( Checking out pro tem. Spending my evening looking after my two small sons, and teaching math to a neighbour’s daughter. Back tomorrow morning UK time, I hope. )
Malacandra and margin, this thread will not be moved to the Pit. If you need a Forum in which to exchange barbs, feel free to take yourselves to the Pit and create your own thread(s). This thread has been a decent exchange of ideas, even contrary ones, and I am not going to ship it out just to let a couple of posters hurl invective.
While you are here, you might want to consider addressing the arguments and leaving the personal remarks for the other Forum.
[ /Moderator Mode ]
Is your sexism essential to your computer programming, or is it just an unpleasant incidental reality - much the zit festering away on your face while you’re coding? Do you thank your zits for your code?
Male domination is just a descriptor. And a negative one at that. Pre-modern societies were also racist, provincial, illiterate, uneducated, superstitious, slave-holding, indifferent to civil rights, unhygienic, vermin-infested, and completely devoid of internet access. By your logic I should be thankful to my distant ancestor’s ignorance of mathematics for the advance of civilization.
Patriarchy tends to be shed as civilization advances, so it would make more sense to conclude that - like superstition - it holds civilizations back. Gender equality appears to be a feature (and probably a necessary feature) of the advance of civilization. You’ll notice that currently the most patriarchal societies are also the most bass-ackwards ones on the planet.
What came first, the chicken or the egg? These two go hand in hand. If women weren’t sowing and weeding and sewing and weaving, the men couldn’t go and sell the grain and buy the thread. Without one, the other collapes. NEITHER are more important to the “quality of life.”
It was because I was a woman. That is what the man said. Nothing more, nothing less.
It won’t be remedied unless those jobs are open. Feminists want those jobs open. The sexism comes from those who do not want to open those jobs to women.
I’m still not sure what feminism really means to you, unless it’s that you think it’s not as important as a patriarchical society or that you think it’s sexist because we don’t die as much because the jobs aren’t available.
No. What I described is a stereotype, and people aren’t stereotypes. The relevant point isn’t whether any specific person fits the stereotype, but rather whether such a person, if they existed, would be a feminist. If that’s the case, the definition must cover the stereotype. There may be noone that actually fits the stereotype, but there are people who come closer than others, and the fact of the matter is that those who are close to fitting the stereotype are extremely likely to consider themselves feminists.
Who said anything about average or mainstream? If person A is a feminist, no matter how extreme, then person A is a feminist. You can’t just exclude every person you don’t want; it’d be like looking at a set of experimental values and stating “These measurements clearly show a linear relationship, except for the ones that don’t.”
Of course it doesn’t mean that. One can divide common traits into those that are connected to feminism and those that are not. You have most of your DNA in common with any randomly chosen nazi, but that doesn’t mean you’re a nazi.
There is, of course, no perfect agreement about what is and what is not connected to feminism, but there is a much stronger consensus than on what feminism is.
I bet Mary Daly disagrees. Seriously, below you write that we should try to find out what those who self-identify as feminists mean by the term. Do you think she herself separates the opinions that you consider properly feminist from the ones you think are overboard?
I am going to make a small admission here: my previous post focused far too much on the extremes of feminism. I may have given the impression that my choice not to identify as a feminist is based mainly on those outside of the mainstream. I wish it did.
I have plenty of problems with feminists within the mainstream, too. Partially because of stances common among feminists, but also because of uncommon stances that should be common if feminism was really about equality or anti-sexism.
I’m not saying there are no feminists that have opinions and stances such that I’d be willing to associate myself with them, be willing to say “Them. I agree with them.” They exist. Tiny minority, but they do exist. However, there also exists a tiny minority of non-feminists with such views (and no, not just myself), so this doesn’t really provide a reason for me to consider myself a feminist…
Some levity, but not a joke. What I meant was that I have reached the conclusion that I am not a feminist from other lines of reasoning, and thus any proposed definition that includes me must be incorrect.
'tain’t ass-backward. It’s descriptivist :).
