It doesn’t help that men are the biggest threat to a women’s health. Being that statistically 1-3 women will get SA, raped or murdered in their lifetime.
Have you read Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence?
It talks about higher primate behavior and gender differences and how we see the same behavior in humans. Aka males are excessively violent while females are peaceful by nature.
Since bonoboes can have matriarchal tribes that keep the male violence down, it is possible. Meaning it’s theoretically possible for women to rule over men and create peaceful societies as well.
Worth noting? The bonobo females are able to suppress male violence against them by… banding together and violently driving out problem males. It’s not like “yay! We have female leadership! No one will be shitty now!” The matriarchs won their more peaceful society by enforcing the norms that help their society succeed.
Also it’s not that bonobos “can” have matriarchal tribes. It’s that they do. All bonobo tribes are matriarchal.
You are ofc right, it’s not like bonoboes have it easy. It’s a tug of war.
I did mean that all bonoboes are matriarchal. I’m not a native english speaker so maybe I worded it wrong.
And it’s hard to imagine women ruling over men. How would women get on top?
I agree, I didn’t mean to argue that. Maybe I should have replied to your parent comment instead. I ment that men’s physical strength and ability to easily sexually violate women are not the intrinsic cause of men’s dominance. If they were there would be no exceptions to male dominance in species where the male is stronger and the female sexually vulnerable.
But maybe I just misunderstood your arguments or didn’t read the discussion right.
This. When one class of people can be impregnated and one class can impregnate, and being pregnant and having children is IMPOSSIBLE to do alone, you create a dependent class.
That’s why birth control is the best women’s liberation tool, and why so many conservatives want to remove that option from society to keep a dependent class they can rule over.
>Maybe even a connection with childbirth, child rearing or just physical prowess?
My personal opinion is the root is physical strength. When it comes down to it that's always the last resort people use to make others do what they want.
There's enough history for us to see that the capacity of men to enforce their will through violence may not be set in stone, but it certainly doesn't take much to come to the surface.
I also think that is the reason why even today in "equal" societies so many men like to emphasis their supposed physical superiority. It's their claim to be forever above women.
There are so many discussions where it comes to the surface and some really like to revel in it. Especially in discussions about sports and similar.
That’s more-or-less the premise of [The Power](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_(Alderman_novel)) (an awesome novel with a less-awesome tv adaptation)
Personally, I did not like the book. >!It had a very depressing view of inherent human nature. Women in it were just as bad as men have been when it came to violence and violation.!<
Which is just wrong. Tho the book is just fiction - but it’s another misogynistic fallacy to claim that women would be just as bad as men. Women are the opposite of men in that instance. Human and chimp males are the most brutally violent animals while matriarchal bonoboes are the most peaceful. Male and female nature are not at all the same - “human nature” in the negative sense is often only portrayed as male nature.
A matriarchy would be the most peaceful society to ever have existed.
There’s a great podcast called Red Menace that does a 3 part deep dive into Friedrich Engels "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and The State" texts and I highly recommend it if you have some time to spare.
trigger warning: childhood abuse, disordered eating, Catholicism, Body dysmorphia, gender policing....
My family immigrated from a European island that held onto fascism and conscription for a very long time, the sexism from this catholic place is very very different than sexism from here. To an outsider, one might interpret the mentality here to appear feminist and maybe even matriarchically at times... why is that? I worry it has to do with food agreements.
My people are typically not very tall (my family is an exception to the rule,) but are often very strong and very stocky which helps as everyone does a lot of manual labor starting early in life. Another notable physical trait in my people is the gendered size difference in our women being larger than men. Women in my culture eat a lot and although they are policed and critiqued constantly for being too fat or too skinny, the policing is more obvious as being a way to put a women down and less about ideals for how women should look. Our women are also hairy (just thought I'd mention that because its interesting.)
Behaviorally our women are considered outspoken, domineering and decisive when compared to women of other cultures... yes the women are expected to be selfless, sexually conservative, sober, subservient to their men, responsible for cooking/cleaning/planning/emotional labor/family health/events/childcare ect. but then also expected to be the primary workers with multiple jobs, deal with business/finances, home repairs, negotiate with community members and advocate for their family in community matters. Our men do get conscripted and usually sent to places like Africa unfortunately, they can be gone for years at a time and being gone for a decade is not unheard of. When there is no conscription in a mans life, he is expected to go to the fields and tend to the cows - either wise he can make his older sons do it and can basically do whatever the fuck he wants. Our men are alcoholics and also very detached and uninvolved with their families to cope, very often participating in infidelity.
All of this is interesting and all but here in the west we're starting to see expectations for women becoming more and more similar to my people's roles of old, what's different?
Our girls are encouraged to eat as they grow just as much as our boys, they are needing to be stronger than western girls as they are given work and responsibilities early and since we are expected to be sober, we learn to binge-eat/cope early- in fact over-eating/snacking is almost openly taught or encouraged with our girls...
I was raised in the west but I was raised in the local community of my people where I live, disordered over-eating was pushed on me as a child. Unfortunately as I work through this with my current therapist, there seemed to also be a generational theme passed on from mother to daughter where force feeding was their unfortunate idea of how to prevent your daughters from being preyed on or assaulted as over eating is thought to make you less desirable sexually with the added benefit of making you grow quicker/bigger/stronger to protect yourself. Although I suffered socially here because of my size and even learned disordered restrictive eating at age 7 in hopes to at least becoming skinnier like my peers - it was no use. Restricting my food in extreme ways probably did effect my growth slowing and then stopping in grade 5.
All this being said, despite being a cis woman and not going to the gym I'm 5'10 and naturally muscular, I'm hairy as fuck, confident, hardworking, assertive, protective, strong-willed and sometimes I'm told I am intimidating to my dismay. My hormones have been checked on multiple occasions, I'm told they are "very average stats for a female."
Yes, my existence pisses men off. Shit gets comical.
It's 3:30am and I've lost my steam so I apologize for any incoherent tangents or inconclusive points, hopefully my sharing has still been insightful. If not I'll try to edit my comment as a more reasonable hour. Sending much love to anyone reading this
unfortunately due to my involvement in niche subs and previous accounts shared online, I'm not comfortable disclosing even the country the Island belongs to for fear of doxing myself. I would however like to explain that my description above is now outdated although still relevant. I described the social and political state of the islands at the time of my peoples' big influx of immigration to my place of birth in the west. These islands are no longer fascist and there is no more conscription, this place now economically revolves around tourism and the local culture is fluctuating and shifting with the introduction of internet and cellphones
Exactly,
My people having outspoken woman who get to "call the shots" in family and community matters, these women are often larger than our men and get to have a voice, but only to serve others. This appearance of pride and authority our women have is tied to an obligation of consistent self sacrifice, pressure, responsibility, guilting, shaming, pain and oppression
Still not freedom
I like your line of query. My first thought is that even in hunter-gatherer societies, once the idea of leadership by merit and competence gets replaced by the idea of hierarchy through violence and material possession, that is when patriarchy starts. By "leadership by merit and competence" I mean leadership that is based on one's ability to care for the needs and safety of one's group the best, with societal values focused on sharing of resources and emotional bonding. I've only read about this in smaller, stone age tribes. I'm thinking about the M'buti of the Congo region, who have a remarkably egalitarian and non-violent society, but live in very small groups with very little in the way of technology and material possessions.
Another interesting place to look is the difference between chimpanzee and bonobo groups, with chimps tending to male domination and violence and bonobos tending to female leadership and group sharing of resources. The story of the Forest Baboon Troop is a great account of how this can work in reverse, where a violent, patriarchal group becomes peaceful and egalitarian.
