Posted on 08/01/2003 9:47:27 AM PDT by Ippolita
The failure of feminism
Feminism began as the battle for equality of civil rights for women. It has ended in the belief that the best possible woman is a man. Maybe, at the dawn of the third Christian millennium it is time to take stock.
1. A little bit of history.
Although feminists like to discuss the existence of matriarchal societies (that is: societies were women wield power) the truth is that the examples, in both myth and history, are far and few between. Matriarchal societies are important because they allow feminists to project their ideals for the future into the past, and hence claim that they are not really revolutionizing anything, but simply re-establishing past traditions. Prime examples are the completely erroneous usage of the Amazons, of the Queens of Egypt, of several American Indian tribes, none of which show any form at all of matriarchy.
2. A little bit of anthropology.
Many cultures do show the tracing of the female lineage, this however has got nothing to do with the actual wielding of power. That the lineage be traced by female descent is normal: after all it is women that give birth; power, however, is then to be found on the avuncular level: the brother of the mother, the uncle (lat. avunculus, hence avuncular), is the head of the family. This is true of the Iroquois, as of the ancient Hebrews, as of Islam. Nothing feminist about it, it is simply a way of tracing descent: of keeping track of people in relation to oneself. The real innovation is paternity: the attribution of the child not the mother and her family, but to the father and his family: The creation of a father-line, when paternity is anything but sure - unless you get a DNA check – is the cultural step.
Suppose a given culture is exogamic and divided into 3 clans A, B, C. Prescribed marriage rules indicate: A* - B+; B* - C+; C* - A+ (where * = male, + = female, and - = marries). The offspring, in a matrilinear culture, are attributed to the female clans so a male child of A* - B+ is B*, of B* - C+ is C+, and of C* - A+ is A*. This translates into a redistribution of wealth through the clans because an A father’s possessions will go the B clan, etc. The creation of patrilinear descent translates into the concentration of ‘goods’ in one clan. If A* has an A* child it all stays in the same family.
Ancient Egypt, the first in history to tackle the problem, devises an endogamic system: A* marries A+, possibly sister marries brother. One would think all of ancient Egyptians to be incestuous perverts but in truth this strict endogamy is prescribed only for the royal line: this is where it is REALLY important for the ‘goods’ to stay in the family, since the possession needing to be transmitted is power. Hence the fabled Egyptian queens much loved by feminists. We will return to them shortly.
3. A little bit of mythology.
Much is also made out of the existence of mythological creatures which seem to incarnate the feminist ideal. Here the archetype is that of the Amazons: gorgeous warrior women, so attractive that the ritual mutilation of their breast (they cut off one, to better wield the bow) only enhanced their beauty, brave beyond belief, raiders of horses; they were a sort of ante litteram ‘special ops troops’. These ladies, according to Greek myth, used to kidnap men to procreate. They killed the male offspring and nurtured only the girls. The men were kept at home, as slaves, to cook, clean, and take care of the children, while the Amazons, hunted, foraged, and fought as mercenaries.
Working on the assumption that if Schliemann found Troy, they could find ‘Amazonia’ many scholarly feminists have tried to anchor this myth in history. Unfortunately myth doesn’t work the way they would like: Schliemann moved from the assumption that if many other cities in the Homeric epic were real (Athens, Thebes, etc.) then why not Troy? While no myth records the existence of an Amazon city, or settlement for that matter. Myth records the existence of Cyclopes, one eyed monstrous giants, but no one in their right sane mind would think Cyclopes existed anywhere. Moreover myth often works by using opposites. A myth founds reality as it is today, things which happened at the time of myth can no longer happen now. So Amazons are a cultural antithesis, a direct opposite of what Greek society was really like.
4. A little more anthropology.
Most cultures show an internal (home) role for the woman and an external role for the man. This, in part, is due to objective biological necessities and, in part, to cultural determination. Nature decrees nine months of pregnancy and seven years nurturing by the mother (the first three very intense), this makes the woman prefer an stable social structure over a nomadic one; hence her predilection for agriculture over hunting and gathering. Most cultures have myths on the introduction of agriculture (whether cereal or tuber) which have a woman protagonist (Isis, Demeter, Hainuwele, etc:). Most cultures also ascribe a civilizing role to the woman: a transition from wild to domestic. Stable conditions create a surplus of goods (land, livestock, accumulated produce, capitalization, gold and ultimately of course power) to be ‘passed on’ and a cultural necessity for patrilineal lineage. In the absence of DNA tests ancient cultures remedied by closeting their women. This ensured chastity as well as the possibility of continued surveillance (virginity being the prime requirement for the male to ensure that his specific seed got in first, while seclusion was necessary to ensure his seed was also the only one to get in).
5. A little more history.
Most ancient cultures were royal cultures, where positive law was unheard of. The Greeks, with their idea of politeia and of demokratia, and then the Romans, with their res publica and their constitutio, changed the picture. The Greeks invented the elective process and genetic citizenship (birth rights), Romans invented the ius civilis and extendable citizenship (any one could become a roman citizen if they fulfilled the right criteria) and civil rights were born. These of course did not extend to women. Women could not vote, could not bear arms, could not inherit directly, etc: They also did not pay taxes, which, in my opinion, was a perk.
Obviously, royal dynasties and oligarchic families always had means of protecting themselves, and in extremis solutions (special laws allowing women to inherit, special dispensations allowing women to sit on the throne, etc) have always been available. The women which history remembers, however, and portrays in a position of power, followed the dominant culture: Hatshepsut ruled as Pharaoh (wearing a false beard and a false phallus and all the male regalia) and so did Cleopatra; Queen Elisabeth the first acted like a king.
