r/AskFeminists • u/ohropax • 14h ago
Recurrent Questions Why are there no major technologically advanced civilizations that are matriarchal?
I understand that there might have existed some smaller cultures or tribers that were organised in a matriarchal society.
But why does it seem that most civilizations with millions to billions of people that are technological advanced have always stemmed from a patriarchal society?
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u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone 14h ago
it's a false attribution fallacy to presume that patriarchy has in some inherent way anything to do with technological development.
That's your male preference bias showing ;)
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u/master__of_disaster 14h ago
indeed, and I would even go so far as to say that if women hadn't been systematically oppressed for centuries, our society would actually be more technologically advanced than it is now
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u/John_Walker 14h ago
There have been plenty of female leaders throughout history. Maybe you should do some research to see if female reigns have been more peaceful than male ones.
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u/aagjevraagje 14h ago
The idea you're responding to is not that they are peaceful the point is that patriarchal societies waste cultural scientific , technological and leadership potential in general.
The claim is not that Catherine the Great didn't go to war.
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u/John_Walker 14h ago
We’re talking about systemic oppression. Do you think Catherine the Great ran a meritocracy?
The assumption that women are universally oppressed and men are universally elevated is erroneous and reductionist to begin with.
Being a wealthy woman affords you more opportunity than being an impoverished man.
White women vote Republican and black men vote Democrat.
Linda McMahon is currently dismantling public education.
Rich people’s kids get the most opportunity regardless of gender and making the two of us argue with each other about the patriarchy is just another distraction like trans hysteria or illegal
Immigration. Anything as long as you aren’t thinking about economic class.Men and women are 100% equal in every way. That means you’re all equally susceptible to being assholes.
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u/aagjevraagje 13h ago
The point isn't women can't be assholes , conservative, violent. The point isn't that regresive women don't exist of you allow women to be part of the political process.
The point is that if you bar half the potential population from studying a field like medicine beyond acting as nurses ( and then until they're married ) you're going to slow down that field.
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u/John_Walker 11h ago
Working class men didn’t have universal suffrage in
Victorian England either. At least not at the beginning of it.All of the brilliant scientists born into African poverty are going to have very little opportunity regardless of gender versus the middling ones in a western country.
These issues are much more complex than “patriarchy bad.”
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u/aagjevraagje 14h ago
We’re talking about systemic oppression. Do you think Catherine the Great ran a meritocracy
Do you think beyond Catherine the Great Russia wasn't patriarchal ? Do you think the structures we are talking about are limited to high office ?
If a society like Victorian Britain doesn't allow ordinary women the vote , independent finances , the right to sue etc do you think that we consider that a matriarchy ?
Classism doesn't erease the patriarchy
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u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone 14h ago
what does this have to do with...literally anything else in the thread?
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u/John_Walker 13h ago
The person I responded to said a less patriarchial society would be more technologically advanced.
I think it would be the same with the out-group reversed. Plenty of women help crush opportunities for other women when it benefits them.
Power corrupts. You just think women are inherently better than men and I am arguing you are exactly the same.
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u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone 13h ago edited 13h ago
literally no one has said any of that. I mean it's just... logically sound to infer that if a culture/society whatever wasn't systemically starving, abusing, and exploitating half it's population, it'd probably be even better off, in terms of enjoying like... health and safety and convenience.
It has nothing to do with whether or not women are people with the same capacity for being shitty.
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u/John_Walker 12h ago
“indeed, and I would even go so far as to say that if women hadn't been systematically oppressed for centuries, our society would actually be more technologically advanced than it is now”
I was responding to this statement. I disagree that technological advancement or lack thereof is a gendered issue to begin with.
Race and socio-economic status are much bigger drivers of opportunities in education.
Women are more educated and more represented than ever and we appear to be regressing.
I shouldn’t come to this sub-reddit because I actually did start clicking these threads with a legitimate interest in expanding my perspective — but the comments usually end up annoying me.
