The First Sex

[Tee Kay]

Very misleading title...

Frankly I don't care about feminism or all that stuff. To me everyone is equal end of story. It is interesting though that the status of women declined in Antiquity. Sort of takes me back to the Da Vinci Code...

The part where matriarcal societies is more peaceful than patriarchal societies is rubbish though.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

The Wikipedia article is itself pretty badly written.

But I find her view of prehistory to be very mistaken. Also, she focuses on Western Asia and Europe in the few millenia before the rise of civilization, even though this itself is a very small fragment of what we call "prehistory". Why, then, is patriarchism so big in Eastern Asia? What about the civilizations of Mesoamerica? And so on. And her idea of science is pretty bad as well.

 

[Brighteye]

I think it's hardly up for debate that agricultural civilisation and organised religion really marked the beginning of the institutionalised universal subservience of women, but this thesis does tend to overreach a little bit.

The beginning of institutionalised inferiority only because it was the beginning of all institutions.
Women have never been giant and muscular (or at least not more so than men). The book has made this up. Women have always been the weaker sex, less skilled at hunting and fighting.
Before agriculture and religion, women were subservient simply because they were less good at surviving. In a rough world where fighting (each other or wild animals) and hunting are vital for survival, women were subservient for a reason.

It is only as civilisation progressed that women became less subservient, because it is only as hunting and fighting have become less necessary that women have become more useful.

 

[Arwon]

Bollocks. That men strong/women weak hunter-gather he-man stuff is all a matter of perspective and an attempt to justify the current status quo. Watch how easily it gets turned around: In pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer society women were far more valuable. They bore children, they were key to survival.Why do you think the men went out and did all the fighting and all the dangerous stuff? They were expendable donors of genetic material, and even then their role in actual reproduction wasn't really well understood.

It wasn't until stuff like ownership of land and the rise of complex civilisation that women started to occupy a weaker position. One example: once the dudes found it essential to keep track of who their kids were for purposes of property transfer to future generations, it became necessary to essentially own women so you could control their procreation.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

The men, being physically stronger in a society in which physical strength was so important, were still more powerful even if women were more essential to the species.

 

[Arwon]

Then why all the goddess statues from pre-agricultural times?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Because "more powerful" does not imply they were unaware of women or didn't think they were important in some way. But that doesn't mean these societies were matriarchal utopias.

 

[Arwon]

Never said it did, but stuff like the goddess statues and the importance placed on fertility means that a full-on culture of patriarchal oppression doesn't seem to predate institutions like the complex state, property ownership and organised religion. In other words, gender roles and traits mostly aren't biologically determined but socially constructed!

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

The presence of a statue of a fertility goddess in one region is not proof that there is no oppression of women anywhere in the world at that time. it doesn't even prove there is none in that society, or even by the person who made it. One can worship a goddess and still mistreat women.

 

[Ecofarm]

In other words, gender roles and traits mostly aren't biologically determined but socially constructed!

If you are referring to ancient times, wrong. Women tended the homestead because their mobility and hunting ability was limited during pregnancy, and most of their time was spent pregnant due to VERY high mortality rates. They became the home caretakers and gardeners for biological reasons.

Now, in modern times, I agree with your assessment. But to ignore the influence of biological differences (in ancient times) on gender roles is illogical.

 

[Arwon]

That's true Eran, but given that we can locate, historically, the origin of a lot of the implements of patriarchal culture in things like property ownership and such, and given that we can locate evidence of matrillineal and matriarchal societies... what reason is there to assume this stuff is all biologically innate?

Eco: What exactly does that tendency justify? Once people started farming, everyone stayed close to the homestead... and of course, there was a time when there WAS no homestead and we were all migratory. Moreover, I didn't say biology plays NO ROLE in differnetiation between men and women, just that most of it is a product of social and cultural forces.

Moreover, even though role delineation in pre-agricltural societies is in some ways biologically determined.. why did "home makers and carers" become such a low-status, low-prestige social role, culturally? I mean, they're pretty friggin important. The answer cannot be found in biology given, as I've said, this stuff has undergone historical processes.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Well, what is specifically male about property ownership as such?

 

[Arwon]

As I said as one example: "Once the dudes found it essential to keep track of who their kids were for purposes of property transfer (of farms and stuff) to future generations, it became necessary to essentially own women so you could control their procreation."

