Why has it always been a patriarchy?

[4plusthehound]

DD came home from school the other day and asked this question.

Am stumped.

Can anyone help me? 😂

Where? Besides my house? 😁

Hunter-gatherer societies are somewhat less patriarchal, probably because they are less hierarchical overall, given that they can't really accumulate material resources while staying nomadic. So it's not clear if early human societies (probably based on extended kin) were that patriarchal, but the invention of agriculture may have altered matters.

It allowed the accumulation of material resources and then the fight over who could control those resources. Here physical strength, aggression, and the fact that it is women who fall pregnant affected the balance of power between the sexes. Agriculture also seems to have made it possible for the average number of children per woman to grow which tied women more and more to child-rearing and kept women away from those arenas where power was doled out.

There's a fascinating article which I once read that looks at areas where women's status is the lowest, and that is in nomadic herding cultures (horseback herding, not moving to find food sources) (such as those in the Middle East) where the fact that the tribe keeps moving makes it hard for women to engage in any activity which contributes to the survival of the family in the economic sense.

Those early societies which were based on agriculture in one place tended to value women's contributions more, partly, because it was possible for women to combine children with the kind of agriculture which resembles gardening, with weaving, pot-making etc., and then to trade the products of that work for other things the family needs.

The interesting point for me in that piece is the possibility that environmental factors and what we call technology probably also affect the status of women in a society.

Modern technology, for instance, allows women a higher status not because reproducing the next generation wouldn't be extremely important, but because it allows women to have more agency by having their own sources of incomes in both the decision-making within families and also in the more public spheres.

I think history, and also comparisons between various countries today, show both the fact that male-domination is common and that it's not a natural law which could never change. Women's status varies between different countries, cultures and belief systems. That gives me hope for the future that more egalitarian societies are feasible.

I know it's just a Forbes article, and we are confounded by a small sample size of female heads of state, but this is an interesting article discussing the bellicosity of male vs female heads of state.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2022/03/08/sheryl-sandberg-says-female-leaders-dont-go-to-war-heres-what-research-says/

It posits that while women as a group are less warlike, female heads of state tend to be equally aggressive as men.

It's not just greater muscle power. If it was, it would work that way among men too. King Charles would look like Mr Universe and poor men would look like, well, like King Charles.

Plus, group action can bring down any individual, no matter how strong. You'll notice patriarchies put a lot of effort into preventing women from developing group action or even solidarity. Any time groups of women form without men, there's massive suspicion that it's some horrible plot.

Social power is socially conferred. Women generally don't care as much about it. And any group, once it has power, starts consolidating and wanting more. Muscle power just helps nudge it along the way. Getting off that track takes huge effort.

Some African tribes, it's been a long time but I remember learning about this in one of my Anthropology classes at Uni. It's fascinating.

Plus, group action can bring down any individual, no matter how strong.

In a truly 'rule-based' society that may be true, Normans were well outnumbered but took power in England and retained it turning owners into renters in the process.

Social power is socially conferred. Women generally don't care as much about it.

Without wanting to derail the thread, the comfort and convenience of more than half of the UK population is currently compromised in favour of a microscopic number of individuals. Women do care but are being bullied by whichever group is actually pulling the strings. Perhaps democracy and 'one person one vote' would deliver fairer outcomes.

Sex based differences are real and consequential. That doesn't mean that as individuals we all conform to gender roles and expectations, though - even as on more subtle levels general differences are applicable and observable.

'Patriarchy' is simply the way that society has evolved to manage and take account of the differences. Equality laws have 'flattened out' differences when it comes to social and public roles, but differences still persist and to that extent I think we ned to make some measure of peace with that and develop a new narrative which is not always predicated on " deconstructing patriarchy", which can often seem like wome feeling that liberation comes from being more like men.

In my mind this has led us, in large part, to where we are now - with sex denial and the push for trans-humanism and other disembodied visions - and is in large measure that which still motivates many feminists - the idea that there are no real differnces between men and women apart from secondary sexual characteristics - and that 'equality' will eventually destroy patriarchy.

Some evolutionary stuff here, which is interesting? The reason for the evolution of hidden ovulation (spoiler - protection of babies) Hypothesis that cooking of food is really important in moving away from mere subsistence - gorillas need to spend 8 hours a day just chewing. So women did cooking, whilst looking after the helpless infants.
And (which I didn't know) male chimpanzees are violent.
Jordan Peterson interviewing an anthropologist.

Lots of families are still matriarchal in the sense that women rule the roost at home - in their realm. Look at the role of the legendary Italian mother, or the Jewish mother. The Jewish blood line is through the mother.

The Male and female sex drives are different too. You only have to look at the role that promiscuous sex plays in the gay male community.........in a way it simply doesn't in lesbian communities. There is no creature happier than a dog with two dicks.

Males are more pre-disposed to hunt around and be open to sexual encounters in a way that women don't and aren't. Females tend to be far more picky because on some level they carry the possibility of pregnancy and all that comes with that; and the nature of the female body is 'interior' - therefore more intimate and opening oneself to sexual encounters makes one more vulnerable.

Males tend to be far more visual and object oriented - hence the fixation of fe/male body parts and other fetishes.

Of course lots of creatures, especially mammals, are territorial. Staking out boundaries and fighting off the competition - for acces to land, and to females.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Evolution

Matriarchal societies are not necessarily seen as inversions of patriarchy, though - but as more egalitarian . Each sex has its own roles, but motherhood and the symbols of motherhood and fertility are venerated.

