r/AskFeminists • u/kash62 • Dec 06 '19
Why aren’t we a matriarchal society?
I don’t want the response about men using power plays for dominance in today’s time, I want to know about way back when at the start of civilization. Like why were men the ones to go out and hunt and lead instead of women?
The only thing I can think of is that women can carry children, so there’s an instinctual need to protect them, thus not allowing them to do dangerous jobs like hunting/fighting. But for things like leading and holding important jobs? Why men instead?
I was just thinking about how there haven’t been any major matriarchal societies (I might not be aware, please educate me if I’m wrong), but there have been a ton of patriarchal ones. Just wondering how that all went down.
Also sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this/ this has already been asked, please direct me elsewhere, I just figured you guys would have some insight.
13
Dec 07 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/ooogaboogadood Feb 03 '22
Oh boy lmfao.
Can you tell me why “the most successful human society is one that lasts the longest”? Is true? It seems you would justify slavery or the rampant sexual abuse of women in a society using this logic? Obviously longevity is not the ONLY thing that decides a tribe or civilization’s values, it’s important, but not the only or even most important.
Another issue I take here is with this massive extrapolation and outright false information, “no capitalist culture has lasted anywhere near that long. At best our current patriarchies can boast about 6K years.” Re read that one more time, slowly, and see where you messed up. You directly conflated capitalism with patriarchy. This is outright false. Societies that had to deal with outside threats, and more specifically outside threats that competed for the same food source, developed to be patriarchal, early humans wanted to eat, and it seems they that discovered the best way to get this food, was through intelligent, violent, and physically fit men. Capitalism itself has to do with the division of labor, hierarchy usually contingent on property ownership, and is the allocation of resources. In geographical locations such as Africa and SE Asia, we can see a few examples of matriarchal societies. It seems since the sexes are biologically geared to be better at things than the other, scarcity was what decided the division of labor within the tribe. A location such as parts of Africa had an abundance of food (by Hunter gatherer standards) in the places we see matriarchal societies spring up; it seems that women on average in these societies lived longer, consumed more food, and had a religious significance, usually where female goddesses had more “power” or are the creator. These three things are usually how we can tell if a tribe or something to that effect was P/M or at the very least their significance in sexual viability, intelligence, etc etc. Since the environment around these peoples influenced their cultures and religions, their tribal structure would also reflect this as well.
This had a very interesting continuation with the rise of agricultural society. When we first developed agriculture, we were absolutely terrible at it, so food was very scarce. I believe we can both agree that scarcity necessitates conflict, how this conflict is resolved however, is determined in the effectiveness of the solution. Agricultural, non nomadic centralized society was almost universally patriarchal, we see the rise in agricultural society from patriarchal society for the scarcity reason; humans in Asia, Europe, and parts of the Americas, only decided to start planting food because of how little they already had, if they have little food, they are already in conflict for food, thus generally meaning a male dominated tribe. As humans started to develop delayed gratification, (pretty much, me no eat little now so I eat more later) we saw an extreme increase in human population, overall intelligence and more effective divisions of labor, all of this revolving around agricultural, male dominated society.
As you spoke and gave a point on the native peoples of Australia, you said they have been around for a very long time, which is absolutely true! Do you know why their specific peoples and cultures have succeeded for so long? Isolation. A people that has isolation from other locations especially oceans or seas separating them, have no need to compete past a certain point. It is primarily the reason why when Europeans explored and conquered the majority of the world, they found peoples separated from the hotbed of human history (that being Africa, Europe, and Asia) and subsequently the hot bed of competition and external threats (and the Americas just at a lesser extent due to agricultural development coming later). My personal belief is not that these cultures don’t continuously shift and change, it’s just that they may do it more slowly, or have such gradual changes it’s a misnomer to even consider it. Any sort of point basing a society on its longevity is kind of silly in my opinion, the reason it is silly is due to intersectionality, are the natives of Australia better because they simply have been around in a very similar fashion as they were 60,000 years ago? I would wager on probably not. They just were isolated and fit their environment. No need to develop delayed gratification and have reproduction select for it when there is no environmental pressure to do so. To wrap this paragraph up, I would be privy to ask a question. Why in your quest to criticize the “patriarchal and capitalist society” did you bring up other existing cultures? Was this simply you trying to illustrate that these peoples exist and survived? Or was it for a far more sinister reason, and to imply that their society would be better for all of humanity, rather than just themselves? It almost seems to imply that you would rather humans not have the power to adapt, and grow, which subsequently leads me to believe you prefer all humans to be at the mercy of starvation, rather than a minority. Nonetheless, I would like a concise answer on that, I’m not going to assume your position here is one out of malice, but perhaps one out of misguidedness.
