If women ruled the world...

[InigoTaran]

Would it be a better place? Interesting article in The Guardian today with opinions from various prominent women.

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/jul/05/what-if-women-ruled-the-world

However, I just didn't feel it was plausible that female militias would operate in such a way when faced with such a situation.

Me too, and to be fair to Alderman her novel is political allegory, not realism.

As I keep saying, there is no reason why women would oppress men - the point is that women are just as capable, in different circumstances, of oppressing someone - other men, other women, other men and women.

"Lots and lots of women do not have a 'strong emotional investment' with the humans who come out of their body'. My mother never did with me."

Neither did mine and I personally do not want children. That's why I said: "as a group".

"What would happen if all men suddenly went off sex"

Now there's an interesting premise for a novel...

Beach, microfinance is just neoliberal capitalism with a false human face.

www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2013/nov/19/microcredit-south-africa-loans-disaster

"'Women' do not want anything. Women are not a unitary consciousness. Women are individual human beings who want as vast an array of things as men."

Most women want a child or 2. Most women want loving relationships with men. All women want to be treated as fully human.

Your point being?

"the point is that women are just as capable, in different circumstances, of oppressing someone - other men, other women, other men and women."

We're not talking about random somebodies. We're talking about men as a class hypothetically being oppressed by women as a class. Individual exploitation is not the same as wide-scale oppression.

Well, I think most people want to be treated as fully human and are driven to reproduce. My point is that beyond these very general common factors, women are as varied in their wants as men - that women are as human and as individual as men. They are not fundamentally different from men. I thought that was the feminist position, no?

We're not talking about random somebodies. We're talking about men as a class hypothetically being oppressed by women as a class. Individual exploitation is not the same as wide-scale oppression.

Well, we kind of are talking about hypothetical somebodies - because the title of the threads is if women ruled the world - - so it is a very speculative discussion we're having, sure.

When were we talking about women as a class oppressing men as a class?

Were we? I wasn't.

The title of the thread is 'If women ruled the world, would it be a better place?' That's all. There's no mention of women oppressing men. Patriarchy is only form of power, there are lots of others - economic oppression, racial oppression.

I'm not biologically determinist - human biology can be used in non-oppressive ways theoretically...if men stop abusing their physical advantages. It's just that they show no intention of doing so, and it just so happens that other mammals (especially those genetically close to us) show no sign of doing so either. So if not for testosterone, what is the driving force behind this abuse?

As for feminists acknowledging biology these days - that's because we've now had several decades to see that 70s style social conditioning has had only limited effect. There are still few primary carer fathers, for example.

"Patriarchy is only form of power, there are lots of others - economic oppression, racial oppression."

Patriarchy is the building foundation of all other oppression. Economic oppression? Most poor people are women. Racial oppression? Product of colonialism and local slavery driven by the patriarchy.

Beach, microfinance is just neoliberal capitalism with a false human face.

Not always.

Non profit making micolending (which is often organized by women for women) is an entirely different beast to this (quote from your article;

Only now are people realising that the real aim of the private banks and microcredit institutions in South Africa – exactly as in the case of Wall Street's infamous sub-prime lenders – was not to help their poor clients, but to extract as much value from them in the shortest time possible before leaving the sector and moving on to other fields of business."

Plus there is no gender or feminist analysis in the article you posted.

The fact is that micro loans work vastly better when loans are made to women rather than men. And (rather obviously) this form of finance works in the favour of communities when the objective is not to make profit from poverty and in the favour of (male dominated) banks when the objective is to profit from poverty (much of which is feminized).

It doesn't matter who is doing it, the whole model of microfinace is fundamentally flawed, because it is predicated on wealthy western people trapping poor people into debt. Some individual people doing it might be very nice and well-intentioned, but the system is one of extractive capitalism.

There is no such thing as 'non-profit lending.'

Of course the idea of micro finance can be abused by cynical capitalists and the male dominated establishment of banking in order to exploit poor people. And this is indeed neoliberalism in action.

But the true concept behind micro loans for women is anything but neoliberal. Indeed it is revolutionary, rebellious and boat rocking.

www.unicef.org/infobycountry/togo_39257.html

Beach, where are these loans coming from?

User, you're constantly moving the goalposts in this argument.

What is your basic point? How do you picture a female-driven world in exact detail? Everyone else here agrees that the male-driven one we have now sucks and that women are an underclass in it. So why won't men give women a go at running it if it has nothing to do with biology and is all based in individual human faults?

Patriarchy is the building foundation of all other oppression. Economic oppression? Most poor people are women. Racial oppression? Product of colonialism and local slavery driven by the patriarchy.

This is where we disagree. If women did have equal power to women - economically, culturally, politically - I see no reason to think they wouldn't have the same tendency to racial prejudice or economically exploitative behaviour as men. What empirical evidence is there for thinking otherwise?

So why won't men give women a go at running it if it has nothing to do with biology and is all based in individual human faults?

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. I'm not arguing against gender equality - I'm arguing against the idea that women are innately less predisposed to forms of sociopathy than men. I completely believe in racial equality without believing that black people are in any inherent sense better than whites.

