tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648480292622180743.post4515447379919437094..comments2023-06-25T01:20:35.889-07:00Comments on Very Rarely Stable: What is patriarchy?Daniel Copelandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05944461326199566111noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648480292622180743.post-76976698787824334212013-01-02T20:35:36.222-08:002013-01-02T20:35:36.222-08:00Well, that's largely a matter of perspective, ...Well, that's largely a matter of perspective, of course. I do agree that patriarchy often, in practice, means direct attacks on women's liberty or persons; many other writers have spoken of that with far more expertise than me. Where I feel analysts have been weak up until recently is in supposing that the men were colluding to keep women <em>as a class</em> under the thumb of men <em>as a class</em>. But your final paragraph, in particular, is right on the money, and that's a point I really should have included.Daniel Copelandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05944461326199566111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648480292622180743.post-81702655135619940672013-01-01T07:05:40.729-08:002013-01-01T07:05:40.729-08:00Patriarchy is not a war of men against women; it i...<i>Patriarchy is not a war of men against women; it is a war of men against men, in which women's bodies are the spoils. </i><br /><br />Why can't it be both?<br /><br />I phrased that in kind of a joking way, but I'm also serious.<br /><br />I agree with you that rape is something that rapists do for themselves, not the benefit of other men.<br /><br /><i>So far from joining forces in any kind of conspiracy, men in such cultures jealously struggle to block other men's access to "their" women -- which necessarily entails preventing the women themselves from socializing freely. Hence, in practice, women enjoy all the rights and status of livestock.</i><br /><br />So the motive is to keep other men from accessing women's bodies--or in other words, to keep "their" women from accessing other men's bodies--which, to me, means that it can be looked at as <i>both</i> a war against women and a war against men. And the phrasing, "women's bodies as the spoils" gets the idea across, but it's a shorthand that could lead to some confusion or forgetfulness of what all the goals are. Because as you make clear in that quote, it's not just having access to women's bodies that's the goal, it's preventing other men from getting access. And in societies where a great deal of resource accumulation to individual men is possible (not hunter-gatherers) it's also accumulating the resources to be able to have a bunch of wives/concubines. Which includes having the resources to provide for the wives and the resulting children. And in order to maintain control of the wives, it's more beneficial for the man to control the resources and then give them to the wife and her children than for the wife to acquire them herself (not to mention that the freedom necessary for the wife to go out and acquire resources means more opportunity to access other men's bodies.). So there are real advantages, for a man looking to prevent other men from accessing "his" women, to making his war against women as well as men.<br /><br />And the danger of rape can be talked up by these men to try to control women, just as the danger of, say, bears outside the village could, even though the rapists are no more attacking for these men's benefit than the bears are.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com