Steelmanning the concept of the patriarchy

LacklustreFriend · 2020-01-20T16:51:43+00:00

I don't want to go into huge detail on each point, but I'll just highlight some arguments against each point briefly. There may be other counterarguments which I don't argue.

Most positions of power are still held by men. Even though female government leaders have been elected, most management positions, which are not subject to public elections, still reside with men.

Women are the majority electorate, both in possible voters and voter turnout. There is nothing barring women from attaining office. Women just generally choose not to enter politics. Women are also control the overwhelming majority of consumer spending, and thus control the majority of the consumer market. There has to be an demonstration of discrimination, and that men in power use it to benefit men specifically. Just because a man is in power does not mean he is using the position for the sole benefit of men.

Most Indo-European languages are pretty male-centered. They have a generic masculine, and words like "mankind" or "man-made" just ignore women.

I can't speak for other languages, but for English, which the claim seems to be about, this is just wrong. The etymology of man is genderless. In Old English, men were called wereman and women were either called wifman or womman - man roughly meaning 'person'. Language changes overtime organically and for whatever reason the were was dropped from wereman. Language is an extremely poor argument, as you have to demonstrate a direct causal link between language and society, which is extremely difficult to do. I could just as easily claim that English is female-centric (and thus supporting a matriarchy) because we refer to the Earth as Mother Earth.

In Abrahamic religions, women play lesser roles. They are banned from preaching and conducting worship, and scripture often quite explicitly orders them to subordinate themselves to men.

First, an assumption is being made that women (and men) in the West still adhere to traditional Abrahamic gender norms, which is patently untrue, as women have the same legal rights and freedoms as men do.

A second counter argument is that women did not play lesser roles, but differing or complementary roles. Generally speaking, men had control over the public sphere and women had control over the private sphere. This is a complicated issue which is impossible to fully argue briefly here. From a theological/linguistic point of view, the Bible (Ephesians 5:22-33) required both husband and wife to submit to one another (5:22). 'Submit' is a misleading word, somewhat out of date. I would argue submit in this context more accurately means 'respect' rather than 'subordination'. You also are meant to 'submit' yourself to Christ, but this is an odd way to phrase it in a modern context. The relationship between man and women is more complicated in the Bible than simply one of subjugation.

Also one has to acknowledge the significance of Mary in the Christianity, particularly Catholicism, and the powerful influence and themes of fertility and motherhood in almost all religions.

The ritual of marriage shows how women are considered property: First, the woman gets an engagement ring. Then, the father hands her over to the husband, and she gets his last name.

This is an extremely shallow way to look at marriage. The assertion that women were property is absurd, men have obligations to their wives, they don't have obligations to a bucket.

An alternative (and more nuanced view) of marriage is a social contract of mutual responsibility and obligation. The woman gets an engagement ring from the man as a demonstration of commitment and ability to provide. The father handing over the daughter to the husband is not an change of property, it is an change of responsibility. The father is handing the responsibility of providing for and protecting the daughter to the husband. The woman takes the surname of the husband to mark the obligation he has to provide for his wife (from the father's name to the husband's name), and to mark paternity for children (the family unit as a whole), so it is clear who is responsible for the (material) well-being of the family. This is also reflected in non-Anglophile naming customs. For example, the Icelandic literally assume the name of the parent to mark who is responsible for the child (e.g. Eriksson or Eriksdottir)

Edit:

If men have all the power, why don't they universally profit from it? Because they brought themselves in a pretty unnatural position. People are happier in more egalitarian societies, but men shortsightedly decided to get benefits from the oppression of women, so in the long run, it hurts most of them. They do not realize that giving up some of their privilege would actually improve the situation for them.

If egalitarian societies are so much better than traditonal ones, then why did it take 10000 years for an egalitarian society to develop? In a pure cultural darwinian view this argument makes no sense. There was a clear historical advantage to gender roles, it provided a clear division of labour to make the best out of a harsh life. Gender roles was a necessity of life. Thanks to industrialization and technological innovation, gender roles are becoming less relevant as we no longer face the same harsh life.

