Power in Eden

About the Book

Have gender inequalities always existed? Did inequality occur instantaneously, or gradually over centuries? How responsible were women for their subordination? why was there no women's movement in ancient times?

Power in Eden: The Emergence of gender Hierarchies in the Ancient World answers these important questions and many others with a reconstruction (based on the best existing evidence and research) of the multidimensional events and processes that led to the emergence of institutionalized male dominance beginning in the late Neolithic age and ending in the axial Iron Age in 500 BCE. I will show across a period from 6000 BCE how socio-ecological transformations across five social formations (hunting-gathering bands, simple and complex horticultural villages, agricultural states and commercial states) were responsible for the dominance of a few men over most women and most other men.

My principle claims are that ecological and demographic forces such as repeated population pressure and resource depletion created great social stress which men and women reacted to differently. These forces also catalyzed new social processes in the Bronze Age, including the rise of political centralization, economic stratification, the invention of the plow, and hieroglyphics. The new gender hierarchies were deepened by the emergence of coined money, the alphabet and iron tools which consolidated male dominance. These material forces were sustained and legitimized by the sacred movement from animism to polytheism to monotheism. Lastly these socio-ecological dynamics lead to changes in the psychology of people: the appearance of the individualist self and new form of reasoning which I call "hyper-abstract" cognition.

My work draws primarily on--and synthesizes--the arguments of anthropologists, archaeologists and macro-sociologists, while granting some ground to evolutionary psychologists. While I am sympathetic to the uses of goddess spirituality for women today. I disagree with most everything they say about ancient history.

So what's new about this book? What will be added to the discussion of gender hierarchies that hasn't been said before? I have not done original research which bring to light new facts. What I have done is to bring together the existing material of first-rate scholars in many fields and put it together in the following new ways:

All materialist* theories, whether intentionally or not, do not have a well developed explanation of how the sacred meaning making systems tend to legitimize gender hierarchies. My chapter on goddess ideology criticizes idealist attempts to explain the technology, economics, politics from sacred beliefs. However my chapters on the movement from earth-spirit magic to sky god religion are designed to fill the gap left by materialist authors.

Materialist theories do not have an explanation of how society gets internalized inside people's minds and hearts, that is, into their psychology. Materialist theories tend to see people as victims of circumstances. Without a psychological theory we cannot address the question of how much women colluded with material forces once they were in place.

In my three psychological chapters I show how a psychology of subordination is built right out of the demographic, ecological, technological and economic and political structures materialist theories have identified. I apply Vygotsky's socio-historic theory of learning to show how society gets inside of people and how society gets reproduced when people go to work.

While some ecological and structural theories argue that the biophysical setting affect gender relations in my chapter on natural disasters in the Bronze Age I argue for radical climatic downturns from the debris of a comet or asteroid caused stress between men and women beyond the normal inability of societies to regulate their ecological and demographic constraints. This effected gender relations.

No theory I am aware of has developed a structure of how female subordination emerged and was sustained over time. I've developed a five phase stage theory of female subordination which goes through four cycles. Each cycle corresponds to a historical period, beginning with the late Neolithic Age and ending with the Axial Iron Age. All events which occur during these times are grouped into one of the five stages in a given period and located within one of the four cycles across history.

Lastly not theory to my knowledge theorists address the question of why there was no women's movement in the ancient world. In my chapter of dissent, mobilization and revolution I try to answer the question as to why there was no women's movement in this specific time period. I do this by applying contemporary theories of social movements and compare them to ancient conditions.

Power in Eden shares a common tendency among some futurists of looking backward in history, challenging the conventional views of the way history has been presented, and from this drawing new meaning for our present and future material and sacred culture and our psychological evolution. My work aims at showing that world history has a great deal to teach us not only about the possible origins of =g ender hierarchies, but how they get reproduced over time. The experiences of hunter-gatherers, horticulturists and the great early civilizations of the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Greeks contain secrets about the conditions under hierarchies emerge that are vitally needed today.

About the Author

Bruce Lerro is an adjunct college teacher who has taught in a wide range of working adult populations including junior colleges, business, military, prison and alternative setting for the past thirteen years. He has developed over twenty courses ranging across the disciplines of macro-sociology, socio-historical psychology, comparative mythology and religion, political economy and world history.

Beyond the scholarly disciplines of reading and writing Bruce's unique claim to expertise began in his work in the 1970's with the men's liberation movement, and his work as a group counselor with Men Overcoming Violence. His psychological analysis of sacred beliefs also rooted in his work as a counseling psychologist. His fine art training in pen and ink drawing, specializing in Greek mythological themes gives him added insight into the practice of magic in the ancient world. Finally his collaboration in writing and performing rituals for liberal spiritual institution gives him insight into the practice of earth spirit and sky god rituals.

He lives with his partner in Oakland California. Bruce aspires to he a Renaissance man, and complains that he was born in the wrong century.