If you would happen to do the pilgrimage of Camino de Santiago, you would probably come to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.
Then you would probably enter the Portal of Glory (Portico de la Gloria), a door-less portal in stone that was carved by Master Mateo around 1168-1188. You can read more about it here, especially about the restoration that was done some years ago.
I would like to put our focus on the south entrance, and its Tympanum; La Puerta de las Platerias. It shows Christ triumphing over Satan and Death, when Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days and nights. You might see Satan, when he offers Jesus three temptations, surrounded by both demons and angels.
What you might also see, strangely enough, is a seated woman cradling a skull on her lap. The figure is somewhat odd in that story, and could have been intended for another place (north portal, which illustrates the expulsion from paradise). Then the woman is supposed to be Eve, Mother of all living - but also Mother of Death since she (as the story goes) ate of the forbidden fruit. (Eve can also come from Hebrew Hawwah, which mean “source of life”).
However, in Jewish apocrypha, the first wife of Adam was Lilith who actually refused to sleep or serve under Adam. When Adam tried to force her, she ran away and even though angels tried to make her return, she refused. So God created another woman.
Isn’t this a bit tiresome, this story of either evil or good women? And where did it all begin? In Ancient Egypt, Greek mythology as well as in the Norse mythology the women were strong and equal with men. And I am not going to “blame” Jesus, because of the misogamy if some Christian priests.
Some historians mean that the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to farmer-agricultural societies changed the structure of equal roles. Land became more valuable, in the meaning of owning it and “keeping it in the family”. Thus it became important to “assure” that it was your seed - as a male owner of land - that impregnated your woman. And at the same time, the role of the farmer-woman became more clearly “to stay home”.
Still, the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is beautiful and I will define the Portal of Glory as the symbol of feminine power and meaning as life-giver. :)