the paddling pool

I don't believe women or men "Started Patriarchy" we did, all of us as part of our evolutionary process. Women were relieved (for want of a better word) of their public lives because we were needed to bare children, children that came under the direction of the patriarch in working the land to create a surplus that could be exchanged for other commodities and to make wealth.

Men as public peoples created the wealth, formed social hierarchies, much later guilds and councils for trade later on they formed governments. This put them at the heart of power and influence over all spheres of life, social and private. Thus it has remained ever since.

Mini- So it could have gone either way then. It was simply the efficiency of farming techniques allowing the same to be produced by 1 instead of 2? So if not our child bearing why did we take the domestic role and not the men? Was it just down to physical strength?

Emphaticmaybe: Thing is, the shit has to be cleaned up by someone so I think it's better that whoever cleans it up gets a wage for doing so.

Mini, does that mean that the patriarchy did not-start with oppression of women as the intent but that this has simply become a product of it as it evolved ? Do you think it took power or that women gave it up or is that too simplistic ?

Sgb - but it is very often a woman cleaning up your shit. We can't just ignore that and often women from the most disadvantaged backgrounds and education as well. Yes you can go some way to redress this by paying well above minimum wage, but the fact remains it is predominantly women who are cleaners and carers and these roles remain very low status, because basically anyone who has other choices doesn't have to do them.

No I don't it's believe biology. The means of production has sidelined women to the home and created the division of labour as part of our shared evolutionary development.

In early societies before we settled the land women were active participants in all social relations including all forms of labour. Anthropologists and historians are finding out and evidencing that women were hunters as well as gatherers. When we first settled the land many societies were very equal between men and women, women made a lot of the major dicisions, partly because we were better at supplying food. Men could not wage war without our active support. It was only when we developed better farming methods much later that women were confined to the domestic sphere. The patriarchy was born out of the fact that a division of labour was created when we were able to make a surplus which could be traded for other commodities. This is when women lives became lived in isolation and women became dependent upon the patriarch as provider and she as child bearer and domestic/private labour. A division of public and private life gave men power over women.

Now women are returning to the public sphere under advanced capitalism, not just to further our own aims as individuals and as women but because the social conditions under which we live means that businesses are using globalisation and the movement of global capital to exploit cheaper labour, we are it! this is evolutionary too.

I think feminism can be more inclusive without diminishing itself. If you don't see 'men' as the enemy the maybe it's possible to consider solutions which suit both parties and not just women. I would like equitable solutions not ones that seek to punish or condemn

I don't see anything wrong at all with paying someone to clean your house for you. You pay someone (by means of your taxes) to deal with your shit, literally: taxes go towards the wages of the people who keep the sewerage system running.
When it comes to cleaning work, the people who are most often badly exploited are the ones cleaning offices for agencies: a lot of agency cleaners are very badly paid and badly treated, whereas the person who you found to scrub your kitchen floor via an ad in the newsagents' window is as someone upthread said, entrepreneurs/self-employed. As long as you (the householder paying to have the house cleaned) pay a fair wage, why on earth should you feel guilty? Apart from that residue of patriarchal bullshit that suggests a woman who doesn't do housework is a lazy bitch whos uterus will fall out if she doesn't perform enough feminine tasks.

So the division of labour was based on our biological function as child bearers and so disadvantaged us?

Men are passively benefiting from patriarchy even if they are not actively exploiting individuals on an individual basis, yes definitely. As toddler pointed out, there is still a bias towards employing and promoting men, why? Is it because all bosses are men? no they are clearly not but because women still carry the dual responsibility of worker and domestic labourer/child carer we are disadvantaged.

I don't know who mentioned historical cultural base but men share the same historical social/cultural base. Women's and men's social material existence and development haven't occurred in isolation to each other. This is a bone of contention btw Marxist thinking and Radical feminism, because Rad fems will tell you patriarchy uses capitalism and has done for the last 600 years, whereas I would argue that the means of production since we settled the land dictated a clear division of labour which disadvantages women.

Is radical feminism concerned solely and wholly about women ? Serious question.

Meant - if a man does not oppose the collective exploitation of women he is passively benefiting from it.

Whose collective experience?
Women's

From whose viewpoint?
Women's again.

For any of the issues that Mini lists, how do we do anything about them, how do we even identify them as issues, without recognising that the same thing is happening to a lot of women?

You said in a previous post, This means my truth is that feminism is necessary to continue to overturn our historical cultural base

I don't understand what this can mean if there is no shared historical cultural base. I don't understand what feminism can mean without talking about women as a group.

Do you mean Mini that unless a man actively opposes this exploitation he is collectively and passively benefitting from it?

Mini, could you help out and explain how that is please because I struggle to understand that

Sorry to the thrilled bit.

Me too Louie,

Now that I just don't get.

Not every man is exploiting every women in every individual relationship. But all men are exploiting all women collectively. As a non radfem.

Wasn't having a pop - just explaining why haven't been keen on posting here. I am thrilled that there seems to be a consensus that discussion is going to be actively welcomed between all types of feminists

Thanks Mini :)

Louie - Eats was just asked what the main rad fem principles were. She certainly wasn't devaluing anyone else's take on feminism.

I will keep my fingers xs for you toddler. It's tough juggling everything.

And as a radical feminist, recognising that collective experience is about doing so on an international basis

I would like to add that this is really crucial not just for Radical feminists but an important concern to most feminist of any political flavour, I am very concerned about death in childhood, maternal death, FGM, the fact that women make up two thirds of the worlds workforce and two thirds of the worlds poor. The most exploited workers in the poorest regions of the world are women. The feed us and they clothe us and it's done on the back of exploitation and starvation.

My problem with radical feminism is quite simply that I haven't encountered anyone with those beliefs who doesn't view mine as 'antifeminism'. I don't generally post because whilst I consider myself a feminist, I refuse to accept that I am simply on a journey to higher understanding and that until I get there or have an enlightenment, my views as a liberal feminist are less valid. I can wholly support the 'I believe her' campaign whilst also accepting the 'innocent until proven guilty' basis of our justice system. I can find DV and rape utterly repugnant whilst still not accepting the 1 in 4 figures touted around. I believe the patriarchy does harm men whilst still seeing that women are harmed more. I don't believe that the this means that the impact of my actions should only be considered from a woman's point of view. I cannot see the world from a woman centric only perspective - I can only see it from mine. And I am far from convinced that the political is personal.