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? 😂

I entirely agree with your last point. My^ main point is that we all have bias, or biases, and noting the bias of others shouldn't lead us to imagine that we are free of it ourselves.

Theories of 'patriarchy' are hugely contested and debated, and trying to transpose that onto animals is I'm going to guess quite a complex endeavour - as noted above, how is one defining the terms? The dynamics?

What an educational trip this thread has been.

Thanks to everyone.

I am, of course, of an age to be more than aware of all of those situations and restrictions you mention. I'm not discounting the gains made - but I am now re-evaluating, and have been for some time, my general 'ideology', if you like - so that it resembles more of practical, lived experience. In fact I've been re-assessing and re-evaluating all of my former political positions and certainties - a lot like Mary Harrington, even though she is younger than me we have a broadly similar trajectory.

It is O.k to say men "should" and women "should" - and of course most of us have been in a life long process of such negotiations and accommodations. I've been lucky to have been with a man that positively wanted children, and who has been a full-on/ hands on father - and yet still I'm the mother - and as a result I've felt, quite naturally I feel, interest in, and attention to the sorts of details that he hasn't naturally felt or had a facility for.

We have had fairly gendered roles that have suited both of us in many respects, though I've always done as I wanted and largely suited myself - and in many ways it has been me that has made the major decisons about our lifestyle.

I haven't called myself a feminist for a long time, though I am a woman and I think that women and women's issues matter. -which is why I'm posting here.
I don't really subscribe to ideas about 'the patriarchy' anymore - I tend to see that sort of position as being part of a type of intersectionalist style of analysis - with victims and oppresssors - and I don't see myself as a victim just because I'm a woman.

I guess that is because I've been fairly privileged ( even though I've been poor, homeless and a single parent - having my first child at age 19),and I appreciate that many women are not in as fortunate circumstances as I have subsequently enjoyed; but then I also recognise that many men are in 'oppressed' or difficult circumstances too. I don't think all men are responsible for what some other men do, or have done in the past.

Of course i'm aware that women in some other cultures are genuinely oppressed - but I don't think that sex is necessarily the main locus of oppression in the West anymore.

That depends how you measure equality, or what you mean by equality, surely.

Since we have had the general principle of equality in law, i think a large measure now, in most how people arrange their private and public life comes down to individual temperaments, characteristics, preferences and circumstances.

I think it is about power. If you need to ask permission, that person has power over you, if neither moves unless you both agree, then you are equal.

"It isn't about hating or blaming men, but recognising that men have not adapted to the new realities, because they are used to their right not to change. ie effectively men as a group dont value women enough to make the change.

A parrallel example would be all those white people who say they are totally opposed to racism, but in practice do nothing to change ingrained racism, or structural racism"

That is the stuff of Group Identity politics, in my view - which I don't subscribe to - certainly not any more. How can you possibly speak about men as a group whereby each one is responsible for things that another man has done either recently or in the past? We each have our own integrity and our own moral compass and we are each responsible for what we do - certainly once equality in law and equal civil rights have been achieved .

Good observation.

Butv also, can I add that some people simply have more invested in some sorts of decisons than in others. You can compromise moe on the things that don't matter to you as much.

Yes, you can kind of delegate to the other in cases where you’re not that bothered.

Definitely! I'm very bossy when I want something, and in that I'm quite a dominant, certainly confident, person.

Yes, of course. But this, too, is at least partly something which societies teach us. Concepts such as women's sexual chastity being responsible for the 'honour' of the whole family is cultural in the Mediterranean area. Those who grow up in 'honour' cultures can sometimes feel strongly about that concept and not question its effects on women's lives.

It is difficult, in general, to disentangle the knots which create what we view as individual preferences, but at least some of those have a clear cultural basis. You can see this quite clerly in old photographs where all the women have elaborate hairdos and corsets etc., even though they probably chose what they wore partly on what their individual tastes were.

Which jobs are coded as female and which male can be sometimes based on biology or interests but not always (the change in coding (pun unintended) being one example where a job shifted from being coded female to being coded male).

Honestly, at this point I’m much more interested to know if men are even capable of being decent human beings.
Or are they truly a lost cause and will never be better for girls and women?
Like actually, none of this garbage from mothers insisting they are raising their sons to be good people.