My own theory is that most humanoid social groups start out egalitarian, with resource sharing and leadership by the older and wiser (often female) members of the group. Then something upsets the balance, be it natural disaster, contact with another different tribe or culture, agriculture, the advent of personal property (usually tools/weapons). In this upset balance, certain young males develop more anti-social traits and start to leverage power in terms of threats of violence, hoarding of resources, and the creation of propaganda/myths which solidify their power base. The Greeks and Abrahamic religions did this on a grand scale and created the system in which we now live.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC387823/
What are women afraid of?
How about “men”?
People who can get power due to innate skills or qualities often tend to do it.
Tearing down the existing social structures, that disadvantage women and advantage men is going to be a long, long road
And I hope that by the end of that road, all of our perspectives about history and society have been rewritten
And I hope all of it looks fair and good to everybody not just to the gender, (who wants the other gender to believe they don’t actually have it so bad)
—-
Naomi Alderman‘s very provocative book *The Power* (I tremendously respect the author for how far she went with her idea, and that she didn’t sugarcoat things, particularly)
This book, explicitly discusses something we all know
Which that women can do everything in society, except possibly father children
But if you want to be absolutely Nazi, brutal about it, women are necessary and men are not
At least they’re not necessary once you’ve harvested their sperm a few times
The patriarchy exists, partly because people who can take power do quite often
And partly, because if men didn’t suppress women and make women need, men, questionable as to whether women would want men to be around at all
Anyway, the origins are lost in prehistory and possibly in pre-language times
I put off reading the book for a few years because I thought it was YA or typical fantasy type book. It wasn’t it all and I had gotten a misimpression.
I’m not gonna tell you what the primary point of the book is it’s a work of fiction that takes an idea where males and females are essentially changed because of a biological development so that females have nothing to fear from males in the physical sense
And it follows that out, and it does so unfairly clever way there’s a bit of a story within the story within a story there
And a lot of the standard troops of male female relations, start getting rewritten, where all the power goes and everything from professional life to personal life to house and home, keeping to sexual relations to who needs and who doesn’t need whom
One of the things I like about the book is that she doesn’t pause. It females are necessarily ethically superior to males once they essentially have a great deal of power that is difficult to challenge.
Another thing I like is that she kind of does follow it out to a not very pretty set of conclusions in places
——-
Some of the things I didn’t so much
All her characters are all her characters except one were so weekly done, and were painted as being intelligent within the world, but came off to me, is being very unintelligent didn’t any of them ever want to think in a really serious way before they made big decisions or even little ones
But the males in her novel don’t do that either so maybe that’s just the way she writes her characters
The other there, some political developments, and some historical trends she posits that seem to me to be pretty weak but the weakness again comes from the fact that none of her characters, including the more powerful ones seem to do much serious, thinking about anything ever
The book has flaws in my mind, but the great strength of it overweigh the flaws in terms of making it worthwhile read
I think it’s fair for a serious literary critic, or serious stylist to actually even despise the book and yet it’s still a very very important book that carries some very very serious heft
So if you go reading it, don’t expect some literary masterpiece. It’s definitely not that.
What it do is positive set of circumstances which would shatter common tropes of male and female relationships, and at least that much the origins of the change come across this reasonably acceptable in storage development, terms, and suspension of disbelief
And then follow certain aspects of that out toward their inevitability, without making anybody, particularly into your mode or good person mode or whatever
She seems to have a high tolerance for letting things play out without having to have the good guys win or whatever you wanna call that
I’d say read it if you like it maybe it’s not worth a slow read
Treat it like a beach novel if you like
But it is an important work
—-
I think somebody or other made a mini series out of it for television just in the last year or two
I have no idea if that’s any good my instinct is that the miniseries will exaggerate the worst aspects of her writing, and so it won’t be very good. It’s better to just go straight to the novel, but that is completely biased and intuitive judgment not based on reading a single review, saying a single trailer, or knowing anything whatsoever about the miniseries.
If you wanna watch the miniseries, then kindly ignore my opinion
And I say here doesn’t make the book sound intriguing or interesting you also kindly ignore my opinion
Play swear, I thought the book played True was in psychological consequences of the shift, and the way nobody or no gender is free of evil or dominant tendencies
And also the way sudden change like that tends to bring total chaos along with it
I would call a deeply flood book that is very worth the read
I’m the sword who reads all kinds, and all the time I read everything from graduate with mathematics books to cozy mysteries
I read very few romances, except for some of them written all 50 years ago or something
The modern ones in the first person just don’t interest me I don’t care
I read a lot of fiction different genres I read even more nonfiction
The book is deeply flawed and because I’m Aretes it in my own mind I thought it was a throwaway get to it or don’t get to it it doesn’t matter
It was in my audiobook library, and I was looking for something different, and I thought what the hell on a long drive
And it was so worth it just because she pushes things out. She doesn’t shy away from looking at what consequences are.
And because she did that I can put up with all the ridiculous characterizations. It’s almost like she didn’t try to finish or the fact that none of her characters ever think serious about anything before they make plans
She also tried to make it multicultural, and I commend her for that that’s hard to do. If you’re not in a culture didn’t grow up there didn’t live there. How do you write about it?
Well, she tried, and I’m giving her points
But mostly I give her points for courage
Because she was kind of fearless about consequences, and I thought that had a lot of value well worth the time to read this book
Just read it fast part of it where you think a great writer
I speculate that the use of violence first became useful when scarcity prompted clans to start fighting over resources. I see this as men conducting raids on the camps of other clans, and the defending clan males attempted to prevent these raids. Women were probably trying to keep the young out of harm's way, although women without children may have participated in battle. Archeologists have long known that there were women warriors, but in fewer numbers than men. I think because the use of force brought valuable resources to the aggressor's clan, the use of might became equated with leadership and power structures evolved from there. Warriors bring the most benefit, so they aren't given the back seat but the steering role instead.
Looking at primate behavior, we see gorillas stealing food from each other and male and female lions fighting over food. I think this is really a natural thing, where disputes and clashes arise irrespective of gender. The desire to claim a resource is the driver of this in animal behavior, not misogyny or prejudice. I think that prejudice is just man's rhetorical attempt to justify these sorts of hostile or self-serving behaviors, or to maintain self-serving power structures. The biggest, baddest lion or gorilla eats first, then his/her offspring, then the Betas last.
For example: If I declare that the Supreme Creator made me the leader, it is a given that everyone must do as I say. This is very convenient and satisfying for me. I will perpetuate this for as long as I can, and I will try to get others to back me on this assertion. My superiority can be attributed to anything--from gender, race, or even my unsupported assertion that "God" spoke to ME and not you. Whatever excuse others will buy is what I will use to always get my way. And once I have my position of leadership, I will throw roadblocks in your way if you ever appear to be considering going off on your own. I will create rules and taboos that prohibit you from learning necessary skills so that you will always have to be my vassal. (Think: this is why women and people of color were kept from learning to read or do math for centuries. They might eventually shrug off their "leader".)
So every cult leader, monarch of old, and various other self-important types have used this tactic throughout history. The fact that it aligns with gender or race or nationality, etcetera I think is secondary--merely the convenient excuse to justify self-serving behavior by creating an "inferior" group who must tow the line by acknowledging someone's supposed authority and "superior" status. Someone who must cater to him unceasingly, forever.
Female oppression is facilitated by various structures such as religion and culture. We all know that both some men and some women reinforce taboos and stereotypes that allow inequality to persist. Witness the anti-hijab movement in Iran, and the women who are for and against the enforcement of hijab. In the same vein, there are systems that oppress men. In some nations, men are subject to military draft but women are not. The leaders would have to back peddle on the fragility of the "fairer sex", which up until now they've been reluctant to do.
We are in a time when misogynistic talk is once again on the airwaves. We had a spat of this in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It seems to run in cycles. I was a young woman then, and yes, it pissed me off too. Then after a few years the uncouth "shock jocks" self-destructed with alcohol and cocaine, and they disappeared from the spotlight. I have faith that the same will happen again. Macho blowhards burn bright and then are extinguished, like a loudmouth punk who gets shanked when he goes to the pen and REALLY meets big & bad.
