On Fri, 1 Aug 1997, Muriel Hykes wrote:

>         Well, it figures.  I had admired how confident you are.  I must have been
> prenatally exposed to male hormones, but not enough to make me gay.  I am
> the only straight woman I know who has any kind of self-confidence.  Now I
> feel more alone, Molly.

        I wouldn't rule out the possibility of it being a post-natal
environmental conditioning factor, as many women believe.  Patriarchy is
more or less a condition of an agro-imperialistic culture.  Because
Europe was quite late in agriculutizing itself, ("We were living in
cities while your ancestors were painting themselves blue and living in
caves") the conditioning is much more mild (witch-hunts) than other, older
civilizations (foot binding, wife-burning, clitorectimies, etc).  That's
not to excuse European or American patriarchy.
        I believe that current theory among hard-science anthropologists
is that our prehistoric ancestors were in a matrilinial, non patriarchal
society.  In fact, burial practices where women were burried whole and
men were ripped into peices and dumped in a mass grave suggest that
mesolithic cave women were oppresively matriarchal.