The problem I have is that the usual proposed working definitions do not actually better fit the group we’re trying to describe, than they fit that group’s complement.
Oh, sure. Really, when someone asks me whether I’m a feminist, I’m as likely to answer with “What do you mean by ‘feminist’?” as “No.”
I didn’t do that in this thread, since answering “What does Feminism mean to you?” with “What does it mean to you?” seemed… less than helpful :).
The thing is, if someone claims to be a feminist, and states that this simply means that they’re opposed to sexism, and then go on to show themselves to not be opposed to sexism as long as it’s the particular subset of sexism that they favor (just like all the other sexists - noone’s in favour of sexism in and of itself), then I am not likely to think “Oh, well, I guess you’re not a feminist then.” I am likely to think “Oh, well, I guess you’re a lying, propagandising, piece-of-shit hypocrite then.”
I’m a bit cranky like that.
The OP seems to have drowned here…
If it’s supposed to be a singed bra, I’ll echo Left Hand of Dorkness – that’s a symbol of anti-feminism, not feminism.
I couldn’t quite make it out, probably because of the smaller format, so before I read Left’s reply, I thought it was some kind of (bloodstained?) shroud. Combined with the scorched earth (?) background, I though you were making a somewhat subtle reference to the hardships women suffer during war and famine (like this).
And I don’t understand the meaning behind the word “Departures” in the context of feminism, unless you’re talking about a departure from a male-dominated world into a more egalitarian one? It’ll take a lot more than a burned bra to achieve that.
All in all, I’m afraid your poster is too subtle for me. 
Educate me, Moderator. What did I say that was out of line? Where did I fail to address the arguments?
I made a general observation to everyone that included two clauses with connected ideas. I made no statement that you had not addressed any issues; I noted that you (all) should do so while leaving out the personal remarks. This was not a Official Warning but a strong suggestion that everyone cool off.
Hi, again.
No – and in fact my face is zit-free these days, though I do have a couple of sebaceous cysts on my back that I keep meaning to get lanced, but never get around to – but you’ve missed my point, which may be my fault. The point I was after making was that I can’t rebut the charge of being a sexist merely by advancing something unrelated, though the question of whether I actually am a sexist is one better argued elsewhere. One can be both a sexist and a computer programmer. Achievements can be the fruit of a society as well – necessarily – as its component individuals. On the other hand, if you argue that neither anything evil nor anything good can be laid at the door of patriarchal society, or of any other society, then I’m cool with that too. However, I suspect that people will still say “Patriarchal society oppressed women in this, that and the other way”, just as they will say “Nazi Germany systematically exterminated six million Jews”, and you may have to argue with them as well as me.
I disagree that male domination is necessarily a negative descriptor – by itself I consider it only a descriptor of human society at a certain stage of its development. I don’t think any gratitude is owed to your distant ancestor’s ignorance of mathematics; on the other hand, a case might be made that something is indeed owed to slavery, since it’s entirely possible that we wouldn’t have the mathematics and philosophy of the ancient Greeks had they not practised slave-holding. That’s not to be understood as an endorsement of slavery, though; still less as a longing to return to it.
Another interpretation you could put on it is that without patriarchy, civilization didn’t advance at all; and your “it makes more sense” conclusion is plausibly nothing more than a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. I could say rather that gender equality is a polite fiction indulged in by wealthy, advanced societies who have cracked the basic problems of housing, sanitation, food and power, and can afford to spend a lot more time and resources on social issues which, if not minor to those experiencing them, look pretty darn minor to those confronting our ancestors as recently as a century ago. Equally, if patriarchy is a necessary and highly successful societal model for societies who haven’t cracked all of these, it’s blindingly obvious why the most backward societies are the most patriarchal: those backward societies which weren’t patriarchal went to the wall when confronted by a stronger social model.
(I’ve underlined what I saw as a beautifully turned phrase. Kudos!)