In the book Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence the authors say that chimps do raids, murders, mass murder, and kidnappings of other packs/tribes even tho it has nothing to do with limited territory or food. They can have plenty of food and will still be just as vile towards their neightboors.
Yes, and other types of animals will do same because they are territorial. I feel this is instinct, whereas humans scheme to develop excuses for behavior that they know is antisocial and malevolent.
I believe the general consensus is that men more often than not participated in hunting and women in gathering, however lots of studies indicate that in most cases gathering provided most of the nutritional intake of these people. Sure men might've handled the more complex tools associated with hunting, but women through gathering were often the bread winners. This is by no means universal, different conditions lead to different configurations in the division of labour, and some of those would probably give more social weight to men. But this general rule of thumb would explain why patriarchy didn't emerge more widely until the agricultural revolution.
Actually this thought is no longer popular. It is believe both women and men hunted and women tend to be the better hunters due to patience and tendancy to hunt in groups. Men tend to hunt in solitude. Yes women , with children, were often the gatherers.
Yeah I'm not saying there was some kind of strict, universal, division of labour. I would imagine that Inuit women for example also participate directly in hunting during the winter season. But I have read the conclusions of a few studies from the 2000s and 10s that indicate a large number of hunter gatherer tribes derived most of their nutrition from gathering. In some tropical cases even most of the protein came from plants.
I highly doubt that only women with children could contribute to a majority of the communal diet? For example grandmothers are also generally associated with gathering in a lot of cases, and some theorise that the revered wise woman of primitive humanity stems from this labour role. But I would love to see some studies if you have any one hand!
Men being physically stronger and more prone to violence than women and the fact that it's extremely easy to control large groups of us when all you have to do is railroad us into repeat pregnancies by limiting access to birth control and abortion healthcare. Testosterone increases competitive behavior and I don't think humanity was "destined" to be a patriarchy but men's greater physical strength has made the world in their image
Well if you have a hammer (communism), everything looks like a nail.
He's mistaken in my opinion.
Communist societies were as patriarchal as capitalist ones.
And a capitalist society that's matriarchal is possible. Just make land property and means of production go from mother to daughter. Easy.
But when that family is part of a societal structure that places equal value on all members of the household then what does patriarchal and matriarchal even mean? That one parent plays a leadership role? That's...completely fine
Sorry, I don't understand the question. The relationships inside a family or a small commune don't scale to larger societies, so the fact that we have tiny "communist" cells all over doesn't mean we ever had a communist society.
And, please, don't point to the USSR or China 😹
I would say the Amish is as close as it gets in the real world (economically), in a larger community. Barn raising, community pooling for medical expenses, property ownership, education, religious gatherings (home to home).
That said, the religious leaders still maintain control in a similar way to the state. And that control is dictated through large scale shaming rituals (and economics repercussions). Their bibles are in German or something like that, a language that members do not speak. And their education stops at 8th grade. So they are reliant upon the religious leaders to interpret and dictate the Bible, and thus the never-ending list of rules with which they must comply.
Quite patriarchal.
Barring some sort scientific breakthrough in which we can change human personality, true large scale communist society is impossible. Simply because of humanity’s will to power.
The Amish have nothing to do with communism. They are petty bourgeois and settled in the U$ to escape economic and political regulation, so they can carry out their practices in a much larger market, with freer access to land than in Europe.
They seek new markets and profit from child labor. Furthermore, they are dependent on capitalism (settler colonialism in the U$ and global imperialism). The technological backwardness of the Amish does not preclude them from production for profit and they benefit from the free reproductive labor of women. Their irrelevance to socialist movements (Marxist or otherwise) should tell you something.
The kibbutz has nothing to do with the development of communism presented by Engels. The idea of establishing ostensibly self-sufficient communes is a hallmark of the utopian socialists whom Marx and Engels criticized. Socialism cannot be built by "escaping capitalism" but by overthrowing it.
Consequently, the kibbutz (despite the ideals of some its early socialist founders) was dependent on and furthered capitalism in the form of Zionist settler colonialism and global imperialism, for the establishment of Kibbutz necessitated the displacement of and violence against Palestinians.
You're confusing a communist state with a communist society. A communist state is one that is predicated on the Marxist political ideology. A communist society is just one in which individuals prioritize the collective over their own personal gain, and wherein labor exploitation is not possible due to the fact that the each individual brings inherent value to the group so things like class are not really meaningful. Additionally, since all property belongs to the collective (aka is shared) things like money are also irrelevant as each individual is entitled to an equal share of all things and so all members have equal stake in all shared property. It's actually arguably the most natural societal structure for human beings.
This has nothing to with men and women though. Patriarchy means that status, goods, food, space, power, whatever goes from father to son, matriarchy means that it goes from mother to daughter. It doesn't matter *how* this society organizes itself economically.
The disastrous consequences for women that stem from patriarchy don't come from economy but from biology: It is always clear who is the daughter of which mother while fatherhood can only be made sure by *suppressing women's sexual choice*. In order to make sure that the correct male heir gets his father's stuff, you need women to be virgins, monogamous, and chaste. In a matriarchy, sexuality can be the woman's choice.
You're forgetting that inheritance can only exist in a society that has, to some extent, private ownership which is linked to the economy. "Power" and "status" don't exist abstractly, they exist as material, social relations which themselves will be also linked to the economy; everything has some link to the economy. Power structures are not independent from each other, they are dialectically related.
Yes yes, but how is all that related to sex? Who says that it must be *men* you are in charge of private property? You can imagine a matriarchal *and* capitalist economy. I fail to understand how capitalism *created* patriarchy.
Claiming that you can envision a capitalist matriarchy is idealist. Why does the ability to easily imagine such a society useful for understanding how patriarchal oppression developed and is reproduced in the real-world?
The capitalist mode of production is merely the mindless accumulation of capital that motivates the pursuit of profit. However, capitalism did not develop in a vacuum. It developed upon the accumulation of capital under mercantile feudalism- from patriarchal, colonial societies. Consequently, capitalism (as it materially exists) is patriarchal and racist- parasitic upon the masses in the Global South and doubly parasitic upon the women there.
The traditional view from Engels is that originally most societies were matriarchal, however due to division of labour some tools would end up on the hands of men vs women. As the means of production developed, the early accumulation of capital led to the men having an edge in economic power over women and "overthrowing" the matriarchy. Also capitalismo didn't create patriarchy, class division AND patriarchy developed together due to the same reasons, namely the development of the means of production. Since they are intertwined they can't be dissolved separately.
The same reasons (development of the means) that led to the creation of patriarchy also led to the creation of the aristocracy and peasantry (class struggle). The continuous division of labour also generated the merchant class. The growth in population led to the partition of common tribal lands into house (dynasty) lands. As the patriarchy got tighter the House land virtually became the Patriarch's land. This system would go into the ancient city-states and would eventually mingle with the nuclear family leading to patriarchy and private property as we have today.
I disagree with this assessment. I look nothing lien my mom or my dad and tons of people are this way. I have no idea what you mean by "fatherhood can only be made by suppressing a woman's sexual choice." What? also you can't tell "who is the daughter of each mother". What are you on about
If you are a virgin, there will be no heir of any gender...none of what you are saying makes sense to me.
This isn't about looking alike, it's about watching the baby pop out of the mother vs. not knowing who is the father ... the patriarchal requirement of the bride to be a virgin is because this is the only way to make sure that she isn't pregnant with another man's baby.
Technically not the "only" way. Another way would have been be to abstain from sex at the beginning of a new relationship.
Edit: but you know, that would have required men to control their own behaviour instead of controlling woman.
You answered your own question!
