Why does patriarchy fear and need to suppress women?

[superstarheartbreaker]

Why are men so keen to withhold power from women? Is it fear of our reproductive potential?

Why does it have to be women v men? Why can't some men see us as equals? I find it quite odd.

Or could it be that our ability to give birth etc keeps us in a domestic sphere as it's " natural" to bf and raise kids.

Thoughts please.

I think it's because they've created a fundamentally unequal system, so inequality is ingrained in their thinking. They can't conceive of a society where people aren't exerting power over one another so when they imagine what women want it's like the 'worm that turned' sketches from the two ronnies.
I think a big part of women's oppression is related to reproductive vulnerability but we could reorganise society so it didn't impact in the same way.

I don't think it is specific to men/women. People want power. Especially in the past, when women would be popping out babies or pregnant and generally in by weaker/more vulnerable physical state, I suppose it was an easy thing to hold power over as a man, like an older woman might have power over the younger one, so if you can have power, most people took it. Women were 'easy' to have power over and that led to a patriarchal structure even when they weren't having babies all the time or whatever would have originally made it easier to be physically more powerful in the past. It is natural to want to retain your power, even if it's inherited, as you fear becoming 'vulnerable' by not being in control, so naturally a lot of men who have benefited from the patriarchy will be against it. I would say the same for other forms of discrimination- disablism is 'easy' (or was easy at the start, and the structure has stuck with us making it easy now) and anti semitism and islamophobia and racism and so on.

Women are seen as a resource, not as human beings. Under patriarchy men want us for sex, reproduction and our unpaid labour. Historically pregnancy, childbirth, post-pregnancy infections and the effects of repeated pregnancy were the biggest killers of women. Even when pregnancy was not fatal, giving birth prior to the medical developments of the 20th century could be an horrific experience. In this context we can see that in the past every time a woman had sex she was risking her own life.

How then to get women to do the life-threatening thing you want them to do? Make it so they aren't in a position to say 'no'. Deny them a useful education and exclude them from any profession where they could support themselves, thereby making them dependent on the income from a male partner. Make any woman who doesn't have a male partner a social pariah and an object of suspicion and ridicule. Make the world a physically dangerous place for any woman who doesn't have a male partner to chaperone her through it. Make sexual attractiveness and femininity the only thing that affords women any status and belittle or ignore any other achievements women accomplish. Make sure women are set against each other in a competition for male approval, rather than working together to achieve independence. Make sure any women who doesn't conform is belittled, silenced, punished or even killed.

I think it's as simple as that. If women had true economic, physical and social independence, then we would have the power to say 'no' to anything (sexual or otherwise). In Roman times the amount of slaves vastly outnumbered the amount of Roman citizens. How did the Romans stop all these slaves revolting? Divide and conquer. They dangled the promise of rewards in front of slaves that were compliant and employed vicious collective punishments if anyone stepped out of line. The slaves policed and competed with each other to become the master's favourite slave, instead of working together to become free. I think men deploy these tactics very effectively.

A couple of questions. To the OP, what makes you think society fears women?

To Dexter - when western governments, which are overwhelmingly white, wealthy and male, march into places like Iraq and Afghanistan and try to impose equality in areas such as voting and education, do you think it is for altruistic reasons, or something darker?

Who are the men who are so keen to withhold power from women? Is it all men? Some men? Just men in general?

And why would these men fear women due to their reproductive abilities - quite a bizarre notion.

Have you not noticed the patriarchy, SirChenjin?

That doesn't answer my question Squid.

It's a cultural system, not individual men.

Men as a class wthhold power from women as a class.

Have you noticed?

Also, men have technically greater reproductive potential. Woman are necessary, but in a group, you don't need as many men in the first place as they aren't limited to a certain time, they don't have dangers associated with reproducing and can reproduce with many, many women compared to the comparatively small number of children a woman could safely have had in that environment.