Maybe the initial spur was the male's role as warmakers aquiring a secondary "aquisition of resources" aspect. In a hunter-gatherer society war was for defence and maintaining the status quo, and as I've said, a case can be made that women were pretty damn valuable, maybe more than the expendable men

BUT farming and food surpluses changed this. Farms and produce were the first "above sustinence" resource, and as we know, the first powerful civilisations grew as a result of that power derived from agriculture. Suddenly, war's status rose... being able to take control of these sources of power would have given greater status and control to the dudes as war-makers. The roles stayed the same but their statuses changed. "Home makers and carers" no longer had high status. Things like patriarchal organised religions followed from this new culture of institutional male supremacy.

Once inheritance of land became the main source of power, a way to keep control of war-aquisitions it was necessary. But how could you be sure whose kids where whose given that WOMEN are the babymakers? You had to take exclusive control of the babymakers (or the "home makers and carers"), that's how. Hence, a culture was created in which exclusive bonds, even nonconsensual bonds, which subjugated and abused women, was the norm thanks to the increased status of war in societies where you could own property. Women were a victim of history.

The more I think about this, the more it seems that the initial roles were biologically determined, but the way they manifested socially and culturally was very very historical.

 

[Ecofarm]

Eco: What exactly does that tendency justify? Once people started farming, everyone stayed close to the homestead...

Even in agricultural societies, women tended the "kitchen" garden (minor crops grown near the house) and men tended the "field crops", for the same reasons men were the primary hunters. Field work is more physically demanding.

Of course, at some point these roles became about the control of income.

To be clear though: I do not believe that the subjugation of women began with institutions and prior to this women were in command of a utopia. There are examples of matriarchal societies throughout history, but I highly doubt claims of utopia. I also doubt the extent to which these societies were, in reality, matriarchal.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

And if hunter-gatherer war was just for defense and maintaning the status quo, who was starting the wars between hunter-gatherer societies? They were a lot more violent than some people realize.

 

[Arwon]

That's actually pretty easy. Why do states go to wars now even when neither of them want to and they're both being defensive? Security dilemma! Increasing your own security coming at the expense of the other's security, so in pursuing your own security you're actually fuelling a war. In hunter-gather terms this means attack them before they attack you, as a form of defence. Or maybe just steal some breeders or a good patch of lamb or some food to undermine them and increase your own security.

The key difference is that this stuff was ephemeral and temportary when you were living in a subsistance fashion. Agriculture and organised statehood gave males as warmakers the ability to take lasting control of the new primary source of power. These institutions of the organised agricultural state were force-multiplyers that made war have a bigger payoff (to some extent, increased population density probably made agricultural states more violent but that's hardly essential to this explanation). . War-making therefore gained a higher prestige than in previous relatively egalitarian preagricultural societies. Hunter-gatherer societies needen't have been more peaceful, nor utopian, just more equal and less able to gain lasting advantage over each other through war.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

That seems like a weak argument, actually. With no fixed borders and a transitory lifestyle anyways, hunter-gatherers didn't need to worry about that. They fought over resources, and often those resources included women. This has been observed in modern hunter-gatherer societies.

 

[Ecofarm]

I agree with you, Arwon, but where is the proof of matriarchal utopia prior to these institutions? Is there really enough evidence from hunter-gatherer times to make these claims?

While I agree that institutions strengthened male dominance over women, I think there is insufficient evidence of utopia and universal matriarchy prior to these institutions. The fact that institutions facilitated patriarchy does not prove matriarchal utopia existed prior to these institutions.

Evidence of corruption in America today in no way proves a lack of corruption yesterday. The problem with "The First Sex" (as the title implies) is not the proof of institutionalized sexism (pretty much a given), but the assumed opposite pre-history. The conclusion that matriarchal society is "naturally" a utopia is unfounded. By combining a noble savage and feminist idealism, the author puts forth a politically-motivated version of the ancient past based on flimsy, at best, evidence.

 

[silver 2039]

Sounds like a book that shouldn't be taught in schools. I'd be worried about your girlfriend if I were you.

 

[Arwon]

I never said there was a matriarchal utopia. That's what this outdated book from 35 years ago in the OP is arguing (anyone ever noticed how rapidly academic debate and scholarship moves? There;'s far better works on the historical origins of gender roles and gender role statuses). I am simply arguing that our incredibly patriarchal and male-normative culture has its roots deep in history and in material historical processes, but it is not biologically determined and is thus not insurmountable now. Since most of what we call "gender differences" in our society are historical results of these processes, they're not innate aspects of our genetics and that's an important thing to understand in order to work past a lot of the damaging assumptions we've been making for the last 5000+ years and still continue to make despite our best efforts.