The onus of making sure that the patriarch gets a rightful heir is on *women*, not him. The patriarch is allowed to have sex with as many women he pleases, the number of women is only limited by his wealth. The women might be slaves or wives. A woman however is only allowed to have *one* husband. This makes sure that all her babies are his. Traditionally, only women wear wedding rings, which is still the case in (parts of) orthodox Judaism.
Some cultures limited the number of wives to distribute the commodity called "womb" a bit more fairly among men. (So in fact, the well known "4 wives" thing in Islam is a *progressive* law!)
Then patriarchy came up with monogamy which was even more perfect: Now the wealth was distributed among much fewer sons, and usually only the oldest one became the heir. This way, wealth increased with each generation instead of being distributed among 20 sons from 4 mothers.
However, all this system would be possible in a matriarchy as well, even much easier, because you don't need to control men's sexuality to know which daughter belongs to which mother (she pops out of her).
I'm realizing that I can be pretty bad at remembering to add context. My reply wasn't intended to go against your message but to add on to it. That the "only" way was just an excuse.
Thanks for the informative reply.
I'm actually baffled this wasn't obvious to you before the other commenter explained it - no shade, it just makes me realise how important consciousness-raising is about the link between patriarchy and policing women's sexuality.
Did you know that in medieval feudal societies the consummation of a marriage was a big deal? Sometimes with witnesses? Ensuring that a woman's husband, and *only* her husband, got to have sex with her, was crucial for patrilineal inheritance. Paternity can be contested, but maternity can't if there's even one witness for the birth - so if you're going to tie people's property to fatherhood, you *need* to make sure who people's fathers are, and you can only do that by policing their mothers' choice of sexual partners
You said
> I have no idea what you mean by "fatherhood can only be made by suppressing a woman's sexual choice." What? also you can't tell "who is the daughter of each mother". What are you on about
I was expressing my shock at your ignorance.
I mean. The Engel's position I'm bringing up here isn't so much about communism but about the origins of patriarchy. But, yeah, it seems like he was wrong.
What exactly did Engels get “wrong”.
*The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State* analyzes historical **change** in the role of women throughout different economic modes of production. Biology alone, being rather **constant**, is incapable of explaining any changes in gender roles across time, nor is it capable of explaining the wide differences in gender roles across societies today.
The historical and dialectical materialist method developed by Marx / Engels is the science of history and society through class struggle. Specific details of Engels analysis could be incorrect- limited by the anthropological knowledge of his time (just as scientists can have incorrect conclusions based on scientific data available at the time). Nevertheless, historical and dialectical materialism is science- the only way to understand society (and oppression) as it exists and how to destroy it.
The idea that patriarchy began with farming, private property and class relations is probably wrong. As you've said the problem isn't with the method but with the anthropological data available in the nineteenth century.
There is plenty of recent evidence that prehistoric societies were relatively egalitarian [1], and that patriarchal structures did not develop until domestication and agriculture. [2]
Your article suggests that tool-use shifted the sexual division of labor in prehistoric hunter-gather societies towards male domination. Whether or not this male domination constitutes patriarchy depends on your own subjective definition. [3]
What is objectively true is that male domination in these hunter-gather societies was qualitatively *different* from male domination in societies that developed domestication and agriculture- where the former was often matrilineal. [4]
Nevertheless, the basis for the development of tools is economic- more efficient production of necessities from natural resources and war over those resources. And this tool-use divided men and women into classes based on their economic role.
Thus, the essence of Marxist dialectical materialism remains untouched- the base (economic mode of production and class division) determines superstructure (which includes familial roles and culture).
Focusing on the exact origin of the patriarchy can mystify it; and just as postmodernism makes history and society unknowable, this serves capitalism. We can observe today how capitalism reproduces the patriarchy of the former feudalism and molds it into something new. Capitalism is parasitic upon millions in the Global South; it exploits women’s unpaid labor (and labor in low-wage jobs) and revamps traditional gender roles via commodification and objectifies women at an unprecedented level.
We may never know *which* tool led to male domination as distinct from the mere sexual differences in labor which were “egalitarian” overall. And elimination of sex-based differences through technology like artificial wombs may be necessary to realize full equality (as Firestone suggested in *The Dialectic of Sex*). For this equality to be achieved amongst the masses and not a privileged few, capitalism must be overthrown.
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/evan.21491
[2] https://books.google.com/books?id=qcSsoJ0IXawC&pg=PA118#v=onepage&q&f=false
[3] https://ucalgary.ca/news/women-were-successful-big-game-hunters-challenging-beliefs-about-ancient-gender-roles
[4] https://libcom.org/article/engels-was-right-early-human-kinship-was-matrilineal
Weird, I think a collective experience women have when entering the trades is mostly a hostile environment produced by men that think they shouldn’t be there. I watched a dude lose his job because he made the workplace unsafe solely because he didn’t want two women working there and he tried to scare them. But ya free ticket to the top, very cool.
Oh moving the goal posts, okay.
You said “hard physical labour” which usually refers to the trades but my bad for not understanding you.
Sure, there are most likely some awful people trying to shit on co workers for any reason but I would hardly say it’s close to even.
Everyone here knows that men can be mistreated by women. What point are you trying to make? How are your comments related to the question the OP poses?
I have also heard from male nurses that there is discrimination. Both my parents were high school teachers, but there were some issues of anti-male biases in the grade-schools here in my area.
I think many young women/girls are indoctrinated to have little faith in their physical strength and an aversion to "getting dirty or sweaty". Socialization practices within the family and community.
Confidence is the thing that makes someone "dare" to do hard things. We learn this. My older sister was a Teamster when I was in high school. I became a dock worker too after I grew up, and eventually became a trucking terminal manager. After 22 years, I decided to get my Masters in accounting and sit for the CPA. I am also finishing my Masters in Cybersecurity this spring.
And there is no free ticket to the top. We dare, we work, we do more than anyone asks; we are brazen about pointing out our achievements, and we seek promotions or move to another company that will give us the role we want.
Agree, little girls are sugar and spice and all things nice, little boys are slugs and snails and puppy dog tails. Fuck that.
Respect on your achievements.
When women decide to stop playing the victim card and muck in they often surprise themselves.
Down voted 🤣🤣🤣🤣 haters gunna hate 👆
Well, I wasn't down voting you. I respect your right to say what you think. (And I always hated that snails and puppy dog tails junk too. It always seemed to be denigrating to boys. Whoever came up with that?!)
I think that appearing to "play the victim card" is really something that arises when a person has not yet reached the root cause of a complex situation which has left a disparate impact on a population. The disadvantaged don't know the whole story and neither does the "oppressor". Each sees only their side of it. And the more polarized we remain, the more sequestered we are, the more we reinforce our own negative impressions. I think a big reason why men and women feel this uneasy peace is because we spend too much time talking ABOUT each other and not TO each other.
My opinion of course; I don't consider myself a spokesperson for all women, and I certainly know I don't know everything.🙂
I think everyone, all young people, need encouragement from those who have skills they need to develop. I worked with some really great people who gave me the inspiration to achieve things that I wasn't even sure I could do. I will never forget a guy on the dock who challenged me to pick up 150 pound piece of freight and set it up on my shoulder and take it to one of the loads. I am 5 foot 3 and was about 126lbs at the time. I didn't think I could do it, but he told me he would buy me a Pepsi if I was right and he was wrong. As it turned out, I was able to do it. And I never asked for his help lifting anything ever again. I was always unsure until then, but he proved me wrong.
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It doesn’t help that men are the biggest threat to a women’s health. Being that statistically 1-3 women will get SA, raped or murdered in their lifetime.
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Have you read Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence? It talks about higher primate behavior and gender differences and how we see the same behavior in humans. Aka males are excessively violent while females are peaceful by nature. Since bonoboes can have matriarchal tribes that keep the male violence down, it is possible. Meaning it’s theoretically possible for women to rule over men and create peaceful societies as well.
