Are Rome and Europe the Root of Patriarchy in the Rest of the World?

submitted by MarkTwainiac from self.GenderCritical

Someone recently started a thread here claiming that patriarchy originated in ancient Rome, was spread throughout Europe during the Roman empire, and then the Europeans spread patriarchy to the rest of the world during the period of European global expansion. According to the theory the OP put forward, many cultures in other parts of the world were not (very) patriarchal until European colonizers showed up.

I took time to compose a thoughtful reply debunking this view, but as soon as I did the OP deleted the thread. Since I put in time, and I've heard the ideas espoused by the OP from other parties, I'm reposting my reply here.

As I do, I want to make a plea to other posters: if you start a thread - or make a comment - and others disagree with you, or debunk your ideas, or tell you that you've got the facts wrong, please don't delete. Engage in a dialogue. There's nothing wrong with getting things wrong. As someone once said, to err is human.

In a recent thread here, I completely misinterpreted the message a TikTok video and was told so. No big deal. I was wrong coz I didn't pay sufficient attention to details in that case.

In other threads on this sub, I have made factual errors and other posters have corrected me. Some mocked me for my mistake too. But the mockery is beside the point. The point was, I made errors of fact, others corrected me, so I checked my facts, then acknowledged and made apologies for my errors. That's one way we learn.

When we just fold up our cards and push "delete," no dialogue or learning can occur. Saying "never mind" or "forget it" or "I never said that" is much the same as saying "No debate!" And look where that's gotten us all.

Anyways, below is the reply I wrote to the OP that started that thread. It's no great shakes, but I didn't write it for it - and the larger topic of convo - to be disappeared:

Europeans initially warred with and colonized their close neighbors, mainly other Europeans and others nearby, such the lands bordering on the Mediterranean. There were excursions of Europeans into North Africa and Asia during the times of the ancient Greeks, prior to the era of the Roman empire.

In the ancient world, there also was lots of colonization and many empires that had nothing at all to do with any Europeans.

In the post-Roman-empire era, Europeans only started colonizing other parts of the world in the period after Columbus, just under 530 years ago.

You really think male dominance, male supremacy and male control in the Arab world, Persia, the Indian sub-continent, Russia and the "stan" countries, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas only arose when colonizers from (Western) Europe showed up?

How then do you account for the patriarchal traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam - all of which originated in the Middle East long before Christopher Columbus?

European attempts to colonize parts of the Islamic world are much more recent than the Columbus era - occurring in the 19th and 20th centuries, after 1830. Are you really claiming that there was no patriarchy in places like Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and the Sudan until white guys from Europe in the 19th century showed up with their weapons and started asserting they were the boss man?

Europe than took over the whole world (practically), spreading their very patriarchal cultures (which originated when the Romans came). Exceptions in Asia- Japan, China (maybe a few others- Asian history is not a strong point)- but these two had very patriarchal ancient cultures.

Europeans did not take over the whole world - just a lot of it. Nor were Europeans the only people who took over vast parts of the world outside their native territories, as people like the Persians and the Armenians know full well.

Please look into the history of Islamic empires - not coz they were the only other imperial forces in history, but coz Islamic colonization is on par with European colonization in terms of reach, but it predated European colonization by many centuries.

The Islamic conquests and colonization of a good chunk of the world began in Arabia in the 7th century and quickly spread to places - such as Persia, Turkey, Armenia, North Africa, Eastern Europe, parts of Western Europe (Spain), India, and sub-Saharan Africa - many hundreds of years before Europeans like Columbus, Magellan, de Gama, Vespucci started traveling the world. Why do you think it is that in places very far from the Arabian peninsula where Islam began - such as Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan - the state religion that everyone must follow is one in which all the prayers must be said in Arabic, all the sacred texts are in Arabic and can only be studied and memorized in Arabic, and during daily prayers everyone must face Mecca - a city in modern-day Saudi Arabia?

Many native tribes (globally) also had less patriarchal societies.

Can you name these tribes and explain how they were less patriarchal than Western Europe at the time? I don't see how it's accurate to claim that, for example, the Maya, Aztec and Inca were less patriarchal than Western European societies.

The fact that in some/many cultures outside Europe, females have been allowed to occupy certain high-status and influential positions does necessarily mean those cultures were not patriarchal.

IIRC, when the European superpowers Spain and Great Britain started colonizing the Americas, it was in the name of, and at the behest of, two incredibly strong, powerful female monarchs - Isabella of Spain and Elizabeth I of England. Does the fact that these two women were European rulers mean Europe back then was not patriarchal?