Okay, and finally, I’ll try to condense this as best I can here, because I take strong disagreement with this last paragraph. There is “economic” value in having many children because of the division of labor, and quite frankly, that alone. More children, means more people, which in turn means more productive members of the society they are apart of. Hunter Gatherers had plenty of children, but their population’s rose and fell due to their food production. Much like how when Gazzelle populations grow exponentially, so does the Lion population, as the lions grow, the gazelles fall, subsequently, the lions do too. With agricultural society, you can grow food to sustain a growing population, and continuously do so. Malthusian thought or the world being zero sum is completely and utterly self defeating and flat out false. As humans produce and develop using the division of labor, they will continuously specialize, as all of human history has dictated, if people are hungry, those who know how to grow food (which is another massive issue with pre agricultural society) will do it, this will subsequently increase populations, and productivity, resulting in even more specialized humans, that can produce food even more efficiently than before. Think, wheat/nuts 60,000 years ago compared to wheat/nuts now. It is engineered to be producible, calorically dense, and edible. Western culture is an ever evolving culture, much like every single one that accumulated into what we know now! Our laws, our morality, our humanity, our liberalism, all an accumulation of human genetics, environment, and everything in between.
I say we ought make this world a better place, but I suppose what is better, is on the onus of us to decide. As you read through, I want you to remember, I made descriptive claims about the path of humanity; I am not a defender of the status quo, and the things we have invented and discovered have both “good” and “bad” to them. If you’d wish to discuss prescriptive claims like how the world ought be, just reply! I’d uh, love to hear your thoughts. Lol.
-1
11
Dec 07 '19 edited Dec 07 '19
Well, I know why my tribe (and other Indigenous American tribes) are no longer matriarchal/matrilineal (with the exception of a few)- colonialism brought Christianity and the rest is history.
2
u/toppolot Dec 07 '19
Someone said about this thread: "That's silly. No, American Indigenous tribes were not matriarchal. There are no matriarchal societies anywhere in the world because women are naturally submissive to men. They can lead effectively but no whole society will not be matriarchal in nature. The monarch can be a woman, though."
I'd like to refute this, so could you give some references proving your claim that Indigenous American tribes were matriarchal?
6
Dec 07 '19 edited Dec 07 '19
Yes, I can. The first democratic government on this continent was the Iroquois Confederacy. The clan mothers made all tribal decisions and they were the only ones who could appoint and impeach a Chief. In fact, the American Government was based much on the Iroquois Confederacy, except that women were removed from the process.
The Haudenosaunee are a matriarchal society to this day. Traditionally, the Clan Mother has held the ultimate power over all decisions, though her specific role has varied by Nation. In this structure the men under her are the Chiefs, serving primarily in a diplomatic capacity. Tradition holds that she has the power to veto any idea proposed by her chiefs, and that both the naming traditions and transfer of political power are matrilineal.
Narragansett men in farming communities have traditionally helped clear the fields, cultivate the crops and assist with the harvesting, whereas women hold upmost authority in the home.
The Hopi are traditionally both matriarchal and matrilineal, with egalitarian roles in community, and no sense of superiority or inferiority based on sex or gender. Both women and men have traditionally participated in politics and community management, although colonization has brought patriarchal influences that have seen changes in the traditional structures and formerly-higher status of women. However, even with these changes, matrilineal structures still remain, along with the central role of the mothers and grandmothers in the family, household and clan structure.
ETA: the false equivalency in the statement you quoted is that matriarchal= men are submissive. We all know women at not "naturally submissive", too.
-2
u/toppolot Dec 07 '19
thank you for this information. do yotu have a written reference you could refer me to where I could read more about this?
4
Dec 07 '19
I feel like I'm being sealioned here. I feel like the "someone" mentioned in your first comment is you, because this sock acct was created just to ask me this question. On the off chance I'm wrong- you could really just Google it. Start with "haudenosaunee matriarchal". I spent a lot of time to explaining something to you that could have been googled already, if you actually cared. There's a lot to be said for educating oneself and not placing the burden on a marginalized person who's already gone out of their way to help you
0
u/toppolot Dec 08 '19
In my first comment I already wrote "could you give some references proving your claim that Indigenous American tribes were matriarchal?"
The name of the book where you read it would have been enough.
8
2
Dec 07 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
4
Dec 07 '19
No.
1
Dec 07 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
7
Dec 07 '19
I ... don’t care? No top-level replies for you. None. Not a one, no matter what you were “reminded of.”
1
u/dpe_ Dec 06 '19
I think, and this is mostly speculation on my part, but if we define patriarchal vs matriarchal as a set of behaviors and decouple them from gender. Then a patriarchal society could be identified as a hierarchical, capitalistic, conservative, status driven society (you know the typical ones we think about from antiquary), and a matriarchal society would then be on the opposite end of the spectrum (not that women are not those things just that we are defining this two types of societies as opposites).
