[RD] Feminism

[Lexicus]

I did not mention resource scarcity. I am coming from a greed angle - i.e. what prompted colonialism and imperialism. The powerful wanting more power.

So you were not framing war as an inevitable result of competition between scarce resources?

 

[Honor]

So you were not framing war as an inevitable result of competition between scarce resources?

No, not at all. I am attributing it to people in power wanting more power creating a reinforcing loop involving increased competition for the social construct. To quote myself:

"What I am trying to say here is that war, patriarchy, slavery, tall-hierarchical empires all correlate with and stem from our evo/devolution from hunter-gatherers to people who use other people to create resources and wealth for themselves. I am also saying that under such conditions, it does not matter which sex is in power, as long as there is "power" to be in."

 

[Honor]

I don't agree there is a 'natural trajectory,' in the sense of an overarching teleological progression of history.

Why do you believe this overarching teleological progression of history is not the result of a natural progression into it?

 

[Lexicus]

Oh ok well I misinterpreted you then. There are some anthropologists who have proposed that it may have been competition over luxury/prestige goods (ie, goods that served as status symbols for elites) that led to increasing frequency of war, though AFAIK there's not any empirical work done that confirms or disproves this. But it would certainly be consistent with this overall picture.

Why do you believe this overarching teleological progression of history is not the result of a natural progression into it?

It's only possible to construct such a narrative using an argument of the form: "this happened so it was meant to happen." There are counterexamples from anthropology of cultures that did not adopt farming even when the option was there, so I don't think humans naturally progress from hunter-gatherers to farmers and eventually to internet-users.
This may not have been what you were trying to argue.

 

[warpus]

There's an even more basic gender role: In times of war, you don't send the childbearers off to be killed by the enemy.

Sure, but the main consideration of generals was an army that was as effective as possible. So instead of people who have experience childbearing it makes a lot more sense to send in people who have experience lifting heavy things, combat, hunting, etc. Hunters are already trained on how to operate well as a cohesive unit for instance, it's no surprised to me that historically speaking mainly men have been sent into war as opposed to women, not sure why that would be surprising to anyone else..

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Experience in childbearing isn't the point. The point is childbearing itself. After a war you need to replenish the population. One man can impregnate more than one woman in a short amount of time.

 

[warpus]

Experience in childbearing isn't the point. The point is childbearing itself. After a war you need to replenish the population. One man can impregnate more than one woman in a short amount of time.

Of course, but a general's main consideration is going to be an effective army. If those who bear children were made for warfare, they would have been sent into battle anyway. You can't replenish your population if you lose the war and get annihilated by another tribe or city state.

 

[trader/warrior]

When equal mandatory military service was introduced here it was supported by all the parties of the then center-left coalition government other than the minor christian democrat party. I think it was almost universally seen as a feminist gender-equality effort by the parties that supported it and most of the population in general. The push that made it come to the forefront was young women around the age of military service vocally advocating for it.

The largest, broadest, and most open, activist feminist organization however, opposed it. One of the arguments being that it should be abolished rather than expanded (which I honestly agree with), however I have never heard of the abolition of male mandatory military service being proposed as a gender-rights issue prior to that, even if it would seem to be a rather obvious one if you look at it objectively. Another being that women are better at their skills and traits for peace rather than war, which just leaves a bad taste in my mouth with the arguments towards biology. And therein lies some of the issues with how some more vocal feminists are perceived these days I think, they honestly often don't seem to think very... equally.

Then there is usually the argument that men should do this stuff for themselves, and obviously in doing so become feminists, but if doing so would be a feminist action shouldn't the feminists already be doing it so people can see it and come to their side? I like to imagine a world where instead of the rise in MRA's we had an increase in awareness of male gender roles and gendered issues that resulted in a broader, stronger feminist movement. Probably naive of me.

 

[aelf]

We do not differ that much in opinion - I do not understand why you quoted my post and argued that I was derailing the topic with my "pseudo-philosophical" questions in the first place. It looks like you just did not see the relevance.

Yes, because it isn't really relevant. That men-only-armies are an institution of the patriarchy isn't up for debate. It's not saying that patriarchy must have come before men-only armies and immaculately conceived the latter. It's merely saying that men-only armies are historically a symptom of the patriarchy.

What I am trying to say here is that war, patriarchy, slavery, tall-hierarchical empires all correlate with and stem from our evo/devolution from hunter-gatherers to people who use other people to create resources and wealth for themselves.

That's mere conjecture, like something out of the realm of pop anthropology or history. I'm not interested in discussing that train of thought and it has little or nothing to do with what I initially posted.

 

[Honor]

Yes, because it isn't really relevant. That men-only-armies are an institution of the patriarchy isn't up for debate. It's not saying that patriarchy must have come before men-only armies and immaculately conceived the latter. It's merely saying that men-only armies are historically a symptom of the patriarchy.

That's mere conjecture, like something out of the realm of pop anthropology or history. I'm not interested in discussing that train of thought and it has little or nothing to do with what I initially posted.

Good for you, man. I shouldn't be discussing things, either.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You can't replenish your population if you lose the war and get annihilated by another tribe or city state.

