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?

A large part of evolutionary biology is about looking at how species use energy, as thermodynamics underpins all ecology. Much about why species develop one way or another, and variation within species is about energy tradeoffs. So each species has to make decisions, both at a genetic level and in its own decisions at a conscious level on how much energy to spend on the different activities of acquiring food - searching for it, choosing which types of food to use, preparing it, transporting it, and then it has to balance those costs against the energy to stay alive and the energy invested in raising young, birth spacing, breast feeding and so on.

In Western countries, we tend not to worry about this, because we have energy from fossil fuels or the work of other people, so don't have to balance our energy trade offs -our energy doesn't come from our own work. Everyone else in the world does have to manage their energy trade offs or they die. Sustainability for people who live in a subsistence existence is based on their ability to have access to a broad resource base. Outside sources will frequently come along and say - you don't need this 1 acre of woodland, cattle dung, that particular field etc, when actually removing someone's cattle dung means they will die, because their management of the ecosystem is so finely balanced.

So evolutionary theory is used in 2 ways. It allows us to calculate exactly what the energy consequences are going to be for women if the government restricts their choices in particular ways, so that advocacy groups can attempt to prevent this when it is harmful. This particularly applies to women because it has such a damaging impact on their birth spacing and breastfeeding. Often the consequences of this are to the woman's own body, as well as to the health of her children.

The second way it is used is that evolutionary theory is applied to the specific individual environment a woman farms (and most farmers are women), so that we can predict what the ecological consequences will be, and how evolution will change plant and animal communities to make the woman's life unsustainable, if the government removes certain resources which to non-farmers seem trivial.

off topic but has anyone here ever heard of Japanese Oyster pearl divers ?

Almost all oyster pearl gathering has historically been done by women. You'd need highly developed lungs, and lots of muscle to stay underwater for long periods of time while you searched for the oysters in deep sea water.

"Traditionally, Japanese pearl diving was done by women who were called "Ama" (above, left). The word ama literally means "sea woman." This Japanese tradition dates back 2000 years. As recently as the 1960s, Ama divers wore only a loincloth. Even today, Ama dive without scuba gear, using free-diving techniques. Free-divers often descend to depths of over 100 feet on a single breath. Only divers who work at tourist attractions use white, partially transparent suits to dive in."

Men, obviously, reaped the profits for their work.

In cultures where men fish and women weave, fishing is more highly valued. IN cultures where women fish and men weave, weaving is more highly valued.

"As a result of the dangers, many of the divers were low on the social ladder, or even slaves."

Compare this to the minisucle physical achievements men have made, such as kicking a bloody ball about, and who then receive lots of social rewards, resources, and kudos for it. If men had been the ones to dive they'd have been feted as kings. Because it's women, and anything women do must be defined in the negative , they were devalued to nothing as women always are.

i'm so angry at that. Because of the dangers, they were low on the social ladder

the patriarchy are just so confused aren't they. When men risk their life it's a positive, when women do the same it's a negative

.

So many strawmen so little time, oh well here goes.

Dittany, first.

"How exactly do you think something becomes a "socially transmitted practice", without people choosing to do it in the first place Himalaya?"

Gradually who chose to speak the first word, construct the first shelter, put on the first item of clothing? There must have been a 'first' in all these cases and more, but to say they were caused by choice is silly. The possibility of each thing was more than likely discovered by many people at at around the same time as each other, because they had the right physiology to do (opposable thumbs etc..) and they were building on the ideas and technologies they all ready had. If it hadn't occured to someone it would have occured to someone else and if it worked for them it spread and developed on (like the lightbulb- invented simaltabeously in at least 4 places).

"I don't know if you've noticed but a whole lot of other mammals, not just humans have males with larger muscalatures than females. Mammals which don't even live in societies, egalitarian or otherwise. really??! Er, wolf packs, primate family groups, deer herds, beaver lodges, not to mention termite colonies, bee colonies...and so on...

" Testosterone increases muscle growth, not genes, which is why women who are given testosterone put on muscle."

Oh good grief. people in general are not 'given' testosterone, their bodies make it, how do they know how and when to make it and how much to make? (I can't believe I have to spell this out to you this far into the discussion)...it's a combination of genes and environment (or do you have another theory?)

"Also this idea that women aren't muscular - also stupid."

Not what I said. I said that men and women's bodies differ in the proportion of fat to muscle they lay down.

"In other animals large male musculature has nothing to do with hunting or getting food. It has developed for fighting other males over access to females. Musculature appears to have developed in males response to one another."

The title of this thread is "I don't get the patriarchy"

Look at my thread about oyster pearls then apply some critical thinking about what a patriarchy might be.

Other than that, can't really help you. It's not MY fault that you don't get it.

You won't be the first person not to understand what feminists are bangin on about, and you certainly won't be the last.

You don't get the patriarchy. You don't understand the concept.

Can't help you with that, sorry.

Look at my posts about Oyster pearls

MillyR

I don't think we are really in disagreement about some of the things you think we are (but I do think we are in disagreement on others)

"while evolution does operate at the level of the gene, clearly how that gene is selected is connected to the expression in the phenotype. " agreed

"Of course child rearing strategies are essential to the selection of certain genes; that is the basis of natural selection. " agreed, partly. Child rearing but also mate selection, rivalry, and hidden ovulation complicates things, because it's not obvious who is whose child - so stragies around that.

