please share!

HERE'S WHERE WE'RE GOING
In the next (and final) installments of this Real Grrl Power series we'll:

• look at some images of women sharing support, connection, compassion from True Blood
• move into a discussion of women as each other's allies, helpers & guides
• close with an exploration of women united in ritual – personal and political power expressed in women’s rite, as they were suppressed so were women’s rights and connections to one another

We're looking forward to having you come along for the ride!
 Until next time...


~ Rachel

References

Abramowitz, M. (1996). Regulating the lives of women: Social welfare policy from colonial times to the present. Boston: South End Press.

Christ, C.(1997) Rebirth of the goddess. New York: Routledge.

hooks, bell. (1984, 2000). Feminist theory: From margin to center. Cambridge: South End Classics.

Lowinsky, N.R. (1992). Stories from the motherline: Reclaiming the mother-daughter bond, finding our feminine souls. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.

Noble, V. (1991). Shakti woman: Feeling our fire, healing our world. The new female shamanism. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Rushing, A. B. (1996). “On Becoming a Feminist: Learning from Africa.” In Terborg-Penn, R. & Rushing, A. B. Women in Africa and the African diaspora: A reader. (pp. 121-134). Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press.

Stone, M. (1976). When god was a woman. New York: Harcourt, Inc.

Teish, L.(1998). Jambalaya. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled "Real Grrrl Power" Series To Share a Lived Experience of Women in Solidarity!

Breaking News: We interrupt your regularly scheduled "Real Grrrl Power" series to bring you a new development - your salonnières Rachel & Rebecca recently shared an honest-to-goodness (and delightful) lived experience with women being mutually supportive and relating positively to each other at the BlogHer 2010 Holiday Meet-Up in New York City!

It seems that all the cosmic forces were aligned on the night of December 7th; Rebecca found out about the event and took care of signing us up just in time (that means I was her +1), and after carefully picking out two titles to donate to the often neglected and maligned teen demographic via BlogHer's book drive...

...we just so happened to be walking past the nondescript exterior of the building where the meet-up was taking place at precisely the moment when the organizers were putting the "You Belong Here" placard in the window.

OK, that's a little bit of a fib...we walked around Union Square in the cold, cursing the cabbie who dropped us off without a clue of where the address and cross street we requested was for a while first, but we really were passing the venue just as the BlogHer Holiday Meet-Up sign was going up. One of the co-founders of BlogHer was responsible for setting out the signage that gave us our bearings, and as we thanked her and scooted in the door - partly blown in by the icy wind - she said, "you found your people"...and she couldn't have been more right!

 Held in the Union Square Ballroom's Lounge, the event was imbued with an intimate yet enlivening ambiance and atmosphere which was perfect for meeting and connecting with other women bloggers.

       
Although I must say, one of the first things we noticed (and that Rebecca said out loud) when we entered the space, was that "there are dudes here!" We were caught a little off guard seeing guys at a BlogHer event since the stated mission of BlogHer is to bring more visibility and recognition to women writers and bloggers, but as the evening went on we found out that the men present were either employed by the organization, or the agency that was partnering to facilitate the book drive.

Not that we have any problem with dudes at a BlogHer event, or most anywhere for that matter...

...but the food was great, the mood was festive, and we had the opportunity to mix and mingle with women who are writing a wide variety of blogs, ranging from etiquette to sex to mothering. We found that many women bloggers seem to be in the marketing and social media fields - those whom we met that night were more than happy to share their insights from the biz and give us tips on how we can get our blog in front of more readers. One major takeaway was: if you're a blogger, Twitter is your friend! We've still got to figure out how to make Twitter work for us...

We also noticed that a lot of women in the blogosphere seem to be writing and building community around lifestyle blogs. We met and exchanged contact information some great ladies and were pleased to find that they seemed quite receptive to the idea of blogging about the human condition and social issues through the lens of True Blood.

We're so glad to see some of our BlogHer friends already dropping into the Pierced Pomegranate Tavern and we look forward to others stopping by - and hopefully joining the discourse - as well!