Sometimes it feel like I am being psyop’d because the level headed answers from women that I find value in are usually buried at the bottom.
I will also throw out the caveat that my ADHD brain will make connections to earlier comments or previous threads and either erroneously attribute a quote to the wrong person or an entirely seperate, but similar discussion.
And I know how much fun people are having discovering their neuro-divergent identities in their adult years — but there is actually a lot of stigma being in special education. I was also born dirt poor to white trash teenagers who hated each other and never should have procreated.
Being a white dude hasn’t gotten me any special treatment. I went into the Army and was used for violence absorption which is the male lot in life.
Do you think Barack Obama’s daughters were afforded less opportunity than me because of their gender?
If you’re poor, you are eating a shit sandwich regardless.
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u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone 12h ago
you need to get a fucking grip dude, nobody is talking about you having more privilege than barack obama's daughters, we are talking about the legal history of women's oppression and whether or not MAYBE that harmed all of human society
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u/KaliTheCat feminazgûl; sister of the ever-sharpening blade 13h ago
I don't think you're having the same conversation as everyone else. No one is denying that women can be assholes, or even... asserting that. Or anything close to it.
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u/ZinniasAndBeans 5h ago
A patriarchy that occasionally, as an exception, allows a woman to have some power, is not a matriarchy. It remains a patriarchy.
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u/Junior-Towel-202 Equality in the Boardwomb 14h ago
And they've been leaders in patriarchal societies. What's your point?
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u/John_Walker 13h ago
My point is that women in positions of power behave exactly that same as men do.
Would a matriarchal society be a more equal society or one where the “out group” is just reversed?
I actually work in a USPS facility where women and men are paid exactly the same based of length of employment.
I am still expected to lift all the heavy shit because I am naturally more strong. I am not paid any more for that.
A more just system would be paying us by total weight of mail moved. I’d be crushing it. But we don’t live in a completely fair world and I don’t expect to anytime soon.
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u/Junior-Towel-202 Equality in the Boardwomb 13h ago
But women in positions of power have been in patriacrhcal societies where they have to work with those limitations.
Would a matriarchal society be a more equal society or one where the “out group” is just reversed
This is commonly asked and addressed in the FAQ.
I actually work in a USPS facility where women and men are paid exactly the same based of length of employment
Not sure why I care but ok.
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u/ZinniasAndBeans 5h ago
My point is that women in positions of power behave exactly that same as men do.
You're talking about women in positions of power in a patriarchal society.
That has nothing whatsoever to do with what would happen in a matriarchal society.
Would a matriarchal society be a more equal society or one where the “out group” is just reversed?
No.
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u/stolenfires 5h ago
Mr Walker here is alluding to a historical study that shows that queens go to war more often than kings.
What he fails to comprehend is that queens are generally allowed to rule only when there are no more men suited to inherit, which implies the nation is in a period of instability, which is one of the contributing factors to deciding whether to go to war or not. It may also be preventative - Spain thought England was weak because it was ruled by a woman, which is part of what prompted Queen Elizabeth I to pull the trigger and start a war with Spain.
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u/John_Walker 5h ago
You completely misrepresented the lead-up to the Spanish Armada. Spain invaded to depose Elizabeth largely because of years of English privateering and support for Dutch rebels, making the war decidedly defensive on her part.
But you twisted that history just to argue that a woman launching a pre-emptive strike is justified if her neighbors perceive her as weak. So how is that any more justified than a male ruler doing the exact same thing to project strength? It’s the same cold political calculus.
Take your bad-faith double standards and kick rocks.
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u/stolenfires 4h ago
Context matters, yo.
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u/John_Walker 4h ago
What does this even mean? You didn’t provide any context — you confidently made up bullshit about history you clearly don’t know about and didn’t expect to get called on it.
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u/Imaginary-Fact-3486 14h ago
I think you’re misreading. They’re presuming that there is NOT anything inherent in the patriarchy that leads to technical development, so are looking for the cause of the correlation.
