Is the patriarchy a good thing?

[Edmundus1581]

Though it was on a small scale at a tribal level only, the American natives had an interesting political structure. It wasn’t in all of them but in very many of them.

They had two groups of elders, male and female. The women determined if they went to war, the men did the planning and execution of it. The women determined if a large hunt was needed and the men planned and executed the hunt. The women often did the distribution of meat afterwards. When problems arose, the men would propose solutions and the women executed the best plan.

It’s very different yet very equitable in practice. I have no idea if it could have ever been done in larger societies but it worked quite well for them.

Thankyou! Fascinating!

This sounds just like western patriarchy and even, increasingly, the Church, except the lines of women’s power aren’t as formal. But they are just as effective.

On second thought, the lines of female power are becoming more formal, with women dominating the universities (where discrimination against men is active) and many government bodies related to social policy, including the UN. Governments keep funding bodies such as our female dominated “Human Rights Commission” and never say “No” to their recommendations, where they’d probably feel safer saying “No” to men.

Somewhat in the same line, professional women now dominate many structures in the Catholic church and are using these as women’s power. The bishops and priests can of course say “No” to them, but few have the nerve or even the wit. I can’t confirm, but suspect they discriminate against men in their hiring - just as the universities and government bodies do. I have heard of at least one anecdotal incident, and I’ve personally seen how women exclude men from parish politics. The American native analogy is more apt than one thinks at first.

 

[Aquinas11]

That’s not from me. That’s from the manufacturers and marketers who designed makeup

 

[Bruised_Reed]

But it’s the example you used as though all women in the workplace wear red lipstick to simulate arousal…in the workplace and therefore it should be banned. Women (and men) can wear makeup that looks natural and polished. A lot of makeup is made with ingredients that are good for the skin or with sunblock.

 

[LilyM]

MagdalenaRita:

You’ll have to show me where I said men are “miserably working”. My point was men have different attitudes toward work. I have just never heard a man say, “I am going off to pursue a career”, but more likely you will hear, “what job or profession can I pursue that will give me the means to support a family” vs many women who pursue a career to find “self fulfillment”. Common phrase, “it is something I have to do for me”.

I was raised in a house where both parents came from university educations through several generations, and in that environment is was normal for both young men and women think about “fulfilment” in their career choices.

Only recently, at nearly 60, have I discovered that this (career as “fulfillment”, at least as a ideal) is a privilege of wealth. I’ve had many conversations with tradesmen and other workmen, but the topic of how you got into your line of work never came up, probably because it’s assumed.

A man I met recently had gone from a blue collar background to university education and he informed me that in his background it was imposed on men that they were to seek a career with a good income in order to provide for a wife and family. The career should put their skills to use for financial reward. It was unthinkable to pursue something for interest rather than gain.

All of this stuff about what women could and couldn’t do previously neglects that this was more determined by class than gender. Most men were excluded from university when upper class women were attending them, and prior to 1920 most men couldn’t vote either.

Like many men of his generation my step-father* was compelled to leave school before finishing to get a trade. University was excluded for him but was open for my mother (1930 and 40s’s) because of differences in social class. My mother freely admits he had a much stronger intellect and academic potential than herself.

*“Step-father”. My university-educated father died when I was young, and my mother remarried this man.

My own experience is that I know at least half-a-dozen women of the WWII and immediately post-war generation who wanted to pursue either the professions of medicine or law and were bluntly told by their families to opt instead for female-friendly work such as nursing or paralegal.

On the other hand, my own father, of the same generation, qualified to go to medical school but was hesitant to enrol, not being confident that he would make it through. His parents, who were very much blue-collar, had more faith in him than he in himself. They secretly enrolled him in his medical degree while he was on holidays. Turns out he enjoyed it, completed it and had a long and fruitful career as a medical practitioner. I personally don’t know any male, of any class, who was qualified to pursue a white-collar career but was discouraged from doing so, even for financial reasons, since poor but bright students have always had scholarships available to them.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

What’s the point of this?

 

[Edmundus1581]

I personally don’t know any male, of any class, who was qualified to pursue a white-collar career but was discouraged from doing so, even for financial reasons, since poor but bright students have always had scholarships available to them.

But your lack of personal acquaintance doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I personally know two, including my step-father mentioned above, and a younger contemporary of mine, a man from Whyalla here in South Australian “Iron Triangle”. His family put him into a trade before finishing school in the '90s and firmly opposed him attending university when he did it later on.

