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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

WHY do so many (it seems) men hate and fear women?

205 replies

Hullygully · 17/09/2013 14:27

I was thinking about this the other day. Women earn less, get killed more, are objectified blah blah we all know the stats. They are real stats, the facts are that women have it worse. So why do men fear and hate them so much that they can't bear it pointed out? The "ball-breaking" language of the 70s continues in a different form. BUT WHY?

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Beachcomber · 21/09/2013 16:46

This is what Engels says (page 63) I don't know if he is right, I'm just posting what he wrote because I think it is interesting and Engels comes up quite a lot in feminist discussions.

Such riches, once they had passed into the private possession of families and there rapidly multiplied, struck a powerful blow at a society founded on pairing marriage and mother-right gens. Pairing marriage had introduced a new element into the family. By the side of the natural mother it had placed the authenticated natural father — who was probably better authenticated than many a “father” of the present day. According to the division of labour then prevailing in the family, the procuring of food and the implements necessary thereto, and therefore, also, the ownership of the latter, fell to the man; he took them with him in case of separation, just as the woman retained the household goods. Thus, according to the custom of society at that time, the man was also the owner of the new sources of foodstuffs — the cattle — and later, of the new instrument of labour — the slaves. According to the custom of the same society, however, his children could not inherit from him, for the position in this respect was as follows;

^ According to mother right, that is, as long as descent was reckoned solely through the female line, and according to the original custom of inheritance in the gens, it was the gentile relatives that at first inherited from a deceased member of the gens. The property had to remain within the gens. At first, in view of the insignificance of the chattels in question, it may, in practice, have passed to the nearest gentile relatives — that is, to the blood relatives on the mother’s side. The children of the deceased, however, belonged not to his gens, but to that of their mother. In the beginning, they inherited from their mother, along with the rest of their mother’s blood relatives, and later, perhaps, had first claim upon her property; but they could not inherit from their father, because they did not belong to his gens, and his property had to remain in the latter. On the death of the herd owner, therefore, his herds passed, first of all, to his brothers and sisters and to his sisters’ children or to the descendants of his mother’s sisters. His own children, however, were disinherited.

SinisterSal · 21/09/2013 21:29

TY Beach.

Hullygully · 23/09/2013 08:51

Fascinating.

Is it explained in simple terms for thickies (me) anywhere?

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BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 23/09/2013 09:55

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EldritchCleavage · 23/09/2013 10:55

Doesn't work as an explanation though. Lots of groups that still have matrilineal inheritance (like my African family) still have patriarchy and misogyny. It may ameliorate it-sometimes- but it certainly doesn't prevent it.

Beachcomber · 23/09/2013 11:45

Yes, I think that is a fair summary. The only thing I would say is that I don't think Engles is using 'gentile' to mean non Jew. He appears to be using it to mean 'blood relatives on the mother’s side'.

There is quite a good summary here - the relevant section is 'The Marxist method' which is worth reading in its entirely but the following quotes give you the bones of it.

As production shifted away from the household, the role of reproduction changed substantially. The shift toward agricultural production sharply increased the productivity of labor. This, in turn, increased the demand for labor–the greater the number of field workers, the higher the surplus. Thus, unlike hunter-gatherer societies, which sought to limit the number of offspring, agricultural societies sought to maximize women’s reproductive potential, so the family would have more children to help out in the fields. Therefore, at the same time that men were playing an increasingly exclusive role in production, women were required to play a much more central role in reproduction.

The rigid sexual division of labor remained the same, but production shifted away from the household. The family no longer served anything but a reproductive function–as such, it became an economic unit of consumption. Women became trapped within their individual families, as the reproducers of society–cut off from production. These changes took place first among the property-owning families, the first ruling class. But eventually, the nuclear family became an economic unit of society as a whole.

The nuclear family: the root of women’s oppression.