After the event we ended up at the Tick-Tock Diner, which is the after-everything spot for us when we're in NYC, hungry, and not yet ready to go home. As we reflected on the meet-up over dessert and tea, we agreed that prior to becoming aware of BlogHer, we hadn't realized that there is a community - women's or otherwise - growing up around blogging. I guess we both envisioned lone word warriors tapping away at our keyboards in solitary anonymity. Not so! BlogHer seems like a great resource for newbies like us, or anyone who is writing - or who wants to.

Please do check BlogHer out: http://www.blogher.com/. We intend to register the Pierced Pomegranate Tavern to be indexed on BlogHer forthwith!

All I know is...now that we've met and connected with other women writing compelling blogs in the supportive context of BlogHer:

• we've got a lot more reading to do

AND

• we have more cause to believe that YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS WOMEN'S SOLIDARITY

SORRY, I REALIZE IT'S CHEESY BUT WITH LESS THAN A WEEK 'TILL CHRISTMAS I COULDN'T RESIST! 

Rebecca and Rachel at BlogHer's 2010 Holiday Meet-Up

Next time you hear from me I'll be back on track with the next installment in the "Real Grrrl Power" series. Until then...love and peace...or else!

~ Rachel  

Raise a Glass to Real Grrrl Power: Women in Solidarity Part II - Theme 1 - of Mothers and Daughters

Confronting "Girl-On-Girl Combat"
In Part I of this series I outlined some questions Naomi Wolf's Harper's Bazaar piece Girl VS. Girl raises about the nature of female conflict and rivalry:


• Is it inborn or are we socialized to engage in emotionally devastating struggle with one another?
• Are there alternatives or other ways of being?
• What kinds of social conditions would have to exist for different relations between women to emerge?
• If this dynamic is based more in nurture than nature, who suffers most and who stands to gain by the way women are acculturated to be in fierce competition at all times?
• Are women's relationships distorted in the media and pop culture to insinuate a higher prevalence of rancor and social sabotage - and if so - who is getting their kicks at our expense?

How best to wade into the whirlpool of these questions?

I will tap into the twin wellsprings of True Blood and the surging movement of women's studies - scholarship, (and particularly feminist scholarship) in the areas of history, religion & spirituality, anthropology, archeomythology, linguistics, art, literature, and more. Bubbling up from both of these abundant sources are the stories, allegories, images, narratives, and analysis that can support us to:


• Understand contemporary women's relationships within the context of our prevailing (dominator) culture and to take a look at how its social structures (i.e. dating & courtship, career ladder, marriage, and family) can impact on a woman’s ability to maintain continuing, fruitful connections with other women

 • Explore the assumption that all women feel isolation and separation from or animosity toward other women; is it part of a larger trend towards conceptualizing women's experiences in universalizing terms that exclude diverse perspectives (i.e. women of color, indigenous women, etc.)

 • Seek representations of, or models for, the creative dynamic of women living in relation with one another; multigenerational patterns of connection, continuity, cooperation, and community amongst women to foster deepened insight into our relationships with each other at the personal, cultural, and archetypal levels

SO LET'S DIP INTO THE FONT, SHALL WE?

A Swimming Pool for the Metaphoric Mind

You remember my last posts' overview of the metaphoric mind, right? Well, to carry along the water metaphor I started above, what follows is a a virtual swimming pool for the metaphoric mind...and it ain't no kiddie pool, folks! 

No, dear friends, it's a near-bottomless well in which we can dive deep into select images that illuminate women's relationships on True Blood and surface with insight into the parallels that exist between the complex interpersonal dynamics and story arcs of the show's female characters and the art, myth, narratives, and histories of archaic cultures and living traditions that bring nuance to our ways of being and interacting with each other. Let's try to plug into our metaphoric minds and see where they take us...

