When God Was a Woman

Art historian Merlin Stone changed how the world thinks about archaeology. Her work pointed out that goddess statues at dig sites were more plentiful than male representation, and she wanted to know why. Her contemporaries simply dismissed these as “female figurines.”

Stone’s work made me think about a world where women’s power wasn’t treated like an unnatural or evil fallacy but a difference in power. Examining the historical record, she theorized that the power of women was suppressed by colonizing forces that placed more value on conquest than peace. That world is still with us! We still invest more… show more.

Reading that once upon a time in my birthland, male dominance was not the natural order of things was liberating.

In this historical book that’s based on critical facts, one learns of the true nature of women as Goddess in the Middle East. She held prestigious positions and had a fairly peaceful lifestyle until religion and patriarchy changed all that.

Over the centuries, her stories were deleted out of history and also distorted in an attempt to strip her of her power. An attempt that has caused a hell on earth in that region.

Understanding the foundations of current social breakdown needs the strength to challenge our most sacred assumptions. With the rise of large societies, authoritarian rule, and monotheism, came the claim of a 6,000-year-old universe and the emergence of a “God” with “male gender.” Before the emancipation of women in western society around the turn of the last century, most archeologists were also males. Conveniently, the discovery of large amounts of female artifacts was “casually” left out of the story. Stone turns this taboo on its head. This new viewpoint opened many doors to understand why past societies fell apart, and new… show more.

This non-fiction book provided important research for my novel. Stone documents the religion of ancient Goddesses without conforming to a Judea-Christian version. She ascribes women’s roles with more prominence and asserts contemporary women’s oppression is founded on intentional repression of powerful female archetypes. In writing about the transitional shift from matriarchy to patriarchy, Stone’s archeological data provided a strong foundation for my story of the Minoans.