Life in Sparta wasn't shit because of patriarchy, it was shit because they didn't have medicine, the steam engine and the spinning jenny.

genkernels · 2020-01-20T21:52:28+00:00

The patriarchy is a system in which men hold the power and use it to their own advantage.

[SM?] This isn't the strongest possible representation I think, and particularly I think it may lack feminist phrasing. While I don't think that's a bad definition by any means. The Geek Feminism Wiki takes the Motte and Bailey a bit further (I call it such because of the way both of these definitions play with the identity of the word "men") and constructs something slightly more defensible:

Patriarchy is a term used in feminism to describe the system of gender-based hierarchy in society which assigns most power to men, and assigns higher value to men, maleness, and "masculine traits"

Most Indo-European languages are pretty male-centered. They have a generic masculine, and words like "mankind" or "man-made" just ignore women.

Trying to get into feminist etymology gets really twisted really fast, even when it is somewhat scholarly

While it's appropriate to translate the Old English "mann-cynn" as either mankind or humanity, it's disingenuous to imagine that this usage comes without sexist trappings. Although women had important roles in Anglo-Saxon society—don't imagine them as Victorian house-angels or 1950s housewives—Anglo-Saxons had one concept for "humanity" and "mankind" in large part because they had a male-dominated concept of humanity.

"So yes, this word does have a gender-neutral root, but it doesn't matter because patriarchy" seems quite circular in this context. I think some feminists would say that feminist etymology is some radfem silliness and that entire class of argument is a strawman, but I've encountered more feminists who spout this bullshit in person than those who haven't.

In Abrahamic religions, women play lesser roles. They are banned from preaching and conducting worship, and scripture often quite explicitly orders them to subordinate themselves to men.

Sort of, Abrahamic religions might call restricting women to "lesser" roles a strawman of them. But the specific examples are true. This argument is emblematic of feminism because it calls out areas where women have duties, but not where women have privileges or duties done for them. For instance, commands for men to die for the sake of women. Commands for men to labour for the sake of women, and protections against specifically female poverty. Our society today provides greater duties for men to accomplish and fewer for women than Abahamic societies, but the concept of patriarchy cannot accurately represent even these highly traditionalist societies where social freedom had comparatively little value and security meant much much more practically speaking.

The ritual of marriage shows how women are considered property: First, the woman gets an engagement ring. Then, the father hands her over to the husband, and she gets his last name.

Oh dear goodness. This is part of much feminism, but I'm not sure I'd put it in a steelman attempt. I feel this argument is an impressively blatant and weak mischaracterization of some non-feminist ideas. In particular, that ceremony also includes bowing to the woman as a kinght would bow to a lord, but with much more overtures of pleading and begging. Moreover, a ring is universally a sign of authority given to a person across cultures, there is no similarity to slave-rings particularly in judeo-christian culture that exceeds the similarity to signet rings or other rings of authority. When the Bible talks about rings and always about finger rings and especially to have a finger ring placed on you that conferred authority from the person who placed the ring to the person who received it. And I cannot imagine any culture where a richly adorned ring would be a slave ring rather than a ring of authority.

As for the largest and most crucial points, that will be for another post.

thereslcjg2000 · 2020-01-20T15:28:37+00:00

Most positions of power are still held by men. Even though female government leaders have been elected, most management positions, which are not subject to public elections, still reside with men.

True, and I can accept that governmental positions of power can be seen as patriarchal. However, the men in power don’t particularly represent men as a whole, and their actions don’t inherently benefit the average man.

Most Indo-European languages are pretty male-centered. They have a generic masculine, and words like "mankind" or "man-made" just ignore women.

Also true, though I don’t think this particularly benefits men. I’d say it comes from historical hyperagency of men; we are expected to make more sacrifices, and also to be more aware and directly involved with what’s going on as a whole. Feminists see this as a privilege, but I’d argue it’s a responsibility. Because of this responsibility (which does also come with rights), men are seen as the foundation over which everything is built. As a result, the language is built around men. EDIT: debunked by the reply to this comment.