No Simple Answers

Here's what this discussion isn't meant to be:

• An attempt to idealize women and our relationships with each other, deny our rivalry and conflict, or to paint us in broad, reductionist brushstrokes. After all, the feminine is no simple construct. I'm not saying Naomi Wolf has it all wrong; we women get along just fine all the time, thank you very much. To do so would deny the need to critically engage, interrogate, and challenge female conflict.
• An exhaustive, authoritative, or all-encompassing review or history lesson; it's a discussion of women's relationships organized around a sampling of True Blood images on the themes that stood out for me and the parallels that emerged from the historic and sociological record.
• An argument for the superiority of the mythopoetic worldview which speaks clearest to the metaphoric mind; it is a call to strike greater balance between this way of thinking and being and the linear-rational that dominates today.
• A call to retreat to the past. Even though many of the preeminent scholars of archaic Goddess-based cultures (Marija Gimbutas, Merlin Stone, Carol Christ, Max Dashu, Riane Eisler, Vicky Noble, etc.) agree that the Neolithic and pre-Classical cultures which flourished in Old Europe and the ancient Mediterranean, Near, and Middle East showed all the signs of peaceful egalitarianism - no fortifications or caches of weaponry which would speak to the presence of war, no palaces which would indicate royal hierarchy or the existence of haves and have-nots but the remains of housing which evidences a comfortable quality of life enjoyed by all, and an artistic tradition which documents the free, joyous, and sophisticated societies our forebearers lived in - we can't, and shouldn't pine for a time machine that can take us back to those days. As Gadon (1989, p. 377) writes, "We cannot - would not - wish to return to some golden prehistoric age; but in reclaiming our lost heritage we can build upon the values encoded in the prehistoric survivals".
• A recommendation that we engage in cultural appropriation or a justification to think  - misguidedly - that we can graft some romanticized vision or version of other cultures or lifeways upon our own.

The main idea here is that WHEN WE ARE MET WITH...AND SEE THAT THERE HAVE BEEN - AND STILL ARE - ALTERNATIVES TO THE STATUS QUO, new paths open and we see that the way things are isn't the way they have to be.

We are washed out into floodplains of new and expanded human possibility in terms of women's relationships with each other. 

A Exploration of Women's Relationships Organized into 5 Themes

Here's the 1st theme:  

The Archetypal Mother-Daughter on True Blood: Themes of Separation and Connection

TARA & LETTIE MAE


Let's begin by looking at one volatile rendering of a most primal of female bonds; that of mother to daughter, which seemingly reinforces Shakti Woman author Vicki Noble's assertion, "The Feminine is fragmented, shattered, and scattered about the earth. Women have been isolated from one another" (1991, p. 3): Tara and Lettie Mae.

In her feminist reconceptualization of the Demeter-Persephone myth, Charlene Spretnak (1989) affirms the power of this original matrix and the fundamental importance of female relationships, asserting that the sacred story of archetypal Mother and Daughter long pre-dates the Christian deification of father and son; in the ancient Eleusinian (pre-Classical Greek) religion it was celebrated as an expression of the central human mystery.

The myth of Greek Goddesses Demeter and Persephone is the classic story of descent, death and rebirth, and of separation and reunion between archetypal Mother and Daughter (Austen, 1990).

Terracotta statuettes of Demeter and Persephone from Myrina, c.100 BC. British Museum
It's easy to see how much they cherish each other

In the myth's most well-known (patriarchal Greek) version, mother and daughter live together in a bliss state until Hades, God of the Underworld, rapes and abducts Persephone.

Demeter so mourns her daughter's loss that the world begins to wither.
Persephone finally returns to her mother, but because she was tricked into eating a few pomegranate seeds, she must go back to the underworld for part of the year, during which time winter reigns on earth above.



Austin (1990) posits that in the original mythology, Persephone chose to leave the paradise of life with her mother of her own free-will; perhaps she descended to the underworld to experience another side of herself like the Sumerian Inanna did, perhaps to gain wisdom from Hecate, the ancient Goddess of the Underworld.
 Either way, each version tells the story of descent and re-emergence, of separation from and reunion with the mother.

