Why has it always been a patriarchy?

An archived article here with some interesting notes on contentious issues on patriarchal/matriarchal theories:

'In the course of my critique of feminist matriarchal myth, I do not intend to offer a substitute account of what happened between women and men in prehistoric times, or to determine whether patriarchy is a human universal or a recent historical phenomenon. These are questions that are hard to escape—feminist matriarchal myth was created largely in response to them—and intriguing to speculate upon. But the stories we spin out and the evidence we amass about the origins of sexism are fundamentally academic. They are not capable of telling us whether or how we might put an end to sexism. As I argue at the end of this book, these are moral and political questions; not scientific or historical ones. The enemies of feminism have long posed issues of patriarchy and sexism in pseudoscientific and historical terms. It is not in feminist interests to join them at this game, especially when it is so (relatively) easy to undermine the ground rules. We know enough about biological sex differences to know that they are neither so striking nor so uniform that we either need to or ought to make our policy decisions in reference to them. And we know that cultures worldwide have demonstrated tremendous variability in constructing and regulating gender, indicating that we have significant freedom in making our own choices about what gender will mean for us. Certainly recent history, both technological and social, proves that innovation is possible: we are not forever condemned to find our future in our past. Discovering—or more to the point, inventing—prehistoric ages in which women and men lived in harmony and equality is a burden that feminists need not, and should not bear. Clinging to shopworn notions of gender and promoting a demonstrably fictional past can only hurt us over the long run as we work to create a future that helps all women, children, and men flourish.'

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/e/eller-myth.html

This is the author's book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Matriarchal_Prehistory

Misstache, that's one rather scant article to base such a sweeping generalisation on. Lions are definitely not 'matriarchal', for a start. I was looking for more in depth research/evidence.

This article has a bit more substance to it:

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180925-with-females-in-charge-bonobo-society-is-more-chilled-out

'New research has found that of the more than 5,000 known species of mammals, just a handful are led by females ... eight species that exemplify female leadership: hyenas, killer whales, lions, spotted hyenas, bonobos, lemurs, and elephants.
To find this group, the team first had to pinpoint the social species that show any leadership traits at all – by looking at things like movement, foraging, or conflict resolution, they identified 76 such mammals. Then within that group, the team searched for evidence of female leadership, and for the characteristics which define these female leaders....
The researchers note it’s important not to confuse leadership with dominance.'

Based on this paper:

https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1048984318302947

Whatever the surrounding or supporting structures in any given human society - human females ovulate once a month, become pregnant and then most bond with their child in a very fierce and instinctive way that males do not.

Perhaps what you are calling 'dominance' or 'hierarchy' are just value judgments that are based on the reality of male pattern behaviours and potentials.

Chimp status also comes from the mother. Males do jockey for position as adults, and a lower status one can rise by violence, but they tend not to last. More reliable routes to seniority are maternal lineage and forming alliances - with females as well as other males. Food sharing, grooming and looking after youngsters are more important than fighting.

Many other group-living primates show similar patterns. Even with a nominal male 'in charge' of the troop there's often significant female influence on who that is (for example, colobus monkeys select a primary male and if they get fed up with him they band together to chase him off).

Evolution and what other mammals do is pretty much a red herring.

sorry to derail the thread

I don’t think it is derailing. There’s bias in the way we perceive things and interpret .

My instinct is that more peaceful, gentle cultures or species are also more likely to have sex equality. I think ‘warring’ without is a sign of male dominance/patriarchy within.

Although it was interesting upthread someone said about a Native American tribe, where the women decide to go to war. In Roman and Greek mythology, the female Goddesses like Athena or Venus also advise on war.