In Abrahamic religions, women play lesser roles. They are banned from preaching and conducting worship, and scripture often quite explicitly orders them to subordinate themselves to men.

I’m not very knowledgeable about religion, so I’m going to skip this part.

The ritual of marriage shows how women are considered property: First, the woman gets an engagement ring. Then, the father hands her over to the husband, and she gets his last name.

I’d say this is better explained by male hyperagency and female hypoagency. First off, the man must make a sacrifice in order to give the woman the engagement ring. I don’t think modern marriage generally involves the father handing her over. Yes the woman takes the last name, but this is not because she is his property; rather, it stems from the expectation that she is now the man’s responsibility. It signifies that the man must now sacrifice whatever is needed to benefit his wife.

If men have all the power, why don't they universally profit from it? Because they brought themselves in a pretty unnatural position. People are happier in more egalitarian societies, but men shortsightedly decided to get benefits from the oppression of women, so in the long run, it hurts most of them. They do not realize that giving up some of their privilege would actually improve the situation for them.

I don’t really understand this logic. How do homeless, suicidal, military, overworked, etc. men have “privilege” in contrast to the “oppressed” women? How exactly are these people oppressors? The rich (who, yes, are largely male) have the power, and the rest of society suffers as a consequence.

mewacketergi · 2020-01-20T19:01:40+00:00

Feminist thinker bell hooks memorably defines patriarchy as “a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance.” When patriarchy functions effectively, men do not justify their “right to dominate”; they are “inherently dominating.” When patriarchy functions effectively, men do not lob insults at women; instead, women and others “deemed weak” consent to its authoritative protection.

Source: https://www.ozy.com/news-and-politics/the-patriarchy-is-getting-mean-and-theres-a-whiff-of-desperation/241371/

EDIT:

We think that patriarchy is, definitionally, a system which structurally oppresses females, on the basis of their sex. What do you think patriarchy is? If you think patriarchy is not as we’ve described, do you think there is any system in the world, such as we have just described, whether or not you would call it ‘patriarchy’? If yes, do you think the recognition of this system is politically important? If no, on what grounds do you deny the existence of any such system?

I like Sarah Blaffer Hrdy’s description of patriarchy in The Woman That Never Evolved as a patrilocal, patrilineal society with male-biased inheritance and an ideology of male authority. (This, of course, means that our society is not precisely a patriarchy, but rather a non-patriarchal society with certain ideological elements carried over from when it was a patriarchy.)

Of course, the “male” in patriarchy is not precisely the same thing as the biological sex male. Many patriarchal societies had third-gendered people who were not treated the same as men or women. Intersex people were generally classified as either male or female.

I believe our society is currently sexist in ways that harm women and ways that harm men (although in general sexism tends to harm men less severely than it harms women). Some forms of sexism, such as discrimination against pregnant people or the understudying of conditions that affect female-sexed people, affect people based on their sex. Some forms of sexism, such as sexual harassment or most forms of job discrimination, affect people based on the gender they are read as. Some forms of sexism, such as shame about being ‘slutty’ or socialization not to speak up about your preferences, affect people based on the gender they are socialized as; the way gender socialization affects trans people is complicated, as many trans people internalize norms applying to their identified gender rather than their assigned gender. I believe ignoring any form of sexism tends to harm your analysis.

Source: https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2019/06/24/questions-for-our-opponents-answered/

Oh, and all of that is a [SM].

EDIT:

Also, u/serpentineeyelash, I apologize for my mistake, but Ozy Brennan (nee Frantz) is not a good faith actor, and I should not have endorsed her or her views.