It was under these circumstances that the monogamous nuclear family–the family as we know it–began to take form. The modern family arose for one purpose only: to pass on private property in the form of inheritance from one generation to the next. All of the romantic imagery of "true love" which has since helped to idealize marriage in contemporary society can’t change the fact that marriage is essentially a property relationship. Most people learn this all too clearly if they find themselves in divorce court.

The Original meaning of the word "family" (familia) is not the compound of sentimentality and domestic strife which forms the ideal of the present-day philistine; among the Romans it did not at first even refer to the married pair and their children but only to the slaves. Famulus means domestic slave, and familia is the total number of slaves belonging to one man. As late as the time of Gaius, the familia, id est patrimonium (family, that is the patrimony, the inheritance) was bequeathed by will. The term was invented by the Romans to denote a new social organism whose head ruled over wife and children and a number of slaves, and was invested under Roman paternal power with rights of life and death over them all.

But there was a further contradiction between earlier communal social organization and rising class society, Engels argues. Wealth was owned by men, but since most societies were matrilineal, inheritance was passed through the mother, not the father. Moreover, without strict monogamy, a man cannot be certain that his wife’s children are also his own. Engels writes,

Thus, on the one hand, in proportion as wealth increased it made the man’s position in the family more important than the woman’s, and on the other hand created an impulse to exploit this strengthened position in order to overthrow, in favor of his children, the traditional order of inheritance... Mother right, therefore, had to be overthrown, and overthrown it was."

But whether or not all early societies were matrilineal is not as important as it might seem. What is indisputable is that the onset of class society brought with it a universal shift toward patrilineage–and, more importantly, the role of men as "heads" of their households. Engels was undoubtedly correct–with more supporting evidence today than when he was writing–that the rise of the nuclear family brought with it a degradation of women which was unknown in pre-class societies.

Beachcomber · 23/09/2013 12:01

EldritchCleavage - I don't know if Engels was right and his theory is controversial. It does sound plausible though IMO.

Beachcomber · 23/09/2013 12:13

This bit for instance makes sense to me (from same above link);

Engels’ analysis is straightforward–it may need further development, but its essence is there, plain to see. The sexual division of labor which existed in pre-class societies, when production for use was the dominant mode of production, carried no implication of gender inequality. Women were able to combine their reproductive and productive roles, so both sexes were able to perform productive labor. But with the rise of class society, when production for exchange began to dominate, the sexual division of labor helped to erode equality between the sexes. Production and trade increasingly occurred away from the household, so that the household became a sphere primarily for reproduction. As Coontz and Henderson argue,

The increasing need for redistribution (both within local groups and between them) and the political tasks this creates have consequences for sex roles in that these political roles are often filled by males, even in matrilineal/matrilocal societies. Presumably this flows from the division of labor that associates males with long-distance activities, external affairs, and products requiring group-wide distribution, while females are more occupied with daily productive tasks from which they cannot be absented.

Hence, the beginnings of a "public" versus a "private" sphere, with women increasingly trapped in the household in property-owning families. The rise of the family itself explains women’s subordinate role within it. For the first time in human history, women’s ability to give birth kept them from playing a significant part in production.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 23/09/2013 12:20

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EldritchCleavage · 23/09/2013 12:47

As an explanation of the power imbalance it certainly works, yes.
But it sounds more like a rationalisation of how men came to be misogynistic than a true explanation.

I always find myself more convinced by explanations of sexism and racism (and other -isms) that go to why that kind of hatred is functional for its practitioners, i.e. more on the level of emotion and psychology than explanations that are situational, though of course I accept that circumstance is very relevant. Does that make sense?

Beachcomber · 23/09/2013 12:52

I think I see what you mean - do you think there is an implication in situational explanations that the domineering class is somehow not really responsible for their actions and the consequences of them?