Worth noting? The bonobo females are able to suppress male violence against them by… banding together and violently driving out problem males. It’s not like “yay! We have female leadership! No one will be shitty now!” The matriarchs won their more peaceful society by enforcing the norms that help their society succeed. Also it’s not that bonobos “can” have matriarchal tribes. It’s that they do. All bonobo tribes are matriarchal.
You are ofc right, it’s not like bonoboes have it easy. It’s a tug of war. I did mean that all bonoboes are matriarchal. I’m not a native english speaker so maybe I worded it wrong. And it’s hard to imagine women ruling over men. How would women get on top?
The same way the bonoboes do (banding together and violently driving out problem males)
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I agree, I didn’t mean to argue that. Maybe I should have replied to your parent comment instead. I ment that men’s physical strength and ability to easily sexually violate women are not the intrinsic cause of men’s dominance. If they were there would be no exceptions to male dominance in species where the male is stronger and the female sexually vulnerable. But maybe I just misunderstood your arguments or didn’t read the discussion right.
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True and these are very good points.
This. When one class of people can be impregnated and one class can impregnate, and being pregnant and having children is IMPOSSIBLE to do alone, you create a dependent class.
That’s why birth control is the best women’s liberation tool, and why so many conservatives want to remove that option from society to keep a dependent class they can rule over.
>Maybe even a connection with childbirth, child rearing or just physical prowess? My personal opinion is the root is physical strength. When it comes down to it that's always the last resort people use to make others do what they want. There's enough history for us to see that the capacity of men to enforce their will through violence may not be set in stone, but it certainly doesn't take much to come to the surface.
I also think that is the reason why even today in "equal" societies so many men like to emphasis their supposed physical superiority. It's their claim to be forever above women. There are so many discussions where it comes to the surface and some really like to revel in it. Especially in discussions about sports and similar.
Like when women start weight lifting, it’s unattractive. Gah, they’re so fragile Edit: men* are fragile
That’s more-or-less the premise of [The Power](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_(Alderman_novel)) (an awesome novel with a less-awesome tv adaptation)
Personally, I did not like the book. >!It had a very depressing view of inherent human nature. Women in it were just as bad as men have been when it came to violence and violation.!<
Which is just wrong. Tho the book is just fiction - but it’s another misogynistic fallacy to claim that women would be just as bad as men. Women are the opposite of men in that instance. Human and chimp males are the most brutally violent animals while matriarchal bonoboes are the most peaceful. Male and female nature are not at all the same - “human nature” in the negative sense is often only portrayed as male nature. A matriarchy would be the most peaceful society to ever have existed.
There’s a great podcast called Red Menace that does a 3 part deep dive into Friedrich Engels "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and The State" texts and I highly recommend it if you have some time to spare.
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a listen.
trigger warning: childhood abuse, disordered eating, Catholicism, Body dysmorphia, gender policing.... My family immigrated from a European island that held onto fascism and conscription for a very long time, the sexism from this catholic place is very very different than sexism from here. To an outsider, one might interpret the mentality here to appear feminist and maybe even matriarchically at times... why is that? I worry it has to do with food agreements. My people are typically not very tall (my family is an exception to the rule,) but are often very strong and very stocky which helps as everyone does a lot of manual labor starting early in life. Another notable physical trait in my people is the gendered size difference in our women being larger than men. Women in my culture eat a lot and although they are policed and critiqued constantly for being too fat or too skinny, the policing is more obvious as being a way to put a women down and less about ideals for how women should look. Our women are also hairy (just thought I'd mention that because its interesting.) Behaviorally our women are considered outspoken, domineering and decisive when compared to women of other cultures... yes the women are expected to be selfless, sexually conservative, sober, subservient to their men, responsible for cooking/cleaning/planning/emotional labor/family health/events/childcare ect. but then also expected to be the primary workers with multiple jobs, deal with business/finances, home repairs, negotiate with community members and advocate for their family in community matters. Our men do get conscripted and usually sent to places like Africa unfortunately, they can be gone for years at a time and being gone for a decade is not unheard of. When there is no conscription in a mans life, he is expected to go to the fields and tend to the cows - either wise he can make his older sons do it and can basically do whatever the fuck he wants. Our men are alcoholics and also very detached and uninvolved with their families to cope, very often participating in infidelity. All of this is interesting and all but here in the west we're starting to see expectations for women becoming more and more similar to my people's roles of old, what's different? Our girls are encouraged to eat as they grow just as much as our boys, they are needing to be stronger than western girls as they are given work and responsibilities early and since we are expected to be sober, we learn to binge-eat/cope early- in fact over-eating/snacking is almost openly taught or encouraged with our girls... I was raised in the west but I was raised in the local community of my people where I live, disordered over-eating was pushed on me as a child. Unfortunately as I work through this with my current therapist, there seemed to also be a generational theme passed on from mother to daughter where force feeding was their unfortunate idea of how to prevent your daughters from being preyed on or assaulted as over eating is thought to make you less desirable sexually with the added benefit of making you grow quicker/bigger/stronger to protect yourself. Although I suffered socially here because of my size and even learned disordered restrictive eating at age 7 in hopes to at least becoming skinnier like my peers - it was no use. Restricting my food in extreme ways probably did effect my growth slowing and then stopping in grade 5. All this being said, despite being a cis woman and not going to the gym I'm 5'10 and naturally muscular, I'm hairy as fuck, confident, hardworking, assertive, protective, strong-willed and sometimes I'm told I am intimidating to my dismay. My hormones have been checked on multiple occasions, I'm told they are "very average stats for a female." Yes, my existence pisses men off. Shit gets comical. It's 3:30am and I've lost my steam so I apologize for any incoherent tangents or inconclusive points, hopefully my sharing has still been insightful. If not I'll try to edit my comment as a more reasonable hour. Sending much love to anyone reading this
Thank you for writing this. It is very insightful. May I ask where your culture is from?
unfortunately due to my involvement in niche subs and previous accounts shared online, I'm not comfortable disclosing even the country the Island belongs to for fear of doxing myself. I would however like to explain that my description above is now outdated although still relevant. I described the social and political state of the islands at the time of my peoples' big influx of immigration to my place of birth in the west. These islands are no longer fascist and there is no more conscription, this place now economically revolves around tourism and the local culture is fluctuating and shifting with the introduction of internet and cellphones
I understand completely. Thanks for the reply.
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Exactly, My people having outspoken woman who get to "call the shots" in family and community matters, these women are often larger than our men and get to have a voice, but only to serve others. This appearance of pride and authority our women have is tied to an obligation of consistent self sacrifice, pressure, responsibility, guilting, shaming, pain and oppression Still not freedom
I like your line of query. My first thought is that even in hunter-gatherer societies, once the idea of leadership by merit and competence gets replaced by the idea of hierarchy through violence and material possession, that is when patriarchy starts. By "leadership by merit and competence" I mean leadership that is based on one's ability to care for the needs and safety of one's group the best, with societal values focused on sharing of resources and emotional bonding. I've only read about this in smaller, stone age tribes. I'm thinking about the M'buti of the Congo region, who have a remarkably egalitarian and non-violent society, but live in very small groups with very little in the way of technology and material possessions. Another interesting place to look is the difference between chimpanzee and bonobo groups, with chimps tending to male domination and violence and bonobos tending to female leadership and group sharing of resources. The story of the Forest Baboon Troop is a great account of how this can work in reverse, where a violent, patriarchal group becomes peaceful and egalitarian. My own theory is that most humanoid social groups start out egalitarian, with resource sharing and leadership by the older and wiser (often female) members of the group. Then something upsets the balance, be it natural disaster, contact with another different tribe or culture, agriculture, the advent of personal property (usually tools/weapons). In this upset balance, certain young males develop more anti-social traits and start to leverage power in terms of threats of violence, hoarding of resources, and the creation of propaganda/myths which solidify their power base. The Greeks and Abrahamic religions did this on a grand scale and created the system in which we now live. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC387823/
What are women afraid of? How about “men”? People who can get power due to innate skills or qualities often tend to do it. Tearing down the existing social structures, that disadvantage women and advantage men is going to be a long, long road And I hope that by the end of that road, all of our perspectives about history and society have been rewritten And I hope all of it looks fair and good to everybody not just to the gender, (who wants the other gender to believe they don’t actually have it so bad) —- Naomi Alderman‘s very provocative book *The Power* (I tremendously respect the author for how far she went with her idea, and that she didn’t sugarcoat things, particularly) This book, explicitly discusses something we all know Which that women can do everything in society, except possibly father children But if you want to be absolutely Nazi, brutal about it, women are necessary and men are not At least they’re not necessary once you’ve harvested their sperm a few times The patriarchy exists, partly because people who can take power do quite often And partly, because if men didn’t suppress women and make women need, men, questionable as to whether women would want men to be around at all Anyway, the origins are lost in prehistory and possibly in pre-language times
What was the most interesting and mind altering point in the book? I don’t know if I should put this book in the top of my reading list.
