overfire posted:

roseweird posted:

overfire posted:

history of the patriarchy right now by gerder lerner and she is pretty great, she traces back to mesapotamia and talks about how patriarchy is certainly one of the earliest, if not the first oppression, pre-dating capitalism by loads of (at least 4) years

i mean to get right to the point it effectively predates humanity because it is the direct expression of biological sexual difference in primates, which is pretty frustrating to think about, and personally i haven't found that i have access to the tools required to address it directly or with sufficient force, so i have tried to turn my attention to issues that i think i can more effectively deal with in my lifetime. i've certainly talked about it a lot here in the past, though. anyway i agree and i hope you'll continue to share your thoughts as your thinking on these issues develops. i disagree only on one main point:

capitalism and patriarchy work great together because patriarchy commodifies women's bodies and has done so for all of recorded history. but capitalism does not require patriarchy. women are extremely capable and willing of exploiting each other either through direct force, financial manipulation, or many other means, and they don't require the example or inducement of patriarchy to do it. patriarchy is not the basis of capitalism, nor of economic exploitation generally. many feminists have asserted this, but i have never read any historical evidence or strong theoretical support for it. sex is not the primary basis of class division, though many or most class divisions in most societies now and historically are gendered. struggle against sex and class struggle are connected but neither can be simplified to a factor of the other.

anyway, you're upvoting the person saying "gender is not sex, it's just designed to uphold a sexual caste system", but then responding to me to say, "but it's actually biological sex that's important and we're ignoring it." i don't know if you meant to agree with the position that "gender is not sex", but if you did, these positions are not compatible. gender is the direct expression of sexual difference. men did not have to invent a system to oppress women—nature granted it to them.

i'm not sure that i'd agree that gender is naturally occurring. or, more to say i genuinely don't know what a world without gender would look like, and would be fascinated to see, but i will say that gender is stretched to funhouse mirror proportions and difference is exaggerated in the most extreme ways-what are masculinity rituals and aggression but "natural" differences taken to their logical extreme, what is breast augmentation and makeup but the artificial exaggeration of these differences physical differences-and women are reduced to their physicality. If the difference was so large, would it be culturally necessary to stretch these differences further? to fetishise them, to devote scientific studies to finding out why Men and WOmen are so different? (it's bc cavement raped women bc they were stronger and women are nice bc they have babies pass it on)

capitalism doesn't require patriarchy, capitalism will just use whatever it has to gain sweet, beautiful, intoxicating money, it is an opportunist. the logic of patriarchy, which is very old, simply leads, like a shitty tributary, to capitalism-greedy, rapacious, violent, obsessed with private property, pillage, ownership, resources, objects.

i would disagree that women do not require the example or inducement of patriarchy to oppress each other-example implies they are free individuals to choose as they please-to an extent, as we all are, constrained by social forces. patriarchy is an amniotic tank, i really feel like the current flop in feminism has made us all feel like it's just there and you ignore it or it isn't that bad but it really is pretty shit. even in our sham governments they can only be bothered sticking tokens in and world's near certain destruction has had men at the helm the entire time.what would have happened if women had a say in the future of the planet? who knows. maybe a load of old shit. we will never know bc the world is hurtling into environmental meltdown and all women, and also men, will perish and maybe the tartigrades after us will build a society found the perfect workers state, who knows

Stating that gender and sex are different doesn't mean I come from a bizarre planet where I don't understand that gender ARISES from sex - the most obvious root is male control of female reproductive capabilities and the trading of women between groups which in turn leads to the commodification of and objectification of women.

what I am saying is that sex is a material biological fact and gender is a process of grooming from infancy BASED on that sex. It's the whole 'woman is made and not born' shit - The desire to be a subordinate decorative object isn't a magical evolutionary memory. Patriarchy had a historical beginning and can end under historical conditions, which If I have my way involves full communism or perhaps the glorious rule of the lesbians who knows