In her book Stories from the Motherline: Reclaiming the Mother-Daughter Bond, Finding Our Feminine Souls psychotherapist Naomi Ruth Lowinsky quotes feminist poet and essayist Adrienne Rich who reiterates the mother-daughter bond’s power:
Although there have been some poignant moments of tenderness between them, we have certainly seen more painful estrangement than deepest mutuality in Tara and Lettie Mae's relationship as they struggle to repair the frayed cord of their mother-daughter bond:

There is nothing in human nature more resonant with charges than the flow of energy between biologically alike bodies, one of which has lain in amniotic bliss inside the other, one of which has labored to give birth to the other. The materials are here for the deepest mutuality and the most painful estrangement. (1992, pg. 53) 

 

Lowinsky's (1992, pp. 34-35) vision of the pain and separation that punctuates the mother-daughter dance mirrors Tara and Lettie Mae's relationship:

We are all born of deeply wounded mothers...In listening to the stories from my patients' Motherlines, I can usually trace the deprivation or anger back for generations...They look at their daughters with the hatred they feel for their own female selves, and profoundly stunt their daughter's development.

Video courtesy of YouTube user kathchick7, thanks!

She continues, "In a great collective leap we distanced ourselves from the lives of our mothers and grandmothers...Mothers and daughters suffer a wrenching distance between them" (Lowinsky, pp. 28, 31).

Gadon (1989) writes that separation and reunion, the restoration of the primary relationship to the mother, is the great motif underlying the Demeter-Persephone myth. We have seen Tara and Lettie Mae cycle back and forth between separation and reunion; they seem in constant conflict and yet also seem to always - in one way or another - long for each other. Will we see their mother-daughter bond ultimately repaired and restored? Does this story arc comment on the value our society accords the mother-daughter bond, or women's bonds in general?

JESSICA

As Jessica's ties to her family of origin - and to her biological mother - give way to the new blood tie between she and her maker/father figure Bill, Season 3 of True Blood finds her involved in a trio of pseudo mother-daughter relationships that speak more to separation and strife than to connection:



Arlene tries to ward Jessica off

What is she so afraid of? Is she fearful because Jess is a vampire,

or is it something else altogether?

Demeter and Persephone were so closely linked that they were simply known as "The Two Goddesses"; as Gadon (1989) writes, in the early 5th century B.C.E. bas-relief to the left, mother and daughter are nearly indistinguishable in appearance - the maiden is characterized only by the flower she carries, the mother only by the fruit. The key to understanding the symbolic meaning of this image, as mother and daughter gaze intently - smilingly and knowingly, even - into each other's eyes, is that flower and fruit, narcissus and pomegranate, represent their respective roles. For Jungian Eric Neumann, the unity of Demeter and Persephone is the central content of the Eleusinian Mysteries; the goddesses belong together in their seamless transformation from one to the other. Gadon (p. 161) quotes Neumann, "the daughter becomes identical with the mother; she becomes a mother and is so transformed into Demeter. Precisely because Demeter and Kore (Persephone) are archetypal poles of the Eternal Woman; mature woman and virgin, the mystery of the Feminine is endlessly renewed.

Is it such a stretch to cast Arlene and Jessica similarly as archetypal poles? Think back to when Sam first hired Jessica - do you remember Arlene chastising him, saying something like, "you know there's only one redhead at Merlotte's!"?  Arlene sees a younger version of herself in Jessica, and when they're face-to-face in matching Merlotte's uniforms it's hard not to see a resemblance. Arlene fears being displaced by her "younger self"; a fear not entirely unwarranted in our youth-obsessed culture. Rather than embracing the vulnerable baby vampire, either as a young woman in need of a mother figure or as a symbol of the cyclical pattern of eternal rebirth, Arlene allows her fear to cast her into competition and conflict with Jessica.

Jessica's relationship with another potential surrogate mother figure; Maxine Fortenberry, her on-again-off-again human boyfriend's mother, doesn't fare much better (for different reasons), as these images attest:

 

 

 

Jessica yearns for mothering, and we can tell from her video blog that she'd like to think maybe she's found it (what she herself refers to as a "big-sister-crush") in Pam - a female vampire she looks up to and turns to when in need and no one else is around to help her - but who is also a a party to Jessica’s stolen humanity - she too can be seen as a (begrudging) surrogate mother figure:

Here's Pam callously kicking Jessica into her grave...

And yet, Like Athena before her, Pam herself is a "daughter of man" who has and needs no mother.

