The problems with patriarchy

[Jessica]

Women and men both have a natural power over the other. Men have physical strength and women have sex. They balance.

A healthy society needs to be an equal partnership, with neither gender having social or economic power over the other, or else it upsets the balance, creates "war", and both sides will weaponize their natural power.

Once that happens, both sides start blaming the other for the issues between men and women and forget that the system caused the problem.

[Din Djarin]

If womens natural power over men is sex (as a pressure tool?) then its too bad women don't unite. As a man who lacks sex from one woman often simply gets it from another.
And if it is really denied by his supposed partner as a way to maintain some 'natural power balance'.. can we really blame him? Without knowing any other specific details of course :P

Seems this power balance only works against unattractive men that can't get sex otherwise (unless I guess by resorting to paying for it, which seems not uncommon or problematic for many men :P ). I don't see a proper balance here unfortunately.

I do acknowledge the problems of
our patriarchal society. Not sure any kind of patriarchal society is bound to have them (not saying this because I favour a patriarchal society btw, I'm interested and willing to see how other forms could work out!)

[Jessica]

You seem to be missing my point. I'm saying in an equal society women wouldn't have been conditioned to use sex as a manipulative tool.

[Jessica]

Patriarchy teaches women that their main goal is to attract and marry a man and have kids. The social expectation is that they give up any hobbies they do have to devote their time to motherhood.

The same expectation is then put on men by women, who resent their retaining a separate identity outside of parenthood. That's when women demand men stop playing guitar, video games, whatever.

Both men and women end up resentful, and blame it on their partner rather than the system.

It should be normal for both mothers and fathers to have interests and hobbies outside of parenthood or their relationship.

It's not enough to technically allow women into all work environments; if she's going to be penalised for having kids, and the work environment isn't revolutionised to allow mothers to leave and return to their careers, then it's still built by and for men.

[neonspectraltoast]

It's a bargain for power, though, which is the diametrical opposite of righteousness. Do shut up.

[Din Djarin]

You seem to be missing my point. I'm saying in an equal society women wouldn't have been conditioned to use sex as a manipulative tool.

Yes, because you seemed to say sex is what maintains the natural balance for women in the similar way physical strength does so for men. And I assume a natural balance exists also outside a biased societal system.

I'm convinced our patriarchal society is not only or mainly kept in place for so long because men's physical strength, but also by a lot of rules that over centuries was wrongly seen as an inevitable truth.
Same with that sex has not become a manipulative tool for women because they were subjected to men in a patriarchal society. It's a natural manipulative tool for them either way, just like physical strength generally is a natural power for men.
It's not like without patriarchal society equality is suddenly a given, and even if it is on a societal and legal level, it doesn't have to be in private relationships. As we see all the time in our societies, which have already improved a lot equality wise.

[Din Djarin]

Jessica

@Din Djarin you've misunderstood me to such a degree that the idea of debating it with you is exhausting.

I'm saying that when women use sex to manipulate, and men use strength for violence, it's the patriarchy to blame.

No, I understood that just fine, I simply disagree that such behavior is primarily caused by being in a patriarchal society.

I really don't know what you're talking about blaming other women, or one women, or whatever.

Well, because you put it like men blame women for this behavior and women blame men, as if its inherent to the gender (when forced to live in such a society at least). So maybe I misunderstood you there.
I was pointing out that such manipulative behavior 1) would be common outside of patriarchal societies as well (agree to disagree I guess, if that is too exhausting to keep exchanging thoughts on), and 2) should be blamed on and associated with the exact person, and not projected on everyone else with the same gender. This might be a captain Obvious remark because you were talking in general and I took it too literally, and you basically see that the same

[Meliai]

I think one thing that doesn't often get talked about is how much men suffer under the patriarchy too. They're taught to be stoic and to repress their emotions which can lead them to feel isolated and I think is also one reason the vast majority of violence is committed by men, because society discourages them from expressing themselves in a healthy way

[Jessica]

Yes absolutely.

[Din Djarin]

Braveheart-king-edward-i-longshanks.jpg

The problem with the patriarchy is... that its full of patriarchs!

[Din Djarin]

I think one thing that doesn't often get talked about is how much men suffer under the patriarchy too. They're taught to be stoic and to repress their emotions which can lead them to feel isolated and I think is also one reason the vast majority of violence is committed by men, because society discourages them from expressing themselves in a healthy way

I think things could change positively if it was the norm on a societal level for men to express themselves in a healthy way, but the vast majority of violence will always be committed by men.

