If men and women are equal, why do men always come out on top in society?
Why are there no matriarchies? Why are patriarchies pervasive and dominant throughout history and geography? Why was every society that achieved even a modest level of arts, science, maths or humanities patriarchal?

'Cause women have "periods" once a month ...AND... when they have babies, they can't be bothered with something so unimportant as the rest of the fuckin' nation!

Baron Max

I would have thought the answer is obvious. It is stupid to look at history and claim that men and women are not equal, because women weren't treated equally. Women never had the chance to prove themselves....they were never educated, never taken seriously so is it any wonder why they never achieved anything? I agree with the premise that men are more geared towards innovation than women but it doesn't mean they cannot contribute equally. Maybe you should pose this argument in 50 years and see if it still holds true

Patriarchy is the natural status of mankind, produced through evolutionary stresses that made men stronger, bigger, more rational, more violent, jealous of mates, and heirarchical.

Women never had the chance to prove themselves....

I think women prove themselves all the time in the modern world. They spend time, effort and money to become educated, then they get a good job and are ready to be trained to become something in the company ......then they fall in love, get pregnant and leave the company flat!

If you really and actually check, you'll find that women have a major conflict with company loyalty and family loyalty that's totally different to that of men. And statistics prove it ...whenever you can find someone willing to be UN-politically correct enough to state it clearly.

Baron Max

If men and women are equal, why do men always come out on top in society?
Why are there no matriarchies? Why are patriarchies pervasive and dominant throughout history and geography? Why was every society that achieved even a modest level of arts, science, maths or humanities patriarchal?

The opposite of a patriarchy is not a matriarchy. The real dichotomy isn't male domination or female domination over society, but the dominator model vs. the partnership model.

The partnership model was the norm in neolithic Europe and the later Minoan civilization that flourished in prehistoric Crete.

I think women prove themselves all the time in the modern world. They spend time, effort and money to become educated, then they get a good job and are ready to be trained to become something in the company ......then they fall in love, get pregnant and leave the company flat!

If you really and actually check, you'll find that women have a major conflict with company loyalty and family loyalty that's totally different to that of men. And statistics prove it ...whenever you can find someone willing to be UN-politically correct enough to state it clearly.

Baron Max

Eh?

What's this?

Now you're criticising women for not staying home to care for their children? Weren't you the one to say that mothers who went back to work or put their careers first were bad mothers? Hell you even called me a bad mother because you assumed I was a working mother. My my, aren't you the little hypocrit.

Now who or what is better? A parent (either mother or father) that shows loyalty to their child or one who shows loyalty only to the 'firm'? As an employer, would you want someone working for you who would readily abandon their responsibilities as a parent to fulfil an employment goal? After all, if someone is ready to abandon their child, how trustworthy would they actually be? Who is to say they would not do the same to you while under your employ?

In short, it is a fine balance. Women who find themselves in a position of having to choose face a double slap. She is deemed weak if she stays home with the child and an uncaring bitch if she decides to work instead. The same applies to men. He is deemed weak if he stays home with the children because he is doing what was traditionally considered to be a woman's job and he is seen to be strong if he works long hours, but then becomes a bad parent because he is never there for his kids. The old world ideal of the father being distant and absent has been proven to not work as a parenting technique.

Far be it for me to defend Baron... but what I think he's saying is that it comes down to choice. In the end, the female mind is far more hardwired to desire intimate involvement with the family unit that, in the end, almost always trumps her relationship with the employer. Men being far more hardwired to be a "provider", analytical and unattached emotionally, generally gravitate towards career goals and not quotidian family involvement. I may have red Baron's posts wrong, but I don't recall reading any assertion as to weather it was "bad" or "good", just that it is the way it is.

I've been a manager in retail for about 6 years now. Women dominate retail at the lower levels-- cashiers, department supervisors, area supervisors and even base level (salaried) assistant manager positions... but anything above those positions requires about 10 - 20 more hours a week, which is time that the vast majority of women just don't want spend at work.

So the choice is made to abandon what was once a (possibly) brilliant career in the company (and four years of education) to become a stay at home mother. There is no shame in that choice (so long as it's the choice she wants). But it isn't fair to cry sexism when the choice was her's all along.

~String

Its because men tend to self-define in terms of their abilities/skill whereas women tend to self-define in terms of their sexual potency.
Of course given the dynamic nature of humanbeings theres a bleed through effect where this doesnt always hold true, but mainly - it does.