Athena came into being after her father the Sky God Zeus killed the Goddess Mettis and swallowed her; from his head was born Athena, fully formed and girded for battle (Christ, 1997)

And so it is that the Goddess comes from God, female from male; like Athena born of Zeus, Aphrodite was born from the severed genitals of Ouranos (Christ, 1997), the ancient Egyptian God Ptah caused all the other gods to come into being through an act of masturbation, thus totally eliminating the need for a Divine Ancestress, and as the Judeo-Christian Adam and Eve story - which to a certain extend pervades the collective consciousness of today's Western culture - states, "For the man is not of the woman but the woman of the man" (Stone, 1976, pp. 227-228).

Not only does this kind of mythology deny the biological truth of birth (thinkers like Christ and Stone posit that this was almost certainly a political move undertaken by the molders of these revisionist myths as a shift from matrifocal to patrifocal social structure was taking place), but it also paints a very different picture of the importance of the mother-daughter bond than does the Demeter-Persephone myth: it totally subverts, refutes, and disavows it.

Does this type of thinking - that the mother-daughter (and by extension, the woman-woman bond) is inherently prickly, has little real meaning, and is therefore expendable - have any bearing upon today's female relationships?

SOOKIE & TARA 

What do Tara and Sookie as surrogate sisters have to do with the theme of separation and connection between mothers and daughters? True Blood offers us some images of them in close sisterly bond which radiates out - at least in part - from their orbit around the same mother figure: Gran.

The relationship between Tara and Sookie has its ups and downs - like relationships between any sisters (Rebecca and I included) or very close friends usually do - but despite their differences and the trouble that always finds them they are joined by a deep mutuality. Their relationship sometimes comes to blows over men but it is never minimized or overcome by the men in either of their lives.  

They (try to) keep each other real!

   

Their caring for each other is born of the love they shared with and received from Gran, the same woman who was not their mother but to varying extents played that role for both of them from their childhood.

Lots to think about, huh? So what do you think?

If you'd like to explore my take on the Archetypal Mother-Daughter bond, which (as evidenced in the images from True Blood we see here) can manifest through a connection we have with a woman from our own bloodlines, or with a woman of an alternative or chosen lineage such as an adopted, surrogate, spiritual, or mentor mother figure further, you might be interested in checking out a paper that I presented at a conference on spirituality and social work in Canada in 2008: Re-Imagining the Myth of Demeter and Persephone: Exploration of the Constructs of Marriage and Nuclear Family  

In it, you'll find a practical guide for tracing the Motherline, which is what Lowinsky describes as a name for a pattern, for the oneness of body and psyche, for the experience of continuity amongst women. She conceptualizes it as a central organizing principle in the psyche of women, "like the stem and the roots of the tree of life, through which a woman is related to the ancient earth of female procreation" (p. 4).

Whether or not we feel a close connection to our mothers, whether or not our mothers are still living, the Motherline heritage this is passed down to us, or that we choose to subscribe to, can provide a rich exploration of our deepest selves. Tracing it might open new windows on the concept of female rivalry and conflict.

 

In the next installment, I'll look at images of  women's relationships in True Blood and their parallels in the art, stories, narratives, and histories of the past and present in the context of these themes:

• Female Competition Manifested in the Classic Love Triangle
• Women Sharing Support, Connection & Compassion
• Female Allies, Helpers & Guides
• Women United in Ritual

Bye-bye for now!

~ Rachel

References

Austen, H. I. (1990). The heart of the goddess: Art, myth and meditations of the  world’s sacred feminine. Berkeley: Wingbow Press 

Christ, C.(1997) Rebirth of the goddess.  New York: Routledge

Gadon, E. W. (1989). The once and future Goddess. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco 

Lowinsky, N.R. (1992). Stories from the motherline: Reclaiming the mother-daughter bond, finding our feminine souls. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.

Spretnak, C. (1989). The Myth of Demeter and Persephone. In Plaskow, J. & Christ, C. P. (Ed.), Weaving the visions: New patterns in feminist spirituality. (pp. 72-76). San Francisco: Harper and Row.

Stone, M. (1976). When god was a woman. New York: Harcourt, Inc.