If women ruled the world...

But why do they not exist? Oppression has created hugely powerful societies under the patriarchy. If similar oppression had existed under the matriarchal ones - surely they would still be here defending themselves from the power of the patriarchal ones?

Exactly.

Patriarchies took over the world because they are violent and oppressive. They are ethically wrong, but hugely successful.

Women just have neither the ability nor the evolutionary benefit from oppressing other women, or men.
Women cannot oppress men because men are physically stronger (though that might have developed because rape was a successful strategy). Women can, with difficulties, oppress other women, but what would be the advantage? A woman can only have as many children as she can give birth to. The only strategy that would lead to her having more offspring would be to force other women to have her sons' babies - and that's indeed the kind of oppression we most often see in patriarchies; mothers in law exploiting and oppressing their daughter in law.

Since in humans, the sex ratio of offspring is even, women as a group do not profit from making it a general rule that men get to rape women, as that would result in them their daughters being raped, too. But if that's the rule anyway, some women are complicit with it as it profits them more than individually resisting it would.

(And in China and India, many women skew the sex ratio of their offspring towards male. They base this on cultural concepts, but those cultural concepts did not evolve in a vacuum.)

But why do they not exist? Oppression has created hugely powerful societies under the patriarchy. If similar oppression had existed under the matriarchal ones - surely they would still be here defending themselves from the power of the patriarchal ones?

I don't follow. How could they have developed power if they never existed?

Due to lots of things - the collapse of the family unit, deindustrialisation, the information economy, biogenetic, technological capitalism - we're starting to see the collapse of the kind of society in which the economy was driven by male strength, and power was enforced through militarism (powerful nation states with invading armies). Sure there's terrorism, but that's a monstrously neurotic response to what is the beginning collapse of patriarchy. Neither are men needed for manual labour because there's increasingly less of it.

Patriarchy is just beginning to founder, and it will take maybe another century at least before it completely dies out. Then...well...who knows what kind of societies people will be living in. All we know is they will be very different. I'm not sure it will be a utopia though.

They aren't simply beholden to animal instinct but have agency and are ultimately responsible for their actions? They're capable of rational thought, -right?

I don't think men dominating women is irrational. Unfair yes, but very rational.

And obviously we are moving forward. More women are making powerful decisions. That they are doing it under a patriarchy means that a radical feminist agenda will still often be discarded.

But, eventually, just by the law of averages, more of those women will be feminists.

Unfortunately, as women start to get more traction, I think backlash is inevitable. Hence the misogyny magnet that is trans, for instance. Or Trump.

And I can't help feeling that the backlash is working.

Inigo I think you're on seriously dodgy - nigh on fascist, eugenicist - ground there. That's not any feminism that I recognise.

Ava I do partly agree with when you say that biology is determinant in terms of things like men's superior strength. But even then, it isn't really determinant of oppression in an a priori sense. The fact that men oppress women is surely not BECAUSE they give birth or that men are stronger. There is no logical progression - independent of sociocultural context - from women giving birth to them being oppressed. Similarly, there is no logical reason why the colour of someone's skin is determinant of their oppression by a group of people with a different colour. Rather, it becomes determinant within a system of oppression. Outside of that system it wouldn't be.

I'm not denying that there are biological differences between men and women: that would be absurd. All I am saying (and I believe Dworkin is too) is that those differences do not - independent of socialisation - determine a person's character. Males and females do not exit their mother's wombs with different charterological predispositions.

Therefore, if, say, big banks and governments were run by women there is absolutely no reason to believe they would not be just as nefarious, venal and exploitative. It would be a different kind of power system possibly, but a power system it would still be.

"Producing children doesn't appear to be the motivation. It's either something that many men want to have 'at some point', or a by product, or often just collateral damage - something they actively don't want, despite spending a disproportionate amount of time doing the very thing that can produce them."

That's what really baffles and infuriates me about men. It seems like the only way out of this is PIV no longer being so maniacally desired by them.

I'm downright curious as well. As a woman, I don't have the nerve endings to experience the level of pleasure that they get out of it. How strong must it be for men to keep perpetuating such horrific abuse in order to regularly get it??? I truly can't imagine a level of pleasure that would make me ditch my ethics like that.

"There are none - that's my point.

Well, quite - then we have no basis for comparison."

But why do they not exist? Oppression has created hugely powerful societies under the patriarchy. If similar oppression had existed under the matriarchal ones - surely they would still be here defending themselves from the power of the patriarchal ones?

"But surely the difference between human males and other male primates is that men have a CHOICE about whether to oppress women or not? They aren't simply beholden to animal instinct but have agency and are ultimately responsible for their actions? They're capable of rational thought, -right? Even if they act as if they aren't? So there's hope, at least?"

I used to have that hope but I've lost it. Because most men do not make the good choice - their life as men is just too cushy under the patriarchy. I'm not sure that I would give up such privilege if I had it either.

In the paragraph you quoted, Dworkin points to womens' reproductive biology being used against them by men. So she is ACKNOWLEDGING the role of biology in sexist oppression.

She is rejecting biological determinism because she says that womens' biology does not mean that they were put on earth to serve men. Having female sex organs and hormones does not make a human inferior to males, thus "We're like men". It simply makes that human vulnerable to exploitation by the ones with male ones.