Basically, people should be judged by their character and not their race or gender. We all have equal status as human beings.

Here is the wiki definition of oppression.

Social oppression is a concept that describes a relationship of dominance and subordination between categories of people in which one benefits from the systematic abuse, exploitation, and injustice directed toward the other.

So by oppressing women, historically, men have been able to have an expectation of sex (marriage), someone to raise the children, someone to run the home, someone to take care of the elders.

And whilst women were busy doing that, they couldn't get involved in 'running the world'.

And there has always been a huge push to keep women in that role. It's been stunningly effective.

Those gendered expectations are so widespread, they get passed down from generation to generation and just as many women as men collude in it.

If women everywhere downed tools tomorrow and said nah mate, there would be anarchy.

And whilst the general thought is that men exploit women for their reproduction, I wonder if that muddies the waters.

Is reproduction just the result of the expectation of sex? Because with widespread contraception, and therefore no expectation of reproduction, sex still seems to be at the root.

And whilst sex drive is a reflection of the biological imperative to reproduce, I'm not sure that forms any part of the conscious decision.

The reason I say this is because I have seen a direct correlation between misogyny and sex. Men's expectation of sex, when refused, seems very quickly to produce misogyny.

Controlling women's sexual labour seems, to me, to be far more of a driving force.

Producing children doesn't appear to be the motivation. It's either something that many men want to have 'at some point', or a by product, or often just collateral damage - something they actively don't want, despite spending a disproportionate amount of time doing the very thing that can produce them.

So, if women ruled the world, they may well oppress people on the basis of using their labour, say, but it would be on a more individual basis rather than a class basis.

What all encompassing category of people is there that would advantage women if they oppressed them?

There is no such thing as 'non-profit lending.'

Yes there is. It is a novel concept in which women lend money to women poorer than themselves and then allow those poorer women to keep the profit generated by the loan in order to reinvest it.

I find that people whose thinking is heavily influenced by patriarchal values struggle to get on board with the idea. But it works. As long as you have women in charge of the lending and the borrowing. It doesn't work when you have men in charge.

Which is the whole point of my mentioning it in the first place on this thread. Take a good idea for social and economic justice, let women have a shot at it, result is good. Take the same idea, let men be in charge of it, result is situation worse than before.

Microlending is yet again an argument for giving more power to women and another example of how fucked up male dominated society is.

You're right Datun. Male oppression is much more to do with sex than reproduction. If anything the nuclear family is firmly in decline and lots of men are trying to get out of parenthood.

I also agree it is highly doubtful that in a post-patriarchal world women would be oppressive as a class. But there could be new forms of oppression that equally involve women. With the way capitalism is going and advances in things like bio-genetics, we're in danger of becoming a very economically stratified, neo-feudal world. There could be a new genetic super-elite who brutally oppress a serf class - and that equally involve women.

What makes men hold onto power with white knuckles?

When I was a younger, more idealistic feminist, I too believed that men and women aren't all that different and we can fix sexism with social reprogramming. And then I faced the real world, did lots of research and lost all hope. I also looked into the behaviour of our closely related primates and was stunned by the similarities in male behaviour.

Male chimps are stronger and they rape, batter and sexually coerce the females all the time. Their political and military organisation is just like ours (males dominate for the sake of dominance itself and go to war with other tribes). Their social hierarchy is just like ours (stratified, but with all females below all males). The females will do anything for the sake of their own off-spring.

Try telling me it's all just a coincidence. Jane Goodall doesn't think so. And, like Vestal said - it's also no coincidence that non-human male mammals get castrated to reduce aggression.

Yes there is. It is a novel concept in which women lend money to women poorer than themselves and then allow those poorer women to keep the profit generated by the loan in order to reinvest it.

Right...but this loan has terms and repayment charges surely? What's the rate of interest?

When I was a younger, more idealistic feminist, I too believed that men and women aren't all that different and we can fix sexism with social reprogramming. And then I faced the real world, did lots of research and lost all hope. I also looked into the behaviour of our closely related primates and was stunned by the similarities in male behaviour.

This indeed is what seemed to have happened. Anyone talking about gender in terms of biological determinism, testosterone and primate behaviour would have been shot down by radfems in 1970s: now it seems to be an acceptable premise for a feminist argument.

I find that interesting.

"Male oppression is much more to do with sex than reproduction."

PIV sex specifically. The only way to force women into regularly engaging in such a high risk, low pay-off activity is by giving them no other options. Hence the concept of marriage as slave institution.

Men have ALWAYS gotten out of practical parenting regardless of whether they were married to the woman. How many diapers have they changed throughout history?

Surely the problem inherent in judging what a world run by women would be like based on our assumptions about women's fundamental natures compared with men's is that women's so-called fundamental natures probably aren't really that fundamental. They are rooted in the way women have been socialised in a patriarchy.

So yes, it may be true that given the opportunity now, women's way of running the world might be less violent, more co-operative etc (although we can't be absolutely sure of that). But that co-operative and non-violent nature might only be prevalent among women because the patriarchy has expected us to be kinder, nicer, gentler. Whereas if we could go back in time and make society run equally from the beginning, women and men may well have turned out to be equally self-interested and aggressive.