BS on "battle-axe"

[Jonathan Lighter]

>From Rosalind D. Miles & Robin Cross, _Hell Hath No Fury: True Profiles of
Women at War from Antiquity to Iraq_ (N.Y.: Three Rivers, 2008), p. xviii:

"Powerful women may be the subject of myth and legend, but the fascination
they exert is tempered by a fear that demands that they must be tamed. So
the term 'battle-axe' is applied to bullying, loud-voiced women, sundered
from its original connection with the Great Goddess, whose double-headed
labrys was once invoked to bring victory but now serves as a perennial gibe
at any woman of character and drive."

Am not sure of this is etymological, mythological, or neo-Jungian BS or all
three.

Mr. Cross is a military historian "and a former advisor to the UK Ministry
of Defence," who's written "celebrations of the love lives of such Hollywood
stars as Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Joan Crawford, and Jayne Mansfield."

Dr. Miles "is a well-known and critically acclaimed English novelist,
essayist, lecturer, and BBC broadcaster. Educated at Oxford and the
Universities of Leicester and Birmingham, she is the founder of the Center
for Women's Studies at Coventry Polytechnic in England." She's written
sixteen books, including _Who Cooked the Last Supper?_"  (Hmmmm...I do see
the point.)

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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