She's been proven right by that stance in the intervening decades:
Once given some room to breathe and pursue their own lives, women's ovaries and oestrogen did not make them run back into the kitchen just dying to serve men and having countless babies. Women have proven themselves in the workforce, education and competence in being independent adults with all those hormones and childbearing hips.

But that has not made women safe from male violence BECAUSE of biology. Men are still stronger and they still exploit it. Thus - acknowledgment of biology.

But surely the difference between human males and other male primates is that men have a CHOICE about whether to oppress women or not? They aren't simply beholden to animal instinct but have agency and are ultimately responsible for their actions? They're capable of rational thought, -right? Even if they act as if they aren't? So there's hope, at least?

I'm not a zoologist, so don't know the exact statistics of it. There is also a high proportion of females mating with the lower status males on the sly while the dominant male isn't looking (across several species).

Comparing to zoology is interesting but there are maybe more differences than similarities.
A lot of primates and larger mammals operate a system where one male fathers nearly all of the children and most males never get to reproduce at all.
I think this has occurred in some human societies in the past, but certainly hasn't been widespread or long lasting.

Example:

Biological determinism: Women are stupid and just dream about babies all day.

Biological reality in oppression:
There is no significant average disparity in IQ between the sexes, but women have never had equal chance to put their intelligence to use because of their reproductive capacity being exploited by men. It is a medical fact that human fetuses sap a lot of nutrients from a woman's body (including her brain), so brain fog during pregnancy exists for some. Permanent sleep deprivation stemming from being forced to constantly look after infants (as women have always been) can result in poor mental function and long term brain damage.

See what I'm saying?

There are none - that's my point.

Well, quite - then we have no basis for comparison.

Dworkin very much did the latter.

Where did Dworkin do that?

"As a class (not necessarily as individuals), we can bear children. From this, according to male-supremacist ideology, all our other attributes and potentialities are derived. On the pedestal, immobile like waxen statues, or in the gutter, failed icons mired in shit, we are exalted or degraded because our biological traits are what they are. Citing genes, genitals, DNA, pattern-releasing smells, biograms, hormones, or whatever is in vogue, male supremacists make their case which is, in essence, that we are biologically too good, too bad, or too different to do anything other than reproduce and serve men sexually and domestically.*

It is shamefully easy for us to enjoy our own fantasies of biological omnipotence while despising men for enjoying the reality of theirs. And it is dangerousbecause genocide begins, however improbably, in the conviction that classes of biological distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination. We, who have been devastated by the concrete consequences of this idea, still want to put our faith in it. Nothing offers more proofsad, irrefutable proof--that we are more like men than either they or we care to believe."

www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/WarZoneChaptIIID.html

"What matriarchal societies are you referring to Ava?"

There are none - that's my point. If there ever were any - they certainly weren't ruling the world and exploiting it on a wide scale because they got easily wiped out by the patriarchal ones.

I absolutely agree with you, User, that humans are a hierarchical species and that power corrupts us. New forms of oppression could potentially be invented, but they can't be imagined now simply because all of our current injustices are rooted in the patriarchy. They NEED the patriarchy to work.

Biological determinism is not the same as acknowledging the role of biology in oppression. Dworkin very much did the latter.

Ava, I completely agree that a post-patriachal society without widespread misogyny is theoretically possible. But a society without oppression of one kind or another is not.

Human beings have a weakness for power.

I've read Dworkin and Mackinnon Beach and they opposed all forms of biological determinism. Very explicitly.

Beachcomber, is not the goal that equal numbers of men and women are in power?

What matriarchal societies are you referring to Ava?

"Patriarchy is the building foundation of all other oppression. Economic oppression? Most poor people are women. Racial oppression? Product of colonialism and local slavery driven by the patriarchy.

This is where we disagree. If women did have equal power to women - economically, culturally, politically - I see no reason to think they wouldn't have the same tendency to racial prejudice or economically exploitative behaviour as men. What empirical evidence is there for thinking otherwise?"

The empirical evidence lies in no there being no parallel human world with an oppressive matriarchal society. All of our current systems of oppression were built in the patriarchal one and are reliant on the exploitation of women continuing.

Where would slavery have been if not for women being forced to produce more humans for slavery? How could men maintain their high status jobs with higher salaries than women without the unpaid domestic+child-raising labour of women freeing them to do so (thus the economic inequality of the pay gap)? Where would homophobia be without misogyny?

YY Ava, it is heartbreaking.

Goodness knows how many brilliant ideas have been lost to the world due to men subjugating and killing girls and women.

On that basis alone they have shown themselves to be the very last people who should be in power.

"Their desire to control and exploit girls and women has done untold harm to humanity and is a global and historic human rights travesty which is unique in its destructive and hideous nature."

And think how much human potential they have wasted in oppressing women. Think of how many more Marie Curies, Dr. Grace Hoppers and Hedy Lamars we could've had. Think of we could've achieved as a species by now with twice as much positive input.

It's heartbreaking.

The bit about rape being very common among mammals and especially primates is true.

I'm not a zoologist, so don't know the exact statistics of it. There is also a high proportion of females mating with the lower status males on the sly while the dominant male isn't looking (across several species).