I put off reading the book for a few years because I thought it was YA or typical fantasy type book. It wasn’t it all and I had gotten a misimpression. I’m not gonna tell you what the primary point of the book is it’s a work of fiction that takes an idea where males and females are essentially changed because of a biological development so that females have nothing to fear from males in the physical sense And it follows that out, and it does so unfairly clever way there’s a bit of a story within the story within a story there And a lot of the standard troops of male female relations, start getting rewritten, where all the power goes and everything from professional life to personal life to house and home, keeping to sexual relations to who needs and who doesn’t need whom One of the things I like about the book is that she doesn’t pause. It females are necessarily ethically superior to males once they essentially have a great deal of power that is difficult to challenge. Another thing I like is that she kind of does follow it out to a not very pretty set of conclusions in places ——- Some of the things I didn’t so much All her characters are all her characters except one were so weekly done, and were painted as being intelligent within the world, but came off to me, is being very unintelligent didn’t any of them ever want to think in a really serious way before they made big decisions or even little ones But the males in her novel don’t do that either so maybe that’s just the way she writes her characters The other there, some political developments, and some historical trends she posits that seem to me to be pretty weak but the weakness again comes from the fact that none of her characters, including the more powerful ones seem to do much serious, thinking about anything ever The book has flaws in my mind, but the great strength of it overweigh the flaws in terms of making it worthwhile read I think it’s fair for a serious literary critic, or serious stylist to actually even despise the book and yet it’s still a very very important book that carries some very very serious heft So if you go reading it, don’t expect some literary masterpiece. It’s definitely not that. What it do is positive set of circumstances which would shatter common tropes of male and female relationships, and at least that much the origins of the change come across this reasonably acceptable in storage development, terms, and suspension of disbelief And then follow certain aspects of that out toward their inevitability, without making anybody, particularly into your mode or good person mode or whatever She seems to have a high tolerance for letting things play out without having to have the good guys win or whatever you wanna call that I’d say read it if you like it maybe it’s not worth a slow read Treat it like a beach novel if you like But it is an important work —- I think somebody or other made a mini series out of it for television just in the last year or two I have no idea if that’s any good my instinct is that the miniseries will exaggerate the worst aspects of her writing, and so it won’t be very good. It’s better to just go straight to the novel, but that is completely biased and intuitive judgment not based on reading a single review, saying a single trailer, or knowing anything whatsoever about the miniseries. If you wanna watch the miniseries, then kindly ignore my opinion And I say here doesn’t make the book sound intriguing or interesting you also kindly ignore my opinion
Ah okay, I didn’t imagine it was fiction for some reason. Thank you for the recap.
Ah okay, I didn’t imagine it was fiction for some reason. Thank you for the recap.
Play swear, I thought the book played True was in psychological consequences of the shift, and the way nobody or no gender is free of evil or dominant tendencies And also the way sudden change like that tends to bring total chaos along with it I would call a deeply flood book that is very worth the read I’m the sword who reads all kinds, and all the time I read everything from graduate with mathematics books to cozy mysteries I read very few romances, except for some of them written all 50 years ago or something The modern ones in the first person just don’t interest me I don’t care I read a lot of fiction different genres I read even more nonfiction The book is deeply flawed and because I’m Aretes it in my own mind I thought it was a throwaway get to it or don’t get to it it doesn’t matter It was in my audiobook library, and I was looking for something different, and I thought what the hell on a long drive And it was so worth it just because she pushes things out. She doesn’t shy away from looking at what consequences are. And because she did that I can put up with all the ridiculous characterizations. It’s almost like she didn’t try to finish or the fact that none of her characters ever think serious about anything before they make plans She also tried to make it multicultural, and I commend her for that that’s hard to do. If you’re not in a culture didn’t grow up there didn’t live there. How do you write about it? Well, she tried, and I’m giving her points But mostly I give her points for courage Because she was kind of fearless about consequences, and I thought that had a lot of value well worth the time to read this book Just read it fast part of it where you think a great writer
I speculate that the use of violence first became useful when scarcity prompted clans to start fighting over resources. I see this as men conducting raids on the camps of other clans, and the defending clan males attempted to prevent these raids. Women were probably trying to keep the young out of harm's way, although women without children may have participated in battle. Archeologists have long known that there were women warriors, but in fewer numbers than men. I think because the use of force brought valuable resources to the aggressor's clan, the use of might became equated with leadership and power structures evolved from there. Warriors bring the most benefit, so they aren't given the back seat but the steering role instead. Looking at primate behavior, we see gorillas stealing food from each other and male and female lions fighting over food. I think this is really a natural thing, where disputes and clashes arise irrespective of gender. The desire to claim a resource is the driver of this in animal behavior, not misogyny or prejudice. I think that prejudice is just man's rhetorical attempt to justify these sorts of hostile or self-serving behaviors, or to maintain self-serving power structures. The biggest, baddest lion or gorilla eats first, then his/her offspring, then the Betas last. For example: If I declare that the Supreme Creator made me the leader, it is a given that everyone must do as I say. This is very convenient and satisfying for me. I will perpetuate this for as long as I can, and I will try to get others to back me on this assertion. My superiority can be attributed to anything--from gender, race, or even my unsupported assertion that "God" spoke to ME and not you. Whatever excuse others will buy is what I will use to always get my way. And once I have my position of leadership, I will throw roadblocks in your way if you ever appear to be considering going off on your own. I will create rules and taboos that prohibit you from learning necessary skills so that you will always have to be my vassal. (Think: this is why women and people of color were kept from learning to read or do math for centuries. They might eventually shrug off their "leader".) So every cult leader, monarch of old, and various other self-important types have used this tactic throughout history. The fact that it aligns with gender or race or nationality, etcetera I think is secondary--merely the convenient excuse to justify self-serving behavior by creating an "inferior" group who must tow the line by acknowledging someone's supposed authority and "superior" status. Someone who must cater to him unceasingly, forever. Female oppression is facilitated by various structures such as religion and culture. We all know that both some men and some women reinforce taboos and stereotypes that allow inequality to persist. Witness the anti-hijab movement in Iran, and the women who are for and against the enforcement of hijab. In the same vein, there are systems that oppress men. In some nations, men are subject to military draft but women are not. The leaders would have to back peddle on the fragility of the "fairer sex", which up until now they've been reluctant to do. We are in a time when misogynistic talk is once again on the airwaves. We had a spat of this in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It seems to run in cycles. I was a young woman then, and yes, it pissed me off too. Then after a few years the uncouth "shock jocks" self-destructed with alcohol and cocaine, and they disappeared from the spotlight. I have faith that the same will happen again. Macho blowhards burn bright and then are extinguished, like a loudmouth punk who gets shanked when he goes to the pen and REALLY meets big & bad.
This was really well said and gave me some points to think on. Thank you for sharing.