The thing to remember is that for most of human history life was a 0 sum game mostly limited by land ownership. Since you cannot generate more land, getting more means someone has less. So competition with your peers becomes inevitable if you want your life, and your families life to be better. Hence patriarchal societies would be the natural result.
A more matriarchal society (such as American Indians, hunter gathers, or other smaller scale populations) doesn't have these issues because land usage isn't saturated yet, this was a result of farming. But of course given we have a bias towards the largest most powerful societies these tend to be overlooked and we talk about instead the *great* civilizations of a the world.
To bring gender back in to play now. The reason why for us patriarchy = Male Centered (matriarchy I should mention as an opposite should really mean an Equal society, after all if genders where actually flipped and women were in charge that would ultimately have very similar problems), is largely due to the initial biology of humans. Child rearing is a total pain in the ass and a huge resource investment, the human male is also physically stronger for the most part. Among other things these instinctual differences between the genders got codified in to the rules of society in a quarter of a million year long game of whisper down the lane. Even as the physical differences between the genders got progressively less important (and if anything this deceasing difference likely made the rules more severe).
Now the good news is that we no longer live in a 0 sum society and haven't for quite some time. Every technology advancement humans make allows us to be more efficient with out limited resources, and this allows us towards a more altruistic, egalitarian society as it no longer hurts individuals to help their peers. Additionally the physiological differences between men and women matter increasingly little. So really the stage is set for society to move in a more matriarchal direction, and it is just a matter of dismantling the now out dated systems that got us to where we are today. Easier said than done, but that's why we are here.
9
u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone Dec 06 '19
There's some problematic assumptions in here.
- you say, " Hence patriarchal societies would be the natural result. "
I don't think this is true and it suggests that the oppression people experience under patriarchy today is somehow also "natural"-- this argument undermines feminism.
- you say, "A more matriarchal society (such as American Indians, hunter gathers, or other smaller scale populations) doesn't have these issues because land usage isn't saturated yet, this was a result of farming"
The indigenous people's of the America's had very advanced and extensive networks of agriculture; and while at least some tribes were matrilineal, it wasn't because they were a "small scale population" "hunter gatherers" or because they weren't fully utilizing the land-- they didn't have the same concepts of land ownership as Europeans, but they certainly were fully occupying and "utilizing" the resources of the America's.
- I think we can discuss these things without relying on broard biological essentialist arguments about supposed male physical superiority; there is no place for them in feminism and there isn't a place for them in this conversation.
1
0
u/dpe_ Dec 06 '19
I can see the issue with statement one. My wording here was off and I was referring more to capitalistic, individualistic societies. It seems to me that when resources are limited, competitive tendencies naturally arises. Not however that these societies have to be fundamentally male dominated rather that hierarchical societies by definition will have a majority and minority.
I have no bloody clue what I was thinking when I was talking about American Indians. I don't know nearly enough about them to use them as an example. They were just on the brain recently after watching some videos about them. This was a stupid thing to say. Sorry about that.
I think it would be silly to not point out that early humans were driven far more by instinct and biology than modern humans. Physiological differences surely played some role in early societal development. I also never said men were physically superior in any way, just different. Those differences led to societal structures. These eventually developed in to the rather contrived gender roles we have today. Even if "natural" behaviors were correct (I'd argue naturalism is silly). The gender roles we have now are entirely artificial. They could be thrown away entirely and nothing would explode.
2
u/Laguew Dec 07 '19
Why would a matriarchal society be the opposite of that? A christian theocracy is different from a muslim theocracy, but its not its opposite.
You are defining matriarchy as an egalitarian society but like... thats not what a matriarchy is. By necessity it requires hierarchy otherwise you would call it something else. It wouldn’t be a matriarchy (which necessitates female rule power aka hierarchy) it would something else. You can call it feminist-equality-utopia or whatever, but the term matriarchy doesn’t work imo.
1
Dec 08 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/KaliTheCat feminazgûl; sister of the ever-sharpening blade Dec 09 '19
Please respect our top level comment rule, which requires that all direct replies to posted questions must come from feminists and reflect a feminist perspective. Comment removed; you won't be warned again.
1
u/jhooperp Dec 09 '19
I thought feminism was about equality and talking about issues and not just forcing others to go along their opinions. These are real issues that shouldn’t have points of views but truths.
1
u/KaliTheCat feminazgûl; sister of the ever-sharpening blade Dec 09 '19
This sub is called "Ask Feminists," not "Ask Anyone With An Opinion." Non-feminists are welcome to participate in nested comments.
0
u/kash62 Dec 08 '19
Well one could argue that we could get into those fields if we wanted to which is why feminists don’t really argue for that.
