Did a matriarchal society ever exist?

[Penumbra]

In jobs where physical strength isn't an issue (CEOs) then the fact that a man is physically stronger shouldn't matter.

True, but the fact that it is women and not men who give birth to children is a potential career break. Not all women do, and it's not always a big factor, but in a group of thousands of people, it should make a statistical difference at the highest levels of economic and political power.

Your example isn't about equal pay for equal work as the woman isn't being expected to do lifting. Not that women are incapable of lifting heavy loads just like men. There are very few jobs where the difference between women's ability to lift and men's ability to lift is a serious issue. It's more a cultural issue than a biological one.

I agree it's not about equal pay for equal work. In the scenario, the men can do the same work that the women can, but the women can only do part of the secondary work that the men can. The male programmers, as far as I know, are equivalent at programming to the female programmers, but the male programmers are better at lifting 500 lb pieces of equipment than female programmers.

The western concept that women are too weak for "men's work" is not based on biology but on cultural bias.

wa:do

The problem with these examples is that each scenario where a woman can do a given physical task, a healthy man with equivalent background can likely do more.

If I had to hire a tube-lifter, and had the choice between a woman who could lift 6 tubes and a man who could lift 9 tubes, I'd hire the man. If for some reason the man could only lift 4 tubes, I'd hire the woman. Or I'd hire both, but the person who can lift more tubes in a day is of more economic value to me.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

My original point was that "matriarchal" societies are less "women in charge of everything" than they are egalitarian

(emphasis added)
Isn't this a contradiction in terms? Although I suppose you could define "matriarchal" in terms of political power, and egalitarian as more social/communal rights and responsibilities. I guess the bigger question is what do you mean by matriarchal? We do have evidence for non-industrial cultures or pre-modern cultures in which women had political/civil/tribal power (a seperate female ruling council, queens, etc.) but we have do evidence that anything like a matriarchy ever existed the way patriarchies have. That is, the work from Bachofen to Gimbutas notwithstanding, there doesn't seem to be any good evidence to support the view that there were cultures in which men had no official political power the way there were patriarchal cultures in which women had no official political power. So if by "matriarchal" and "egalitarian" you mean women had more political (or "official" cultural) power than in patriarchies, that would seem to be true a priori. Or am I missing something?

 

[painted wolf]

True, but the fact that it is women and not men who give birth to children is a potential career break. Not all women do, and it's not always a big factor, but in a group of thousands of people, it should make a statistical difference at the highest levels of economic and political power.

There is no reason that a woman taking a few months off will suddenly make her unfit for work when she returns.

I agree it's not about equal pay for equal work. In the scenario, the men can do the same work that the women can, but the women can only do part of the secondary work that the men can. The male programmers, as far as I know, are equivalent at programming to the female programmers, but the male programmers are better at lifting 500 lb pieces of equipment than female programmers.

The problem with these examples is that each scenario where a woman can do a given physical task, a healthy man with equivalent background can likely do more.

If I had to hire a tube-lifter, and had the choice between a woman who could lift 6 tubes and a man who could lift 9 tubes, I'd hire the man. If for some reason the man could only lift 4 tubes, I'd hire the woman. Or I'd hire both, but the person who can lift more tubes in a day is of more economic value to me.

And none of that has any bearing on having a culture that is egalitarian vs. Patriarchal vs. Matriarchal.

Unless political and social importance is based solely on what you can lift...

wa:do

 

[Penumbra]

There is no reason that a woman taking a few months off will suddenly make her unfit for work when she returns.

And none of that has any bearing on having a culture that is egalitarian vs. Patriarchal vs. Matriarchal.

Unless political and social importance is based solely on what you can lift...

wa:do

Sure it does, in a world full of hard work, those that are perceived as being of the most economic or social value will be more likely to have influence. As we trend towards information-work over physical-work, the gender gap can more easily narrow (and already more women go to college than men), but if the topic is whether matriarchal societies existed, and if so, to what extent, then the context is indeed mostly physical.

In your opinion, why did so many diverse cultures around the world all end up patriarchal, with fewer egalitarian ones? A coincidence?

 

[Caladan]

I am reading the book The Alphabet versus the Goddess. I am about 1/2 done it's a good read but I have reservations about the conclusions. Any way he feels like the written word plays into the strengths of a mans mind. This was part of the reason why patriarchy spread so well all over our planet.