“poor but bright students have always had scholarships available to them.” Not quite. University scholarships in the past were highly competitive and only open to the “brightest”, not just average bright. They weren’t IQ tests either, but required a very strong high school education - the sort of high school education denied to many men, such as my step father. The scholarships were also available to women - my mother got one.

Have you ever read the historical novel My Brother Jack? It’s the true life story of Australian journalist and author George Johnston. It provides a detailed account of a young working class boy’s education and early career in Melbourne in the 1920’s. It accords exactly with what I’ve described for my step- father above and the working class in general. Working class boys weren’t educated beyond middle-school and wealthy women were. University was impossible for one, and not the other.

 

[PetraG]

But your lack of personal acquaintance doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I personally know two, including my step-father mentioned above, and a younger contemporary of mine, a man from Whyalla here in South Australian “Iron Triangle”. His family put him into a trade before finishing school in the '90s and firmly opposed him attending university when he did it later on.

“ poor but bright students have always had scholarships available to them.” Not quite. University scholarships in the past were highly competitive and only open to the “brightest”, not just average bright. They weren’t IQ tests either, but required a very strong high school education - the sort of high school education denied to many poor men, such as my step father. The scholarships were also available to women - my mother got one.

Have you ever read the historical novel My Brother Jack ? It’s the true life story of Australian journalist and author . It provides a detailed account of a young working class boy’s education and early career in Melbourne in the 1920’s. It accords exactly with what i’ve described for my step father above and the working class in general. Working class boys weren’t educated beyond middle-school and wealthy women were. University was impossible for one, and not the other.

Back to the topic of the patriarchy: It is worth pointing out that most men are quite as left out of the decision-making of a “patriarchy” as any of the women are. When society of any size is run by an old boys’ club, that is one small club, a club that doesn’t include most of the men. When the club is opened to women, it is still a very small club. Having said that, even when Victoria was the Queen the vast majority of the decision-making in her realm was done by men, including decisions about who got the scholarships and who didn’t. (Who, tell me, imagined when the crown was first placed on Elizabeth II’s head that she’d ever have a woman as her prime minister?)

Let’s not pretend that getting an education automatically gives someone a place at the table of power. That is true whether that someone is male or female. The powerful of this world have rarely been fond of sharing the power or of serving those they rule over as truly as those people serve them.

 

[Edmundus1581]

As far as Marxism and feminism, this article from EWTN, 1994 and kind of creepily prophetic, is very good but you can google Marxist Feminism and come up with whole host of feminist sites that talk about Marxism:.

https://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/FEMINISM.TXT

Feminsm, by Dale O’Leary.

This article is among the very best on feminism, and is particularly relevant to Catholics.

As you say, it is creepily prophetic.

We’ve seen again in this thread how feminism works and mostly succeeds by repeating a list of grievances, especially, but not only, from the past.

This pattern is repeated endlessly by feminists, no matter how many times the grievances are specifically answered. Outright lies are permissible, known and repeated.

Here the article is prophetic:

They want to
destroy everything that we believe in family, faith, even our
identity as men and women. They work by playing on resentment. If you
read feminist literature, you will find the books follow a set plan.
The opening chapter lays out the feminist agenda, usually quoting
Engels and Firestone, the concluding chapter lays out their agenda
for change, and the middle is devoted to cataloguing all the evils
that men have done to women. I will tell you frankly after reading
these catalogues of complaint, you have to have heroic virtue not to
give in to resentment. Of course, none of the sins of women against
men are mentioned. This is why at the beginning I explained how
necessary it is that the sin of resentment have no place in us. If we
harbor our own personal resentments, these catalogues will remind us
of our own sufferings and we will not be able to see how we are being
manipulated.

I happen to have been a history major and as I read these
litanies of sins against women, I could see the distortions of
history, the total inability of these writers to understand the lives
and characters of women different from themselves, women like you and
I, who loved God, family, service. But to those without historical
background the inventory of offenses is very convincing. I could fill
volumes correcting the errors promoted by feminists which have been
transformed into contemporary myths.

And this woman is writing here of what’s happening in 1994 in Catholic campuses!

It’s just secular feminism rampant in the church itself.

Beware it!