I see what you’re saying, but I disagree. All parts are necessary to the whole, but it doesn’t imply that your society is going somewhere unless someone gets off his (or her) bum and advances it. It depends on what you mean by the “quality of life”, of course, but if you value sanitation and clean piped water and heating and lighting and affordable ceramics and metal implements and motorised transport and antiseptics and vaccination and all that good stuff, is it not simple justice to acknowledge that something is owed to both the individuals and the society that made all that possible.
Behind many great innovators stands a patient wife who did all the stuff that has been claimed for them. Many others did without, though, devoting their lives to their art, craft, science or missions of exploration. Equally, many patient and dutiful wives had menfolk who left no mark on history whatever. If, say, Mrs Thomas Edison and Mrs Joseph Soap both fulfilled their half of the marital bargain, whom should you thank for the electric light? That which made the difference was Tom’s moment of inspiration and huge capacity for taking pains, where Joe had neither. (Disclaimer: OTTOMH I can’t remember if Edison was married, but you see what I’m saying.)
On the face of it, that’s a disgrace, and I’m surprised that the man could get away with it in either your country (I’m assuming, absent any location info from yourself, that your nationality is the Dope’s default) or mine.
Well, fair enough. But equality won’t have been achieved until women have the same choices open to them as men. That includes not only the right to put in for a job working in the sewers, f’r’instance, but the ability to be told, whether you’re a man or a woman, “There’s a job open in city sanitation. Take it or be ruled unwilling to work.”
The example may be flawed, but you see where I’m going. We spoke of another poster wanting to be a soldier. My grandfather wanted to be one. In England in about 1915, it was very difficult to escape wanting to be one, what with the national expectation that if you were young, male and able-bodied, there was something morally wrong with you if you didn’t want to be in Flanders with a rifle experiencing the joys of trench foot and mustard gas. My father wanted to be an air navigator. In 1945 he was training in Canada on B24s when the bomb fell on Hiroshima. In other words, he missed flying on active bombing missions over Germany or Japan by a few months. You probably have a fair idea what life expectancy among bomber crews was like. Equality will be achieved, not merely when a woman has the same right to be a soldier, even a combat soldier, as a man if she feels like it, but when there’s the same weight of expectation on her shoulders as on a man’s – including, in the case of my sires, a man under twenty. (That said, of course, the world is different now to what it was ninety, or even sixty, years ago.)
I don’t think you can call patriarchal society important any more than you can call gravity important – it’s a pervasive influence without which we would certainly not be where we are today, but it’s neither good nor bad in and of itself. I only brought patriarchy into this discussion to illustrate that one may be the recipient of certain benefits without necessarily aligning oneself with the benefactor. This was in response to margin’s bald assertion that any woman in receipt of a list of benefits which, according to her, solely derive from feminism, should either call herself a feminist or piss margin off because of
Feminism means a whole host of things, some good, some bad. I think this post has run on enough for now. Back later. Here endeth the epistle.
Understood. My reaction above was a natural response to what I saw as an injunction to mend my ways when, from my point of view, I was the one being bitch-slapped. I like Great Debates just fine the way it is, and I also admire those who, while vehemently disagreeing me as is their sovereign right, are being polite about it and reasoning well.
Thank you. – M.
tomndebb, would you care to respond here?
Regards,
Shodan
I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on that. I believe that civilization has progressed in spite of and not because of the fact that most societies are patriarchical. Patriarchies (and I’m generalizing here) are more likely to be warlike and swallow up their gentler neighbors. They are given the opportunity to advance after they have obliterated other cultures. Does that mean that patriarchies are inherently better than other sorts of cultures? When might triumphs over less warlike cultures, does that make might inherently right, and better? I don’t think so. I think cultures such as ancient Japan, which may have been matriarchal, might have flourished and innovated had they been left as they were. But we’ll never find out now.
I think we have reached the same conclusion from different sides of the argument. Complete parity is what I am looking for, and being drafted or told to work in sanitation is something that should be applied to women.
