Women's lib and patriarchal cults.

[An Abomination unto Nuggan]

I know very little about the wackier cults out there but many of them seem to strongly adhere to 'traditional' principles of gender roles and male domination.

Has there been an increase in these sorts of cults since the women's liberation movement? Is there a link - a backlash perhaps?

[oholycheerio]

I know very little about the wackier cults out there but many of them seem to strongly adhere to 'traditional' principles of gender roles and male domination.

Has there been an increase in these sorts of cults since the women's liberation movement? Is there a link - a backlash perhaps?

I'm not sure if there's necessarily been an increase in the patriarchal religions specifically as a backlash against women's lib, although there may be some sort of backlash against the general "evils of society", like atheism, evolution, and liberals, feminists are often lumped in there as well. To a fundamentalist, anything that disagrees with them is pretty much a direct threat. In Christian fundamentalism, feminism/women's lib contradicts the god-assigned womanly role of inferiority and submissiveness to man.

You may like the book When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone. It discusses the detrimental effect on women's roles and status during and after the development of the patriachal religions versus the ancient goddess-based religions. It's an older book, so I'm not sure how archeologically up-to-date it is, but still a good read. :)

[DMB]

I would strongly recommend this book (http://www.amazon.com/Misogyny-Worlds-Prejudice-Jack-Holland/dp/0786718234/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-9422624-4128955?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1178900442&sr=8-1). Surprisingly, it was written by a man (now dead) and is a tour de force.