What happened to the Matriarchal Cultures

[Taomeow]

~~~ SPLIT BY STAFF ~~~

 

 

Misogyny schmisogyny.  Here's the deal:

 

1. I am a believer in traditional matriarchal societies that kept us safely alive and thriving and happy (sic) for a million years.  I don't think we ever got anything right on this planet since the patriarchal takeover.  As in, never, and nothing.  As in, an ongoing disaster of a few thousand years with no end in sight.  As in, I don't think there's a political system that can grow out of a patriarchal set-up that will ever bring anything but misery to the majority.  I don't care what it's called.  I call it zombie patriarchy.  It can manifest as zombie capitalism, zombie socialism, or zombie feudalism.  They're all the same to me.  Dead on arrival.

 

2.  One of the most devastating developments of the patriarchal rule is the transmogrification of women.  A patriarchal template does not change when this or that slot happens to be occupied by a patriarchally trained woman.  The fact that she is a woman is irrelevant if the slot in the patriarchal template of power remains unchanged.  The woman who is not a patriarchal ruler can't fit in in a million years.  

 

3. Hillary is a patriarchal overlord.  Please do not ascribe misogyny to whoever dislikes her for her patriarchal overlordly ways.  I don't dislike a woman.  I dislike a patriarchal overlord exploiting its anatomical features toward a patriarchal power grab.  Patriarchal power grabs exploit whatever is handy -- in this case, being a woman is used as one such exploitable feature the patriarchal overlord Hillary has in its possession. 

 

So please.  Enough with the misogyny card. 

 

I am thinking of starting a matriarchal political party.  But first I would have to write a manifesto and sharply delineate the difference between a woman of patriarchal functions and a woman of matriarchal functions in society.  I submit there's no women in power today, period.  None.  Not one.  If she has power, she has patriarchal power in a patriarchy.  If she is a carrier of matriarchal power, no one has seen her or heard of her.  She keeps the species alive, but she's fucking tired. 

 

Tired...  She might let go and then watch it all turn into a rotten pumpkin it's always been behind the grandeur illusion.

[redcairo]

Hmmn. Having never lived in a matriarchal society, I have no reason to assume it would be better in every way, or wouldn't bring different problems that were even worse.

 

I suspect the human race is going to need to evolve a little more before any form of government -- and any form of influence in its forming -- is going to be ideal or even really good.

 

There's also probably a lot of stuff that is not so fairly blamed on "men" as it is simply the lack of development of humans across the board. And, even when it is fairly blamed there, I think it should be considered that men, just like women, are at the mercy of the founding culture. There isn't a man alive who created "the patriarchy." They are stuck in our reality as much as women are.

 

I know a lot of women who feel they had good lives. And they were 'traditional' women in terms of their roles. I sometimes think people who don't grow up around that often are sure that all those women are miserable or something. And once in awhile someone is (I know women who've left the south solely because they didn't want to marry anyone from that region), but it seems to me we've reached a point culturally where women can make the choices they want in that regard.

 

It goes without saying that all humans in our culture would be better off with better culture. :-)

 

RC

[MooNiNite]

Capitalistic Democracy might be the best form of government for the last, really long time... 

Of course it has its weak points, like corporate lobbying and large scale government manipulation...but weaknesses are to be expected..

Not many historical forms of government allow a person to go from nothing to something so easily, while also offering growth, sustainability..

 

[MooNiNite]

matriarchal, patriarchal, communism, put too many lives in the whim of one person.

 

Trump might have won the presidency, but he isnt having his way.

 

 

[windwalker]

2 hours ago, Taomeow said:

1. I am a believer in traditional matriarchal societies that kept us safely alive and thriving and happy (sic) for a million years.  I don't think we ever got anything right on this planet since the patriarchal takeover. 

 

 

Really, I don't think so, believing something  does not always make it so.