Given that she read Warren Farrel, whose work alone is enough to overturn and disprove this paragraph, this must be a deliberate feminist choice to engage in vile, quasi-religious, sectarian propaganda:

Then, too, many feminists have done excellent work in dealing with men’s problems. Stronger rape laws and paternity leave are just two of the benefits men have received because of feminism, and many survivors and many families are better off for it. Shelters, counselors and hotlines for survivors of rape and abuse, usually established by feminists, almost always also provide support for male survivors, support that would not exist otherwise. Groundbreaking feminist theorists like Michael Kimmel and Shira Tarrant have focused on men’s issues in addition to women’s. However, this valuable work has just made the problem clearer by highlighting how much more needs to be done. Freedom is not a zero-sum game. Liberating men from restrictive gender roles and gendered oppression is intrinsically bound up with liberating women from the same things.

[...]

Underscoring this point is the fact that there is something that calls itself a Men’s Rights Movement, but it consists of nothing but knee-jerk anti-feminism. It is made up primarily of angry, alienated men who have fully bought into the myths of hegemonic masculinity and gender roles, and not found the success and happiness that the myths implicitly promised. Since feminism is the only movement around that is attempting to dismantle those myths, they conclude that feminism is the cause of their unhappiness. If not for those meddling feminists, things would be okay. They would argue that this is a mischaracterization, but a thorough examination of their arguments reveals that this is, in fact, their sole intellectual basis. Any analysis of any issue that does not begin and end by blaming feminists, or preferably all women, is immediately discarded. Thus, lacking the social analysis tools feminists pioneered, they can accomplish nothing but surly misogyny and occasional outbreaks of violence. The authors of this book spent quite some time attempting to find MRAs who could be engaged in a constructive manner, but eventually gave up. If men’s rights are to be addressed on any kind of serious level, it will have to be by feminism.

If this is a kind of person she is, maybe it's good that her "masculism" project died in its infancy, and we don't have to contend with it.

Source: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/what-about-the-men-chapter-1-introduction-and-principles/

SchalaZeal01 · 2020-01-20T15:11:23+00:00

In Abrahamic religions, women play lesser roles. They are banned from preaching and conducting worship, and scripture often quite explicitly orders them to subordinate themselves to men.

That's about the only one that even makes a bit of sense. But its outdated with much of the first world, who is non-practicing.

The others are weird ideas that are twisted to look like they mean something horrible for women, but its a conspiracy theory of innocuous stuff.

genkernels · 2020-01-22T00:08:37+00:00

The patriarchy is a system in which men hold the power and use it to their own advantage.

Most positions of power are still held by men. Even though female government leaders have been elected, most management positions, which are not subject to public elections, still reside with men.

If men have all the power, why don't they universally profit from it? Because they brought themselves in a pretty unnatural position. People are happier in more egalitarian societies, but men shortsightedly decided to get benefits from the oppression of women, so in the long run, it hurts most of them. They do not realize that giving up some of their privilege would actually improve the situation for them.

I'm digging up an older post of mine that used the following definition for Patriarchy. I believe it applies in its totality to the definition of patriarchy above, but bear that in mind.

Patriarchy: Patriarchy is a term used in feminism to describe the system of gender-based hierarchy in society which assigns most power to men, and assigns higher value to men, maleness, and "masculine traits".

This has never been the case in the last 200 years in European culture, possibly not the last 500. We know rather that higher social value has been assigned to women, not men (as in the Titanic in 1912, women being respected with special actions in common society duplicated only for men of high standing). That social power has been assigned for the benefit of women more than men (see female happiness, life expectancy, and generally many aspects of society that ensure women are cared for). And when women do desire direct political power, since at least the mid 1800s, they have it (see the success of temperance in 1921, Rosa Parks, Mother Jones, and much much more).

Someone who really believed that society assigned most power to men and that power benefited men would be shocked to find out that no feminist was martyred to change that. Labour movement? Tons of martyrs. Universality of the vote? Dead people. Civil rights/anti-racism? You betcha. Feminism? Nope, not a concern to the institutions of power. Patriarchy theory completely fails to predict reality.