I do believe that there were many societies that were much more egalitarian before the invention of the city state. I think with the whole invention of organized warfare to protect the wealth and food that humans were able to store up from year to year. The strength of men became supreme at this point.

I don't know if this pushed for male-dominant society. But Assyriologists do agree that with the rise of the first city-states, Mesopotamian religions had a major transition from fertility goddesses to war gods.

 

[painted wolf]

Sure it does, in a world full of hard work, those that are perceived as being of the most economic or social value will be more likely to have influence.

You are measuring economic worth solely as the ability to lift heavy things.
Surely a woman who crafts fine silks and raises healthy children is just as valuable as a man who carries bricks and should have just as much say in the social and political future of her culture.

As we trend towards information-work over physical-work, the gender gap can more easily narrow (and already more women go to college than men), but if the topic is whether matriarchal societies existed, and if so, to what extent, then the context is indeed mostly physical.

As I said, I doubt that matriarchal societies existed in the sense that patriarchal societies do. That is, with one gender dominating the other. The Amazons and Drow are myths.

You wont find a female equivalent of the Taliban.

In your opinion, why did so many diverse cultures around the world all end up patriarchal, with fewer egalitarian ones? A coincidence?

Militarism for one thing. The most aggressive military states have been patriarchies and they also tend to be very "evangelical" about their cultures.
But I doubt that there is a single cause.

wa:do

 

[painted wolf]

I don't know if this pushed for male-dominant society. But Assyriologists do agree that with the rise of the first city-states, Mesopotamian religions had a major transition from fertility goddesses to war gods.

Exactly... and while there were plenty of early examples of war goddesses, these became fewer as time progressed. Eventually some religions rid themselves of goddesses at all.

There is an interesting correlation between hard patriarchy (women as property of men) and cultures with only a single male deity.

wa:do

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

There is an interesting correlation between hard patriarchy (women as property of men) and cultures with only a single male deity.

Other than the abrahamic religions, which cultures had only a single male deity? Ancient Greece was about the most sexist civilization in history, but the greeks had no shortage of goddesses.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

I don't know if this pushed for male-dominant society. But Assyriologists do agree that with the rise of the first city-states, Mesopotamian religions had a major transition from fertility goddesses to war gods.

That part makes sense.

 

[painted wolf]

Other than the abrahamic religions, which cultures had only a single male deity? Ancient Greece was about the most sexist civilization in history, but the greeks had no shortage of goddesses.

How many cultures under abrahamic religions aren't patriarchal?

Baha'i, Zoroastrianism, Sikism, Atatanism and some forms of Hinduism are all male deity based monotheistic religions.
Even the Greeks during Plato's and Aristotle's times were debating the merits of Monotheism (with a male deity)... christianity was one of several monotheistic cults competing for dominance at the time. (none that I know of had a female deity)

The Shang dynasty of China was monotheistic with a male deity and it could be argued that Buddhism can elevate the Buddha to an almost deified status (and that he didn't always speak well about women).
The same is true of Confucianism.

wa:do

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

Exactly... and while there were plenty of early examples of war goddesses, these became fewer as time progressed. Eventually some religions rid themselves of goddesses at all.

There is an interesting correlation between hard patriarchy (women as property of men) and cultures with only a single male deity.

wa:do

I use to place the cause of this "Hyper-patriarchy" square on the shoulders of the Abrahamic religions. It's very clear that this was a completely unreasonably assessment of the problem. There is just much more to it then that.

 

[painted wolf]

I use to place the cause of this "Hyper-patriarchy" square on the shoulders of the Abrahamic religions. It's very clear that this was a completely unreasonably assessment of the problem. There is just much more to it then that.

Agreed, I would never ascribe a single cause to such a problem. Cultures are very complex things. There are strongly patriarchal cultures that have female deities such as Japan.

Religion alone is not the cause. Though, it can be a factor.

wa:do

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

How many cultures under abrahamic religions aren't patriarchal?

They are all, as far as I can tell. However, monotheistic religions are an exception, whereas ancient patriarchies are the rule.

Baha'i, Zoroastrianism, Sikism, Atatanism and some forms of Hinduism are all male deity based monotheistic religions.

Ancient Zorastrianism probably can't really be considered monotheistic. Hinduism certainly wasn't.