I read that Putin has conscripted lots of female prisoners to fight and die in Ukraine.

Imagine you're a cave woman living in a tribe of about 80 people. Food can be scarce - you can forage during the warmer months but are basically reliant on the protein available from large animals hunted - this is a process that takes days of tracking and hunting, so you maybe get that big animal to share once every couple of weeks, and you're programmed to eat as much as possible to keep you going over the leaner foraging days.

You're occasionally attacked by another tribe which lives about 20 miles away, and you're definitely constantly at risk of wolf attack.

Rape doesn't exist as a concept, and neither does paternity (yet) so you're pregnant a lot. Not always, because you don't menstruate during leaner periods, and lots of miscarriages, still births, or postpartum homicide when the tribe can't afford another mouth. BUT you are pregnant a lot, and there are lots of little kids about, which are important to the future of the tribe, and you're the one with the milk, so really you're confined to the cave a lot with the kids and the other women, except when you go out foraging, which you do daily, but the distance you can travel is fairly small because of the children.

So who has the speed, aggression and freedom to take days away to hunt and track, and who has the aggression to fight off marauders and wild animals? The dudes, that's who. So they're important, and they get the animal protein that keeps the tribe alive, so the tribe puts them on a pedastal.

At some point in the paleo era, someone finally makes the mental connection between I put MY willy in this woman, so that there is MY son. I prefer him to all the other children and I want to pass on MY basic tools and necklaces to him. So...that means I also have to control this lady. OK then.

Bam! Patriarchy.

And it felt so good, that men just wouldn't let it go.

It may have been true that in early days men did the hunting

That's the popular view, but it's not necessarily true. And the importance of hunting tends to be overstated. (Male) historians and anthropologists have tended to focus on the importance of big important men doing big important things - like hunting mammoths.

But if you look at surviving hunter-gatherer societies, women generally bring in about 80% of the food. And that includes doing a lot of things that - if you remove the 'all about the spears' lens - look very much like hunting. They catch fish and frogs, dig up insect grubs, and bring in not just most of the calories but also most of the animal protein. Meanwhile a male hunting party of 5 or 6 will go out for the day with bows and arrows, and come home with celebratory dances and much backslapping self-congratulation because they have shot a single wren.

Interestingly, many surviving (or surviving long enough to be well recorded) matriarchal societies tend to be quite isolated (supporting the 'war' theory that competition with neighboring tribes promotes more general male power).

Or they have very different models of relationships and inheritance -such as polyandry, or matrilinial inheritance where men provide for their sisters' children rather than their own (which gives a lot more certainty that they are actually related). Of course which came first in those societies is a very chicken-and-egg question.

Please don't. The Grauniad is, currently, one of the most misogynistic papers going. Don't give them clicks and don't let them be her source regarding a patriarchy/feminism discussion.

I think that patriarchy is a form of social organisation, and it survived because it worked. It allowed more complex forms of organisation to arise, above the level of the tribe. It allowed division of labour and settled matters of power, security and rights which any complex society would face. That doesn't mean it's right, simply that it won. It conquered. But it also means that if you are going to dismantle it, you need to work out how to reconstruct the functions of a complex society. I might be sounding a bit like Mary Harrington here, but if any such reconstruction doesn't start with the fact that women have babies and men don't, it's going to fail.

But it also benefits the females and the tribe as a whole if the male is a good defender and provider and is committed to his tribe. He has responsibilities too.

Pregnancy and raising children absorbs our energy and we make personal sacrifices for our children, far more than men do. And it's all one way, the transfer of resources, down the generations.

Quite!

But the contemporary drives for trans-humanism and disocciation from the bodies - which come to be seen as separate to the real self and only a 'meat suit' ( Mary Harrington) points towards women seeking freedom by freeing themselves from the functions of the female body - or certainly to the denial of them. That doesn't stop elite women from requisitioning poorer women to carry out those functions, though.

Disembodiment negates women far moe than it does men. It is the female that gets erased.

This. The introduction of farming. Men were more able to work a plough, do heavy work. With a more assured food supply people had more children, which meant women spent more time pregnant and breastfeeding so the work of child rearing fell to them. As men controlled resources (food) they also controlled society and women.

Surely you need a definition of patriarchy first?

Fathers who are invested in their offspring? That's not a bad thing.

Can't remember the name but read a great book on human evolution. Humans are one of the few mammal species that has involved dads. Mammary glands are such a great development that most mammal mothers can manage fine on their own. But in some circumstances monogamy evolves where one male tags one female. When she is fertile he is in pole position to impregnate her. It's less risky than eg, the all or nothing strategy of the rutting stag, but he has put all his eggs in one basket. Or sperm in one womb.

Anyway, the theory goes, that after a few million generations, monogamous males realise they could add some value here: build a den, bring food for the mother or the offspring, teach the offspring how to find food or build a den.

Lots of mammal species have involved dads.

The introduction of farming. Men were more able to work a plough, do heavy work

Farming long pre-dates the plough (and certainly the heavy plough). And look at subsistence or near-subsitence farming now - women do most of it.

@NotHavingIt

Disembodiment negates women far moe than it does men. It is the female that gets erased.

Yes. But disembodiment is a fantasy which isn't based in any understanding of reality. The logical result would be Doctor Who's Cybermen and Daleks. It's not going to happen.