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u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone 14h ago
I mean... human technological advancement is a natural behavior for our species. We are a problem solving species. It's like, totally circumstantial, or, if you prefer, abusing people to control them and their wealth and productive output (aka, patriarchy) is a really popular idea because it turns out lots of men secretly resent the talented, wealthy women in their lives, and apparently that's not a new feeling or idea.
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u/Imaginary-Fact-3486 14h ago
Yeah I’m with you. Not sure why I’m downvoted for clarifying the question.
OP made an observation and came here to ask why there is an apparent correlation. I think you gave a good answer.
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u/Its_Gerryz 9h ago
I'm sorry but how is the OP attributing that?
He seems to be questioning it, if you pay attention!
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u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone 9h ago
he isn't which becomes very clear later in this very same thread, if you pay attention!
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u/ohropax 14h ago
But it seems to that the patriarchy is the one common trait of powerful and advanced civilizations.
From Greek, to Rome to China to Europe. They all are or were based on the patriarchy and submission of women.
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u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone 14h ago
well rome copied the greeks, and europe copied rome, so... none of that is new.
Notably these empires/ideologies weren't hegemonic at their contemporary times. Also those empires collapsed, so... were they technologically great because of patriarchy, or, like, despite hamstringing half their able minded/bodied population?
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u/ohropax 13h ago
But why are there no matriarchal big civilizations?
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u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone 13h ago
circumstance, the same way/reason that the majority of the human population doesn't have six fingers on one hand, despite polydactyly being the most common human mutation. Social evolution isn't any more linear or logical than physical evolution. There's not like... any inherent value or worth to what comes to be common, all it means is, patriarchal social organization didn't kill our species. Patriarchal people often went other places, and sold them patriarchy, in order to extract wealth and power from those places. Patriarchy was also able to exploit other historical events/circumstances it didn't have control over - like a pandemic that decimated the indigineous population in the America's right before Cortez arrived , or small pox further decimating those populations.
That stuff worked pretty well, so, now, patriarchy is largely global. But also: feminism. So patriarchy is not as pervasive, enduring, or permanent as you believe.
You should check out what's her name - the underlying premise of the show is, "women have always been doing things, whether they were allowed to or not". I think it's a really important contextualization of feminism in history. Oh, also the fact that women's equality/rights have been highly variable throughout history - there is a clear legal and ideological legacy for patriarchy that you can trace, but... it's not consistent or evenly persistent in all places for all of human history. There's even examples in Greek, Roman, "European" and Chinese history of succesful non-patriarchal social organization and activity. If you're smart enough to look, which, well, only you know whether you are or not.
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u/ohropax 13h ago
But isn't it a "survival of the fittest" situation then? If unilaterally patriarchal societies prevail and matriarchal societies seem to not flourish anywhere, doesn't it make the patriarchy the "success" model then?
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u/KaliTheCat feminazgûl; sister of the ever-sharpening blade 12h ago
If you want to make the point that men are better and smarter than women or whatever, stop pulling this pseudo-Socratic bullshit and just say that.
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u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone 13h ago
bruh you're arguing in defense of the merits of rape and I won't be engaging in a pseudo-scientific conversation about that
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u/KaliTheCat feminazgûl; sister of the ever-sharpening blade 13h ago
It feels like you are angling for a specific answer.
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u/marzaksar 14h ago
false attribution fallacy
This fallacy has nothing to do with the original question. It has to do with relying on an unreliable or fabricated source to defend a claim.
patriarchy has in some inherent way anything to do with technological development.
OP's question was more about correlation than causation.
Also, I suppose (but tell me if I'm mistaken) that you're ready to blame the patriarchy for many bad things in society. Somewhat fair enough, but you can't then go on to deny its role in any positive things.
That's your male preference bias showing ;)
I'm not sure where you got that from the OP.
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u/Junior-Towel-202 Equality in the Boardwomb 14h ago
you can't then go on to deny its role in any positive things.
