I don't get 'The Patriarchy'

[Himalaya]

I am your basic feminist, in the equal pay, equal rights sense, but not in the sense that I've read a lot of feminist theory (ok, I'll admit it, hardly any)

Quite often on these threads I read about 'The Patriarchy' as an explanation for unequal treatment of women and attitudes towards gender, and I just don't get it...

It seems to indicate that men as a group (all over the world, and throughout history?) have acted together with the intention of surpressing women - la conspiricy theory rather than consideration of underlying factors like biology (the 'genes eye' view of unequal costs and benefits of 'investment' in offspring by men and women) and the impact of class and economics etc...

But maybe I'm reading it wrong?

Or you could read what I wrote in response to garlicbutter: not individual choices but socially transmitted practices - technologies and learned practices ('culture') become part of the environment in which people evolve.

This is a really basic principle. Its not controversial.

Himalaya, while evolution does operate at the level of the gene, clearly how that gene is selected is connected to the expression in the phenotype. Of course child rearing strategies are essential to the selection of certain genes; that is the basis of natural selection. No, you can't advance evolution, but some genes are selected rather than others on the basis of child rearing strategies.

It is really quite bizarre that you do not recognise that strategies for rearing young are essential to understanding evolution - it is central to an understanding of evolution and is the primary factor in defining species as K or r strategists and their place in the ecological cycle. It is the most basic of evolutionary concepts and can be found in any undergraduate text book.

It is also odd to suggest that there is no moral aspects to human impact on evolution - of course there is, in just the same way that there are moral aspects to human impact on cliff erosion or any other aspect of nature. Humans dominate the planet - outside of Antarctica there is no wilderness left. What we do has consequences for our own evolution and the evolutionary fate of many other species. We can make moral decisions about that.

Your argument about morphology is making an enormous leap by claiming it is about dominance. Sexual dimorphism is quite low in humans, and could be connected to a number of the common reasons for these variations. We can only speculate about which apply to humans. I would speculate that there was a division of labour between men and women. The likely reason for this is that due to the development of human infants, they have to be carried and nursed for a long period of time. This would change the nature of the food collection options done by men and women. Men, not transporting a baby, would be more likely to hunt over the whole course of their lives. Women would not hunt during child rearing periods because they were carrying an infant. Hunting requires some speed and athleticism - hence more muscle. Women (or at least mothers) would be gathering, which requires sustained work but does not have to be done at speed, so would not need to be particularly muscular. There is also the issue of bipedalism itself, which means that there are competing demands on the pelvis (you'd never design the pelvis in such a way, it is rather a poor design) between walking upright and carrying a foetus. This would require women to store fat differently on their bodies. Of course women have to store more fat than men because they need it to breastfeed.

We can be certain that part of the different musculature and fat composition of men and women is due to breastfeeding and pregnancy. We can speculate that some of the difference is down to different food collecting strategies between the sexes. We certainly cannot do more than speculate that sexual dimorphism is down to male dominance. And it isn't a particularly plausible, when species where males are dominant have high levels of sexual dimorphism, and humans don't, and our sexual dimorphism has decreased.

Dittany, of course women do hunt, but it is less common in contemporary hunter gatherer societies when women are of child bearing age. A large part of this is to do with pregnancy. It is not to say that women would not hunt at all. Hunting parties often travel long distances and are away from the tribe for days.

The reason we are discussing evolution is because that was in Himalaya's OP.

But Dittany, we have know reason to think that women did sit around. About 80% of food in hunter-gatherer society is gathered by women.

Women do have a different body composition to men; that is true across all cultures. It is down to the demands of pregnancy and breastfeeding. It doesn't mean that women cannot hunt or are not strong.

Dittany, again that is not the case. Female deer have a higher proportion of fat than male deers because of the requirements to nurse young. Female deer have a higher amount of muscle to fat after their last young is born because they no longer require that fat composition as they will have no more.

NotDavidTennant - Thanks.

I agree that any particular example could be right or wrong - but they are useful to illustrate the well established principle that developments in culture are influenced by psychology and phisiology and that culture also becomes part of the evolutionary pressures.