Id place my money on the dynamic being almost exactly the same in 50 years, the vast majority of scientists, artists, captains of industry will still be male imo. But id love to be proven wrong!

Far be it for me to defend Baron... but what I think he's saying is that it comes down to choice. In the end, the female mind is far more hardwired to desire intimate involvement with the family unit that, in the end, almost always trumps her relationship with the employer. Men being far more hardwired to be a "provider", analytical and unattached emotionally, generally gravitate towards career goals and not quotidian family involvement. I may have red Baron's posts wrong, but I don't recall reading any assertion as to weather it was "bad" or "good", just that it is the way it is.

I've been a manager in retail for about 6 years now. Women dominate retail at the lower levels-- cashiers, department supervisors, area supervisors and even base level (salaried) assistant manager positions... but anything above those positions requires about 10 - 20 more hours a week, which is time that the vast majority of women just don't want spend at work.

So the choice is made to abandon what was once a (possibly) brilliant career in the company (and four years of education) to become a stay at home mother. There is no shame in that choice (so long as it's the choice she wants). But it isn't fair to cry sexism when the choice was her's all along.

~String

On the contrary, Baron hit the nail right on the head. But it was his critique of women who stop work to have their children that I was raising an eyebrow at. He had in the past expressed similarly strong beliefs against women who dared return to work, either by choice or necessity and decreed them to be bad mothers.

As I said, it is a catch 22 in a way. You are doomed if you do and doomed if you don't.

And it is sexist. A man is equally capable of staying home with the children while the woman goes back to work. If the woman is in a position that earns more than he does, and they are in need of money and she wishes to return to work, it would be prudent for her to while he stays home. But a father placed in such a situation or a father who chooses to stay home to raise his children is deemed as weak by society. He is made an example of.

There is nothing hardwired about it. Some women want to stay home and others do not at any cost. I've known of some women who went back to work less than a month after giving birth because they were not comfortable staying home to care for their child or because they simply did not want to. Others did so because financially, they had no choice.

Men were traditionally seen to be hardwired and unattached. That was how they were meant to be. After all, men are meant to simply not care. Come home, pat the child on the head and that was it for father/child contact. That was the manly way. And it is a crock of bull to be honest. A father is equally wired to care for his child as the mother is.

Recent studies have shown that the quality child's relationship with their father's has a tremendous impact on that child's life and ability to form future relationships as well as impacting on the child's behaviour. Link (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1171894487788&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull) Link (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2004/430)

Parental involvement, including both mother and father has also been found to impact greatly on a child's education and academic achievement. Link (http://www.bps.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/releases$/british-journal-of-educational-psychology$/achievement.cfm?)

Here are a few more links that might enlighten you on the importance of a good father child relationship and why fathers should be spending more time with their children instead of thinking their careers are more important:

http://www.toronto.ca/health/moh/fif_index.htm

http://www.maxim.org.nz/index.cfm/policy___research/article?id=614

http://www.centraltexasfatherhood.org/fatherfactor.shtml

I think the Chinese got it right with their division of the human psyche into yin and yang...the active and the receptive.

Male and female roles in society reflect this, and I dont see it as unbalanced or repressive...or the result of social conditioning.

Its simply inherent in human nature.

I would have thought the answer is obvious. It is stupid to look at history and claim that men and women are not equal, because women weren't treated equally. Women never had the chance to prove themselves....they were never educated, never taken seriously so is it any wonder why they never achieved anything? I agree with the premise that men are more geared towards innovation than women but it doesn't mean they cannot contribute equally. Maybe you should pose this argument in 50 years and see if it still holds true

That's answering how, not why. If half the population is male, and the other half is female, WHY did men rise to the top? Accident?

The opposite of a patriarchy is not a matriarchy. The real dichotomy isn't male domination or female domination over society, but the dominator model vs. the partnership model.

The partnership model was the norm in neolithic Europe and the later Minoan civilization that flourished in prehistoric Crete.

The question about matriarchies isn't one of opposites. It's a question to examine why men universally became societal leaders. Just Not There tells me it's because women weren't treated equally, which led to their inferior status. But that's not answering the question, is it? That's just restating the premise. Why didn't women have the power to treat men as inferior, and rise to the top? Demand equality from them?