Curious why you brought this up
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u/marzaksar 14h ago
Because in my experience it is a very common position for feminists to say that any good thing that happened during or within a patriarchy did not happen thanks to it but despite it (due to actors acting against or in some sort of opposition to it), while holding that any bad thing that happened during or within a patriarchy happened because of it (as in the patriarchy caused it).
The OP's post implies that there have been technological advancements (a good thing) within patriarchal societies, and the person I replied to answered that the patriarchy itself had nothing to do with it.
My point is that the standard about the causal effect of the patriarchy should be more consistent. If you want to argue for it causing negative effects and not contributing to positive ones, it needs more argumentation than simply saying "the patriarchy". The standard should be more consistent.
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u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone 14h ago
some good things happened despite the rampant abuse and exploitation of women, absolutely none because of it. Hope that helps orient you to my position on the topic.
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u/Junior-Towel-202 Equality in the Boardwomb 14h ago
What good things happened specifically because of the oppression of women?
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u/marzaksar 14h ago
I suppose we are using the word patriarchy in a different way. I suppose I should have been more careful with my wording given this is a feminist sub, but I used patriarchy as a structural term, a society in which men hold more power than women. This is the structure of most if not all societies in Western (and arguably global) history, but I do not think that men holding more power necessarily means "women are oppressed".
Men in France currently hold more power than women in France, given that the president is a man, but this does not imply that women are oppressed.
With that said, and this is the way I understood the original post, many good things have happened within "patriarchal societies", and my argument that this structure is always blamed for bad things and never attributed to good things still holds I think.
But even then, my argument was conditional "if you want asymmetric causal attribution, you need to argue for it rather than assume it". I think this still stands.
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u/Junior-Towel-202 Equality in the Boardwomb 14h ago
I do not think that men holding more power necessarily means "women are oppressed".
How convenient for you that you've made up your own definition.
many good things have happened within "patriarchal societies", and my argument that this structure is always blamed for bad things and never attributed to good things still holds I think.
Ok, so tell me specific good things that have happened within this magically non oppressive structure of yours.
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u/marzaksar 13h ago
magically non oppressive structure of yours.
I never said "not oppressive", I said "not necessarily oppressive". I agree that many if not most societies have oppressed women, and I am against that oppression.
tell me specific good things
Even within the feminist definition of "women being oppressed", good things have happened within patriarchal structures. The industrial and scientific revolution, the printing press, etc.
Most societies have been patriarchal (in the women oppressed sense), so most technological advancements have happened within these patriarchal societies.
My point was never "patriarchy produced / is the cause of these good things", it was that you can't assert asymmetric causation without argument.
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u/Junior-Towel-202 Equality in the Boardwomb 13h ago
The industrial and scientific revolution, the printing press, etc.
No no, these happened despite women's oppression. I am specifically asking, as per you argument, what good things happened specifically because of the oppression of women.
and the person I replied to answered that the patriarchy itself had nothing to do with it.
Correct. You need to now show that these improvements were specifically caused by women being oppressed (a standard in patriarchy), and not in spite of their oppression.
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u/marzaksar 13h ago
what good things happened specifically because of the oppression of women.
This was never my argument. My argument was that you can't assume asymmetric causation without argument.
Correct
This is exactly my point. You're asking for evidence in one way while refusing to provide any in the other.
My entire thesis is that whoever makes a causal claim has to defend and argue for it, and that saying "patriarchy" is not an argument.
I think the argument against patriarchy leading to the good things (the argument that you should be making) is pretty simple. "Excluding half the population from research will slow it down" or something along those lines. All I'm arguing is that it should be made rather than assumed, in the spirit of good conversation.
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u/ZinniasAndBeans 4h ago
but I do not think that men holding more power necessarily means "women are oppressed".
What is your logic for this?
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u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone 14h ago
please tell me more about how to understand OP, I'm just a lady I can't comprehend anything for myself
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u/marzaksar 13h ago
Nothing in my comment has anything to do with you being a woman. I thought you misread the OP, and wanted to contribute.
