Perspective

Merlin Stone is a sculptor and university-level teacher of art and art history, who becomes interested in archeology and ancient religions, and spends ten years researching When God Was a Woman. Stone asks in the Preface how males originally gain control and continue to regulate everything in the world, and what impact has teaching generations of children that a male deity creates the universe and man, and—incidentally—produces from him and for him a woman, who gets them thrown out of paradise? How does this formative myth, so destructive to the struggle of women to achieve equal status in society, originate?

Stone learns that the Goddess is worshiped from at least Neolithic times (7000 BCE), whereas the Judeo-Christian Yahweh reveals himself to Abraham between 1800-1550 BCE. What is life like for women in a society that worships a wise and valiant female creator? How does this...