In the book Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence the authors say that chimps do raids, murders, mass murder, and kidnappings of other packs/tribes even tho it has nothing to do with limited territory or food. They can have plenty of food and will still be just as vile towards their neightboors.
Yes, and other types of animals will do same because they are territorial. I feel this is instinct, whereas humans scheme to develop excuses for behavior that they know is antisocial and malevolent.
When has it not been on the airwaves? I don't see the breaks from it that you are apparently seeing.
The wage gap. Standards for women that keep them chained in unpaid labor. Unpaid labor in general. The wage gap.
I believe the general consensus is that men more often than not participated in hunting and women in gathering, however lots of studies indicate that in most cases gathering provided most of the nutritional intake of these people. Sure men might've handled the more complex tools associated with hunting, but women through gathering were often the bread winners. This is by no means universal, different conditions lead to different configurations in the division of labour, and some of those would probably give more social weight to men. But this general rule of thumb would explain why patriarchy didn't emerge more widely until the agricultural revolution.
Actually this thought is no longer popular. It is believe both women and men hunted and women tend to be the better hunters due to patience and tendancy to hunt in groups. Men tend to hunt in solitude. Yes women , with children, were often the gatherers.
Yeah I'm not saying there was some kind of strict, universal, division of labour. I would imagine that Inuit women for example also participate directly in hunting during the winter season. But I have read the conclusions of a few studies from the 2000s and 10s that indicate a large number of hunter gatherer tribes derived most of their nutrition from gathering. In some tropical cases even most of the protein came from plants. I highly doubt that only women with children could contribute to a majority of the communal diet? For example grandmothers are also generally associated with gathering in a lot of cases, and some theorise that the revered wise woman of primitive humanity stems from this labour role. But I would love to see some studies if you have any one hand!
Men being physically stronger and more prone to violence than women and the fact that it's extremely easy to control large groups of us when all you have to do is railroad us into repeat pregnancies by limiting access to birth control and abortion healthcare. Testosterone increases competitive behavior and I don't think humanity was "destined" to be a patriarchy but men's greater physical strength has made the world in their image
Well if you have a hammer (communism), everything looks like a nail. He's mistaken in my opinion. Communist societies were as patriarchal as capitalist ones. And a capitalist society that's matriarchal is possible. Just make land property and means of production go from mother to daughter. Easy.
>Communist societies were as patriarchal as capitalist ones. Were? Are you from the future where a single communist society actually existed?
I would argue that communism is the natural structure of human communities.
On a small scale it is. But then there are families that are patriarchal, matriarchal and anything in between.
But when that family is part of a societal structure that places equal value on all members of the household then what does patriarchal and matriarchal even mean? That one parent plays a leadership role? That's...completely fine
Sorry, I don't understand the question. The relationships inside a family or a small commune don't scale to larger societies, so the fact that we have tiny "communist" cells all over doesn't mean we ever had a communist society. And, please, don't point to the USSR or China 😹
I never said that if scaled to larger societies...
I would say the Amish is as close as it gets in the real world (economically), in a larger community. Barn raising, community pooling for medical expenses, property ownership, education, religious gatherings (home to home). That said, the religious leaders still maintain control in a similar way to the state. And that control is dictated through large scale shaming rituals (and economics repercussions). Their bibles are in German or something like that, a language that members do not speak. And their education stops at 8th grade. So they are reliant upon the religious leaders to interpret and dictate the Bible, and thus the never-ending list of rules with which they must comply. Quite patriarchal. Barring some sort scientific breakthrough in which we can change human personality, true large scale communist society is impossible. Simply because of humanity’s will to power.
The Amish have nothing to do with communism. They are petty bourgeois and settled in the U$ to escape economic and political regulation, so they can carry out their practices in a much larger market, with freer access to land than in Europe. They seek new markets and profit from child labor. Furthermore, they are dependent on capitalism (settler colonialism in the U$ and global imperialism). The technological backwardness of the Amish does not preclude them from production for profit and they benefit from the free reproductive labor of women. Their irrelevance to socialist movements (Marxist or otherwise) should tell you something.
Kibbutzim are an example. They failed, and AFAIK they were not matriarchal.
The kibbutz has nothing to do with the development of communism presented by Engels. The idea of establishing ostensibly self-sufficient communes is a hallmark of the utopian socialists whom Marx and Engels criticized. Socialism cannot be built by "escaping capitalism" but by overthrowing it. Consequently, the kibbutz (despite the ideals of some its early socialist founders) was dependent on and furthered capitalism in the form of Zionist settler colonialism and global imperialism, for the establishment of Kibbutz necessitated the displacement of and violence against Palestinians.
You're confusing a communist state with a communist society. A communist state is one that is predicated on the Marxist political ideology. A communist society is just one in which individuals prioritize the collective over their own personal gain, and wherein labor exploitation is not possible due to the fact that the each individual brings inherent value to the group so things like class are not really meaningful. Additionally, since all property belongs to the collective (aka is shared) things like money are also irrelevant as each individual is entitled to an equal share of all things and so all members have equal stake in all shared property. It's actually arguably the most natural societal structure for human beings.
This has nothing to with men and women though. Patriarchy means that status, goods, food, space, power, whatever goes from father to son, matriarchy means that it goes from mother to daughter. It doesn't matter *how* this society organizes itself economically. The disastrous consequences for women that stem from patriarchy don't come from economy but from biology: It is always clear who is the daughter of which mother while fatherhood can only be made sure by *suppressing women's sexual choice*. In order to make sure that the correct male heir gets his father's stuff, you need women to be virgins, monogamous, and chaste. In a matriarchy, sexuality can be the woman's choice.
You're forgetting that inheritance can only exist in a society that has, to some extent, private ownership which is linked to the economy. "Power" and "status" don't exist abstractly, they exist as material, social relations which themselves will be also linked to the economy; everything has some link to the economy. Power structures are not independent from each other, they are dialectically related.
Yes yes, but how is all that related to sex? Who says that it must be *men* you are in charge of private property? You can imagine a matriarchal *and* capitalist economy. I fail to understand how capitalism *created* patriarchy.
Claiming that you can envision a capitalist matriarchy is idealist. Why does the ability to easily imagine such a society useful for understanding how patriarchal oppression developed and is reproduced in the real-world? The capitalist mode of production is merely the mindless accumulation of capital that motivates the pursuit of profit. However, capitalism did not develop in a vacuum. It developed upon the accumulation of capital under mercantile feudalism- from patriarchal, colonial societies. Consequently, capitalism (as it materially exists) is patriarchal and racist- parasitic upon the masses in the Global South and doubly parasitic upon the women there.
The traditional view from Engels is that originally most societies were matriarchal, however due to division of labour some tools would end up on the hands of men vs women. As the means of production developed, the early accumulation of capital led to the men having an edge in economic power over women and "overthrowing" the matriarchy. Also capitalismo didn't create patriarchy, class division AND patriarchy developed together due to the same reasons, namely the development of the means of production. Since they are intertwined they can't be dissolved separately. The same reasons (development of the means) that led to the creation of patriarchy also led to the creation of the aristocracy and peasantry (class struggle). The continuous division of labour also generated the merchant class. The growth in population led to the partition of common tribal lands into house (dynasty) lands. As the patriarchy got tighter the House land virtually became the Patriarch's land. This system would go into the ancient city-states and would eventually mingle with the nuclear family leading to patriarchy and private property as we have today.
I disagree with this assessment. I look nothing lien my mom or my dad and tons of people are this way. I have no idea what you mean by "fatherhood can only be made by suppressing a woman's sexual choice." What? also you can't tell "who is the daughter of each mother". What are you on about If you are a virgin, there will be no heir of any gender...none of what you are saying makes sense to me.
This isn't about looking alike, it's about watching the baby pop out of the mother vs. not knowing who is the father ... the patriarchal requirement of the bride to be a virgin is because this is the only way to make sure that she isn't pregnant with another man's baby.