Since you're focused on Rome, let's take an example from there: In Roman Catholic theology, the most venerated person after Jesus is his mother, Mary. She is the only human being other than Jesus said to have risen to heaven with her body. That's because in the RC view, Mary is the "the Immaculate Conception," the only human being ever to be conceived without the stain of original sin - a status not granted to Jesus, and one that actually puts her above Jesus in the sense of purity and holiness. Mary is also the only saint that RCs are allowed to pray to, as she is seen to be able to intercede on behalf of the faithful coz her word holds sway with God/the Trinity. Yet the fact that Mary is so venerated in RCC theology - and that Roman Catholicism also has elevated quite a lot of other women to sainthood and influential roles - does not mean the RC Church is not patriarchal. It's one of the most patriarchal institutions in the world.

At the same time, however, I think it's naive to suggest that Roman culture prior to or since Roman Catholicism - or the other forms of culture, society and Christianity that sprang from these later in Europe prior to and after 1492 - are the sole sources for patriarchy in most of the rest of the world.

Correction: the statement that Mary is also the only saint that RCs are allowed to pray to is incorrect, as Shesstealthy has pointed out in her post below. I apologize for making the errror.

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[–]JollyPurple 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Look up Maria Gimbutas and the Kurgan Invasion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_hypothesis

The world was matrifocal/matrilineal and peaceful (communities had no walls/protective barriers (See Minoan, Malta, Çatalhöyük -and other Neolithic Antolian civilizations), weapons were not found in burials, men and women were buried with the same level of goods-women slightly more, etc)until the 3 waves of the Kurgan invasions. It was the proto-indo-europeans that created patriarchy. It started much earlier than the civilizations you are discussing, and before the modern civilizations that we are so familiar today like the Arabs, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, etc.

The Kurgan invasion was a hypothesis, and many discredited her findings, until recent DNA has proven her work (see the Yamnaya culture).

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24132230-200-story-of-most-murderous-people-of-all-time-revealed-in-ancient-dna/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamnaya_culture

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/thousands-horsemen-may-have-swept-bronze-age-europe-transforming-local-population

Now the Kurgan invasion theory is the most widely accepted for the dawn of the proto-indo-europeans and the start of patriarchy.

Good books to check out are:

Any book by Maria Gimbutas

The Chalice and the Blade

Invisible women of the prehistory : three million years of peace, six thousand years of war

When God was a Woman

[–]LilianH 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Well it's not just the central/south American cultures, you'd have to include a deeply patriarchal society like China in the mix because it was never colonised by Europe and pre-dates the existence of Rome and in the middle-east, there is significant written evidence of Assyrian and Babylonian laws that enforced patriarchal control of women in marriage, and both of those civilisations predated Rome. Isolated cultures, e.g. Maori in New Zealand were still patriarchal.

They are just playing to the current "queer" narrative that gender roles and biological sex was invented in late Western Europe and pre-European cultures were perfect and equal. It's utter nonsense, there is no evidence to support their claims and they'll never provide any if you ask them.

[–]QueenBread 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

No. Absolutely no.

Every single human culture is patriarchial. There were just different levels of accepting women in society.

Patriarchy is rooted in biology, because our species has aggressive and strong males while it has women with fragile pregnancies and offsprings that needs years of caring of. It's just how it is. If we were sentient bees, we'd talk about the sexism of the poor, weak, outnumbered males in our species used only for reproduction and then killed. If we were sentient birds, we'd talk about the sexism of how men are judged on how pretty and attractive they look while women don't need to look cute.

Not a coincidence that us women finally got our rights the moment our ancient biology of "man needs physical strength, woman must make kids" was no longer necessary.

[–]MarkTwainiac[S] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

I agree with you in general, but I see patriarchy's roots in human biology as a little more complicated.

When physical disparities occur between different groups of people, it doesn't always lead to the bigger, stronger group trying to dominate, control and oppress the smaller, weaker group.

Adults have much greater advantages in size, strength and power over children. Some adults use these advantages to abuse, terrorize, exploit and enslave children. But a majority of adults don't. Most adults want to love, care for, teach and raise children and make children happy.

Similarly, most healthy adults in the prime of their life are much stronger and more powerful in many ways than disabled people and the very elderly. Of course, some healthy adults abuse people with disabilities and the elderly - and a fair amount of elderly people with financial means get ripped off by scammers and their own children, and sometimes they get knocked off for their money too. And there's a lot of ageism in our society, with some people in the COVID pandemic taking the position that the virus should just be allowed to rip through the senior population as a way of culling them. But generally speaking, most people want to be helpful to people with disabilities. And most people on earth - not so much in the West, but definitely in other cultures - are respectful and even reverential towards the elderly.

Now back to patriarchy.

Seems to me, men have used their superior size and strength to dominate and control women for two fundamental reasons (though these are not all the reasons, not by a long shot).

First, nature gives most males in adolescence and much of adulthood very strong, insistent, demanding, sometimes overwhelming sex drives; and since most males are heterosexual or bisexual, this means most males want to be able to access girls and women's bodies for the purpose of the males' own sexual pleasure whenever males want.

