No need for grunt work? *Societal Roles*

How? What is the relevance of height and lung capacity to gender inequality?added in edit: women in the developed world on average earn around 70% as much as men do, for doing the same work. If you believe that there is a physical reason for this disparity in earnings, for the same work, you will need to provide me with some evidence. You will need to show that short men get paid 70% of the earnings of tall men, and that men with small lungs get paid 70% of the earnings of men with large lungs, for example. If you can show this, then I will accept that differences in the physical ability of human beings result in pay differences (i.e. discrimination), otherwise I must assume that the discrimination suffered by women is not due to physical differences between women and menThis message has been edited by mick, 04-24-2005 07:25 PM

good, so there is no physical basis for human sex discrimination.your teacher may not have been so far off the mark in that human males may be on the way out. This has happened in other species, including (I think) a mammal (though I'll have to search this one out - I think there are "sex reversed" voles where the Y chromosome is unneccessary in producing a male phenotype).The Y chromosome is definitely shrinking and might disappear at some point. I don't know whether this would mean that there would be no males, though. Read Nature - Not Found

But patriarchy is much more than just a gendered division of labour, whether that division is based on physical differences or not. If in palaeolithic times men could carry more than women, then it might be sensible for... erm... men to carry more than women.But the important feature of patriarchy is the fact that women's work is considered dirty work, skill-less work, low-value work, embarassing or humiliating work, etc.i don't see how this cultural view of women's place is society would arise just from different physical abilities of women and men. Differing physical abilities might lead to a rational division of labour, but not to male control of female sexuality; men's control over the behaviour of children; and differing legal status for women and men.

okay, first I would repeat that a sexual division of labour doesn't necessarily result in patriarchy. For example lots of pagan religions had a clear distinction between male gods and female gods. There were often female gods who represented the forces of nature - especially fertility and generosity - who were venerated by men and women alike. Women in these relatively egalitarian societies had very different economic and social roles from men, so there was a division of social labour. But women's work, abilities and powers were considered godly, just like the work and powers of men.This is very different to modern monotheistic religions, where God has often taken a male form, and concepts like fertility, while still associated with femininity, are kind of seen as something a bit dirty. I suspect that this resulted from different views of nature (due to women's ability to conceive, it appears that they have often been equated with the forces of nature). In patriarchal societies, nature is seen as an obstacle that has to be overcome, while in the less patriarchal societies, nature is revered.So maybe there is an ecological and economic foundation for patriarchy. Agricultural societies (where patriarchy first seems to appear) will tend to see nature as an obstacle that has to be overcome. As a consequence, they may end up seeing women as obstacles or things have to be controlled in order for society to work.Just a thought...Mick

Ah... good point.So patriarchy is common because women have something that is worth dominating (reproductive ability). Over history, men have banded together to take control of women.Does this mean that matriarchy is rare, simply because men don't have anything useful that women might want to band together in order to control?

okay. This is interesting because the mechanisms you think gave rise to patriarchy are exactly the same mechanisms that are thought to give rise to polygyny in mammals and birds.I'm not too hot on birds, but in mammals a combination of polygyny and mild promiscuity is by far the most common mating system. Polyandry is far rarer. But it's interesting that polyandry is far more common in primates than it is in other taxonomic groups, and I think is thought to be due to a combination of demograhic features of primate society and the need of primate babies for paternal care. I am thinking, for example, of Callitrichid primates.Perhaps we could account for matriarchy in human beings in a similar way to the way we account for polyandry in other primate species. God I sound like one of those awful sociobiology freaks now...Thanks for the insightsMick

Agreed! The "archy" is the important bit. Neither patriarchy nor matriarchy! Nor hierarchy, for that matter. Just freedom from tyranny, for everybody, right? At least as much as is practicably possible.Unfortunately your point gets a bit lost because you go on to proclaim: i think your point was sensible, but your point got lost because you got carried away. I don't think contracycle has said that he hates anybody, has he? He doesn't seem to hate human beings. He just hates some human beliefs.Mick