"It is really quite bizarre that you do not recognise that strategies for rearing young are essential to understanding evolution" -No I do. I don't think we are disagreeing here.

"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. "
Evolution happens on timscales we can't plan for so isn't useful as a moral compass. Also it isn't a moral compass. Yes we should stop causing extinctions. No we shouldn't stop wearing glasses (because it reduces evolutionary pressure for good eyesight...)

"Your argument about morphology is making an enormous leap by claiming it is about dominance. "

No I am not claiming it is about dominance - that is the primary explanation of the patriarchy that has been put forward here (strength+ choice> domination > the world as it is today. And it's all a pure cultural construct) I was just pointing out that any theory needs to be compatible with evolutionary origins. And that one is incoherant.

"Sexual dimorphism is quite low in humans, and could be connected to a number of the common reasons for these variations. ..." I agree with you on your analysis here. As I said I am NOT arguing that 'male traits are selected for dominance over women' I think we are all in agreement that that is spurious

" 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."

This natural/not natural thing is not meaningful. Housing, agriculture and cooking are human inventions. Their development can also be analysed from a naturalistic viewpoint, not as purely cultural phenomena.

Anyway, take away these 'unnatural' inventions and we know what the natural result would be. We'd quicky sucumb to starvation and exposure.

you're rambling Himalaya. Why should theory have to be compatible with evolutionary origins? Take a look around at the world today. WHen you say patriarchy is NOT strength + choice are you saying men are sub-human, that they have no volition of their own, that they are guided by their penises, that morality only exists in women?

Garlicbutter - "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)."

Yes ensuring healthy young is a key survival strategy.

The point of the 'Selfish Gene' is not that it makes us selfish.

do you get the patriachy yet or still struggling with that one?

Good grief Sakura, I am not saying any of those things.

"Yes ensuring healthy young is a key survival strategy."

did you know that some men believe a woman's patriarcho-constructed femininity and beauty is actually an indicator of how fertile she is, and how healthy her young will be. I shit you not.

"I am not saying any of those things"

Yes you are

Why should theory have to be compatible with evolutionary origins?

Because if it isn't then it isn't true. And if it isn't true it probably isn't as useful as a theory that is a better description of how it actually happened that we got to be here, in the way we are, and how to change it.

As Dittany noted there is a hierarchy of knowledge. It is not arbitrary it is how the universe works.

Matter is made out of atoms, these are joined together into chemicals, chemicals are what cells are made of, cells are what organisms are made of, organisms interact in societies.

So there is a hierarchy of knowledge which is how we understand these things. Physics underlies chemistry, chemistry underlies biology, biology underlies psychology, sociology, economics all the social sciences.

Time is linear, cause comes before effect. Evolution explains how the development from chemicals to cells to organisms to societies happened over time. It was an enormous breakthrough in human knowledge, explaining the amazing fact that we are here.

If a theory at a higher level of complexity disagrees with what we know (as well as we can know anything) about what is going on at a more basic level, than the higher level theory is wrong even if it appears internally consistent to its followers (the theories of homeopathy, freudian analysis etc..). If we want to know if our theories are true we have to test them against our underlying knowledge.

That is why it is interesting and important.

women's oppression is based on the fact that a large proportion of men are unable to regard females are fully human, or at least as human as themselves

Feminists are arguing this lack and void in men's morality is socially constructed

But you seem to be saying the status quo is evolutionary. If so, then men are morally and ethically inferior to women in that they cannot recognize the oppression they willfully perpetuate

It's true that oppression corrupts the oppressor more than it does the oppressed

your point is nonsensical Himalaya because you disregard child-rearing methods as an evolutionary survival tactic

Sakura -

Why should theory have to be compatible with evolutionary origins? - unless you are theorising supernatural or alien origins thems is the only origins there is.

When you say patriarchy is NOT strength + choice are you saying men are sub-human,

No I am not. I am saying we are all humans. we are also mammals. we are also animals. We evolved same as all the rest. I am not sure what sub-human means. How can you be sub-human?

...they have no volition of their own, that they are guided by their penises, that morality only exists in women?

No, they are guided by their brains, same as women. our brains evolved, like are bodies, largely the same, but with some tendencies towards difference. These differences are amplified by social and economic systems.

Yes perceptions of beauty in both sexes have their origins in mate selection which favours evolutionary fit partners. It has now become an industry with a whole lot of vested interests making money from it, in ways that are not making people happy. You can bet that those industries have studied the evolutionary factors behind what pushes our beauty buttons - not so they can argue that evolution is behind their products, but so they can use those insights to sell more products. If you want to challenge those vested interests it is better to understand evolutionary origins than to dismiss them without reason.

Me: Yes ensuring healthy young is a key survival strategy.
Sakura: your point is nonsensical Himalaya because you disregard child-rearing methods as an evolutionary survival tactic

what can I say?

your point is that men's oppression of women is evolutionary and "natural"

This assertion means that you admit that men are ethically and morally lacking. The gynocide, mass murder and rapes, the continuing exploitation of women, is out of men's hands. They have no objective understanding of the way their oppression hurts others. They have no moral responsibility for their actions. It's in the genes.

This is what you're arguing.

No. it is what you are arguing.

"Yes perceptions of beauty in both sexes have their origins in mate selection which favours evolutionary fit partners"

If this is true why do notions of beauty vary from patriarchy to patriarchy and accross time. Chinese men for thousands of years found the bound lotus foot extremely erotically beautiful