Second, at some point in our history, humans figured out that procreation wasn't something that females do entirely on our own: women became pregnant as a result of sex with men, meaning mean had something to do with the process of bringing new humans into the world. Once people figured this out, males developed a very strong desire to own women and control access to our bodies for sexual purposes in order to insure that males could be sure that the children born to "their women" were their own. Once this strong desire for ownership and control of females arose in males, it was easy for them to take ownership and seize control coz nature had already endowed them with vast size and strength advantages over women.

our species has aggressive and strong males while it has women with fragile pregnancies and offsprings that needs years of caring of. It's just how it is.

I think it's a mistake to characterize pregnancies or pregnant women as "fragile" and to suggest that caring for offspring in their early years is such an onerous, all-consuming job that it automatically sidelines women from all other activities and spheres of life.

Pregnancies are only fragile in the first trimester, when a lot end in miscarriage naturally coz they could never be viable. But after the first trimester, both pregnancies and pregnant women tend to be pretty hardy. Yes, as a woman becomes more heavily pregnant, she is less fast on her feet and will be protective of her fetus - which means she is more vulnerable in the event of attack and abuse by a big, strong male. But most pregnancies are far from disabling - and being pregnant does not cause most women to have to curtail or retire from most normal activities. Nor does it mean women lose their strength. On the contrary, carrying a baby to full term and giving birth are about the most strenuous activities humans can engage in.

As for the burdens of child-rearing, in tribal/communal societies, extended families and large nuclear families, childcare was/is usually shared amongst a lot of people, including the older children. And in the "olden days" from the dawn of humankind to when I was growing up in the 1960s, once children could walk and talk and didn't need diapers/nappies, they/we spent much of their lives at their parents sides as their parents went about their usual chores, with the kids learning and lending helping hands. And children spent a lot of time as "free range" kids, with very little adult supervision. Older siblings, cousins and neighbor children are the ones who often kept a watchful eye and did much of the child-minding.

When I was growing up in the 1960s, I knew lots of nuclear families of 10-14 children where the mothers were actually far less burdened with childcare duties than women today with one or two children. Coz in those large families, most of the childcare and household chores were left to the older siblings as well as hired "girls" like babysitters, au pairs and cleaners. And coz back then, even children of three, four and five were let out of the house to play on their own without constant parental or other adult oversight.

Even when women are breastfeeding, the job is not necessarily so onerous as to sideline women from other activities, many of them strenuous and of vital importance to the survival of her family/tribe/village/community. Over the course of history, hundreds of millions of women have gone gathering and hunting (and trapping, fishing), toiled in fields, gathered firewood, carried water, and done a tone of chores all with their nursing babies in slings on their backs or hips.

[–]QueenBread 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

Allow me to counter your argument.

1) You make the comparison of adults being stronger than children. It's a wrong comparison. I'm not talking about who is stronger, but about what biology wants for the survival of our species. Until not that long ago (a couple centuries is nothing for evolution!), our species needed to survive by strength and was organized by men as hunters and guardians, women as caterers and nurturers.

2) Pregnancies were SUPER DANGEROUS until, again, not long ago. It's hard to grasp nowadays, but dying from a pregnancy was one of the leading causes of death for women. That's because nature, somehow, created our species to have some of the most dangerous pregnancies ever among mammals. I remember my high school biology teacher underlining that fact, explaining us how weird it was that us humans have such weak bodies in everything that isn't intelligence, including particularly dangerous and lethal pregnancies. That's why having kids was a full job for all women in the world: they were already putting their lives at stake with that.

3) Understand that the 1960s you talk about are very close. Thing were already starting to change, we already had doctors and vaccinations. I'm not talking about the last century - I'm talking about human history. You don't change a species'behaviour in one hundred years, and if anything, the gender confusion we're experiencing now is precisely because these habits are starting to change too fast and our species gets confused.

[–]MarkTwainiac[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

Interesting points. But I have some quibbles.

1) You make the comparison of adults being stronger than children. It's a wrong comparison. I'm not talking about who is stronger, but about what biology wants for the survival of our species. Until not that long ago (a couple centuries is nothing for evolution!), our species needed to survive by strength and was organized by men as hunters and guardians, women as caterers and nurturers.

But in your earlier comment that I was responding to you indeed were talking about "who is stronger." You specifically said that until about 100-150 years ago when women began getting some rights, the governing principal of human societies was the biological dictate that says, in your opinion, "man needs physical strength, woman must make kids" - and that women couldn't do anything else coz of their "fragile pregnancies" and coz childcare totally consumed them.

Prior to agriculture and the domestication of animals, humans were hunter-gatherers, and women through gathering as well as small game hunting, trapping, fishing, netting, raiding of birds nests, capturing insects and so on provided 65% of the calories for their tribes - and through breastfeeding, women provided all the calories and nutrition for babies until about 8 months, and much of the nutrition for babies and toddlers long after that. Big game hunting was very inefficient and unreliable for a variety of reasons, and especially prior to curing and refrigeration, the meat from big game hunting would normally go bad before it could be consumed by the people in a tribe - and before the vultures and other birds who feast on carrion descended. Most animal calories in most hunter-gatherer societies came not from big game meat, but from small animals of all sorts - birds, waterfowl, lizards, snakes, insects, crustasceans, fish, rodents, rabbits. Also the anthropological evidence is that in many hunter-gatherer societies, women participated alongside men in hunts for big game.