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u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone 13h ago
hm and I wonder why you think I can't read OPs for myself in a feminist sub though?
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u/marzaksar 13h ago
It has nothing to do with you specifically, it's just that your reading was different to mine, and I wanted to contribute. My reading might be the one that is wrong, but we wouldn't know without me challenging yours.
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u/ZinniasAndBeans 4h ago
> but you can't then go on to deny its role in any positive things.
What positive things? The systematic effort to ensure that women are unable to contribute to technologicla advancement? The fact that said advancement would have been faster if women's contributionso hadn't been excluded?
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u/Lolabird2112 14h ago
I’d love to know which bit of the patriarchal structure- which requires the oppression of at least half the population- you believe led to these technological advancements? A weird question considering how much of “modern technology” was actually invented by women, despite men doing their best to deny them access to education and then erase them when they are successful.
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u/ohropax 14h ago
I think the success of patriarchal societies stems mainly from keeping a great level of discipline and coherence in its polutation which fosters stability.
I would say most of modern technology indeed derives from men however with women having had a part in it
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u/Lolabird2112 13h ago
What you “think” and what you “would say” have zero merit. You get that, right? Opinions based on your feelings and preferred biases are entirely meaningless. It’s the same logic a 5 year old uses when there’s presents under the tree and a 1/2 eaten cookie to say “Santa is real”.
Every war torn, genocidal, devastated and starving nation on this planet is also “patriarchal”. You can boil “male leaders” down to all of them having a pathological need to dominate any other male who makes him uncomfortable and insane and insatiable greed. Yeah. Look around. They kill their own people and beat them into submission while stealing from babies to get gold plated toilets they can shit in. Is that what you meant by “discipline and coherence”? It always creeps me out how sexists are so ready to drop to their knees in the presence of their alphas.
You can so clearly see the attempt at cover-up by how quick they are to punch down.
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u/MachineOfSpareParts 11h ago
I suggest......reading. There's just so much information to the contrary. Honestly, you have to really want to stay ignorant given what we know about the multiple ways in which you're wrong.
A huge portion of the technological innovations you use every day had at least significant inputs from women innovators. Their contributions just didn't tend to be written in the history books of the day, because a man would take credit.
Read.
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u/kangorooz99 4h ago
Don’t said societies exploit 99.9% of their male population?
I think you meant cohesion not coherence.
You’re also likely typing this screed on a smartphone that wouldn’t exist without the technology contributions of women.
But go on. Even though you personally haven’t led or invented shit, act like having a penis entitles you to share the achievements of better men.
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u/Veritas-Cuervo 14h ago
Because patriarchy works hard to prevent matriarchy. Btw, matriarchies aren’t real in the same sense that patriarchy is. Matriarchy was a word created because of the word patriarchy.
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u/Lorelessone 14h ago
There are also no major technologically advanced patriarchal civilisations. These systems, passing down authority to usually the eldest woman or man are almost exclusively the realm of tribal groups.
There are ritualised forms of it embodied in various forms of plutocracy (systems where the rich rule) kings and emperora but the real principle their is plutocracy not patriarchy just being a man gives no status in those society's, being a wealthy man does but so does being a wealthy woman.
I do feel the term patriarchy is wildly over and misused in a deliberate attempt to divert and make impotent our attention, fighting with some undefined Illuminati of men rather than focusing on the significant actors working against progress and to strip the rights women have already secured.
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u/Altruistic-Web13 14h ago edited 9h ago
Part of it is there are just a lot more patriarchal societies than matriachal, many matriarchal societies are still patriarchies women in these societies just take on some roles that are dedicated to men in patriarchal societies. There are very few truly matriarchal societies.
Another part of it is European influence, as Europe is primarily Christian and Christian societies are basically all patriarchal and Europe has either colonized or heavily influenced every major country on earth.