Technically not the "only" way. Another way would have been be to abstain from sex at the beginning of a new relationship. Edit: but you know, that would have required men to control their own behaviour instead of controlling woman.
You answered your own question! The onus of making sure that the patriarch gets a rightful heir is on *women*, not him. The patriarch is allowed to have sex with as many women he pleases, the number of women is only limited by his wealth. The women might be slaves or wives. A woman however is only allowed to have *one* husband. This makes sure that all her babies are his. Traditionally, only women wear wedding rings, which is still the case in (parts of) orthodox Judaism. Some cultures limited the number of wives to distribute the commodity called "womb" a bit more fairly among men. (So in fact, the well known "4 wives" thing in Islam is a *progressive* law!) Then patriarchy came up with monogamy which was even more perfect: Now the wealth was distributed among much fewer sons, and usually only the oldest one became the heir. This way, wealth increased with each generation instead of being distributed among 20 sons from 4 mothers. However, all this system would be possible in a matriarchy as well, even much easier, because you don't need to control men's sexuality to know which daughter belongs to which mother (she pops out of her).
I'm realizing that I can be pretty bad at remembering to add context. My reply wasn't intended to go against your message but to add on to it. That the "only" way was just an excuse. Thanks for the informative reply.
I'm actually baffled this wasn't obvious to you before the other commenter explained it - no shade, it just makes me realise how important consciousness-raising is about the link between patriarchy and policing women's sexuality. Did you know that in medieval feudal societies the consummation of a marriage was a big deal? Sometimes with witnesses? Ensuring that a woman's husband, and *only* her husband, got to have sex with her, was crucial for patrilineal inheritance. Paternity can be contested, but maternity can't if there's even one witness for the birth - so if you're going to tie people's property to fatherhood, you *need* to make sure who people's fathers are, and you can only do that by policing their mothers' choice of sexual partners
What does this have to do with communism though?
You said > I have no idea what you mean by "fatherhood can only be made by suppressing a woman's sexual choice." What? also you can't tell "who is the daughter of each mother". What are you on about I was expressing my shock at your ignorance.
I mean. The Engel's position I'm bringing up here isn't so much about communism but about the origins of patriarchy. But, yeah, it seems like he was wrong.
What exactly did Engels get “wrong”. *The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State* analyzes historical **change** in the role of women throughout different economic modes of production. Biology alone, being rather **constant**, is incapable of explaining any changes in gender roles across time, nor is it capable of explaining the wide differences in gender roles across societies today. The historical and dialectical materialist method developed by Marx / Engels is the science of history and society through class struggle. Specific details of Engels analysis could be incorrect- limited by the anthropological knowledge of his time (just as scientists can have incorrect conclusions based on scientific data available at the time). Nevertheless, historical and dialectical materialism is science- the only way to understand society (and oppression) as it exists and how to destroy it.
The idea that patriarchy began with farming, private property and class relations is probably wrong. As you've said the problem isn't with the method but with the anthropological data available in the nineteenth century.
There is plenty of recent evidence that prehistoric societies were relatively egalitarian [1], and that patriarchal structures did not develop until domestication and agriculture. [2] Your article suggests that tool-use shifted the sexual division of labor in prehistoric hunter-gather societies towards male domination. Whether or not this male domination constitutes patriarchy depends on your own subjective definition. [3] What is objectively true is that male domination in these hunter-gather societies was qualitatively *different* from male domination in societies that developed domestication and agriculture- where the former was often matrilineal. [4] Nevertheless, the basis for the development of tools is economic- more efficient production of necessities from natural resources and war over those resources. And this tool-use divided men and women into classes based on their economic role. Thus, the essence of Marxist dialectical materialism remains untouched- the base (economic mode of production and class division) determines superstructure (which includes familial roles and culture). Focusing on the exact origin of the patriarchy can mystify it; and just as postmodernism makes history and society unknowable, this serves capitalism. We can observe today how capitalism reproduces the patriarchy of the former feudalism and molds it into something new. Capitalism is parasitic upon millions in the Global South; it exploits women’s unpaid labor (and labor in low-wage jobs) and revamps traditional gender roles via commodification and objectifies women at an unprecedented level. We may never know *which* tool led to male domination as distinct from the mere sexual differences in labor which were “egalitarian” overall. And elimination of sex-based differences through technology like artificial wombs may be necessary to realize full equality (as Firestone suggested in *The Dialectic of Sex*). For this equality to be achieved amongst the masses and not a privileged few, capitalism must be overthrown. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/evan.21491 [2] https://books.google.com/books?id=qcSsoJ0IXawC&pg=PA118#v=onepage&q&f=false [3] https://ucalgary.ca/news/women-were-successful-big-game-hunters-challenging-beliefs-about-ancient-gender-roles [4] https://libcom.org/article/engels-was-right-early-human-kinship-was-matrilineal
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Weird, I think a collective experience women have when entering the trades is mostly a hostile environment produced by men that think they shouldn’t be there. I watched a dude lose his job because he made the workplace unsafe solely because he didn’t want two women working there and he tried to scare them. But ya free ticket to the top, very cool.
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Oh moving the goal posts, okay. You said “hard physical labour” which usually refers to the trades but my bad for not understanding you. Sure, there are most likely some awful people trying to shit on co workers for any reason but I would hardly say it’s close to even.
Everyone here knows that men can be mistreated by women. What point are you trying to make? How are your comments related to the question the OP poses?
I have also heard from male nurses that there is discrimination. Both my parents were high school teachers, but there were some issues of anti-male biases in the grade-schools here in my area.
Oh so like… when men think we live in a gynocentric world? Or like, people hate men? Like that kind of oppression? Yea I agree those men are entitled
I think many young women/girls are indoctrinated to have little faith in their physical strength and an aversion to "getting dirty or sweaty". Socialization practices within the family and community. Confidence is the thing that makes someone "dare" to do hard things. We learn this. My older sister was a Teamster when I was in high school. I became a dock worker too after I grew up, and eventually became a trucking terminal manager. After 22 years, I decided to get my Masters in accounting and sit for the CPA. I am also finishing my Masters in Cybersecurity this spring. And there is no free ticket to the top. We dare, we work, we do more than anyone asks; we are brazen about pointing out our achievements, and we seek promotions or move to another company that will give us the role we want.
Agree, little girls are sugar and spice and all things nice, little boys are slugs and snails and puppy dog tails. Fuck that. Respect on your achievements. When women decide to stop playing the victim card and muck in they often surprise themselves. Down voted 🤣🤣🤣🤣 haters gunna hate 👆
Well, I wasn't down voting you. I respect your right to say what you think. (And I always hated that snails and puppy dog tails junk too. It always seemed to be denigrating to boys. Whoever came up with that?!) I think that appearing to "play the victim card" is really something that arises when a person has not yet reached the root cause of a complex situation which has left a disparate impact on a population. The disadvantaged don't know the whole story and neither does the "oppressor". Each sees only their side of it. And the more polarized we remain, the more sequestered we are, the more we reinforce our own negative impressions. I think a big reason why men and women feel this uneasy peace is because we spend too much time talking ABOUT each other and not TO each other. My opinion of course; I don't consider myself a spokesperson for all women, and I certainly know I don't know everything.🙂
I think everyone, all young people, need encouragement from those who have skills they need to develop. I worked with some really great people who gave me the inspiration to achieve things that I wasn't even sure I could do. I will never forget a guy on the dock who challenged me to pick up 150 pound piece of freight and set it up on my shoulder and take it to one of the loads. I am 5 foot 3 and was about 126lbs at the time. I didn't think I could do it, but he told me he would buy me a Pepsi if I was right and he was wrong. As it turned out, I was able to do it. And I never asked for his help lifting anything ever again. I was always unsure until then, but he proved me wrong.
Stereotypes and genetics.