Moreover, as I pointed out, when people lived tribally/communally and in extended families with lots of older kids and older people around, childcare wasn't such a burden on individual mothers as you assume it to be.

As for the claim that women in gather-hunter days worked as "caterers" I assume that was a typo, LOL.

2) I disagreed with the way you spoke of "fragile pregnancies" specifically, and pointed out that after the first trimester most human pregnancies and most pregnant women are not at all fragile. Past the 12th week especially, fetuses and women during pregnancy in fact are incredibly hardy. Nature has designed it this way precisely for the reasons you (& I too) consider important - evolution and the perpetuation of the species. Nature has designed human pregnancies to be hardy so that the fetuses can survive until they are old enough to be born, and nature has designed pregnant women to be hardy so they can survive long enough to give birth.

Now you're doubling down by claiming that

Pregnancies were SUPER DANGEROUS

And to back this up, you say

nature, somehow, created our species to have some of the most dangerous pregnancies ever among mammals. I remember my high school biology teacher underlining that fact, explaining us how weird it was that us humans have such weak bodies in everything that isn't intelligence, including particularly dangerous and lethal pregnancies.

But you seem to be confusing pregnancies with labor and childbirth - and I suspect your HS biology teacher who taught you not to make a distinction was either a man, or a woman who had never had children. And my hunch is that you yourself probably have never been pregnant or closely involved with any pregnancies.

Fact is, human pregnancies last 40 weeks. Labor and childbirth come only at the very end. Two connected but very different things.

It's not human pregnancies that are particularly dangerous and lethal (to the mother), it's human childbirth and particularly its aftermath. And this fits with evolution, coz once a woman has survived long enough to give birth to her child, her evolutionary purpose has been fulfilled and nature is no longer so concerned with her individual survival.

Your HS bio teacher also doesn't sound very well informed about why human childbirth is difficult, painful, dangerous and often lethal to the mother. It's coz humans have evolved so that in utero we develop unusually large brains relative to the rest of our size. As a result, human fetuses at term have very large heads compared to other mammals. It's not because "us humans have such weak bodies in everything that isn't intelligence" like you say. It actually takes enormous physical and emotional strength and the use of some extremely powerful muscles for a women to go through labor and push a baby down and out her vagina. And the human uterus, cervix and vagina are incredibly muscular, strong organs - remarkably so, in fact.

Also, most women who died in childbirth over the course of history have done so because of shock, severe blood loss due to things like placental tearing, breech births, and - most of all - infection. Not from being "weak" and "fragile"! And certainly not from being passive do-nothings who are utterly dependent on strong men "guardians" to do all of life's most physically demanding and life-risking tasks the way you allege.

Another reason childbirth has often been lethal for birthing mothers over the course of history is that many girls got pregnant and gave birth at such young ages that their bodies were not yet fully grown and thus not physically ready for the rigors of childbirth. Worldwide, the number-one killer of teenage girls is childbirth and complications from later-term pregnancy. But that's coz these girls' bodies are not developed enough, coz they are still children - not because human pregnancies across the board are inherently "fragile" and adult female bodies are "weak" as you say.

BTW, I find your insistence on characterizing pregnant and birthing women as "fragile" and "weak" to be misogynistic, insulting malarkey. Same goes with your characterization of women in pre-agricultural societies as nothing but nurturers (and "caterers"?) who took no part in obtaining food, water, firewood, finding or making shelters and organizing society coz they were all utterly dependent on big strong men to be their "guardians" and to provide all the calories and do all of life's heavy lifting, as it were.

3) I understand that the 1960s were very recent historically, practically a second ago in evolutionary terms. In the comment of mine you are responding to, I spoke not just of the 1960s, but of human history and of prehistoric times when people lived in tribal/communal societies rather than the atomized nuclear families of the today.

Yes, I know that in the 1960s

we already had doctors and vaccinations

But doctors did not actually make childbirth any safer for women. In fact, in the 19th century, most childbirth deaths that weren't related to blood loss and shock were caused by contagious infections - aka "childbirth fever" - post-birth that were caused by doctors coz doctors back then would go from one childbirth bed to another touching all the women's genitals, blood and body fluids without ever washing their hands. And whilst vaccinations have done much to help people survive once born; they haven't really affected pregnancies, childbirth or pregnancy outcomes, and with the exception of the rubella vaccine, vaccines haven't affected fetal development and thus newborn health, either.

As to your final point,

You don't change a species'behaviour in one hundred years, and if anything, the gender confusion we're experiencing now is precisely because these habits are starting to change too fast and our species gets confused.

