Is the patriarchy a good thing?

[edwest211]

China:

China may scrap limits on family size by end of year

Country’s leaders said to be considering plan to end notorious curbs on how many children parents are allowed to have

www.scmp.com

 

[Mary888]

As for matriarchy, I don’t think there ever was a society that was a matriarchy

Some people claim there was. It is usually described together with just exiting the caves and men would hunt and fight and women cook and raise kids and thus were the root of culture and the deity was feminine etc.
I am in Romania. Things are legally equal. The prime minister and many ministers are women, abortion is legal etc. I have been in situation where I felt bad as a woman in front of men and women. People addicted to power behave in a homogenous way.
When I meant forgiving I was referring to specific situations in which a man boss would just let you breathe while.a.woman boss is so frantic and wants to prove herself (because she had been discriminated right?) that sisterhood no longer holds. Yeah I know they know how to handle power while we don’t know yet because we never had it.
But there were women in positions of power all throughout history - empresses, queens - many of them must have really been not very sisterly because the system did not change while they were in power.
But hey, we as Christians owe a.lot to.women in power because St. Elena convinced Constatine to.convert and that changed the whole.thing for.Christianity.
I can’t draw a big conclusion on this one so I just speak.from my experience that women in position of power.are more.stressful.and less forgiving than men. Not big sociology just life observations.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

Exactly. Many anti feminists tend to look back wistfully and assumed women were happy and free back then.

I am an anti-feminist but I don’t look back wistfully and think women were happy and free back then.

I am in my 50s. I lived through the 1960’s and 1970’s. I watched women walk away from their homes and families. I saw what the feminist movement destroyed. It wasn’t perfect. There was unhappiness and problems, but, yes, it was better and if the anger seen in feminists today, alone is any indication, then yes women were happier then.
,
Since I was 16 years old I have worked with the elderly. I have listened to many stories from many elderly women a long the way from different generations and there is one big difference between a feminist and a non feminist and it has nothing to do with whether or not she goes to work. Many non feminists have jobs and fulltime jobs too.
The main difference is responsibility, perseverence and self sacrifice.
I have listened to many elderly women and men tell the stories of the problems they faced in life and the women (and men) I admire and saw strength in and contentment in were those who had given up their own desires for their families. It was the women who persevered through all the struggles that faced them while raising their families and who took their job as wife and mother as God’s calling for them and did what they knew was right and knew other lives depended on them being responsible and so persevered in doing what they had to do. These women are my heroes because that is what I believe Jesus calls us to do, be self sacrificing for the love of others, beginning with our family and persevering to the end for the love of others, not for our own self fulfillment.

 

[PetraG]

As for matriarchy, I don’t think there ever was a society that was a matriarchy.

I think you’re right. There have been matrilineal societies, where family name and wealth were tied to the female line, but because the men still hold most or all of the political power that is seen as a way for men to know that their family’s wealth really does stay with their family only.

In other words, a man may not know if the children of his son’s wife are really his grandchildren, but a woman can always be certain that her daughter is her daughter and her daughter’s children are her grandchildren and so on. That doesn’t mean that matrilineal societies automatically put any particular weight on the sense of any of the women about how to run any other part of society.

 

[Mary888]

I have listened to many elderly women and men tell the stories of the problems they faced in life and the women (and men) I admire and saw strength in and contentment in were those who had given up their own desires for their families. It was the women who persevered through all the struggles that faced them while raising their families and who took their job as wife and mother as God’s calling for them and did what they knew was right and knew other lives depended on them being responsible. These women are my heroes because that is what I believe Jesus calls us to do, be self sacrificing for the love of others, beginning with out family and persevering to the end for the love of others, not for our own self fulfillment.

Your story seems incomplete. Are these women you describe at the end, feminists or.not feminists? And about the category - did you deduce it or did they declare themselves as feminists or not?

 

[JMMJ]

I would say that sounds like an accurate assessment, based on your description of yourself.