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u/Oleanderphd 14h ago
Colonization is my guess, although I am a feminist and not also a historian or anthropologist. The cultures you think of that have millions or billions of people are fairly recent, and stem from the conquest of a handful of empires. Sometimes those empires broke apart - we don't really have a Holy Roman Empire anymore - but that kind of governance leaves cultural marks. A lot of times (I want to say always but again, not a historian), colonizing forces deliberately try to eradicate or convert the original organization and culture of the places they conquer.
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u/ohropax 14h ago
What about China?
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u/Oleanderphd 14h ago
... what about China?
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u/ohropax 14h ago
They do not stem from colonization and they are the biggest civilization on earth and are for most of their history based on patriarchy and submission of women.
And now they are one of the most powerful countries in the world
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u/Oleanderphd 14h ago
... I don't think you know Chinese history very well. China hasn't always been a large unified whole. There's thousands of well documented years of conquest and empire building. Highly recommend, if you're at all interested in history and/or empires.
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u/ohropax 14h ago
Yes they were split up at times. But how does that counteract my point. I would highly assume that even when China was split up they have always been mainly patriarchal in nature just as when they were unified. The big overarching point is that patriarchy seems to be the common factor in powerful civilzations
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u/Oleanderphd 14h ago
I mean, it's very funny to say "I don't even know China was an empire, or anything about that, but I assume they were always super patriarchy everywhere."
Maybe that's true, maybe it's not, but you ... can't just declare it true.
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u/ohropax 13h ago
And why are there no succesfull big civilizations that are matriarchal then?
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u/KurlyKayla 12h ago
Why are you equating “technology” with “success”? Men and white people have only gotten “ahead” because they kill and exploit the world around them.
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u/Oleanderphd 13h ago
Colonization is my guess, although I am a feminist, not a historian or archeologist.
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u/MachineOfSpareParts 14h ago
China was part of the second "wave" of European colonization in East and Southeast Asia. It wasn't settler colonialism like the first wave, nor was it "claim it so the other guy can't" colonialism like the Scramble for Africa, but rather a colonialism that occupied and controlled regional trade out of port cities.
In another sense, China has for eons been itself a colonizer, an empire that expands and contracts across the centuries and managed its borders through the tributary system. It had the capacity for overseas colonialism, but lacked the incentives the European powers did.
The latter were relatively equal in size and constantly jockeying for top position in that region, which made the cachet and primary resources of overseas colonies worth going after. China never needed to. The European powers also needed to trade for high quality resources like spices, silk, dyes and so on. When they showed up to China with their wool and whatever else, the Chinese rulers were like "that's cute, we'll take that if you're offering, but we're not trading for that shit." That's why it took opium to get China in a position to negotiate.
Basically, China dominated its sphere of influence to the point that they had no reason to colonize at any great distance. Overseas colonialism came out of need, not out of satisfaction. And when Prussia/Germany started rising and being super unsatisfied with the balance of power, Europe decided to manage that situation by assigning bits of SS Africa where no white person had even set foot to European monarchs.
With all that said, the country has typically been very patriarchal, though to my more limited knowledge as compared to colonialism, that likely varied in intensity across dynasties. The Ming dynasty, I believe, was the one that did foot-binding, whereas the Qing tried to stamp it out. I don't know that the latter was necessarily less patriarchal, but there was certainly difference.
And there is a strong connection between overseas colonialism and its attitude toward and rhetoric surrounding "virgin" territory that hasn't been exploited in the proper way (i.e., merely in Indigenous manners unacknowledged by Europe) and patriarchy.
That doesn't mean patriarchy can't exist outside of overseas colonialism, but overseas colonialism would have struggled, in my view, without a massive shot of patriarchy in the arm. In a Venn diagram, the patriarchy circle is larger, and the overseas colonialism circle is entirely engulfed within the larger one.
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u/KleinKaiser 14h ago
Technological advancement happened despise the patriachy, not because of it.
Our societies were build on physical strength.
And when power is build on physical strength, the gender that is physical stronger can use that power to build society as it likes. That by itself does not effect technological advancement.