I haven’t read him…but the analogy for the way animal behaviour has been observed is if aliens came and saw toddlers play fighting and adults chilling in the shade drinking and were like “clearly the smaller members are dominant in this society! They are built smaller in order to facilitate aggression and maneuverability! Note how they struggle together for dominance! The larger members of the species sit passively waiting for the battle to play out so they know who is their leader! When the struggle is complete the small members to the subordinate species members who lift them up to hail the winner as the new leader and obey their every whim!” This is the equivalent to how for a long time animal society was observed and ideas of behaviour were protected. There’s great work by feminist primatologists and others who observed and dismantled bias…in another example, for a long time we were told by male scientists that dogs didn’t love us, they were only responding to conditioning, and it was anthropomorphism to believe animals had any feelings. Now we know dogs do love and animals feel affection, have bonds, mourn each other - that was a human-Centric view derived from the idea that humans have a special place in the hierarchy, only we have souls etc - sorry to derail the thread a bit but the way we’ve seen animals is a huge example of how male institutional thinking has been seen as “common sense” when it was actually a projection of male bias.

" women rule the roost at home - in their realm."

Women 'in charge' of the kitchen and home is not really equality or matriarchy!

I have a brilliant book written by Antonia Fraser The Weaker Vessel, Womens lot in the seventeenth century.

She writes that if you could suddenly be transported back in time, the thing that would most surprise you would be the number of women who were pregnant.

So most women (god willing) would be continuously pregnant or breastfeeding from marriage to menopause. They may give birth many many times, although many babies and children did not survive. Many women died in childbirth.

Iknow when I was pregnant a lot of my energies and drives were channelled to my baby and not the external world. I remembering surprising myself when we chose a new sofa or kitchen tiles. Before I had obsessed about choices, but then it was ‘yeah, whatever, that’ll do’.

women were considered the weaker vessel both physically, mentally, morally.
A widow was assumed to be lustful and wanton. That men were seduced by these wicked women.

We see it in mumsnet all the time when a women has her children, men take advantage and end up with more time, hobbies, social life, money and power.

I don’t think it is just the size and strength differences or the reproductive role and vulnerability of women which makes societies tend to shake down to be ordered in a way that is patriarchal.

There is also the possibly testosterone related nature of males being - I’ve been watching The Orville a lot recently - kind of dick-ish.

Competitive, dominating, tiresome. Even amongst bonobos, the males are attention-seeking.

"How would menstruation be dealt with on the front line?"

Women have to serve in the army like men in Israel. I wonder if female soldiers on the front line deal with periods similarly to elite athletes. I believe many athletes find ways to avoid having periods altogether.

Ants and bees are examples of insect matriarchies…there’s many matriarchal bird species as well. Obviously there has to be a social group so we’re talking about animals with social groups here…some newer research on lobsters challenges the idea of male dominance among lobsters as well. My point is that saying “just observe nature and you’ll see why there’s patriarchy” isn’t true. That in itself is a male myth we’ve been fed and as we understand more about animal social organization we see that either societies are collective, or older female led much more than they are based on male animals fighting each other for dominance and power. Those are interpretations of behaviour made by men.

Haven't RDFT yet, but I've read that it started with settled agriculture and that as hunter gatherers it wasn't as bad. Not sure how true that is as there are still hunter gathering tribes around and I'm not sure they're totally equal.

Were they really matriarchal or just matrilineal (family ties going down the maternal line being more important)? I've heard of cultures where the person of authority for a child is not his/her father, but the mother's brother. That's still the rule of men.

Although male birds often need to go to huge lengths to impress females.

Also, horses, cows, pigs, dolphins, hippos…

I suppose the nature of giving birth to live young and breastfeeding make the sex roles between mammals more distinct.

You don't really mean "most animals" though, surely? Just most mammals perhaps? Insects, fish, crustaceans are not mostly matriarchies... or patriarchies for that matter.

Many species of birds are good at sex equality.

Here are some examples:

https://www.victoriawhalewatching.com/matriarchal-societies-in-the-animal-kingdom/

packs were long thought to be run by dominant males but more recent research showed it is often older female animals. Many others are collective. Male dominance is not at all a norm in animal societies.

There’s a lot of difference between species.