 

[D.Erasmus.R]

Yes, there’re some happy women in the Middle East, but that isn’t the experience all women over there. Along with unpunished crimes, violence rape, against women there’re still stonings, honour killings, forced marriages even of children & of rapists to their victims over there. Male guardianship laws make women’s legal protection dependent upon the men most likely to harm them. The ban on women driving led cases of children driving or women having to teach their drivers how to drive. Sure, women may choose to cover up, not drive, stay at home, but that should be their choice not their obligation nor their male guardian’s choice.

 

[Neithan]

Feminism borrowed a page from Marx about class warfare; but instead of the proletariat rising up against the bourgeoisie, it was the oppressed women rising up against Men. It’s compelling and even heroic, because basically the entirety of our human history since Adam and Eve has had some element of men oppressing women; but it’s still in principle a corrupt philosophy and doesn’t make anyone happier, because it doesn’t make anyone more virtuous. God brings good out of evil, though, and the fact women today now have equal rights under the rule of law (the accomplishments of “first wave” feminism and its developments) is a significant and substantial good thing.

I’m wary of people who say they are feminists now, in 2019. What it means now is equal outcome and even special privilege for women, to “correct” the injustice of the past, or balance the apparently inherent “male privilege” of the “patriarchy” which we are still living in somehow (we aren’t) or just general misandry and suspicion of men.

 

[Mi_Rose]

I grew up in the fifties. My dad was an engineer. My mom who was one of the smartest people I have ever known was a housewife. She had a college degree in English because when she said she wanted to be a doctor she was told med school was for men.
In the fifites all jobs except secretary bank teller store clerk nurse and teacher were for men.

 

[Sarcelle]

I’m wary of people who say they are feminists now, in 2019. What it means now is equal outcome and even special privilege for women, to “correct” the injustice of the past, or balance the apparently inherent “male privilege” of the “patriarchy” which we are still living in somehow (we aren’t) or just general misandry and suspicion of men.

I know a lot of feminists who work overseas helping women and girls victimized by human traffickers, women who were victimized by ISIS and Boko Haram.

Injustice is alive and well even today. It may not be bad in the West but it is really bad in some parts of the world.

 

[Sarcelle]

Even during the late 80s when I was trying to decide what to take at University, I was discouraged from thinking of engineering or the physical sciences.

I was encouraged to be a receptionist and secretary instead. That was more feminine.

 

[Neithan]

I know a lot of feminists who work overseas helping women and girls victimized by human traffickers, women who were victimized by ISIS and Boko Haram.

Why is this specifically “feminism” and not humanitarianism? The issue is with the “us vs. them” ideology. But I was referring to the context of political feminism within western “post-Christian” countries.

 

[Sarcelle]

Who says it’s us vs. them?

People who identify as feminists even nowadays have differing views on what constitutes feminism. What I see in this thread is the constant caricaturing of feminism, identifying the whole with its fringe elements.

It’s like identifying all Christians as Bible thumping lunatics.

 

[Neithan]

People who identify as feminists even nowadays have differing views on what constitutes feminism.

Fair enough, there is no consistent definition. It could mean someone believes in equal rights for women. The “us vs. them” is inherent in the word though. Can you imagine how such a label can work for any other group without seeming bigoted?

 

[Sarcelle]

Take for example men’s rights advocates.
There are legitimate grievances where men are discriminated against in courts, especially with divorce and custody hearings. These advocates seek to address this imbalance.

However it would be just as unfair to label these advocates as all incels who want to commit violence against women.

 

[Neithan]

In my opinion those groups are based on that inherently corrupt principle too, and there is lots of bigotry in them. That’s not to say they don’t have legitimate grievances, but the method of perceiving unjust division between the sexes is not healthy (in fact, diabolical, in the spiritual sense). I don’t recommend going to their forums. The “us vs. them” is pathological there. Actually there is a very strong “masculinist” subculture developing, and for obvious reasons, it has the risk to develop into something much more destructive in the short-term.

 

[Sarcelle]

I agree.

The Us vs. Them does not yield good fruit as history can tell us.

 

[phil19034]

And that’s part of learning self control and conflict resolution for men.
I’ve always been able to stop boy fights with my bellowing “coach voice.”
Girl fights are entirely different. They go to another place. Very primal. They tune everything else out except their blood lust.

This is true. Boys can get in a big fight and then be friends again minutes afterwards.

Very few women can do that, and they tend to hold grudges.