I can't make heads or tails of this, so I hope you start a thread explaining what you mean. You seem to be suggesting that humans acting "contrary to nature/evolution" in recent history - and doing so at a too-fast pace - is what's causing today's "gender confusion." I think a lot of us here would be very interested in hearing more of your views on this. I know I would.

[–]QueenBread 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Can't say I enjoyed the aggressive attitude in your response. So I'll make it short, although I know fully well you're going to ignore all I will write. You HATE the idea that women are the weak gender in humans, even if it's simple biology. Try to understand that weak doesn't mean more stupid, and since intelligence is kinda the most important thing for us humans, then perhaps you can accept the idea that in other aspects women are just weaker by nature, since the intelligence of men and women is still the same.

Go tell ancient people that chilbirth is not a big deal. Oh yes, a lot of those deaths were because of infections...... too bad infections were a BIG problem until about a century ago. So, again, you choose to ignore 95% of human history just because things changed in the remaining 5%. Also, do you even know why women got pregnant and had kids when they were just 13? Because a lot of humans died in their 20s.

Also, I laugh at "doctors did not actually make childbirth any safer for women". Why don't you try birthing all alone in your house? Also please never do any checkup during pregnancy. Let's see how that goes and if you win the Russian roulette.

I laugh even more at your disingenuous idea that in ancient times women helped men hunting. Do you even know how it is to live in the wild? You need to defend yourself against fierce beasts. That's why men were the defenders and became more important. Also, have a look at ancient art: you see pantings of strong men hunting, and of women having huge tits and ass. Art - and therefore our culture - hasn't changed since prehistoric times.

You have to first accept reality, if you want to improve it. If you deny reality, your lies will eventually crumble and progress will not be made. If we were evolved from bees, you couldn't say that men had it as good and were as free as women. Yet I can imagine some "progressive" male bees yelling that in ancient times male bees were kings.

As a final note, if it makes any difference, I'm a woman and, more importantly for this discussion, I'm a feminist. I know that men and women are equally intelligent. I also know that when it comes to other things like strength, women are weaker.

And I know that if we still lived in the conditions we were living into a century or two ago, women wouldn't be free.

[–]MarkTwainiac[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

You say you're a feminist, but right off the bat you label me "aggressive" for challenging some of the spurious claims you've made about females having virtually non-existent biological capabilities and physical strengths, then you go on to assert over and over that women are "the weak gender in humans" and that "women are just weaker by nature."

Significantly, you fail to address any of the specific points I raised showing that your simplistic portrayal of the sexes - in your view, men all have strong, hardy bodies and are capable of great physical feats; and women all have weak, fragile bodies and are incapable of any physical feats other than childbearing - is flawed and not the whole picture coz the reality is not so black-and-white. And to excuse your failure to engage my points and to provide evidence-based arguments rather than just repeat assertions, you say basically "why bother" coz

I know fully well you're going to ignore all I will write. You HATE the idea that women are the weak gender in humans, even if it's simple biology

Later, you say the reason the reason I am unable to grasp that your assertions are the incontrovertible truth is coz I am unable to "accept reality" due to me being disingenuous, ignorant and given to "lies." And throughout you begin paragraphs saying "I laugh." Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but making constant unsubstantiated assertions, casting aspersions on your debating opponent, shouting and pretending you can read minds - and ahead of time too - and ridiculing your opponent are not good techniques for winning arguments.

Now to the topics at hand.

Let's look at your central claim: men are physically strong, hardy and capable of using their bodies to accomplish great, difficult feats like hunting large game and fending off attackers; women are physically weak, fragile and incapable of using their bodies to accomplish any great, difficult feats at all. In your view, throughout nearly all of human history women's only role was gestating, giving birth to and nurturing babies and children - none of which in your view are impressive or difficult feats that require any physical strength or skills whatsoever - and worse, which left women "fragile" and unable to do any other physical tasks.

Yes, in most immediately obvious regards, women are indeed physically weaker than men, particularly when it comes to traits that matter most in sports and combat, such as sheer brute strength, punching power, lifting power, speed at running, strength of hand grip, etc. Men have taken advantage of the size and strength advantage they have over women to dominate and control women, to create patriarchy. That's what I said in my original reply to you, in which I said that I though the reason for patriarchy was "a little more complicated" than you originally posited when you spoke of "fragile pregnancies."

But men being physically stronger than women in a large number of important ways doesn't mean women are inherently weak or are weaker than men in all physical respects the way you continually claim. Coz the types of physical strengths that matter in sports and combat are not the only type of physical strengths there are.

Nor does the fact that females are physically smaller and weaker than men in certain, obvious ways mean that women were/are physically capable of doing nothing beyond having and tending to children (and "catering") to contribute to human survival as you keep claiming. (I'll not go into the matter of intelligence, coz that had nothing to do with our original argument, which is only about physical strength and physical capabilities. Neither of us mentioned intelligence until you did just now.)