One might say "but men receive more of the benefits of success", they also receive more of the punishments for failure. Women have a harder time reaching higher highs because of this, but are prevented from sinking to lower lows. This is not emblematic of a patriarchy, quite the opposite! Patriarchy fails to predict a whole reality. Remember that the position of a manager is a subservient one to that of the stakeholder. A society that treats more men as managers is not male-dominant if it treats women as greater stakeholders. Patriarchy theory is myopic in that while it recognizes the former it is designed to blind people to the latter, even when it is incredibly obvious (as in the case of the Titanic).

What would a society that assigns more power and value to Aryans do about prison sentencing for Jews? Is patriarchy theory predictive of that? There is something else at work that patriarchy (a woman-hostile view of traditionalism) cannot explain, but that a woman-benevolent view of traditionalism can explain. And this just goes on and on. Who should be working more hours if one group has higher value and power? Who should have more control of property, especially in a financial union between a member of each group? Guess what? Women spend more than men. But I digress. I say it again, patriarchy theory fails to predict reality.

--

Additionally, The way "patriarchy" is usually used to describe our society in feminism is bigoted (in that it does not treat men and women as equals, insulting both genders in the process) and not a logically consistent way of looking at our society. Most gender norms don't privilege men specifically, and many don't privilege men on the whole.

Patriarchy is when a man is more likely to have more job experience than a woman. Women have the choice of normative social positions that don't involve job experience -- social positions that women are more likely to find fulfilling (and a major cause of women largely being happier than men historically). This is patriarchy because women are encouraged into roles of less social prestige, even if they may be more conducive to a satisfying life. Men being encouraged into physically dangerous jobs of low social prestige is apparently unrelated.

Patriarchy is some man in a position of authority and putting men in "high" positions. Patriarchy is the culture that drives some men to make large sacrifices to their social life and personal comfort and satisfaction for mere social respect (such as physically dangerous or otherwise demanding work). Patriarchy is the culture that drives women away from such sacrifices and towards satisfying and comfortable lives. Patriarchy is not the social rules that protect women from suffering at rock bottom, but it is the social rules that make it at all harder for women to reach the top.

Patriarchy is the social systems that disproportionately reward men for success, but not those that disproportionately punish men for failure. Patriarchy is the social systems that reward men for sacrifice, but not those that require men to sacrifice. Patriarchy is there being more men than women aboard the Titanic, but not more women surviving the Titanic than men. Patriarchy is the military of every country being largely male, but not the male-only draft in many countries (not Canada, where I am though). Patriarchy is men being in positions of power that they could use to benefit themselves. Patriarchy is not men having used those systems to benefit the majority of women more than the majority of men.

Patriarchy is men not living up to or destructive and obvious misinterpretations the male gender role. Patriarchy is also men living up to the male gender role or constructive interpretations of it to the benefit of others (especially those that are also sacrificial in nature other otherwise harmful to themselves). But women living up to destructive feminine gender roles is somehow also patriarchy, not matriarchy.

azazelcrowley · 2020-01-24T18:20:02+00:00

It's an argument that ignores how individuals interact with institutions and influence them, instead treating them as by definition unable to influence those institutions if they aren't in charge of them.

Merely noting men hold positions of explicit authority does not actually tell you where power lies.

InitiatePenguin · 2020-01-20T16:15:05+00:00

I just want to say thanks for at least engaging in this manner. It seems my prayer was directly answered:

I can say this sub doesn't make feminists particular welcome, nor are interested in a two way street. There's too much aminocity and too little respect and steel-manning

Personally, I find theories on hedgemony who happen to be male (historically) to be more accurate.

I don't believe power is an intrinsic birth right afforded onto men, but I do beleive inherent biases have worked their way into the way we've organized modern society that become particularly painful in a democracy as we come to terms with forgotten promises.

That critical analysis of "who was in power" and "who wasn't formally given a seat at the table" and "how has that lead to our particular arrangement, could it have been different?" Are the important questions.

Where I think patriarchy is a little more useful over hedgmonic is in the enforcement of gender roles/expectations as an axis within societal organization. But those enforcement's still weren't exclusively done by men, and aren't universally experienced either. And for me these arguments are less about the willful execution of power but more about the seemingly default society has for men (i.e. "MANkind", that Eve was born out from a part of Adam etc). It's an admission that our society's nuetral state is not equal.