Things pottered along in history with no great change until the industrial revolution when, for the first time the women were removed from their traditional domestic setting, and introduced into the factory. Obliged to work as men some of them began to clamour for the extension of civil rights. Suffragettes asked for the vote, women workers asked for equal pay, the right to education was soon acknowledged as part of the requests and women in general began broadening their possibilities in life.
The need to extend civil rights to women was of course very important and I stand proudly behind those women that initially fought hard and long for this basic recognition.
6. A little bit of polemics.
Since then however things have gone completely over-board. The fight the equality of civil rights has turned into a fight for equality full stop. The feminist movement has lost the battle for the ERA and has instead successfully placed women in the untenable position to have to work and act like men. In short, the feminist movement has been unable to create a real female culture, nor a pro-female culture. They have adopted male behaviour at all levels from working hours to combat but have been unable to promote laws which protect the fundamental birthright of a woman: i.e. to have a child. While the USA calmly allows its young women to get in harms way in war (if they so wish), a working woman who wants to have a family has only three weeks delivery leave and no guarantee that her job will still be there when she gets back. Oh yes, I know, a job is guaranteed; that means that a top level executive manager in Air France returns to work after birthing her baby and finds herself working in the mail room. The feminist movement seems to have gone down the path of diversity more than equality, reinforcing the position of those masculine ladies who prefer to live a man’s life while betraying those many millions of women who are happy and proud to be female, and who would like to be able to enjoy their traditional role without peer pressure to ‘get a career’ and with some guarantees for their jobs.
The model roles proposed by these anti-woman feminists are always masculine ones: hence their fixation with the Amazons (who behaved like men) with the queens of Egypt (who ruled as Pharaohs and hence as men): The ultimate objective is the ‘empowering of women’: hence, their fixation with matriarchy (the rule of women as opposed to that of men).
A true feminist movement would work to support the female role within the modern day structure. It should work towards the formation of a culture of respect of both sexes and of their individual responsibilities and not towards the transformation of two sexes into one.
..hence her predilection for the supermarket over the shooting range and fishing trips.
A bit over the top. Maybe you won't be in control of the department, but you'll have the same title and pay.
A surplus of goods promotes envy in societies that do NOT have stable conditions (or, crime causes poverty). This compels the "Stable Society" to consider the necessity of self defense, until the unstable societies become stable. Until then, it's still a dangerous world.
IMHO, the present day example of this phenomenon is the rise of the Democrat female politician. When one ponders Hillary, Barbara Boxer, Loretta Sanchez and, to a certain extent, Diane FeinStein, the image of hermaphrodite comes to mind. Not woman.
Many cultures do show the tracing of the female lineage, this however has got nothing to do with the actual wielding of power. That the lineage be traced by female descent is normal: after all it is women that give birth; power, however, is then to be found on the avuncular level: the brother of the mother, the uncle (lat. avunculus, hence avuncular), is the head of the family. This is true of the Iroquois, as of the ancient Hebrews, as of Islam. Nothing feminist about it, it is simply a way of tracing descent: of keeping track of people in relation to oneself.
I've read that in Carthage (a major power in the world at the time), inheritance and power passed through women rather than through men. I've read that in several primative tribes the Chief would be a man, but that the women of the tribe were the ones who chose which man would be the Chief, and could remove the Chief from his position if he proved incompetent..
If what "I've read" is true, the ability to say who your leader is going to be would have been a very real wielding of power by women.
"... that the lineage be traced by female descent is normal: after all it is women that give birth; power, however, is then to be found on the avuncular level: the brother of the mother, the uncle (lat. avunculus, hence avuncular), is the head of the family. This is true of the Iroquois, as of the ancient Hebrews, as of Islam. Nothing feminist about it, it is simply a way of tracing descent: of keeping track of people in relation to oneself. The real innovation is paternity: the attribution of the child not the mother and her family, but to the father and his family ..."
This change from female to male inheritance came about well within historical times, without any record of why the change was made, even though civilization itself for thousands of years before historical times seems to have been happy with deriving lineage through the female.
The innovation was the substitution of paternity for matriarchal inheritance, as you noted, Ippolita. That wasn't a small change, it was a major revolution that should have left many visible tracks, seeing as how it happened within historical times.
Why the silence? There should be a distinct record of the change, of what would have been a world-shaking change in both property and civil law.
So does our society, only they're called reproductive health clinics.
Maybe child sacrifice was just a primitive form of birth control.
The Carthaginians had a gruesome practice of child sacrifice at places called tophets. If this was a matriarchal society (I don't think it was), it was not one anyone wants to emulate.
Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son to God. The Bible tells us that Jesus was offered as a sacrifice to God to excuse the sins of man.
Sacrificing your children isn't an exclusively matriarchal practice.
To: Ippolita
By my understanding, if a Jewish man marries a gentile woman, the children are considered gentile, but if a Jewish woman marries a gentile man, the children are accepted as Jewish.
That would be a matriarchal structure, though I've never actually asked a Jewish person if what I've said above is true.
Also, I understand that people can be Jewish just by deciding that the God of Abraham is their God (just as Christians and Moslems do), so children of Jewish men could be Jewish if they want to, but Jewish women's children would be Jewish by Jewish law, without choice in the matter.
The ultimate objective is the ‘empowering of women’: hence, their fixation with matriarchy (the rule of women as opposed to that of men).
I can think of a few male politicians who fit your criteria for hermaphrodite, not really men. On both sides of the aisle.
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