Recognizing women's biological strengths and all the important physical tasks women have performed over the course of human history that have been key to survival seems beyond you because you appear very much wedded to a simplistic view that males are physically superior to females in all ways - and you further cling to the deeply misogynistic view that women's ability to gestate, birth and breastfeed offspring means that women are physically weak, fragile and diminished in biological capacity compared to men.

But in fact, there are lots of physical ways in which females are the biologically superior, stronger sex. Female newborns are smaller but much hardier than males and as a result males have much higher rates of infant mortality due to natural causes; women are better than men at endurance sports; women are much more likely to survive a famine than men; women have much better immune systems, and superior kidney function; and women generally live considerably longer than men (females in many countries now commonly live to 90 or close to it).

What's more, women have the ability to conceive, gestate and give birth to new human beings and to keep them alive and fully nourished with milk from our breasts. You think this makes women physically fragile, weak and lesser to men, and that it also makes women incapable of carrying out any physical feats other than perhaps cooking. But some would say that women's abilities to make new life, bring it into the world and to sustain offspring and provide them will all the nutrients and immune benefits they need by feeding them from our breasts are pretty close to being super powers. And carrying a pregnancy, giving birth, breastfeeding and childcare are actually extremely demanding physical feats that require an enormous amount of hardiness and strength - as well as adaptability and resilience, traits that in themselves are strengths that foster survival of both individuals and the species.

Go tell ancient people that childbirth is not a big deal.

But I never said that childbirth is not a big deal! In response to your continued claim that pregnancy is dangerous and often lethal," I said it's childbirth that's dangerous and can be lethal, not pregnancy. You made it seem as though at any moment in their "fragile pregnancies" women are in danger of dying just for being pregnant. Now you're pretending you never confused the risk of pregnancy with the risk of childbirth in the first place!

Also, I laugh at "doctors did not actually make childbirth any safer for women". Why don't you try birthing all alone in your house? Also please never do any checkup during pregnancy. Let's see how that goes and if you win the Russian roulette.

Huh? Have you never heard of midwifery, the world's oldest profession? Historically the choice women had wasn't between birthing all alone unattended or having a doctor-assisted/controlled birth. Women in pregnancy and childbirth were assisted by other women very knowledgable about these topics. The more you say, the more you reveal how uninformed you are about matters you seem to think you know all about.

Also, do you even know why women got pregnant and had kids when they were just 13? Because a lot of humans died in their 20s.

A lot of humans die in their 20s today as well. Childhood and early adulthood have always been times of high mortality due to things like the prevalence of childhood diseases and malnutrition, high rates of male violence in the teen and early adult years, warfare (most soldiers are young), child labor, slavery, widespread child abuse, and rampant sex exploitation and slavery of girls and young women.

If you're suggesting that the majority of people in ancient times did not live past their 20s, you are mistaken. There's a big difference between average life expectancy/span and longevity.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-ancient-people-live-life-span-versus-longevity

Contrary to what you say, the reason so many girls got pregnant and bore children at 13 in earlier times is just as it is today: rape and child marriage/selling due to the fact that many adult males have a sexual preference for young girls, and coz girls were/are seen not as full human beings but as chattel. Also sex slavery (as in harems) was a huge factor through history.

I laugh even more at your disingenuous idea that in ancient times women helped men hunting. Do you even know how it is to live in the wild? You need to defend yourself against fierce beasts. That's why men were the defenders and became more important. Also, have a look at ancient art: you see pantings of strong men hunting, and of women having huge tits and ass. Art - and therefore our culture - hasn't changed since prehistoric times.

Please provide examples of these ancient paintings "of strong men hunting, and of women having huge tits and ass." The earliest known cave paintings (from various, far-flung parts of the world) show lots of large animals, but most of the human forms depicted are stick figures that are often elongated. There is a cave painting in the Kakadu National Park in Australia that shows a large female figure above all the other figures with her legs spread - but her ass isn't visible, as the focus seems to be on he part of the body where babies come out. And though she clearly has breasts, no one would describe them as "huge."

Also, referring to women's body parts as "tits and ass" - really? And I find it telling that you characterize the fact that women in hunter gatherer societies contributed the bulk of the calories the tribe consumed through not only gathering and raiding animal nests and burrows, but by tracking, hunting, trapping, fishing, netting insects and small and medium animals = "women helped men hunting." It seems your belief that throughout nearly all of human history men were all "strong hunters and defenders" and the sole providers of food whilst women were just "tits and ass" who were so physically weak that they were capable only of having and caring for children and perhaps cooking skews the way you interpret art - and the world.

https://www.oldest.org/artliterature/cave-paintings/

https://www.touropia.com/prehistoric-cave-paintings/

[–]QueenBread 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

Just one thing: your teachers at school didn't teach you how to write resumes?

That's a long wall of text there. Almost as if you're really really pushing to not have people question your view.

Oh, speaking of tits and ass in ancient times, I HOPE you AT LEAST know the Venus of Willendorf.