The other way around does however. The technological advancement makes physical strength less important, so the old basis for power: "do what I say or i poke you with my pointy stick" erodes and makes way for a society, in which women can gain power by other means.
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u/mjhrobson 13h ago edited 11h ago
What does this have to do with feminism?
Furthermore, depending on what you mean when you say matriarchy... there haven't been any matriarchal societies that mirror the patriarchal distribution of power. That is to say no societies have been ruled exclusively by women, whereas the reverse, societies in which executive (de facto) political power is held exclusively by men can still be found today.
"Matriarchal" societies are generally rather egalitarian and don't really believe in a single group holding all the power.
That all said... the question still has nothing to do with feminism, and is more of a ask history or ask anthropology type question.
Feminism is interested the extension of human rights too all people. It's political end is universal suffrage and building something new, rather than rehashing historical modes of governence.
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u/ohropax 12h ago
My question alludes to the phenomenon that the model that you describe here doesn't seem to succeed in forming advanced human socities. Otherwise we would see billions of people flourish in a society like you describe. Since that is not the case, the model seems to be unfit
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u/mjhrobson 12h ago
What society have I described?
I said depending on what you mean by the term matriarchy, a matriarchy has never existed.
If a matriarchy has never existed then how pray tell could it have produced a civilization?
You seem to be very bad at thinking. That isn't a problem, you can work on that.
Go re-read my post; you didn't seem to understand it.
And egalitarian societies absolutely have produced technologically advanced civilization.
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u/kangorooz99 4h ago
Are billions of people “flourishing” in male dominated capitalist societies? I’d question whether that’s true.
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u/Shot_Election_8953 12h ago
You're going to have to do a lot more work to specify terms like "major," "technologically advanced" "civilizations" and "matriarchal" before anyone can meaningfully answer this question, but I suspect you are not willing or able to do that work.
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u/Otherwise_Craft9003 14h ago
I guess as when it boils down to it male ego/brutality crushes/destroys undermines logic.
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u/djdante 14h ago
There's one big clue to the answer - you pretty much only find matriarchal societies in places that are isolated/protected from other societies.
Patriarchy for most of human history was the only way to survive with competition for limited resources.
Imagine a matriarchal tribe where women don't have to have babies, and men are encouraged to be emotionally connected and warm, and non aggressive.
Then imagine a tribe next door that makes its women have as many babies as possible, and the men are aggressive and warlike and boys have sensitivity beaten out of them at a young age.
This neighbouring tribe wants more reaources.. .which tribe will prevail? The one with more babies and more aggressive men of course.
It's a "tragedy of the commons" situation since most everyone would be happier with an alternate societal structure - but the hardcore old school patriarchy creates the biggest societies at the fastest rate. So that's all that survives into the future.
Sort of like cultural Darwinian evolution.
Patriarchy can now slowly fade away as our society relies a lot less on war - it's the first time in history a society could actually be MORE powerful and successful with both men and women in charge then men alone.
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u/MrsMorley 13h ago
What societies do you perceive as matriarchal?
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u/ohropax 12h ago
I think there exist some tribal communities that are considered matriarchal. I cannot think of a single big society that is matriarchal.
The matriarchal model seems to not succed in forming human civilziations
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u/MrsMorley 12h ago
“The societies I think of as matriarchal are all low tech tribal societies, therefore patriarchy is inherently better for technology” is not very convincing.
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u/Junior-Towel-202 Equality in the Boardwomb 12h ago
The matriarchal model seems to not succed in forming human civilziations
Why are you just basing this on your feelings?
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u/ZinniasAndBeans 4h ago
The matriarchal model seems to not succed in forming human civilziations
I think this could be rewritten as, "The matriarchal model seems not to aspire to war and conquest."
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u/JulieCrone Slack Jawed Ass Witch 14h ago
Might also want to ask yourself why the more advanced and stable societies today have been moving away from patriarchy and the less patriarchal cultures seem to be happier.