Even the Greeks during Plato's and Aristotle's times were debating the merits of Monotheism (with a male deity)

On what are you basing this?

christianity was one of several monotheistic cults competing for dominance at the time. (none that I know of had a female deity)

What were the others? And there is a difference between cultures which only worship one god, and cultures which only believe in one god.

The Shang dynasty of China was monotheistic with a male deity and it could be argued that Buddhism can elevate the Buddha to an almost deified status (and that he didn't always speak well about women).
The same is true of Confucianism.

wa:do

All this does is show that misogyny/patriarchy was the norm, not that it had anything to do with monotheism.

 

[Penumbra]

You are measuring economic worth solely as the ability to lift heavy things.

No, I'm not.

Surely a woman who crafts fine silks and raises healthy children is just as valuable as a man who carries bricks and should have just as much say in the social and political future of her culture.

Do women have an innate ability to craft fine silk better than men? Could men learn to craft fine silk that rivals the fine silk of any women? (Most would say yes- there's no inherent advantage women have in silk-making that I'm aware of.) Could men, in general, raise healthy children as well as women? (Opinions would probably be mixed.)

The argument is not that economic worth is based on lifting heavy things. The argument is this:

-Men are stronger and faster, in general. Measurably biologically superior in those two things. This provides a noticeable edge in combat, hunting, construction, etc.
-Men and women are intellectually equal, though they do have some psychological differences, in general.
-Depending on what sort of economy a culture has, ranging from hunter-gatherers to urban people, the goods and services they need will be partly physical and partly mental, though the emphasis could slide towards either end of that spectrum depending on the time period and level of development.

So it seems that, in many cultures, men were in a position where they excelled at the physical stuff, but had no inherent disadvantage at the mental stuff. So it's not that women couldn't do things; it's that men had a definitive biological edge in many measurable things, but women couldn't really say the same.

An example would be a documentary I watched on the Amish groups. During a barn-raising, the men do a ton of physical work to build a large structure, and the women cook a lot of food to provide them with food. Now if the roles were switched, and women built the barn and men made the food, would it work as efficiently? Not really. Men have no inherent disadvantage at cooking, so with the same level of training, they'd provide food just as well as the women. But women do have a biological disadvantage in strength, so it would likely take more women the same amount of time to build the barn, or the same amount of women more time to build the barn, then men. So in their two roles, if men and women are equal in one category, but men are superior in another category, then it's unsurprising in that culture that men are looked at as superior.

Many of the things that women are better at are non-measurable. They could potentially be better at raising kids, instinctively. They could be more effective communicators. They could be better at avoiding confrontation and war. Hard to prove and measure, though.

So it seems that, in history, men have often had an edge in things that are obvious and measurable, whereas any edge women tend to have is usually in a more subtle, less measurable area. So I don't find it surprising at all that in culture after culture, continent to continent, there were a lot of patriarchal societies.

As I said, I doubt that matriarchal societies existed in the sense that patriarchal societies do. That is, with one gender dominating the other. The Amazons and Drow are myths.

You wont find a female equivalent of the Taliban.

Militarism for one thing. The most aggressive military states have been patriarchies and they also tend to be very "evangelical" about their cultures.
But I doubt that there is a single cause.

wa:do

And that would be an example of where women have a subtle edge probably. Women are apparently less likely to form female equivalents of the Taliban, and probably would go to war less in general. Hard to prove and hard to measure.

 

[Songbird]

That didn't quite answer the question, though.
-Are societies not currently egalitarian because, at some earlier time, they were not egalitarian? Should the current state of a culture be judged based on its past?

-Do these cultures currently base a man's worth on how many wives he has or his ability to produce an heir?

So in a society that requires quite a bit of physical ability to survive, and if men and women are intellectually equal but men are statistically superior physically, this isn't a likely recipe for inequality?

I could provide a modern example.

Where I work, there are engineers, technicians, and programmers. Engineers and programmers are paid basically equally given an equal level of education and experience, whereas technicians have less education and are paid less. Due to it being a group of modest size, and due to the tough economy where management is trying to keep everything as lean and overworked as possible, employees often have to do things that are a bit outside of their core job area.

Sometimes engineers have to do a whole lot of physical work. Sometimes something is so heavy, or so complex, that they have to get the programmers to help. They always get the male programmers to help, because the female programmers are less willing to help, and they are comparatively less physically strong when they do help anyway. Even the female engineers often do not help for the same reason.