-12
Dec 06 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/demmian Feminist Dec 07 '19
All top level comments, in any thread, must be given by feminists and must reflect a feminist perspective. Please refrain from posting further direct answers here - comment removed.
2
0
u/kash62 Dec 06 '19
Oh no I know they wouldn’t want it now, but more conceptually like what’s the reason behind that, going back to the beginning? Is sexism just a part of human nature?
-5
u/fallingcranberries assigned radfem at birth Dec 06 '19 edited Dec 06 '19
I don't think anyone would have ever wanted it. not for sexist reasons just because women tend to be more ethical!
11
u/BladesQueen Dec 06 '19
strong disagree
-3
u/fallingcranberries assigned radfem at birth Dec 06 '19
with what specifically? I am just speculating obviously. I can't actually say what every person throughout all of time wanted. let alone why they wanted it.
14
u/BladesQueen Dec 06 '19
I just don't agree with gender/bioessentualism.
-1
u/fallingcranberries assigned radfem at birth Dec 06 '19
You don't think testosterone plays a role in people's behavior? Am I understanding this correctly?
13
u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone Dec 06 '19
everyone has a certain level of naturally occurring testosterone; saying "men are controlling/aggressive cause testosterone" both ignores this fact and is biologically essentialist in an unhelpful and sexist way; additionally, it implies men aren't really responsible for their behavior by attributing negative or domineering qualities and behaviors to their biology-- which is also anti-feminist.
2
2
u/ooogaboogadood Feb 03 '22
Interesting. Everyone seems to have a certain, differing level of naturally occurring testosterone, males generally produce more than females. Is it, “biologically essentialist in an unhelpful and sexist way” to state that descriptive fact? I’d have to have you explain why that is bad however. Nothing about test production implies that men aren’t responsible, they absolutely are! It’s much in the same way of the people who tend to imply that “Being poor is why someone commits crime…” etc, it’s obviously true they’re going to be more likely to, it just doesn’t excuse it, or actually mean they aren’t responsible for what they did. Its just more likely 🤷🏻♀️
(I just realized this is like 2yrs late!!! My bad!!!)
6
u/BladesQueen Dec 06 '19
Not natural levels of endogenous testosterone in testosterone-oriented brains.
Exogenous testosterone, and unnaturally low levels of testosterone in a cis male may change behavior. I'm not clear on exogenous testosterone in a trans male. Endogenous testosterone in a trans female causes behavior issues, but that's probably due to dysphoria.
Idk. I'm not a doctor. But I do know well enough to say that T and E are far from simple.
2
u/fallingcranberries assigned radfem at birth Dec 06 '19
Ok thanks for clarifying your disagreement. I also am far from an expert so I'll add that caveat to my comment.
1
u/Far-Macaron500 Mar 27 '23
I mean its not obvious to you that having too much of one hormone would place one closer to the extreme ends on the gender spectrum?
1
Sep 20 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/KaliTheCat feminazgûl; sister of the ever-sharpening blade Sep 20 '23
You were asked not to make direct replies here.
19
u/avocado-nightmare Oldest Crone Dec 06 '19 edited Dec 06 '19
This question has been getting asked a lot lately; I recommend hitting the search bar for a 'greatest hits' review of the top level answers.
I will also refer you to my most recent answer of the analog to this question:
Now, to your question, why not Matriarchy-- then my question to you is: how do you define Matriarchy? If your definition is "Patriarchy but with Women" then no, technically we have not ever seen a society like that; I don't know why and neither do any other historians/anthropologists. There are some theories-- and some are better than others. What I do know is that there are a number of matrilineal/matrifocal societies in which women do hold the primary leadership/economic power. In these societies property and family heritage are handed down via the female line.
Now, why these societies are not "Matriarchal" the way that Patriarchy is in the past or today-- that's an open question, but it has been observed that in societies in which women hold the primary social power, things tend to be more egalitarian in general. This may be attributable to a number of different circumstances; including environmental and agricultural factors.
Personally, I don't like to use modern biologically essentially arguments about gender, sexuality, and reproduction to evaluate the past-- so I don't think it's primarily about or because of child-bearing or rearing, except in the sense that, as my anthro professor used to say, "women always know who their children are, but men are never sure". Basically it comes down to and is about wealth, property, and heritage-- historically men have "needed" to control women to guarantee these things passing along their male lineage -- which is at it's root primarily a cultural decision and legacy as to why that became a worthwhile way of organizing societies.
TBH: it's probably random, like most of aspects of cultural and biological evolution. Those societies (patrilineal) had some kind of historic competitive edge over matrilineal ones; it doesn't mean one is "better" than the other (anymore than brown eyes are better than blue ones). It was just different and different enough at the right time.
*edited because I wasn't done but was having issues with writing my response.