That’s unfair. I know loads of men who are decent human beings.

Collectively though, it is too easy for men to be shoddy, because the way society is structured enables it. Men need useful ways to expend their excess energies instead of dicking around and being a nuisance.

I'd say pattern recognition and class analysis are not necessarily things we should dispense with altogether. even if we find flaws within them.

I wish I could say the same.
But there’s always something.

Paying for sexual favours.

Porn is a huge problem, out of the men I’ve talked about it (it has come in conversations) one - ONE has said he doesn’t watch it.

Being weird about single / celibate / childfree women.

Sexist ’jokes’

Of course there’s different standards for ’decent’ men, but just the simple, obvious things already cuts off so many men.

The profgramme was on one of the channels my friend watches, probably Blaze, and the title was something about the secret Bible. Can't be more help I'm afraid, and they took the usual Lilith was rebellious tone. I looked her up pn Wikipedia, and thre it did not show Adam as at fault either, but it suddenly jumped out at me.
I wish I still had my copy of George Macdonald's book Lilith. I'm sure I missed a lot.
At any rate, it shows how ingrained the dominance of man is.

Men have always owned the majority of land and assets. Women's reproductive biology.

I find the Story of Lilith fascinating. Some believe that the serpent in the tree tempting Eve to take the apple is Lilith.

It fascinates me the relationship between Goddess mysteries and snakes and they are all over the world. In Indonesia they worship them. Demeter was the goddess off snakes, the Minoan snake dancers… Hindus believe snakes are Goddesses - I think it is because they are able to have so many young and the way snakes shed their skin is a symbol of regeneration, rebirth and women’s ability to give life is seen as that. The vagina is seen as the gateway to life and death.

I think that the cursing of the serpent is almost an allegory for patriarchal oppression of women.

I know! Great stuff.

I LOVE it when the smart, educated Mumsnetters start hashing out a subject. It is usually an incredible rollercoaster.

What about age? Does that come into it?

I view men differently at my age now (55) than when I was younger. In fact I think each decade had me looking at them differently - and I am pretty sure biology came into to it. Not just "I am fertile" but also tolerence, getting along, appeasement of you will.

Does anyone think that women have different eras in their relationships to men? And would that have an effect on a patriarchal structure?

Our needs from them shift and change - thus we are not single factor focused.

Make any sense at all?

Of course, I'm aware of all of the above. We cannot truly separate ourselves from our period in history; from our culture; from our family background, or any number of other influences that have shaped our lives - and those aspects of us which are deemed to be 'feminine' or 'masculine' intereact with those influences to further shape our preferences and choices.

So, for example - when you are pregnant - at the latter stages there comes a very strong nesting instinct - very powerful, and then when the babay is born you continue to 'feather your nest' to make it warm, comfortable and safe.

This, for me, dovetailed with the fact I've always loved houses, but buildings more specifically; and I love design and colour and shape - and have a finely tuned aesthetic sense. So interior design, decoration and shopping for things to beautify my home and make it more comfortable has been a strong drive for me. I'm not very sociable and don't go out at night - so I spend a lot of time at home as well. ( The fact I had a child at 19 also shaped my leisure time preferences and habits - so i didn't do the travelling or building a career, or going clubbing that others did, and had to go back to do my degree once my first child got to school age).

Now I contribute to a forum for architecture, design and urbanism - which is 98% male. Most of the time I am a lone female contributor - but even then I have what I suspect many of the men think is a 'feminine' sensibility; and I have absolutely no interest in transport systems and the details of them - though most of the men do. They also tend to have a more technical appreciation of builds than i do - although I have picked up a few building terms over the years

That is a very misanthropic view. It may be based on your own personal experiences, of course. Though individual girls and women can be negative and toxic too - in their own way and /or style.

I've known lots of lovely, beautiful, kind, considerate men, and have two sons who are the same - though each with their own temperament and set of interests.

It may not be universal or even accurate, but my personal observation is that men in their 30's tend to be at their most 'male' in terms of aligning with socially expected gender norms. Selfish, competitive, externally focused and so on.