What else can I say - you offend women by claiming that the moment humanity learnt to write and build, society stopped being feminist. As if the moment we got smarter as a species the first thing we did was drop women as leaders. Yeah, thank you, what a nice theory to have.

My theory (or rather, my scientifical fact) that society never was feminist to begin with because of our biology, and our society is patriarchal just like an ant's society is matriarchal, is far, far less offensive to women.

What can I say, if denying history and reality helps you feel better, go for it. I'll keep being a feminist who knows that to make things better for us women, I first need to be objective in knowing WHY women have been oppressed for 98% of human history. I'd rather say it's a biological reason that can change as our species (and our society) evolves, than to think us women are so stupid we waited centuries upon centuries to wake up, so...... uh...... again, you're not really helping the image of women.

[–]MarkTwainiac[S] 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

Just one thing: your teachers at school didn't teach you how to write resumes?

Huh? A resume is the summary of one's job history. Did you mean a précis or abstract?

That's a long wall of text there. Almost as if you're really really pushing to not have people question your view.

Huh? again. If I didn't want people to question my view, why would I take the time to explain it at length? Seems you've decreed a word or character limit on this sub that I am not aware of.

"Long wall of text" - is that supposed to be an insult? So you think Homer, Chaucer, Spencer, James Joyce, George Eliot, Dickens, Pynchon, David Foster Wallace and a zillion other writers should be ignored coz in your opinion they used too many words?

BTW, casting aspersions on a poster for making a "long wall of text" seems a pretty obvious way of saying you can't - or aren't willing to - engage/refute the specific points/arguments in that "wall of text."

What else can I say - you offend women by claiming that the moment humanity learnt to write and build, society stopped being feminist. As if the moment we got smarter as a species the first thing we did was drop women as leaders. Yeah, thank you, what a nice theory to have.

I never claimed any such thing! I simply disagreed with your explanation for the origins of patriarchy, which you blamed on all males being "aggressive and strong" and all females having "fragile pregnancies."

I instead gave a more complex explanation for the biological reasons that caused patriarchy to come to be. I said males chose to take advantage of their physical strength over females to be able to access/control/own female bodies in order to obtain their own male sexual pleasure, and to make sure they were the fathers of the the offspring born to "their" women.

I never denied that patriarchy has long been the norm, nor did I deny that it has its root in biology. I only expanded on the biological reasons you proposed.

Oh, speaking of tits and ass in ancient times, I HOPE you AT LEAST know the Venus of Willendorf.

Of course I know about VofW, and many other ancient fertility symbols/fetishes. But religious symbols and totems aren't depictions of real life. Also, the VofW represents a time when women were revered for our ability to bring new life into the world. It was also a time of food scarcity when corpulence was seen as a sign of caloric wealth and high status. Whereas in your pornified view, the VofW means women have always been viewed in all human societies from the dawn of time as nothing but "tits and ass" - and body fat was regarded in the same shaming, disdainful way it is in today's world.

But what on earth does the VofW have to do with this? In my post, I was responding to your exhortation to

have a look at ancient art: you see pantings of strong men hunting, and of women having huge tits and ass.

And I gave links to a wide variety of prehistoric/ancient paintings which do not fit your simplistic, sexist view. (Also, for the record, I kindly did not point out that "panting of strong men hunting, and of women having huge tits and ass" are not necessarily the same as "paintings" of such.)

My theory (or rather, my scientifical fact) that society never was feminist to begin with because of our biology, and our society is patriarchal just like an ant's society is matriarchal, is far, far less offensive to women.

I never said society was feminist to begin with, LOL. That's a preposterous claim. I simply disagreed with your black-and-white depiction of the two sexes' physical capabilities that biology has endowed us with.

You see all men in prehistoric, ancient and modern times as super-muscular giants capable of wrestling and defeating all sorts of ferocious beasts and as a result were/are natural "guardians" and "protectors" of females, whom in your view were/are all fragile, passive weaklings incapable of ever doing anything physical other than nurturing offspring and "catering." On the scale of human strength and physical capability, you see all males as rating 100 and all females as rating 0 (zero). You think women are physically utterly weak and useless, especially when pregnant and during and after giving birth.

You totally disregard the enormous hardiness and amazing strength that carrying a pregnancy to term, giving birth, breastfeeding requires - and you also foster the myth that once women become pregnant and give birth, we become forever incapable of doing anything other than nurturing and "catering."

I'll keep being a feminist who knows that to make things better for us women, I first need to be objective in knowing WHY women have been oppressed for 98% of human history. I'd rather say it's a biological reason that can change as our species (and our society)

It's not the simple fact of biology that has caused women to be oppressed for nearly all of human history, it's the conscious decision of males to take advantage of the biologically-determined physical strength/power differentials between the two sexes to dominate females and exert "ownership" over us - and to punish, shame and sideline females for menstruating, pregnancy, childbearing and breastfeeding. A male decision that some females have gone along with and even supported.

you're not really helping the image of women

No, it's you who are not helping the image of women by your misogynistic view that all females are weak, fragile, incapable and in all physical ways utterly useless - and that the female ability to gestate, birth and nourish new life is a liability and weakness rather than a capability and a strength.

