God Fearing Atheist

I've been reading some of Goldberg's stuff recently, and would like some thoughts.

His contention is that:

1) Patriarchy is a human universal. It exists in every known human society.

2) Patriarchy isn't the dominance of men in traditionally defined male hierarchies, but within those hierarchies that are accorded *high status* (or, alternatively, the higher status positions within low-status hierarchies). To take an example, in American culture, doctors have a high degree of status and/or resources. The same was not true in the Soviet Union, where the medical professionals had little of either. Not unsurprisingly, Goldberg suggests, most doctors in the USSR were women.

3) The reason for this disparity is physiological. Men have a strong biological disposition to seek out and attain high-status posts.

Any thoughts?

-GFA

Arken

I don't think that there is enough evidence to show that patriarchy is truly a universal constant in human society. Certainly, there is a lot of evidence that many ancient religions were matriarchal in nature from the famous neolithic idol of the pregnant woman to the vast cult of the white goddess in pre-Christian Europe.

Very likely, the development of agriculture was a great hinderance on matriarchal societies. When it was no longer important to spend most of the day foraging for food, women could take the time to have more children and were thus incapacitated more often which probably led to the patriarchal hierachies.

God Fearing Atheist

According to Goldberg, the ethnographic record shows no evidence of these supposed matriarchal societies.

The status of women or female deities in religious practice is, of course, irrelevant to the issue. However, there is an increasing body of evidence that suggests claims of "Goddess" mythology are overblown, if not entirely false. See this for example.

pilaar

My take on this comes from a different perspective. Those in power have the ability to define values and give 'hight status' to things which benefit those who are in power. Patriarchal structure enables males to give high values to male priorities, interests, outlook on the world, philosophy, male attributes, professions, male experience, history etc. Female work, advantages, priorities, history and needs are automatically given low value in patriarchal society. Professions do not carry value in themselves, what matters is which gender predominantly engages in that particular profession or activity. Eg, teaching used to carry a lot of prestige when teachers were predominantly males. When teaching become predominately a female domain it lost prestige, value and of course high wages.

If males were the ones who gave birth in patriarchal structures, then childbearing and rearing would carry high status and it would probably be a paid activity as well. On the other hand, public life and working outside of home would be considered 'low status' position, necessary but unpaid and without prestige, because females would be engaged in doing it.

I think that the reasons for patriarchy are the physical advantages which males have; physical strength, freedom from childrearing, aggressive hormones, all of which were very important in the past. Males also seem to need women to be in a 'dependant' position within the society and this has been demonstrated over and over again. I'd say because of the control factor. Whenever and wherever males have the absolute power to make decisions within a society, they tend to actively create laws, culture, traditions, religions which put women in a position of disadvantage. It was no different in Western society, for example when males achieved universal male suffrage and male equality before the law, they were not prepared to extend that to females until females themselves (and some males alongside them) fought for it, even though there were many females involved in male suffrage struggles.

Women were (and still are in many countries) prevented from having access to education, publishing of information, access to enough spare time to engage in philosophy & science, freedom of movement, they are prevented from inheritance, having access to paid work, access to payment for the work they do, freedom and finances to interpret the universe, god & science according to their own experience and understanding. Instead these are interpreted in ways to encourage and justify male advantage, women are culturally and economically pressured to act helpless. In strong patriarchal societies there is a destruction of female spirituality, philosophy, understanding of the world, laws which give absolute powers to husbands, no access to god except through males etc Females are not naturally dependant, it is the circumstances in the society which prevent them from being independent and the conditions and values of the society are largely influenced by those in power. So patriarchal structure perpetuates itself.

I have explored these issues for the last year or so, it has been a very shocking and sobering experience for me. I like males and some of my best friends & work mates are/were males but the history of gender relationship is a tough subject and I don't have any conclusive answers yet.

pilaar

God Fearing Atheist

pilaar,

I dont know how different our views actually are. You seem to concede that men seek out high-status positions (ignoring, for the moment, how they become so). You also seem to concede that the reason for this is based on male biology (although, I would disagree as to what aspect of it is relevant). It is, however, incorrect to assume child-birth/rearing is a low-status occupation: it isnt, and despite what you say, it is compensated. The reason men dont fill this position should be obvious.

Let me state this a little more unequivocally:

-Women have a sexual preference for men with high-status and/or resources (Buss 1995,1989). This preference does not decrease, but rather increases, as a women become more economically independent, casting some doubt on your idea that "circumstances in the society" are creating dependence (Townsend 1998).