[Din Djarin]

^
Same with that plenty of men who will (ab)use their advantage in physical strength in a patriarchal society would also do so in an equal society, and plenty of women would manipulate with sex then too. Can it be decreased in an equal non patriarchal society? Very possible. Is it a given it will enormously decrease then? I don't see how or why that's certain.
It's at first instance primal behavior/tactics, and not 'patriarchal'. The patriarchal society caters to the men (and by that way indirectly also to certain attitudes in women), enables their dubious behavior.. but it did not cause or create it.

[Jessica]

But I do genuinely believe in a healthy non-patriarchal society it would get to be the exception not the rule.

[Din Djarin]

Jessica
I understand that you genuinely think so and take zero issue with that I just have a different conviction on that and think manipulation by denying sex or abusing physical strength would not be meaningfully different.

Isn't abusive behavior by physical strength technically already the exception? I mean its common, but not actually the majority of men is it?

[Jessica]

You and I just think differently. The strength vs sex was more symbolic in my mind. Every other effect of why men are stronger, every other effect of male hormones. Every other reason women own sex which is giving birth.

I didn't say physical abuse. Those inherent powers can be weaponized in lots of ways. If society didn't favour either gender, there would be significantly less reason to do that.

[Jessica]

I went to do some gluing things out of old magazines onto driftwood and found this..

This is from 1932 woman's weekly. The woman makes the man and house happy, and therefore she is happy in that situation because she has fulfilled her role ;-)

16409013301078391281366660100424.jpg

[Jessica]

I think things could change positively if it was the norm on a societal level for men to express themselves in a healthy way, but the vast majority of violence will always be committed by men.

I read recently about a tribe of chimps that became female dominated after food poisoning killed a lot of the males. As they grew back to normal numbers, the males had lower testosterone levels, and were less aggressive.

The implications of having a society that was run as much by women as by men are probably deeper than we realise. We haven't witnessed it.

This isn't arguing against what you said. It just reminded me.

[Din Djarin]

I definitely acknowledge there are such exceptions :-)

And yes, so far we don't know to what degree manipulative behavior would change or decrease if we get properly past patriarchy. But as explained I at first instance see it as primal (as well as opportunistic and petty) behavior, not patriarchal caused but 'merely' enabled/catered to, so doubt just getting a real equal society diminishes it

[6-eyed]

Interesting. I bet the younger females of that tribe ventured off to find masculine chimps from other tribes.

[rolling]

I read recently about a tribe of chimps that became female dominated after food poisoning killed a lot of the males. As they grew back to normal numbers, the males had lower testosterone levels, and were less aggressive.

The implications of having a society that was run as much by women as by men are probably deeper than we realise. We haven't witnessed it.

This isn't arguing against what you said. It just reminded me.

i heard about this story on the radio recently.....birds with no male dna....hows that for girl power

[Jessica]

woah! that's amazing. i didn't know that was possible.

[Meliai]

I read recently about a tribe of chimps that became female dominated after food poisoning killed a lot of the males. As they grew back to normal numbers, the males had lower testosterone levels, and were less aggressive.

The implications of having a society that was run as much by women as by men are probably deeper than we realise. We haven't witnessed it.

This isn't arguing against what you said. It just reminded me.

This is fascinating to me!

6 posted the graph earlier that shows testosterone levels are declining in men. I've seen that before and always attribute it to environmental influences but this suggests it could be socially influenced.

Which reminds me! Of the section in Humankind that talked about how oxytocin levels are higher in species that evolve (or are bred) to be friendlier and more community oriented.

It stands to reason that if these two hormones are affected by social factors then all hormones could be.

So it's interesting to think about how males and females have both been affected hormonally by longstanding social structures.
and how that could change if the human race evolved into a different social structure. Which we are perhaps witnessing right now with the change in testosterone levels!

Totally going down a rabbit hole in my mind right now with this lol. Since societal structure today is vastly different than it was even 60-70 years ago, I wonder if there are any studies that have shown female hormonal changes over time

[6-eyed]

I think one thing that doesn't often get talked about is how much men suffer under the patriarchy too. They're taught to be stoic and to repress their emotions which can lead them to feel isolated and I think is also one reason the vast majority of violence is committed by men, because society discourages them from expressing themselves in a healthy way

And as soon as he opens up emotionally and begins crying in tears to his woman about his bad days at work, eventually she's gonna grow tired of dating a bitch boy and leave him for a real man.

It's a double edged sword. I'll just stick with being the real man who deals with stress internally, rather than externally. And men can still deal with it without turning to violence.

[Jessica]

Not true, 6. It's not that black and white. A woman who cries about every hard day at work is a problem too. There is a balance between uncontrolled, unregulated emotion, and suppressed emotion.

Asmo brought violence into it. Another outcome of internalised male stress is anxiety, depression and suicide.