I could point out that I'm an exception to the rule. That as a female engineer, I'm always right there doing the physical stuff (and often do the roles where being small or light is helpful, like crawling or climbing). But statistically, this doesn't change the statistical observation that, men are in the group are equal programmers to the women, and yet superior laborers. Should this affect their pay and status, if they can all do one task equally, but some can do a second task in a superior way? If it doesn't affect pay, would it still be unreasonable for it affect levels of respect within the group?

I work at a tech company that's heavily male-dominated, probably equal to the engineering field. I'm sure occasional heavy lifting is required, and I'm sure men are probably called on to do it.

But the much more frequent demand we deal with, which is rather outside the definition of most of the deployment and technical engineers' jobs, is the hand-holding of anxious customers. We migrate customers' data to new software, which provokes a lot of anxiety and questions about data security, learning new technology, possible data loss, errors, etc. When customers are particularly high-need or anxious (most are), the engineers refer them to me or the female sales rep to reassure them. People are more apt to talk to women about their problems and fears.

This soothing, empathetic skill isn't just a nice thing to have in business. It's crucial to successful business in almost every field. Being a people person (an overused term) is frequently lauded as more important than possessing hard skills, which can be learned. It's probably one of the more subtle skills you mentioned in another post. And it probably wasn't crucial to success in warring cultures. But I bet it was important to peaceful, egalitarian ones. It's definitely valuable today, where the bulk of business is done within relational contexts, and where skills are highly specialized.

Your work example of engineers needing to do heavy lifting and being more valuable if they can strikes me as not as important as an engineer who is hired to do electrical engineering - and who is superior to other engineers in that area. Unless the job description demands that physical strength be as important as engineering skills, I'd think superior engineering as a highly niched skill is far more valuable than strength, which can be outsourced far more easily and cheaply.

 

[painted wolf]

They are all, as far as I can tell. However, monotheistic religions are an exception, whereas ancient patriarchies are the rule.

I wasn't saying otherwise...

Ancient Zorastrianism probably can't really be considered monotheistic. Hinduism certainly wasn't.

How about modern Zoroastrians?
There are monotheistic Hindus both in antiquity and today. Hinduism is a very diverse religious family.

On what are you basing this?

their writings.

What were the others?

Hypsistarians for one... but if you want a complete list you'll have to do your own research.

And there is a difference between cultures which only worship one god, and cultures which only believe in one god.

Debatable but ultimately irrelevant.

All this does is show that misogyny/patriarchy was the norm, not that it had anything to do with monotheism.

All I said was that there was a correlation... not that it was the cause. :sarcastic

wa:do

 

[Penumbra]

I work at a tech company that's heavily male-dominated, probably equal to the engineering field. I'm sure occasional heavy lifting is required, and I'm sure men are probably called on to do it.

But the much more frequent demand we deal with, which is rather outside the definition of most of the deployment and technical engineers' jobs, is the hand-holding of anxious customers. We migrate customers' data to new software, which provokes a lot of anxiety and questions about data security, learning new technology, possible data loss, errors, etc. When customers are particularly high-need or anxious (most are), the engineers refer them to me or the female sales rep to reassure them. People are more apt to talk to women about their problems and fears.

This soothing, empathetic skill isn't just a nice thing to have in business. It's crucial to successful business in almost every field. Being a people person (an overused term) is frequently lauded as more important than possessing hard skills, which can be learned. It's probably one of the more subtle skills you mentioned in another post. And it probably wasn't crucial to success in warring cultures. But I bet it was important to peaceful, egalitarian ones. It's definitely valuable today, where the bulk of business is done within relational contexts, and where skills are highly specialized.

Good post, and I agree.

I do think in many older cultures, those harder skills were viewed as more important.

Also, female sales engineers statistically make more money than male sales engineers.

Your work example of engineers needing to do heavy lifting and being more valuable if they can strikes me as not as important as an engineer who is hired to do electrical engineering - and who is superior to other engineers in that area. Unless the job description demands that physical strength be as important as engineering skills, I'd think superior engineering as a highly niched skill is far more valuable than strength, which can be outsourced far more easily and cheaply.

We have a work crew we can call, but they're overworked between multiple groups, so we only call them for the biggest stuff. So using their labor is indeed cheaper, but often slower. So often the manager says, "guys lets just do this ourselves" with the team of engineers, technicians, and programmers.

And people call on each other for help. I lead a small team of engineers, technicians, and programmers, but often I'm helping the technician with technician work, or writing pseudo-code with the programmer, etc. And sometimes the big mechanical engineer needs my help climbing something or reaching something in a difficult spot he can't reach.

