I am going to recommend a book to you Ed, and everyone else too, since you seem to be interested in these issues. I just finished reading it this week and it has really rocked my whole boat. It's called "The Alphabet Versus The Goddess" by Leonard Shlain.

Shlain's thesis is that the development and constant use of the phonetic alphabet has actually changed our brains, and has effected left brain dominance over right. Hence it has caused a proliferation of left brain (masculine) values over right brain(feminine)values. It is an ABSOLUTELY fascinating book, even if you don't subscribe to every word he writes. One friend of mine decribed it as a history of misogyny, but I think it is also much more -- a whole new way to think about the world, past and present. It is so chock full of ideas and information presented in a whole new light that I can't begin to summarize it more that that, but I'm sure you would find it exciting, as I do.

Shlain, by the way, is a surgeon.

If you read it, please let me know what you think.