I thought you were going to go and think about patriarchy.

I think tigerizing men is better.

Fallible wrote:I thought you were going to go and think about patriarchy.

You can't even get that right.

Ok, thanks for letting me know this thread is now pointless. Tarra.

I have no idea what you mean fellto - I only started drinking at 7pm.

Sorry to dredge up an old thread, just found it.

Spearthrower's reality check about modern society here is on point. We are pretty lame at intuiting cause-effect relationships in modern gender roles. Whenever someone flails incredulously against broad feminist claims, you can tell right away their imagination is stunted. Sorry, harsh, but not sorry. Also, as a rule, our intuitions are a crapshoot. So why do people stubbornly rely on easy intuition to dictate their worldview? It seems like a total waste of energy.

I wanted to inject some doubt in the other direction, though.

Spearthrower wrote:

Fallible wrote:Is this actually true? Do we know that only men hunted?

Know? No. But it's a reasonable hypothesis based on the available evidence.

Perhaps most tellingly is the widespread signs of skeletal damage in male remains from neanderthals and early modern humans that's not present in females (although there are clear signs of human violence against females as well as males) suggesting a much more robust physically demanding life-style. It doesn't ensure that only men were hunters and women were cave-keepers, but it does suggest that whatever males were doing, it caused them to sustain an awful lot of broken bones.

Then there's the comparative element, looking at extant groups of hominids like chimps, males much more frequently hunt than females. Intriguingly, when female chimps hunt, they more typically use tools than males who just go batter the living shit out of the target prey with their hands. This is due in no little part to the fact that females rear young - young infants cling onto mama, and it wouldn't typically be a sound idea - evolutionarily speaking - for her to put them in harm's way. Considering how even within recorded history, most human females were married young and turned into incessant baby-rearing machines, and given that our ancient ancestors lived shorter, tougher lives, I think it's safe to assume that in ancestral hominids and H sapiens until very recently (perhaps even still), women were the primary care-givers to infants and children, and consequently took part in safer activities.

I'd say it's fair to think there's a biological basis for the gender discrepancy built into our societies historically, but it doesn't mean that the value system is or should be built in, nor that we can't think our way out of our sociobiological heritage.

All useful data, but also we might read more into them than they warrant. It's difficult to know how much has shifted and in what areas of society. For example, more broken bones among ancient men, yes, but what is much less speculative than hunting roles is that men have more testosterone & are more prone to aggression and also recklessness... and men attacked men routinely. (The loner-male phenomenon is another complication. More vulnerable.) And how much to read into near-ancient bones versus 100k year old bones, where the bones get more scant, etc.

Re: chimps. This is one of the more interesting areas of inquiry imo... what makes us unique among primates (among land animals, period). We are the only known land animal well-suited to long distance running. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but iirc that's still the consensus. And... hoppers don't count.) A deeply biological trait that we can extend backwards with much more confidence than any complex behavioral tendencies of modern (or near-ancient) people. If we relied heavily on our stamina advantage for game hunting, especially large game (which is very likely the case, because I don't care how good or coordinated you are with a spear, you're taking down that mammoth because its heart will explode with exhaustion) then the aggression/muscle-mass becomes slightly less relevant. Not irrelevant - but less obviously determinative. But a consequential divergence from other primates nonetheless.

Re: child-rearing. That's the strongest clue about which direction the hunting privileges likely skewed, even in prehistory. But our social co-dependence also makes child-rearing a non-binary responsibility. We likely always (as far back as matters) had nurseries. And in a hunt-until-the-thing-collapses-with-exhaustion, the more hunters the better. It probably hinged more on the availability of healthy bodies than anything else.

There is recent molecular evidence from about 10-15k years ago showing that women in a particular region (Anatolia, I think) consumed less protein proportionally than men. But we already assumed anyway, that the patriarchy had taken hold by then, or begun to, in the larger land masses. It's still perfectly compatible with the idea that - perhaps because of that same feminine quality that later might've become a liability, child-rearing - we used to be mostly matriarchal, and then the boys collectivized, and took the power from women. I'm sure women were much more stable rulers than men (there's a ton of evidence from both human and primate studies to suggest society is happier when women are in charge), although there's something to be said for the cataclysmic technological advances that resulted after the male revolution. But that, too, suggests a post-hoc fallacy, since the accident of agriculture and mass settlements subsumes every other piece of data you can throw at the last 10,000 years of human culture, including gender roles. Gods know, we might be much more far along in this 'civilization' thing if women had found a way to hold on to power and ride the agricultural wave.

What might have been...

Nuclear family is dead, just some people dunno about it. This means that partiachy is dead. The only problem remains is that a good number of people have not accepted the reality yet.

‘The reality’ is the life we lead. So it’s not dead yet - just dying. There’s a big difference. A dying thing can still wreak havoc.

Especially in its death throes.

arugula2 wrote:‘The reality’ is the life we lead. So it’s not dead yet - just dying. There’s a big difference. A dying thing can still wreak havoc.

Well, God is dead .. we are not bickering but the idea is that the family, recognized by the law, has no grounds anymore. Depending on a country, divorce rates are over 50% somewhere close to 75%. Homosexual couples sometimes can and do adopt kids. Single mothers, and fathers, are not frowned upon or? Its a challenge. Democracy, the end of history. Its a book but that is how it works. Ideas are challenged and either survive or not. Not dead yet. Well, what you gonna do about it? ;)

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edit: I am gonna sing



lol

There're a lot of mercurial ideas in there... A couple I can try to untangle:

...the family, recognized by the law, has no grounds anymore.

False? Y...yes. I'm going with 'false'. A family is still the predominant unit around which societies organize, including democratic ones. Sadly, extended families or clans are no longer common in many democratic societies, or no longer important... that's reversible, I think, and probably has had some benefits (as regards civil strife maybe... hard to measure these things).

Democracy, the end of history.

Well, democracy as distinct from... rigid authoritarianism? No, I'm pretty sure rigid authoritarianism has been the single greatest threat to "history" (if by "history" you mean human existence). The booby trap to our longterm survival, imo, has been this 10,000 year rough-patch of patriarchy. When it comes to an end as the dominant paradigm - if it hasn't destroyed the world via nuclear war or climate catastrophe - we'll come out the other end a much less psychologically fucked up, much more curious, much less materially insecure species.

Ideas are challenged and either survive or not. Not dead yet. Well, what you gonna do about it?

I think ultimately, we are slaves to happenstance. Even this 10,000-year patriarchal streak has been largely an outcome of environmental circumstance more than anything else, imo. 'Ideas' battling each other is essentially mindless natural selection rather than "concerted effort". The most we can do deliberately is speed things up in this direction. I do believe that the mellowing out & the gender power re-calibration (to something more prehistoric & less volatile) are inevitable - I just wish I could live long enough to enjoy its zenith. But I won't.