Where I work, most males do both engineering/programming and some physical stuff, whereas most females do the engineering/programming only. They're usually not asked to help, since it often involves considerable strength for short periods of time, and if they are asked, many of them excuse themselves from it.

We don't have customer service to do in our group. Or, more accurately, we have very few, very big customers, so the manager mostly works with them.

 

[painted wolf]

No, I'm not.

Then I'm confused by your use of physical power to grant men get social and political power over women.

Do women have an innate ability to craft fine silk better than men? Could men learn to craft fine silk that rivals the fine silk of any women? (Most would say yes- there's no inherent advantage women have in silk-making that I'm aware of.) Could men, in general, raise healthy children as well as women? (Opinions would probably be mixed.)

The argument is not that economic worth is based on lifting heavy things. The argument is this:

-Men are stronger and faster, in general. Measurably biologically superior in those two things. This provides a noticeable edge in combat, hunting, construction, etc.
-Men and women are intellectually equal, though they do have some psychological differences, in general.
-Depending on what sort of economy a culture has, ranging from hunter-gatherers to urban people, the goods and services they need will be partly physical and partly mental, though the emphasis could slide towards either end of that spectrum depending on the time period and level of development.

So it seems that, in many cultures, men were in a position where they excelled at the physical stuff, but had no inherent disadvantage at the mental stuff. So it's not that women couldn't do things; it's that men had a definitive biological edge in many measurable things, but women couldn't really say the same.

An example would be a documentary I watched on the Amish groups. During a barn-raising, the men do a ton of physical work to build a large structure, and the women cook a lot of food to provide them with food. Now if the roles were switched, and women built the barn and men made the food, would it work as efficiently? Not really. Men have no inherent disadvantage at cooking, so with the same level of training, they'd provide food just as well as the women. But women do have a biological disadvantage in strength, so it would likely take more women the same amount of time to build the barn, or the same amount of women more time to build the barn, then men. So in their two roles, if men and women are equal in one category, but men are superior in another category, then it's unsurprising in that culture that men are looked at as superior.

Many of the things that women are better at are non-measurable. They could potentially be better at raising kids, instinctively. They could be more effective communicators. They could be better at avoiding confrontation and war. Hard to prove and measure, though.

So it seems that, in history, men have often had an edge in things that are obvious and measurable, whereas any edge women tend to have is usually in a more subtle, less measurable area. So I don't find it surprising at all that in culture after culture, continent to continent, there were a lot of patriarchal societies.

And that would be an example of where women have a subtle edge probably.

Again, I'm having a problem understanding your point.
If women can't do an economic task that men can't... they don't get to have social and political power in their culture?

At what point does men being the primary economic generators grant them the power to treat women as property rather than as equals?

Women are apparently less likely to form female equivalents of the Taliban, and probably would go to war less in general. Hard to prove and hard to measure.

Actually, from what I know of history, matriarchal/matralineal cultures went to war just as often as patriarchal ones. In this case, technological development likely played a role in the spread of certain patriarchal cultures over others.

wa:do

 

[Penumbra]

Then I'm confused by your use of physical power to grant men get social and political power over women.

I'm not granting anyone anything.

I'm pointing out why it's not surprising to me that in many separate cultures, men would end up with much of the power.

Again, I'm having a problem understanding your point.
If women can't do an economic task that men can't... they don't get to have social and political power in their culture?

If men are viewed as broadly superior in the measurable areas in a society, and the subtle skills are less noticed or less measurable or not necessarily shown to be strengths of women specifically, it's unsurprising that men would end up with a disproportionate share of power in that society.

At what point does men being the primary economic generators grant them the power to treat women as property rather than as equals?

Well for one, I don't think being the primary economic generators should ever grant them that power.

For two, I guess they get that power if they are willing to do it and get away with it. It seems that in many societies, that happened.

Actually, from what I know of history, matriarchal/matralineal cultures went to war just as often as patriarchal ones. In this case, technological development likely played a role in the spread of certain patriarchal cultures over others.

wa:do

Then if that's true, women don't have an advantage in that area.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

Actually, from what I know of history, matriarchal/matralineal cultures went to war just as often as patriarchal ones. In this case, technological development likely played a role in the spread of certain patriarchal cultures over others.

wa:do

More info please