There is a trend in history to see the male sex as superior, be it strength, or not being subject to "womenly hysteria" etc. There is a history of sexism disproportionately placed on women. But there are also counter-narratives that show how women were celebrated in other ways.

The non-universal ways men have had power and those who do not, historically did not, tells me this isn't a natural or biological trait, and I'm much more favorable patriarchal theories that take things like race and class conciousness into consideration.

And it was just brought up to me in another thread that we tend not to talk about those ways women did influence society despite those hurdles and the more informal exercized of power. Just depends on what scope you're looking at. It's no surprise that a conversation about patriarchy centers on men.

Things still aren't perfect but I also feel we have come a long way for a more equitable society, and feel that patriarchy explaination by its own devices will become outmoded.

cromulent_weasel · 2020-01-20T20:59:22+00:00

[SM]

I think I disagree slightly with your baseline [SM], even though your supporting points I think are good.

I think a better baseline would be

[SM] Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property.

Some additional bullet points include

Employment outside the home was traditionally seen as the role of men, with women confined to domestic duties and child rearing. A select few jobs were acceptable for women such as being teachers, nurses and librarians.
Estate and asset management was important. This came bundled with several different ideas - women and children as property, focusing on control of women's sexuality, wedding dowry's, marriage for social or political gain. The goal wasn't a monolithic system that benefited men at the expense of women. The goal was a system that benefited WEALTHY men and their friends.
The use of the military as an economic arm to extend wealth and influence. This used up poor men as a fighting force, while benefiting the ruling economic elite who reaped the benefits of their wars.
The successful diversion of the current ruling elite (the 1%) using wedge politics to successfully focus different poor demographics discontent upon each other. This can most easily be seen with 'the southern strategy' in the US where poor white men and poor black men actually had a LOT in common. But convincing poor white men that they were better than poor black men and should fear them helped turn them into allies in enforcing systemic racism against poor black men. In the same way, focusing marginalised women on the marginalised men in their surroundings as being the source of their hardships, or the inverse, focusing marginalised men on the women in their surroundings as the target to blame has the neat side effect of letting the 1% elude all of the blame for systemic faults in our current social and economic systems, despite them largely being engineered by the ruling elite.

If men have all the power, why don't they universally profit from it? Because they brought themselves in a pretty unnatural position.

Is this still part of the steel man? Because it's probably better as a response pose than in the OP if not.

Oncefa2 · 2020-01-21T16:02:24+00:00

My biggest criticism of patriarchy theory is the assumption that it necessarily benefits men.

Men do tend to carry more authority in society. But men also love and care for women, probably moreso than they do other men (as indicated by research into empathy and in-group / out-group biases).

If men have power then men will do everything they can to make things better for women.

Not in the sense that occasionally "patriarchy hurts men and helps women" but in the sense that patriarchy, by default, hurts men and helps women. The reverse case where women are harmed and men are helped is instead the less common outcome of a patriarchy.

I also wonder to what extent gynocentrism and patriarchy are related. American society is extremely gynocentric and has been since it's founding. French writers actually used this term to describe American society as far back as the 1800s. Does gynocentrism lead to a patriarchy where women are cared for and have no responsibilities? Is this perhaps something that many women desire? Or can both exist independently of each other?

I think the argument that society is gynocentric might be one of the best counters to the feminist patriarchy narrative. Not as a way to disprove patriarchy theory, but as a way to demonstrate that society has other qualities that are decidedly pro-female. And that you can talk about gender roles from inside that framework just as much as you can from inside a patriarchal framework.

GingerRazz · 2020-01-24T09:32:21+00:00

When talking to feminists, I have been accused numerous times of strawmanning their arguments. Today, I would like to do the opposite: The Steel Man is about "building the best form of the other side’s argument and then engaging with it."

Totally fair, I'll engage in a polite way as I do in most online discussions and remember that you don't necessarily believe your arguments.