EldritchCleavage · 23/09/2013 13:03

Yes I do. And for that reason they are often ineffectual. The danger is that if people have a ideological sympathy with the situation and the ostensibly benign reasons for it coming about (thinking of the supposedly protective impulse behind purdah, for example) they simply reject any argument that the situation contributes to discrimination/power imbalance/hatred.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 23/09/2013 13:08

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BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 23/09/2013 13:14

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EldritchCleavage · 23/09/2013 13:16

Yes, that makes complete sense.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 23/09/2013 13:21

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Hullygully · 23/09/2013 13:29

agree with everything

thanks for all the quotings.

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EldritchCleavage · 23/09/2013 13:31

There is the most brilliant passage in Keith Thomas' "Religion and the Decline of Magic" where he posits an explanation of why the witch-hunts of C16 and C17 England happened, and happened so overwhelmingly to a particular kind of woman.

He describes the type of woman accused: old, often very poor or indigent, usually widows or spinsters reliant on community charity at a time when there was a recognised social duty to support such people. He suggests (if I remember it correctly) resentment caused by that duty, fear of its burdens, guilt at violating the social and religious norms that required people to help and even suspicion of women not conventionally under the power of a man/family lead people to reject and accuse them, to other them and pile all blame for misfortunes onto them. It starts as a reaction to circumstance but flourishes because it satisfies an emotional need to blame, for catharsis, to rally against evil.

I'm not doing the book justice at all, but it is a description that satisfies on the emotional, psychological, social and situational level.

PedantMarina · 23/09/2013 13:58

As to the religion thing (sorry, only up to page 2), it's interesting that "women's work" (cooking, cleaning) are things that are so essential to living that it can't be stopped on a holy day. Therefore, in order for people to, like, eat, it can't be seen as actual work.

Don't get me wrong, I hate even the idea that these things are seen as "women's work", but that's not the point. And, yes, general women-hating stuff in religion (control over our own bodies by men, etc), are in some respects "bigger" issues, but this is a thing that is so "small" it's everywhere, IFSWIM

grimbletart · 23/09/2013 14:33

I wonder also if we are overlooking simpler (partial) explanation. Men in general are physically stronger than women in general i.e. the might is right explanation. Subconsciously they see physical strength as superiority, while ironically overlooking the fact that women are in general biologically stronger.Smile

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 23/09/2013 14:40

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PedantMarina · 23/09/2013 14:54

If nobody's seen this yet:

sexist gaming memes

Truly depressing.

But gives me the opp to lead right back to the "geek girl" video

Still ploughing away ("man's work" - runs and ducks) - on page 6...

EldritchCleavage · 23/09/2013 14:54

Since I married DH (not a big chap, though perfectly formed) I've been fascinated with what he and his friends tell me about how men treat other men, especially smaller weaker less privileged men.

Apart from the sexual slurs and exploitation, it isn't always that different from how they treat women. And it has made me think a lot about the assumptions we make about men and misogyny.

While there is definitely a specific woman hatred that a lot of men have (to which all I said earlier on this thread applies), maybe for others the way they treat women is a general way of relating to anyone with less power (physical, social, economic) that comes from patriarchal competition.

PedantMarina · 23/09/2013 16:16

OK, caught up. And flippin'eck, this fred is getting good! The economic stuff I'd vaguely known about, but never read the original - hadn't realised how succinctly it had been put.

comingalongnicely · 23/09/2013 16:37

@ EldritchCleavage - It's true, if males don't fit a certain, misogynistic, stereotype then they're very likely to be mocked, abused and possibly physically assaulted throughout their teenage years & even later.

The sporty, rugby playing stereotype is actually fairly accurate & can be extremely intimidating to "non-jocks".

Even now, as a confident & (mostly) mature bloke, there are times when some loud, neanderthal scrote & his sycophantic, giggling mates come into a pub & it's a clear signal that it's time to go & find somewhere else to have a pint - mainly because I don't want to have to listen to the dribbling, prehistoric crap that they're spouting.

Less depressingly, they seem to be mid 30's upwards, the "yoofs" don't seem as bad - that could be a good sign! Maybe they're slowly becoming extinct eh?