I'll keep being a feminist who knows that to make things better for us women

You might think you know how make things better for women, but I doubt you've actually done anything to make things better. You sound exactly like the kind of "feminist" who back in the 70s and 80s vehemently opposed providing workplace protections and provisions for pregnant and breastfeeding women, and who today resents childcare credits and allowances for family leave for either sex. You probably think the sex pay gap in paid employment is coz women due to their inferior biology and "fragile pregnancies" are weak and unambitious, not coz for various reasons - familial, social, biological, economic - it's women who have to take time out from paid work coz of maternity and child and elder care.

[–]QueenBread 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

Sorry, not gonna bother until you learn how to resume stuff. Oh, by the way, English isn't my language. In fact, I've never lived in an English-speaking country ever, so yeah, cut me some slack. I'm surprised I've never noticed that "resume" as a noun becomes a synonim of CV. Thanks for the heads up.

Your choice, now. You can learn the virtue of being concise, like your middle school teachers should've taught you. Or you can keep living in a fantasy world where biology doesn't matter and females have been oppressed because males are evil - because another thing you didn't learn in school is sociology. Or science. Or history.

[–]MarkTwainiac[S] 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Sorry, not gonna bother until you learn how to resume stuff.

Huh? Resume in English means to begin again after a period of interruption.

You can learn the virtue of being concise

Oh, c'mon. Is "TL;DR and I can't be bothered to read coz I have the attention span of a gnat" really the position you're now taking? You think that's an effective argument?

You've not refuted or attempted to refute any of my points - not a single one. You've only misrepresented the points I've made.

I have said time and again that biology matters and is the main reason females have been oppressed by males. But whereas you blame this principally on female biology - which you think makes all females inherently weak, fragile, deficient and utterly useless compared to all males - I blame this on males making a conscious choice to exploit their (average) physical size, strength and bodily power advantages over females to control, own and oppress us. And I further surmise that males did this for the purpose of a) gaining access to female bodies for their own male sexual pleasure; and b) to insure that the children born of "their" women were sired by them and thus belong to them.

you can keep living in a fantasy world where biology doesn't matter and females have been oppressed because males are evil - because another thing you didn't learn in school is sociology. Or science. Or history.

Bread, I think that between the two of us, you come off as the one who is poorly educated in all those topics and living in a fantasy world. I would happily take you on in a debate. I suspect I'd clean the floor with you.

I wish you well and hope that someday you can get over your internalized misogyny - and the disdain you hold for female humans coz of our reproductive capabilities which you see as deficiencies, and your lionization of the males of our species coz brute strength is what you seem to prize and admire the most.

[–]grixit 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Decades ago, there was a theory that there had been tribal matriarchies in the east mediterranian region back in neolithic times. Then the bronze age arrived, in the form of invading patriarchal tribes who used their bronze weapon to conquer that region. As a consequence, the social roles of women were diminished, and the earth mothers that had been the previous focus of worship were either completely replaced or else demoted to consorts of sky fathers. I'm pretty sure this idea has been dropped, though.

[–]Coral 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Very well written! Saving this to my profile so I can learn a little more about history. I was wondering where you all went after the subreddit got banned and I guess this is where.

[–]Shesstealthy 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

RCs are 100 percent allowed to pray to any saint they want. That's half the reason we have them.

But I agree, patriarchy isn't merely a Roman thing. The Greeks, for a start...

Like Western cultures, in the golden age of Islam there were certainly some privileged women occupying important roles and compared to the world it came from Islam was pretty liberal on the subject of women's rights. Today it looks very much not of course because it's regressed/continues to act like it's the 14th century.

Just because Celts and Vikings let women own property doesn't mean they weren't patriarchal societies either.

[–]MarkTwainiac[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

RCs are 100 percent allowed to pray to any saint they want. That's half the reason we have them.

Yes, you are right. I stand corrected. And added a correction noted in bold at the end of my OP. Thanks.

In some strands of Roman Catholicism, however, Mary is the most venerated of all the saints, and she is seen as having more powers of intercession than other saints in part coz of her status as the Immaculate Conception. It's why Hail Marys, the rosary and novenas are so commonplace - and why most former/recovering RCs can recite the Hail Mary from memory even if they've not recited it for 40 years.

Also, a lot of RC saints are believed to have specialized powers of protection and intercession. St Christopher is prayed to provide safe passage when travelling (as well as protection against epilepsy, lightning, storms, pestilence, and floods); St Jude when you have a lost cause and feel there's no hope; to St Lucy if you have eye or vision problems... and so on. Whereas my understanding is that Mary is prayed to for more general purposes.

[–]Constantinople 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

People who make those arguments are so laughable ignorant of actual history. They just want to blame all of life's problems on white guys lol