Men as a class withhold power from women as a class? So we're talking sweeping generalisations as opposed to actual examples?

And the fact that men can (technically) reproduce at any age (most don't) makes them fear us how?

I'll bring up your questions at the next meeting of the patriarchy and get back to you.

Oh, fwiw my point isn't about men fearing women, I don't think they fear women in general (well, some might? But not for patriarchal reasons) but it's natural and human to fear loss of control and power. If you are a man where society has weighed it so you have more control and power (not necessarily over women, but just in general) then you will lose this added control/power when everyone is equal which is a good thing, but some will fear that, the same way some white people feared black people being given more civil rights, or straight people can be opposed to LGBT rights, marriage and so on. I think it can't really be generalised, as it is clear that someone who is straight isn't necessarily homophobic etc; the same way a man isn't necessarily anti feminist, in both situations,mthey often aren't. It is a natural fear but how we see the world varies from person to person, so what one person sees as equality and not losingpower, the other will see as loss of their own power and therefore something to fear or try and stop. This isn't, imo, specifically for men, not at all, but as women don't have the same control or power men have over them, then they can't feel the same about gender, but could have the same reaction to people from a different ethnicity or someone who is disabled and so on.

I have no idea what I'm trying to say and I'm rambling, I think, so sorry.

Women have the power to create life.

If all the males in the world died tomorrow the human race would survive.

If all the females in the world died tomorrow the human race would be gone in a century.

They need us more than we can ever need them and this makes them vulnerable.

Patriarchy is like the dying wasp that stings whatever's there.

How would the human race survive without sperm? Is this some major scientific advance I've missed somehow in my 25 years of working for the NHS??

Vulnerable to what - the human race becoming extinct ? I have never met a single man - ever - that fears (or for that matter, has even mentioned it ) the extinction of the human face as a result of women not wanting to have children.

Women have the power to create life?

Have you done basic biology? Sperm meets egg, and so on?

We need men. We need women. We are all valuable, in different ways. We could not survivei without men.

re reproduction one important element is that until the advent of dna testing, only women could know for sure that their child was genetically theirs. a huge reason for men to control women in a father --> son inheritance system. there are advocates for compulsory dna testing at birth, before fathers bond with babies, so that fear is still there

The point about men having greater reproductive potential than women is an interesting one. A man is capable of fathering hundreds of babies in a short space of time. Why would the UK legal system attempt to impose some financial responsibility upon men who might act in such a way? However unsuccessful it might be, institutions such as the CSA have sought to limit touch behaviour by trying to force such men to pay for the children they have fathered. Why would a patriarchal society do this?

I am thinking out loud here - the answer may be obvious, but it doesn't spring to mind.

this patriarchal society didn't do this until recently - before that it was up to the man whether he wanted to recognise or support the child. plus it's that or the state has to increase support for mothers left high and dry (doesn't have to be directly financial, but ultimately will cost money)

anyway, is that what the CSA is intended for? (to limit men having as many children as possible by forcing them to pay for them?)

though i may be wrong re child support history

however, i don't think that child support being a legal requirement is evidence of a non-patriarchal society

I just wish we were all equal.
The only people I have ever had problems with seem to be women though. Maybe it's just me?

what sort of problems do you tend to have with women? women can be arseholes too, but there are also patriarchal influences on how women behave towards each other

Generalising like mad ....
Because women have what men want...sex, affection, warmth,motherhood, and therefore women have power over men, so men resent that power, resent their need for what women can bestow, and have had to find ways to control and suppress women to maintain male ego, security and dominance.

People can argue and discuss the unfairness and socialisation of these roles that women have and may not want ('Gatekeepers' to sex etc) and how to challenge them, but as long as women have what men want,some /many/all men will be insecure at some level..how we fix that, I dunno

What sort of problems do you tend to have with women?

Bitchy hurtful comments/put downs. All from women.
I have also been attacked by two women on a night out for standing next to a sink.