The argument I would like to engage with is that we live in a patriarchy. I will do my best to represent this argument, and I want you to refute me. If you like, you can participate in the Steel Man as well, but please make it clear if your are expressing your own opinions or the Steel Man by putting "[SM]" in front of your posts when you're steelmanning. Maybe we can use some points from the discussion and add them to the Wiki or something

I refute those argument in its entirety because the word patriarchy lacks a consistent and meaningful definition. Any argument of patriarchy would first require a concise definition of the term before any meaningful refutation could actually occur, but in the spirit of steelmanning the argument, I'll ignore this factor.

So here we go: [SM] The patriarchy is a system in which men hold the power and use it to their own advantage. This can be observed in the following ways, among others:

This is a good base definition, but it already is falsified by male only draft and women being defined as a protected minority while men are not. While some examples can be found where you could make that case, examples where it is the opposite and men in power use their power to privilege women pretty much invalidate that core definition already.

Most positions of power are still held by men. Even though female government leaders have been elected, most management positions, which are not subject to public elections, still reside with men.

While this is true, it does not show any systemic reason that men are held in power and it definitely doesn't show that men use their power for the benefits of men because women have been given more and more rights and privileges while men lead which also invalidates the core definition.

Most Indo-European languages are pretty male-centered. They have a generic masculine, and words like "mankind" or "man-made" just ignore women.

This is just linguistic gore that could as easily be presented in the opposite direction. Man in this way is the gender neutral term as well as the term for male where as woman is gender specific. As such, this is male erasure by us not having a gender specific term that isn't also the gender neutral.

This is actually closer to the reality because linguistic drift caused men to lose their gender specific term of weremen as the parallel to women (wifman at the time of I recall correctly).

In Abrahamic religions, women play lesser roles. They are banned from preaching and conducting worship, and scripture often quite explicitly orders them to subordinate themselves to men.

While this is true in many orthodox religions, culture has shifted away from these kind of traditions of orthodoxy showing times are less patriarchal. If we want to play the history game, it could just as easily be argued that historically, pagan religions revered women as the creators of life and subordinated men in their role in the world while revering goddesses as the high ranks in their pantheon.

The ritual of marriage shows how women are considered property: First, the woman gets an engagement ring. Then, the father hands her over to the husband, and she gets his last name.

This actually could be argued that women are seen as more valuable than men in that for a partnership the man is expected to pay to make things fair.

The reality is this came from the duty men had. Men were expected to provide for and protect women. It wasn't about handing off property, it was about making a hand off to a new protector. Legally, a father was required to provide for his daughter until she was married. A husband was legally required to provide his wife with a comparable life stlye to his own. No part of this sounds like women being property. If anything, it sounds like they were a protected class.

On top of all of that, a woman was allowed to take out credit in her husband's name, amd if he didn't repay the debts she accrued in his name, he would go to prison.

If men have all the power, why don't they universally profit from it? Because they brought themselves in a pretty unnatural position. People are happier in more egalitarian societies, but men shortsightedly decided to get benefits from the oppression of women, so in the long run, it hurts most of them. They do not realize that giving up some of their privilege would actually improve the situation for them.

People claim that people are happier in more egalitarian societies, but numerous studies have shown that women view being treated as equal to men rather than with benevolent sexism as being mistreated. Additionally, since the modern push of feminism in which women have been calling into more historically male dominated roles, women are reporting a decrease in average happiness that flies in the face of that claim.

A historical analog for this is Sparta, where the Spartiates had all the privilege and acted as oppressors, but as their entire lives where centered around this, they had a pretty hard time anyways.

Sadly, I know to little about Spartan culture to fully refute this, but I do know that the men held brutal responsibility that was given in exchange for their privilege. This is actually common in more dangerous societies. The more dangerous it is to live in a society, the less rights women have. As a society becomes more safe, women gain more rights once reserved for men, but men don't lost the responsibilities they took up in exchange for their privilege that is given freely to women.

Comments