I believe the answer everyone is arriving at in this thread is biology. The different biological roles have led to man and women being culturally stratified.

Far be it for me to defend Baron... but what I think he's saying is that it comes down to choice. In the end, the female mind is far more hardwired to desire intimate involvement with the family unit that, in the end, almost always trumps her relationship with the employer. Men being far more hardwired to be a "provider", analytical and unattached emotionally, generally gravitate towards career goals and not quotidian family involvement. I may have red Baron's posts wrong, but I don't recall reading any assertion as to weather it was "bad" or "good", just that it is the way it is.

I've been a manager in retail for about 6 years now. Women dominate retail at the lower levels-- cashiers, department supervisors, area supervisors and even base level (salaried) assistant manager positions... but anything above those positions requires about 10 - 20 more hours a week, which is time that the vast majority of women just don't want spend at work.

So the choice is made to abandon what was once a (possibly) brilliant career in the company (and four years of education) to become a stay at home mother. There is no shame in that choice (so long as it's the choice she wants). But it isn't fair to cry sexism when the choice was her's all along.

~String

Hardwired.
Yeah, it's a little difficult for a person to escape 2 million years of selection.

When a society is based on physical strength, like that of the Spartans, then males do have a slight advantage, even though on Sparta, females fought as warriors too. Basically, Roman, I think your premise is wrong. Males don't always rise to the top in society, they rise to the top in a dominator model of society, or if warfare dominates the scene.

There are other kinds of society where men and women cooperate, using each of their unique advantages as appropriate.

When a society is based on physical strength, like that of the Spartans, then males do have a slight advantage, even though on Sparta, females fought as warriors too. Basically, Roman, I think your premise is wrong. Males don't always rise to the top in society, they rise to the top in a dominator model of society, or if warfare dominates the scene.

There are other kinds of society where men and women cooperate, using each of their unique advantages as appropriate.

The dominator model dominates. Co-operators get out-competed or assimilated into dominator societies. History supports me on this one.

By the way, did you see 300?

Only since patriarchy started to maintain armies supported by agriculture. Is your question why do dominator societies dominate? Because they do. Force has built the empires that write the history, but sustainability is what they lack. Recorded history is a tiny percentage of all human history. I feel this model is ultimately self-destructive, and it's days are numbered.

Only since patriarchy started to maintain armies supported by agriculture. Is your question why do dominator societies dominate? Because they do. Force has built the empires that write the history, but sustainability is what they lack.

Why are dominator societies dominated by men?

Recorded history is a tiny percentage of all human history. I feel this model is ultimately self-destructive, and it's days are numbered.

Possibly.
It's always been about resource exploitation, and we're running out of resources to exploit.

Dominator models value strength rather than cooperation, the ability to take life rather than give it.

Spidergoat:

And this is the model that has given humanity an exalted role amongst all of nature. We are the top tier. The unbeatable.

Spidergoat:

And this is the model that has given humanity an exalted role amongst all of nature. We are the top tier. The unbeatable.

Didn't Nietzsche die from syphilis?

Roman:

Actually, most of his symptoms are thought not to relate back to that disease.

He died because he was an irrational mystic nihilist in disguise (see "Also Spach Zarathustra"). His symptoms are more consistent with "insanity by way of mystic experience".

Spidergoat:

And this is the model that has given humanity an exalted role amongst all of nature. We are the top tier. The unbeatable.

We are the top tier. But only in our own element and if nature allows us to be.

Big fierce animals are rare.

Yet people credit size and fierceness with advancing humans to the top.

Violent, dominating animals are rare.

Yet people credit violence and dominance with lofting humans to their exalted status.

Humans are among the least violent and most cooperative large animals in the world. Human males feed each other's children, care for each other's mates and relatives, form packs and groups of mutually cooperating friends several times the size of other animals' male packs. The ability of humans to care for other species, even, has been of enormous benefit to them.

These capabilities of cooperation, empathy, curiosity, and kindness, are far more unusual, and thus far better explanations of humans' unusual exalted status, than anything to do with dominance and violence.

If I had to guess, I would ascribe patriarchy to the invention of throwing weapons and leverage tools - the means, and the self-reinforced necessity, of sequestering political power in male physiology. But as it interferes with empathy, curiosity, and kindness, it reduces the peculiar advantage of humans as a species, and especially that advantage as embodied in the hyperviolent culture. It's a loser's strategy, in the modern world. So we are reaching the end of an era. God made one sex big and one little: Samuel Colt made them both the same size.