What I was saying as regards to feminism is that feminism shouldn’t focus on the draft first, although strides have been made in that direction. Feminism should work for increased wages, and then argue that women should be sanitation workers. If we were to grant women compulsory service in the military before wages were equalized, that would be a detriment, and we wouldn’t be assured that the positive events would happen to follow that.
The draft would be a minus, the wages would be a plus. If feminists acheives the negative before the positive, we wouldn’t be sure the positive would neccessarily follow. So we work for the positives first. Do you see what I mean?
No harm in believing, but you have to admit that there’s a shortage of empirical data. You’d need non-patriarchal societies rising to become successful civilizations to support your point, and unless you can point to any, your assertion that they could have done so is somewhere between pure supposition and wishful thinking.
The generalization can be let by, for now. Might doesn’t make right; we’re agreed on that. On t’other hand, might can certainly make for survival, and if the fruits of your kinder, gentler ethic is that you’re driven either to the edge of the world to live in the icy barrens that no-one else wants, or all the way to extinction, your ethic didn’t do your culture many favours. (Whether matriarchies are indeed kinder, gentler societies is a side-issue which I move to be outwith the scope of this thread.) Whatever you may think of your bloodthirsty ancestors, it’s a given that you wouldn’t be here without them. Might may well entail doing what has to be done, whether or not your distant, comfortably-off descendants get to exercise hindsight on the choices you made.
No dispute here. In some respects I’m as un-sexist as you could imagine; I certainly don’t imagine that, for instance, your life is more precious than mine, more entitled to be first off the sinking ship, out of the firing line, or excused coal-mining or the frequently-mentioned sewerage work, just because my rude bits aren’t the same shape as yours.
Of course, as long as you also see that the reverse also holds true from the other side of the gender divide, and it can seem mighty like the feminists hope to achieve the positive without the negative. I hear plenty of “My right to be a soldier if I want to; my right to be a train driver if I want to (as in, it’s a woman’s right to choo-choos)” and so on, and very little of the evening up of societal expectations. An increase in choice is as real an increase in wealth as an increase in money – for what, at bottom, is money, if not a tool by means of which choice is exercised?
As to increased wages… well, that’s had plenty of discussion too, and it’s not like I’ve anything to put on the table that will advance the debate.
All right, here’s one. Matriarchal societies are rare, but they do exist.
Nope.
Women inherit property, but it’s mostly men who do stuff. I don’t think that’s what’s commonly understood by “matriarchal”, nor that you would consider a society “patriarchal” if men inherited property but were passive agents otherwise.
To me, feminism means sexism against men, shoddy research, and the hook-line-and-sinker purchase of the victimhood mentality that prepetuates feminist organizations.
I think you are forgetting the other half of the equation. To me, feminism is not just about giving women the choice to trim trees and work in sewers–it is also about opening up career ops for men. Nurse’s aides, nursing ( the number of men entering nursing is increasing–and ironically, so are the wages–dunno if one is causative of the other, but it lend itself to the thought), pre-school teachers, elementary school teaching, social work–these are some of the traditional “female” jobs.
Amd most (if not all) are underpaid–it’s called (over here) “the pink collar ghetto”.
So, for me, if a woman wants to be a fire fighter and can pas whatever tests are mandated–let her be one–at the same pay and possibility of promotion as a man . LIkewise, if a man wants to teach pre-school–let him and at the same (abysmal) rate of pay etc as a woman.
This doesn’t address your comments directly, but there is a de-valuation of the work done by women–the caring for both the younger and older generations, for example. The strange and pervasive thought (USA) that because one has kids that one should not be promoted/recompensed equally for the same work etc.
These are societal issues, true–but I ahve seen feminsim attempt to address them-NOT as their primary focus, but as secondary issues. And IMO, we have your much lauded patriarchal society to thank for the second class status of children and family needs, the all consuming demand by companies for way over 40 hours a week of their employee’s time, the dearth of any real family leave policy…oh, sure, it’s a law now–but how many MEN do you see taking FMLA to care for that newborn etc? Definetly a minority.
