Below is an excerpt from New Genesis: Hyperspace Revelations:
The Bible’s Old Testament book of Genesis must be looked at as a historical, anthropological text. Reading it in this context can give us clues into the psychology of ancient peoples and how they perceived nature, particularly the evolution of man and civilization.
“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” — Genesis 2:6
From Eve’s act of eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, a gift, rather than just a curse, may have been received for mankind: it was wisdom. In the story of Genesis, Adam was alone and none of the other animals on Earth could give him any joy. In fact, it was God himself, who created woman from Adam’s ribs to save him from his loneliness.
“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” — Genesis 1:23
The term “woman” can be interpreted as “woe to man.” Perhaps, it is a kind of joke by God that man should be careful of what he wishes for. As the old saying goes: women — can’t live with them; can’t live without them.
From the very fact that God created woman, it may be that “man’s fall” and expulsion from Eden was planned all along. The serpent, as a creation of God, would just be another character in God’s story. Forgetting the evils of the knowledge of good and evil, we are left with the idea of wisdom. This may have been God’s final gift to equip mankind as he was sent out of paradise into the cruel world outside of Eden. As Adam and Even began to copulate and produce children, the stories of violence and survival between men are told throughout the rest of the Bible. This story is reflective of man’s eternal struggle to survive. Perhaps, instead of forgetting the Bible, we should remember it as a chronicle of mankind whose story continues today.
In our modern world, the equality of the sexes is an important societal topic. From women’s suffrage to pay equality, feminist politics is commonplace in democratic societies. As the old laws from Abrahamic religions and others begin to fade into the past, societies are questioning how much of these old values, whether explicitly stated or embedded deep within our psyches, are helpful for our current civilization. Much religious thought continues to progress even in more conservative societies such as the Middle East. Theocracies and the like are becoming unpopular for many reasons, some being economic and others cultural. The democratization of information through the internet has opened up many new avenues for female voices to display their power and wisdom.
The important part to realize is that the authors of many of these religious scriptures were men. There are many social, political, and biological reasons for this. It may come down to man’s desire for power: the desire to hold authority over others. Whether this was a necessity in ancient times, we do not know. It seems that in our society today, as proven in many realms such as the corporate and governmental, that women are quite capable of organizing, managing, and implementing ethics and order. They, too, bit into the fruit of wisdom and should be quite capable of writing stories as well.
The democratization of the sexes, however, does come with costs. Research in America has shown that women attend universities at a higher rate than men and are more successful, on average, in terms of GPA. Women are also more likely to continue their college education beyond undergraduate university education, attaining Master’s and Doctorate’s degrees at a higher percentage. As women become more financially independent, however — no longer needing the support of men — there have been unforeseen consequences in the battle of the sexes. Research has shown that professionally successful women marry later, and many find it difficult to find a suitable mate. Marriage and pregnancy rates are dropping in many industrialized countries. Additionally, males who earn less than their wives are more likely to feel resentment and cheat on their spouses. Another challenging factor is that, despite women’s independence, culturally, they are still expected to have the primary responsibility for rearing children. Although women have gained more power and freedom in society, the stress on some women, in many ways, may have increased. The crucial issue is whether there is a difference between a woman in charge vs. a man in charge.
It is the old argument of nature vs. nurture. In biology, it is known that as much as 40% of a person’s personality is shaped within the womb. This is simply the interlocking of DNA sequences of two individuals through the well-known processes of sperm and egg. The socio-cultural aspect of shaping the brain has much merit also, although many sociology experiments on gender have shown that inclinations for boys vs. girls have deeper causalities other than socialization. Experiments where girls and boys were given dolls or firetrucks to play with — to measure “instinct” with the least socialization possible — have shown statistical results that have leaned towards inherent, biological, sexual, normative gender proclivities.
In feminist circles today, there are many competing schools of thought. Some believe there are innate behaviors unique to women as compared to men. These sects of feminist thought also oppose women who wear the gendered masks of male behavior. This becomes a challenging debate as designating what is female or male behavior becomes problematic. The other 60% of a person’s personality, while proving to be products of socialization, are determined by the individual. It would be wise not to label these products as good or evil. The hope for many, particularly in our violent, patriarchal, and globalized world — filled with the stories of power-hungry men — is that perhaps a women’s intuition can change the narrative.
Moving beyond the old stories of the Bible, we have another more “futuristic” clue left by Carl Sagan in 1972 and 1973 on the golden plaques attached to the exterior of the spacecrafts Pioneer 10 and 11, which at the time were the first vessels to fly outside of our solar system. The Pioneer Plaque includes many indications of our human civilization, biology, and location in the cosmos. Carl Sagan wanted to attach this disc in the rare chance that the probe was one day discovered by an alien or future human civilization. It is, in a way, a story we humans wanted to tell cosmic strangers. Of course, since these beings may not know or be able to read our language, illustrations were used as the primary form of communication.
Etched on the golden plaques were not only our whereabouts in the universe as told by our galaxy’s pulsars but also two human beings, one male and one female. To the right of the female is binary code indicating the height of the female. It is an interesting choice that Sagan, instead of giving the measurement of the male, chose the female as our human representative. There was much controversy over the depiction of genitalia for the male and female. While the male’s penis was widely accepted, drawing the woman’s genitalia was frowned upon by many political powers who most likely had a religious moral code of decency. The spacecraft Pioneer, being a part of the governmental agency of NASA, would have been under obvious political pressure by elected officials to exclude anything deemed as obscene. Although it seemed to be untruthful to human biology, Sagan avoided the potential political battle. Perhaps, then, the height of the female being the representation of our species was an easter egg left by Carl Sagan: women are important for our future, and we should move beyond old wive’s tales.
When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal.”
— Genesis 6:1–3