My point pertains to both sides, as both sides will lose many men, resulting in a skewed ratio of males to females. Of course some would say, send the women to war so everyone can be killed in equal numbers.

Good luck birthing that next generation afterward.

My own ideal solution would be to figure out how to avoid the war in the first place. The only time I am ever in favor of KTAATTS is when I'm gaming and it's all pretend. Nobody really cares in Civilization or Dungeons & Dragons about replacing population lost to war. However, it's not usually the best way to run RL.

 

[Lexicus]

Nobody really cares in Civilization or Dungeons & Dragons about replacing population lost to war.

I dunno about D&D but in Civ you gotta let those cities grow after you whip them down to 1 or 2 pop.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I dunno about D&D but in Civ you gotta let those cities grow after you whip them down to 1 or 2 pop.

My way of playing Civ (Civ II: Test of Time) is that I let my rival civs exist until they're either in my way or they no longer have any tech I need. Then I kill them all and take their stuff (ie. KTAATTS). I bribe cities as long as I can afford to do so, as there's no point in wasting population any more than necessary. But the capital cities get wiped out.

 

[aelf]

Good for you, man. I shouldn't be discussing things, either.

Well, if you're going to quote my post and rhetorically address it, I'd expect your response to actually address the substance of the post, rather than going off on its own tangent. It might help if you signposted your intention to run elsewhere with the premise.

 

[Lexicus]

That's mere conjecture, like something out of the realm of pop anthropology or history. I'm not interested in discussing that train of thought and it has little or nothing to do with what I initially posted.

It's not mere conjecture- it's a fact that they are correlated. And I think it is somewhat important to examine the origins of patriarchy, if we're interested in dismantling it.

 

[aelf]

I'm not sure about the utility of going back thousands of years to trace the origin of the patriarchy as we know it. The further back in time you go, the harder it is to say with any accuracy that something led to what we have today - that seems to be the general understanding in contemporary studies of history.

Dismantling patriarchy isn't a project that can only be undertaken by feminist Nietzsches.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I guess the only thing left to do is build a time machine... figure out what happened, change it, and hope to avoid causing something worse (or getting caught by whatever version of the time patrol may exist).

 

[Lexicus]

I'm not sure about the utility of going back thousands of years to trace the origin of the patriarchy as we know it. The further back in time you go, the harder it is to say with any accuracy that something led to what we have today - that seems to be the general understanding in contemporary studies of history.

As I see it there are a few different issues at play here.
One, an investigation of the origins and nature of patriarchy may reveal that it is futile to fight it - perhaps it springs from deep-rooted biological impulses wired into humans by thousands of generations of evolution.
Two, even to pose the question in these terms - what is the origin of patriarchy? - helps us, by making 'patriarchy' into a specific historical phenomenon rather than something that has always existed, will always exist, and, therefore, to which there can be no alternative. I have the same problems with capitalist historiography, implying that capitalism is a transhistorical phenomenon that always was, is, and always will be. It's important to note that the critique of capitalism that has been most influential and in my view most effective, was that of Karl Marx, and his critique was precisely an inquiry into the conditions under which capitalism originated, and the conditions under which he thought it would no longer be sustainable.

Dismantling patriarchy isn't a project that can only be undertaken by feminist Nietzsches.

I'm not sure where I said it was?

 

[warpus]

There is no such thing as "the origin of the patriarchy"

All you need to do is study historical gender roles. What else do you want?

 

[aelf]

As I see it there are a few different issues at play here.
One, an investigation of the origins and nature of patriarchy may reveal that it is futile to fight it - perhaps it springs from deep-rooted biological impulses wired into humans by thousands of generations of evolution.

I don't think this is a conclusion you can arrive at without a lot of dubious speculation. Same as most discourses on 'human nature'. It certainly smacks of social evolutionary thinking, which is controversial and tends to beg the question.

Two, even to pose the question in these terms - what is the origin of patriarchy? - helps us, by making 'patriarchy' into a specific historical phenomenon rather than something that has always existed, will always exist, and, therefore, to which there can be no alternative. I have the same problems with capitalist historiography, implying that capitalism is a transhistorical phenomenon that always was, is, and always will be. It's important to note that the critique of capitalism that has been most influential and in my view most effective, was that of Karl Marx, and his critique was precisely an inquiry into the conditions under which capitalism originated, and the conditions under which he thought it would no longer be sustainable.

The difference being capitalist society is a rather modern thing. We know a lot about the what happened back then, just a few hundred years ago at most. We don't know nearly as much about human societies thousands of years ago. Even if we do, the chain of causation we have to construct to modern times is so long that it becomes as uncertain as mere conjecture.

Not being interested in discussing whether patriarchy originated in hunter gatherer tribes does not mean assuming that it "has always existed, will always exist".

I'm not sure where I said it was?

Nietzsche was obsessed with delving into the 'genealogy' our moral systems at one point (i.e. he built an interesting but rather questionable narrative on how we came to believe what is right and wrong). It's a reference to that.

There is no such thing as "the origin of the patriarchy"

All you need to do is study historical gender roles. What else do you want?

Historical gender roles don't come from nowhere?