-Sexual selection has shaped men to seek out those qualities that potential mates prefer, including status. Status, here, is a measure of actual or potential control over others (in particular, over other males). To take the USSR again, their "legislative body" contained roughly equal numbers of men and women. Of course, the real authority lay elsewhere, where the positions were held almost entirely by men.

echidna

How exactly do you come to that conclusion ? Once again, that it happens, does not prove that the cause is biologically pre-programmed.

pilaar

It is possible that the theories on goddess mythology are overblown. But as with all historical research, especially into ancient times, mostly there are just theories and the interpretation depends on who is doing the interpreting, various conclusions are made based on the same evidence. It is possible that there was never a wiccan movement on the scale of Christianity, or the worship of Goddess, or matriarchal system, but then any movement which would be based on worshiping women would have a very hard time to survive the times of rule by more violent and hierarchal religions like Christianity and Muslim religion. But that doesn't mean that they did not exist as a movement. I come from central Europe (Slovenia which used to be part of Yugoslavia) and even though the official religion of the country is Roman Chatolic, the day to day living is very pagan, and always was very pagan. There is a great tradition of herbology, self healing, worshiping female deity Mary and the understanding of spirituality among common folks is different to the official religion line especially amongst women. The importance of different saints in RC religion can in a way be likened to polytheism, many nations, especially smaller ones, were violently converted to Christianity but the polytheism remained, it just changed the form a bit.

Also, men and women live in two separate realities in societies where there is a hierarchal roles separation. The official belief is one thing, the reality is another. Even in the Bible OT, very little is known about what women believed and which deity they followed as in those societies there is not much honest talk between the genders and many times women allow men to believe that their beliefs are the same as a survival strategy. Their movement would be an underground movement. We dont' even know what the Jewish women believed as not much is written about their lives in the Bible OT, except for when it touches and relates to men and how they view them.

Also, to say that Christianity would not persecute and try to destroy wiccan type movement is not true. Hearing troubles of atheists who live in highly religious areas in US today is telling, imagine what happens when the church has all power in a society.


[QUOTE}
GFA:
I dont know how different our views actually are. You seem to concede that
men seek out high-status positions (ignoring, for the moment, how they
become so). You also seem to concede that the reason for this is based on
male biology (although, I would disagree as to what aspect of it is
relevant). It is, however, incorrect to assume child-birth/rearing is a
low-status occupation: it isnt, and despite what you say, it is compensated.
The reason men don't fill this position should be obvious.
[/QUOTE]

I know that childrearing is compensated in the joy that it brings, but it is not compensated financially.
Many times the lip service is paid to motherhood, but normally the society gives monetary value to 'proffessions' which it values and motherhood (or fatherhood if he is the primary caretaker).


I discussed this issue of why independent females would choose to mary hight status with my female friends and one of the reasons is probably because males are happier to be in what is seen as a more powerful position, because it gives them confidence, self esteem and status among other males, in general they are much happier to be in this situation - and women recognise that. Males and females have different values and for males to feel equal in a relationship they tend to need higher status. Male with higher status than the female involved is perceived as a 'happy and content' male, so the female may be making a strategic move with which she avoids many problems. Males who are perceived to have 'lover status' than their wife may loose status among other males which would create many problems for the male and so for the female as well. .

How was the 'status' measured in the survey. There is still a difference beteween the wages for males and females doing the same job, so if people are attracted to each other who have similar education or business, the male will still tend to have higher income and status.

Intersting topic and I have to think on this one some more.

pilaar

God Fearing Atheist

I agree with you 100%, echidna. The role of physiology in dominance behavior is an emperical question, not one that can be assumed a priori.

With that said, there is considerable evidence linking androgens to dominance behavior in particular, and aggressive behavior in general.

For a fantastic review, see Mazur, A., & Booth, A. (1998). Testosterone and dominance in men. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 21: 367-397.

Also things like:

Dabbs J.M., & Hargrove M.F. (1997). Age, testosterone, and behavior among female prison inmates. Psychosomatic Medicine, 59: 477-480.

Berenbaum, S.A. (1999). Effects of early androgens on sex-typed activities and interests in adolescents with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Hormones and Behavior, 35: 102-110.

An interesting one about testosterone and dominance behavior in the context of team sports:

Neave N., & Wolfson S. (2003). Testosterone, territoriality, and the 'home advantage'. Physiology & Behavior, 78: 269-275.

Patrick also posted some in the old thread about gender, if im not mistaken.

-GFA

God Fearing Atheist

And there are facts...pieces of emperical evidence that are sorely lacking in the sweeping claims made by some feminist scholars about "Goddess" mythology.

Of course there wasnt. Wicca was created in the late 40's, early 50's by a bored British civil servant by the name of Gerald Gardner. Its as ancient as Scientology.

As a mere theoretic possibility, this is reasonable enough. Problem is, there is simply no evidence for any matriarchal society, either existing today, or destroyed by Christians/Muslims in the past.

Certainly. However, the number of "witches" killed at the hands of church authories has been highly overblown. The best estimates are somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000, with about a quarter of these being men.

It is, but not directly (mothers dont receive a paycheck from Motherhood Inc, or the Department of Motherhood Services). In most cases, fathers are the primary breadwinners, and mothers take their share.

This seems irrelevant to me. How does this explain the independent female choice for higher-status men?

Am I missing something?

Its defined above.

God Fearing Atheist

*Bump*.

Where did this debate go?

-GFA