 

[JMMJ]

And while we’re at it define rules of workplace like no makeup, how about that? Makeup was intended to simulate sexual arousal , it colors lips since the lips turn red during sexual arousal. Why people need that at workplace?

lololololol.

 

[adgloriam]

@PetraG

As for matriarchy, I don’t think there ever was a society that was a matriarchy.

Families in the Cape Verde islands are mostly like that.

It’s a bit hard to describe how things go there…(I’ve met countless persons from that society.)

(another case would be the Sherpas around the Himalayas, those are even harder to understand if not simply impossible to understand for a westerner.)

 

[PetraG]

Makeup was intended to simulate sexual arousal , it colors lips since the lips turn red during sexual arousal. Why people need that at workplace?

Where did you get that, lol? Ask most women, and they’ll tell you make-up is meant to simulate the face a woman would have if she were young, well-rested and yet never afflicted with any acne or freckles. An older woman, looking in the mirror and seeing that she has no color in her lips, does not think, “Gee, I don’t look aroused.” No, she thinks, “Oh, wow, I am looking OLD!!”

 

[jzea1992]

I know a many women in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and they are very happy. They are honored by their husbands and children. Live in nice comfortable homes, have a safe driver, as they don’t drive. And they are never alone so they don’t get lonely, they are surrounded by their tribe

 

[jzea1992]

Yes women had families back then, now it’s quite different, so many are alone without families

 

[Mary888]

An older woman, looking in the mirror and seeing that she has no color in her lips, does not think, “Gee, I don’t look aroused.” No, she thinks, “Oh, wow, I am looking OLD!!”

Lol and yes. I am not old enough yet to want to hide any wrinkles but when I put on makeup is to correct with shades and light my face, closer to an ideal face. During the day makeup smudges sometimes and I end up entering other species (racoons) but the whole point is to make me feel.good about my reflection. The whole arousal thing reminds me of when I read that lipstick is made of dead baby blood cells. Ok, I get it, we are called to use less of it, but some of the counter- advertising claims against makeup make me

 

[MagdalenaRita]

Your story seems incomplete. Are these women you describe at the end, feminists or.not feminists? And about the category - did you deduce it or did they declare themselves as feminists or not?

Perhaps the reason it seems incomplete is because it is in response to comments in the conversations saying that women need to pursue their own fulfillment rather than being home with their families, and whether or not women were happier or more content in the past,

Some of the women I met that persevered through the ups and downs of raising their families, caring for the home and yes submitting to their husbands dates quite a few years back, as I said I am in my 50’s, so many of these women would have been raising families in the late 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s. Some were very outspoken against the feminist movement, some did not come out and “declare” themselves “non feminists”, as women didn’t in the past typically make that declaration as they do today, they just didn’t go along with what was happening around them but you got the understanding by the conversation.

 

[Chuck65]

I think modern women are taught to definitely not put their husband ahead of themselves or the children, or to respect his authority in the home.

This was a major issue in my failed marriage. My wife told our Catholic counselor that I was not her family. I was her husband and my job was to provide for her and “her” children. Her family was her children and her siblings. That wasn’t the end, but it was sure the beginning of it. Many things were made clear that day that I had been trying to ignore.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

I know, right? Like all women wear a red lippy.

@Aquinas11 what does the pinky-nude simulate besides the natural color of my lips (if the color was even)? And what about my favorite lippy which looks black (the bullet) but turns a sheer berry color (I have a blush that does that too), or my other fave which is a sheer black that makes any color a little smokey and muted?

In my last few workplaces my coworkers were primarily women and I wouldn’t suddenly switch to red if my coworkers were men. My makeup is for me. I’m not a huge mascara fan but I can’t deny that when I do wear it I look more alert and awake.