I would agree with you that moving from an agragrian society to an industrial one was hastened (and the profits huge) by a patriarchal structure. Whether that approach is one that we should be "thankful"for is another matter entirely. Benefits? sure(increased standard of living for one)–but there have been detriments, too.
I have to agree with the poster who stated that the worker and the one who supports that worker via meals, clothes, being kept healthy thru cleanliness etc–BOTH of these contributions are equally important and valid. To say otherwise is to be deliberately and needlessly provocative.
But we have not yet looked at the “side” issues brought about BY patriarchy. What of the thought that women’s brains were less developed? Why the whole fear of women’s sexuality and the overwhelming need to control it–still present today? Why the insistence on ignorance for women? Why the attitude of Male=superior(biologically, emotionally, intellectually); Woman=inferior)biologically, emotionally, intellectually)? Why the emphasis on women being the “downfall” of men? What of the Man is right and Woman shouldn’t get sassy/uppity school of thought that is still with us today? Why the lack of funding for “women’s health issues” and the dearth of clinical trials for women? What of the dismissal of women’s complaints in the ER (I am thinking primarily of heart attack–women do not present with the “classic” symptoms–classic being the MALE symptoms of MI–yet women are at high risk for MI’s…).
We should be thankful for this? How so? If anything, supporters of patriarchy have some explaining and apologizing to do!
You asked for a cite, I gave it to you. If you have a problem with Wikipedia classifying that society as matriarchal, take it up with them.
I get the feeling that you don’t know many women who work hard, if you think that in patriarchal societies it’s the men who mostly “do stuff.” Did your mother lay around all day eating bonbons? Because mine sure didn’t. Her mother didn’t, and her grandmother didn’t. They all had jobs, took care of the children, cooked, cleaned, and picked up after their lazy-ass husbands. That includes my dad. I love him dearly, but he doesn’t “do stuff” except putter around at work during the day and watch my mom do dishes at night. My mom has a stressful, well-paying job, and she does everything else around the house too. It has been this way for generations. I think your idea of division of labor in patriarchal societies is skewed.
I don’t think " do stuff" referred to the actual labor. I think it referred to “while business, religious, and political affairs are the province of men (although some women also play important roles in these areas).” In other words, the women may inherit the property (and do the work) , but the men have the power. Not “matriarchal” at all. BTW, I didn’t find the word " matriarchal" in the Wikipedia entry, only “matrilineal” which means something else entirely. The Wikipedia article on “matriarchy” refers to a single anthropologist who “favors redefining and reintroducing the word matriarchy, especially in reference to modern, matrilineal societies like the Minangkabau.”
Where this situation fits in the issue I’m not sure:
My maternal grandfather had a short tour of duty in World War I (he contracted smallpox in France and spent the rest of his hitch in a hospital). He sired eight children–there were two others who did not survive infancy.
Before his wife died in 1938, she bore five girls and three boys. Two girls, three boys, three more girls; my Mom was the eldest of the last three. (All eight are still alive.)
My Mom was born about three weeks after the stock market crash. From what she and my uncles and aunts told me, nobody in the family, irrespective of gender, sat on their hands. Everyone had to pitch in and work to help maintain the household, especially after my grandmother died (my Mom was nine years old then).
By the time the U. S. got into World War II, my eldest aunts were married–to men who were not afraid to work–my Uncle Bill had a long career as a plumber. Mom’s three brothers all went into the Service.
I think that one of my younger aunts was the only one who failed to meet a decent man–her husband was a compulsive gambler who even sold his son’s clothes and bed to get gambling money. I don’t know to what extent serious feminists attack the institution of compulsive gambling, but they would certainly be justified in lambasting this indolent uncle.
My Mom married two men whose conduct was reprenhensible, to say the least. She put up with years of their abuse and when she instituted divorce proceedings in both cases, neither husband showed up in court.
She is, naturally, somewhat soured on men, but I can muster plenty of examples of women with venomous, senseless, or indolent attitudes to match the examples of men. 