<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title> </head> <body> The problem isn't really that men lead or that they are more comfortable with hierarchical organizations. The problem is that they they construe themselves as the universal subject either denying the possibility of a significant other (why is so much medical research only done on men?) or denying the rights of the other, by reducing them to the objects of their delusions (these are normally called "passions," but I would say that dignifies them too much) to be raped, killed, traded, bought, sold, etc. And I don't think it's enough to compare men to bulls and women to cows, especially when we go to so much trouble to distinguish human from animal. Which is also to say that I don't think, a good deal of what is deemed "human" is merely epiphenomenal. Joanna Chris Doss wrote: <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid20060527214536.48529.qmail@web37214.mail.mud.yahoo.com"> <pre wrap="">Hell, I just think when you get right down to it the reason human societies are usually run by men is probably the same reason cow herds are led by bulls and hyena packs are led by female hyenas (hyenaettes?). The hominid known as homo sapiens is "built" with that tendency. It was selected for, or accidentally arose, in evolution for whatever reason. If you stuck 50 people on a desert island and left them there for 50 years, the society that emerged would probably be patriarchal. If civilization ended tomorrow, the society that emerged in 100 years would probably be patriarchal. (I hope I don't have to mention the is/ought problem and the naturalistic fallacy here.) --- Miles Jackson <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:cqmv@pdx.edu"><cqmv@pdx.edu></a> wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">I can't resist the bait here. CB will probably provide some anthropological perspective, but here's my take, based on the historical and cross-cultural evidence that I'm aware of: 1. Truly matriarchal societies (women as the politically, economically, socially dominant group) have not existed or are extremely rare, as Chris argues. 2. The intensity of gender stratification varies dramatically in different societies. In some societies, women have virtually no political or economic power; in other societies, women as a group have more or less the same political and economic standing that men do. To simplify: gender stratification is most intense in agrarian societies, least severe in hunting and gathering societies. Given these data, any argument about gender stratification that points to "very broad reasons" for male domination must be wrong. If it were true that (say) the structure of human reproductive biology or Joanna's "fear of women" was the primary cause of patriarchy, we wouldn't see the dramatic differences in gender stratification that we have observed in different societies. So what explains the differing levels of gender stratification in different societies, if it cannot be simply explained in terms of general psychological or biological differences? We have to analyze the social relations in a given society--the means of production, ideological apparatuses like religion and education, family structure--to understand gender oppression. Engels (and later socialist feminists!) made a start at this kind of useful analysis. Miles ___________________________________ </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk">http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</a> </pre> <pre wrap=""> Nu, zayats, pogodi! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mail.yahoo.com">http://mail.yahoo.com</a> ___________________________________ <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk">http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</a> </pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>