Language is a good example - it developed over eons as a combination of the physical structures needed for speach, the mental instinct to understand syntax and learn language and the languages themselves (pure culture).

Are you taking issue with the idea that culture plays a part in evolution and evolution in culture, or just the specific example I used?

The idea that at some point in prehistory, people recognisably like us were living in egalitarian harmony until one of them made a choice which put set of a chain of events that led to our current state of disharmony is the very original just so story, the one that starts 'in the beginning was the word...'

Just want to thank you for your advice, Himalaya: it really is wroth reading a book. Hmm, I've heard about those "books". Are they any good, then?

I am bringing in fat because the body converts energy to muscle or fat. Women's bodies convert more of the energy to fat, because fat is more useful to their bodies. So to ask questions about why we are more or less muscular, we have to discuss why the body would opt to convert that energy to fat instead. In women, it is very useful for child rearing.

Yes, sumo wrestlers can have lots of fat and muscle, but most humans (especially those in an environment of evolutionary adaptation) live in a time of scarcity. The energy costs of collecting the food are high compared to the energy gain from consuming it. So the body has to have preferences as to whether it converts limited energy to muscle or fat, and women need more fat.

Going back to what you said about the selfish gene, Himalaya - and emphasising the point in Milly's reply - of course strategies for ensuring healthy young are pivotal to genetic success. Species that do not prioritise nuturance of their young have large & frequent litters. Ours is a nurturing species (a point you seem to be missing on many levels).

Himalaya: I'm taking issue with the idea that we know much about human evolution, or about human culture going back more than a few thousand years. Therefore, I don't think it is terribly meaningful to base our analysis of modern day social structures on these things when we know so little about them.

And I struggle to see what relvance any of this has on discussing the existence and nature of the patriarchy today. Hence, why I was interjecting to try to move the debate away from a discussion of evolution 101, and back on to the topic that this thread originally about.

An insanity gene, I guess, Dittany. While I agree that this thread has got bogged down in evo-speculation, it was started by Himalaya, so I imagine s/he is genuinely bothered about whether male supremacy is an inevitability or a choice. Lots of people do share the assumptions made here: is it possible to ask for anti-patrirachal action without addressing those beliefs?

Dittany, yes, it is not the case that women have underdeveloped muscle. Having more muscle doesn't make men more capable of all work - women have the energy to keep on working over long periods of time because they can use higher fat deposits to conserve energy.

I don't think men have evolved in a certain way so that they can dominate women. It is true that in many other species males have qualities to help them compete for mates, feather displays, antlers, muscle and so on. But this isn't all about dominating females - it can be used to attract females. As humans are most similar in their level of sexual dimorphism and traits to species that use sex for social reasons, it could be that the male body has traits that appeal sexually to other males. You could speculate on many reasons, but we do not actually know the answer, and certainly cannot say that men wanting to dominate women is about genetics. In fact, most anthropologists tend to speculate the other way, and claim it is more connected to the rise of complex societies.

I don't think evolution is particularly important to feminism when looking at the UK. But I think that understanding energy costs and trade offs, which are central to evolutionary theory are really important for looking at women's access to land, women's food entitlements, women's reproductive freedoms and women's child rearing choices in less economically developed countries. Because wider and sometimes global structures are a threat to these women's choices and there has to be a focus on the material reality of these women's lives and bodies and the material reality of the agricultural ecosystems those women are attempting to manage sustainably. That is actually the focus of much work in evolutionary ecology. That is why people are funded to research these areas. Hardly anybody cares about some issue over human male dominance - it is a side show of evolutionary psychology, and people in related evolutionary disciplines generally ignore ev psych, and also because this male dominance thing has no practical application or relevance to life now, so what is the point of it?

The fact that some people like to get into arguments with feminists over some ev psych theory that is mostly ignored by other academics is not a reason for feminists to come to the conclusion that understanding much of the scientific concepts of evolution are not actually of specific value to women now in very real ways.

I should clarify that male dominance is extremely important now, but the spurious theory that male dominance is determined by genetics is of no relevance to life now.

SGM, evolutionary biology does not try and define out social structures as natural. They clearly, by definition, are not natural. They are socially constructed. It is evolutionary psychology that attempts to try and justify social structures as natural.