Patriarchy is the natural status of mankind, produced through evolutionary stresses that made men stronger, bigger, more rational, more violent, jealous of mates, and heirarchical.

Says a man.

"Natural status" my foot.

The same argument has been used to "justify" slavery, racism, meat eating, capitalism, communism - most "-isms", come to think of it. It's just a rationalisation used to attempt to justify an unfair power imbalance - invariably by the people in power.

If you really and actually check, you'll find that women have a major conflict with company loyalty and family loyalty that's totally different to that of men.

Your patriarchal assumption is that the "company" ought to dominate human life, and that it is more important than family. PJ no doubt agrees with you.

I bet you're a company man, probably with some level of "power" you're desperate to maintain or make excuses for.

'Cause women have "periods" once a month ...AND... when they have babies, they can't be bothered with something so unimportant as the rest of the fuckin' nation!

And all men think with their dicks. Which is "naturally" superior. Isn't it?

And this is the model that has given humanity an exalted role amongst all of nature. We are the top tier. The unbeatable.

Only in your own mind.

JamesR


The same argument has been used to "justify" slavery, racism, meat eating, capitalism, communism - most "-isms", come to think of it. It's just a rationalisation used to attempt to justify an unfair power imbalance - invariably by the people in power.
There are obvious differences between the genders - to claim that they should be equal is an aspect of dogmatic liberalism

The opposite of a patriarchy is not a matriarchy. The real dichotomy isn't male domination or female domination over society, but the dominator model vs. the partnership model.

The partnership model was the norm in neolithic Europe and the later Minoan civilization that flourished in prehistoric Crete.

It was almost surreal coming across a post that wasn't self-serving and hallucinatory.

We do seem slowly to be moving back towards a partnership model, especially, one could argue, in the most successful nations (as judged using dominator model priorities, ironically enough).

There are obvious differences between the genders - to claim that they should be equal is an aspect of dogmatic liberalism

You make the common mistake of thinking that advocating equal rights for men and women means saying that men and women are the same.

You make the common mistake of thinking that advocating equal rights for men and women means saying that men and women are the same.
Doesn't it, to some degree?

Shouldn't equal rights stem from some sort of equivalence measure, lest it degenerates into arbitrary relativism?

Relativism would say that every individual's rights need to be determined on a case-by-case basis. It is absolute to say all humans have certain rights, and men and women have equal rights.

James R.:

A state that develops in all societies cannot be characterized as anything but "natural". Coincidence cannot conspire so universally - it is evidently a fact of humanity.

Now excuse me, whilst I go beat my women, kill some black people, eat a baby cow, enslave my neighbours, create a market economy, and give the means of productions to the workers.

A state that develops in all societies cannot be characterized as anything but "natural". Coincidence cannot conspire so universally - it is evidently a fact of humanity. But patriarchy is not universal - and even a small minority of exceptions disproves the "fact of humanity" claim.

Evidently patriarchy is a response to certain conditions - common ones, but not immutable properties of human existence. We should find out what these conditions are.

Because patriarchy may be neither inevitable nor even beneficial, in modern or unusual conditions.

Relativism would say that every individual's rights need to be determined on a case-by-case basis. It is absolute to say all humans have certain rights, and men and women have equal rights.
if they are different how can their rights be equal? (Or do you mean to say that they have some rights that are universal and some rights that are different?)

lightgigantic:

if they are different how can their rights be equal?

You're splitting hairs here. Let's go through it slowly.

My contention is that there is a set of fundamental human rights that ought to apply to men and women without regard for their sex. Such rights include the right to life, the right to control over one's own body, the right not to be arbitrarily deprived of liberty, the right to "free" speech, the right of "freedom of religion" and so on, although you could perhaps argue that the last two are non-basic rights.

On top of these, there are other rights that ought to apply without regard to sex, such as the right to vote and the right to equal pay for equal work.

At some point, we begin to encounter leigitimate differences between men and women, so that certain rights may exist for men and not for women, and vice versa. This is where you came in. For example, the right not to have one's unborn baby hurt by another person is a right that is more applicable to women than to men, since obviously men cannot carry unborn children. Similarly, the right to choose to have an abortion, if it exists, is obviously one of more relevance to women than to men.

Is that clear enough, now?