 

[PetraG]

Lol and yes. I am not old enough yet to want to hide any wrinkles but when I put on makeup is to correct with shades and light my face, closer to an ideal face. During the day makeup smudges sometimes and I end up entering other species (racoons) but the whole point is to make me feel.good about my reflection. The whole arousal thing reminds me of when I read that lipstick is made of dead baby blood cells. Ok, I get it, we are called to use less of it, but some of the counter- advertising claims against makeup make me

Most women I know wear make-up that meets the approval of other women. Women determine what is and isn’t in fashion for women. Women notice whether the shoes match and whether the handbag is appropriate. Women know whether their coloring is “warm” or “cool” or “neutral.” Relatively speaking, women assume that what men will think is covered once they’ve met the standards of other women, because, let us face it, it is presumed that men who are attracted to women know nothing about make-up, whether that is true or not, but will be pretty wowed by anything that makes the grade with other women.

Once married, women pretty much wear something within the boundaries of what they like, what they think the fashion is in their circle (ie, what the other women currently like) and what their own husbands don’t dislike, lol. My husband actually goes clothing shopping with me and chips in his opinion, but he is exceptional. Most men I see in women’s clothing stores are sitting on a bench looking very bored and certainly aren’t asking to be included in the clothing selection.

Obviously, there are places the “patriarchy” does not tread, or only with conditional matriarchal permission.

 

[PetraG]

The whole idea of the “patriarchy” discouraging women from getting into those professions is a myth. Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard University said there are innate biological differences between men and women and that is why you don’t see as many women in stem majors. All of the major discoveries in science have mostly been made by men. Does this mean women are less smart? No, i just means they have other talents.

I have a PhD in chemistry from a major university.
I know what the social situation is and what it was and you apparently do not.
I call, ahem, nonsense. Other words that come to mind are “oblivious” and “clueless.”
I mean I have sat in a meeting of scientific colleagues, heard a female colleague make a point, heard her totally ignored even as she repeated herself, and as she and I looked at each other with expressions wondering why she was being ignored, we traded looks of incredulity as one of our male colleagues was congratulated for making the same point!! No, she was not being a shrinking violet!! She was just getting ignored!! And this was in the 1990s!!! (Don’t get me started on the professor who told his all-male laboratory team to discourage women from joining their research group because he thought it was dangerous work and would so worry about a young woman doing it…because yeah, the guys working for him really didn’t mind the idea of getting hit by shrapnel or corrosive chemicals…)

What, for instance, what does this sentence even mean?
All of the major discoveries in science have mostly been made by men.
To make my point, I’m sure you can’t even name the talents particular to science that men have and women don’t have. Why? Because there aren’t any. And you don’t know who did the crystal structure of DNA in the double helix and you apparently don’t know why Marie Curie was awarded two Nobel Prizes or who was responsible for Antoine Lavoisier being considered the Father of Modern Chemistry.
(Marie-Anne LAVOISIER)

I had a grade school teacher who didn’t want to be a grade school teacher, but she told me that the professions she was aimed at when she went to college were home economics, nursing, teaching, secretarial work and library science, and teaching seemed the least bad to her.

Do not even TRY TO PRETEND that there were no barriers to women getting into “male-dominated” professions. It is a demonstrable falsehood, whether you know it or not.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

Thanks. I think a lot of women have come to believe that women were so oppressed in the past that if any woman did anything of any type of strength, she had to be a feminist. So many women of the past were strong because of their faith in God, not because they were feminists and not all women of the past were oppressed. IMHO women are a lot more oppressed today.

 

[edwest211]

Too many are a lot more oppressed today. In the past, dating, earned trust, friendship, and then, maybe, it developed into a marriage situation. The substitute I’ve seen is worse. If you want a man you have sex with him to keep him around. He may or may not stay. If not, you find someone else.

 

[PetraG]

…not all women of the past were oppressed…

Once people got to the city-state level of civilization, most of the population in the past, male and female, was used by those in power. Most people, male and female, were low-class people. They were lesser people, they were unimportant people. That was the way they were treated by the few who lead priveleged lives. Were women particularly oppressed? In light of the general situation that the strong habitually lorded their power over the weak, I don’t know that I’d single out women as getting all of the worst of it. A woman of the upper class had a lot more priveleges than a man of the lower classes. With the exceptions of those situations touched by the saints, the vast majority of human beings got the worst of it. That is the way it was.