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? 😂

Fascinating thread.

I wonder are there any theories about why womens bodies stayed smaller than men's throughout evolution?

Yeah none of these societies thought men were women or didn’t know females give birth. I’m not suggesting here that “the binary is a white supremacist construct imposed on colonized people” like nobody knew who made babies before white people or whatever nonsense nor that “all Indigenous societies were peaceful utopias until colonization” as if there wasn’t male violence. Having women’s political spheres didn’t eliminate violence against women - but what I’m contending here is that there’s nothing natural or normal about male dominance.

I was suggesting that the idea that male dominance and violence is “natural” (and therefore that we can’t do anything about it and that men “need” to be aggressive) is a fallacy - and based on the co-rise of anthropology and evolutionary biology at the same time as colonialism/race science. At the same time as in the age of “reason” humans are being categorized into hierarchies based on race, these scientific disciplines are also emerging. So those who were interested in suggesting Africans were “naturally” inferior were also categorizing and labeling nature while also engaged in imperial conquest. Observing animals became a vehicle for naturalizing what were in fact very human constructs. This is why we are taught that animals structure societies based on dominance and aggression and that strong males are naturally the leaders of packs - it’s a projection of colonial age ideals onto nature. And it’s not supported by how animal society actually works!

I hope that makes sense!

Of course dominance is a normal and natural behaviour. Humans are a competitive species.

Most animals are matriarchies and packs are ruled by grandmothers.

Which animals do you mean, here?

It does!

So I wonder now, if with advent of technology (the pill above all else) this will change.

I am also very intrigued by the older she wolf idea. I fist came across that in a wild animal park somewhere. They had a wold pack and classes on them. Absolutely amazing societal structure.

I wonder if that is part of witch burning etc. I mean they were all older right? I think there has always been a fear of older strong women.

There’s a lot of difference between species.

Here are some examples:

https://www.victoriawhalewatching.com/matriarchal-societies-in-the-animal-kingdom/

packs were long thought to be run by dominant males but more recent research showed it is often older female animals. Many others are collective. Male dominance is not at all a norm in animal societies.

Many species of birds are good at sex equality.

You don't really mean "most animals" though, surely? Just most mammals perhaps? Insects, fish, crustaceans are not mostly matriarchies... or patriarchies for that matter.

I suppose the nature of giving birth to live young and breastfeeding make the sex roles between mammals more distinct.

Right? We would not survive without it.

But I suppose that dominance is not restricted to physical strength?

It can be intellectual and emotional as well right?

I think that was played well in GoT between Tyrian and the siblings. His obvious physical restrictions lead to the development of other ways to dominate.

Also, horses, cows, pigs, dolphins, hippos…

Although male birds often need to go to huge lengths to impress females.

Were they really matriarchal or just matrilineal (family ties going down the maternal line being more important)? I've heard of cultures where the person of authority for a child is not his/her father, but the mother's brother. That's still the rule of men.

Haven't RDFT yet, but I've read that it started with settled agriculture and that as hunter gatherers it wasn't as bad. Not sure how true that is as there are still hunter gathering tribes around and I'm not sure they're totally equal.

True da!

Yes!!

Thank God for Richard Attenbough (for me!).

As it should be!

Ants and bees are examples of insect matriarchies…there’s many matriarchal bird species as well. Obviously there has to be a social group so we’re talking about animals with social groups here…some newer research on lobsters challenges the idea of male dominance among lobsters as well. My point is that saying “just observe nature and you’ll see why there’s patriarchy” isn’t true. That in itself is a male myth we’ve been fed and as we understand more about animal social organization we see that either societies are collective, or older female led much more than they are based on male animals fighting each other for dominance and power. Those are interpretations of behaviour made by men.

"How would menstruation be dealt with on the front line?"

Women have to serve in the army like men in Israel. I wonder if female soldiers on the front line deal with periods similarly to elite athletes. I believe many athletes find ways to avoid having periods altogether.

I don’t think it is just the size and strength differences or the reproductive role and vulnerability of women which makes societies tend to shake down to be ordered in a way that is patriarchal.

There is also the possibly testosterone related nature of males being - I’ve been watching The Orville a lot recently - kind of dick-ish.

Competitive, dominating, tiresome. Even amongst bonobos, the males are attention-seeking.

@Misstache have you heard of this guy? Yuval Noah Harari. He has provoked the thread.

From what I understand he says that we have always be patriarcal but no one can say why?

I have not read him,just listened to excerpts for dd.

I have a brilliant book written by Antonia Fraser The Weaker Vessel, Womens lot in the seventeenth century.

She writes that if you could suddenly be transported back in time, the thing that would most surprise you would be the number of women who were pregnant.

So most women (god willing) would be continuously pregnant or breastfeeding from marriage to menopause. They may give birth many many times, although many babies and children did not survive. Many women died in childbirth.

Iknow when I was pregnant a lot of my energies and drives were channelled to my baby and not the external world. I remembering surprising myself when we chose a new sofa or kitchen tiles. Before I had obsessed about choices, but then it was ‘yeah, whatever, that’ll do’.

women were considered the weaker vessel both physically, mentally, morally.
A widow was assumed to be lustful and wanton. That men were seduced by these wicked women.

We see it in mumsnet all the time when a women has her children, men take advantage and end up with more time, hobbies, social life, money and power.

" women rule the roost at home - in their realm."

Women 'in charge' of the kitchen and home is not really equality or matriarchy!

I haven’t read him…but the analogy for the way animal behaviour has been observed is if aliens came and saw toddlers play fighting and adults chilling in the shade drinking and were like “clearly the smaller members are dominant in this society! They are built smaller in order to facilitate aggression and maneuverability! Note how they struggle together for dominance! The larger members of the species sit passively waiting for the battle to play out so they know who is their leader! When the struggle is complete the small members to the subordinate species members who lift them up to hail the winner as the new leader and obey their every whim!” This is the equivalent to how for a long time animal society was observed and ideas of behaviour were protected. There’s great work by feminist primatologists and others who observed and dismantled bias…in another example, for a long time we were told by male scientists that dogs didn’t love us, they were only responding to conditioning, and it was anthropomorphism to believe animals had any feelings. Now we know dogs do love and animals feel affection, have bonds, mourn each other - that was a human-Centric view derived from the idea that humans have a special place in the hierarchy, only we have souls etc - sorry to derail the thread a bit but the way we’ve seen animals is a huge example of how male institutional thinking has been seen as “common sense” when it was actually a projection of male bias.