 

Quote

In spite of overwhelming drawbacks, the myth of matriarchal prehistory continues to thrive. Any adequate critique of this myth must be based on a proper understanding of it: who promotes it and what they stand to gain by doing so; how it has evolved and where and how it is being disseminated; and exactly what this story claims for our past and our future. It is to this descriptive task that the next two chapters are devoted. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/e/eller-myth.html

 

Quote

 

 

 

 

Anthropologists have yet to find a female dominated society, but there are a lot of societies that deal with equality in "new" and exciting ways. The more equal societies tend to be those that are matrilineal (following the mother's family history, instead of patrilineal societies of the west (bar Spain, Portugal (?)), so it is the mother's name that is carried forward. 

 

 

 

 

 

Why would one need a myth to validate themselves and attempt to invalidate others..

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by windwalker

[windwalker]

4 hours ago, MooNiNite said:

matriarchal, patriarchal, communism, put too many lives in the whim of one person.

 

Trump might have won the presidency, but he isnt having his way.

 

 

 

Its not about him having it "his" way.

It is about those who elected him, having it their way...and how in front of their eyes by those who can not accept rule of law are attempting to change this. 

Edited November 9, 2017 by windwalker

[Taomeow]

10 hours ago, redcairo said:

I think it should be considered that men, just like women, are at the mercy of the founding culture.

 

Bingo.  

 

Matriarchal culture is retained only by a few tribes still in existence but rapidly being transformed by tourism (a sly label for an open season for cultural destruction) into -- oh horror, sex toys among other things, like the Miao tribe in China where inheritance is matrilineal and sexual contacts can only be initiated by women, which is the only thing that makes sense in any cultural setting whatsoever, because it is the women who get pregnant and give birth to children of both sexes, so anyone who doesn't has no business deciding on things reproductive and things property.  A woman raising one child may or may not want five, but it's not up to any man to make it happen or to make it so that those children are starving.  And matriarchy is the only system that will ensure they won't.  Not one child was ever "poor" or "disenfranchised" in a matriarchal society.   Not a girl, and not a boy.

 

It is not necessary to have lived in every society to have an idea of what it was/is like.  No one but me in this thread lived under what they call "communism" yet ideas abound.  Everybody and his brother and sister have an opinion.  So that poster who shall remain unnamed who disqualified me from having an opinion about martriarchy yet expressed a hundred opinions about things like, e.g., Russia or Ukraine or what have you should have disqualified himself first if applying this criterion.  I have a good handle on world history (though not the kind enforced by weapons of mass instruction) and a brain.  Sapienti sat.  Matriarchy is not a "rule" of anyone or anything over anything not already ruled upon by nature.  Everything else goes against nature, and can never succeed because of that, in any shape or form.    

[blue eyed snake]

57 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

Bingo.  

 

Matriarchal culture is retained only by a few tribes still in existence but rapidly being transformed by tourism (a sly label for an open season for cultural destruction) into -- oh horror, sex toys among other things, like the Miao tribe in China where inheritance is matrilineal and sexual contacts can only be initiated by women, which is the only thing that makes sense in any cultural setting whatsoever, because it is the women who get pregnant and give birth to children of both sexes, so anyone who doesn't has no business deciding on things reproductive and things property.  A woman raising one child may or may not want five, but it's not up to any man to make it happen or to make it so that those children are starving.  And matriarchy is the only system that will ensure they won't.  Not one child was ever "poor" or "disenfranchised" in a matriarchal society.   Not a girl, and not a boy.

 

It is not necessary to have lived in every society to have an idea of what it was/is like.  No one but me in this thread lived under what they call "communism" yet ideas abound.  Everybody and his brother and sister have an opinion.  So that poster who shall remain unnamed who disqualified me from having an opinion about martriarchy yet expressed a hundred opinions about things like, e.g., Russia or Ukraine or what have you should have disqualified himself first if applying this criterion.  I have a good handle on world history (though not the kind enforced by weapons of mass instruction) and a brain.  Sapienti sat.  Matriarchy is not a "rule" of anyone or anything over anything not already ruled upon by nature.  Everything else goes against nature, and can never succeed because of that, in any shape or form.    

 

huray, get them sister

[redcairo]

1 hour ago, Taomeow said:

...where inheritance is matrilineal and sexual contacts can only be initiated by women, which is the only thing that makes sense in any cultural setting whatsoever,

 

On the way to planning the perfect world™ an honest look at biology ought to be in there somewhere. I don't believe men are sexually proactive merely because culture is teaching them that. I feel pretty sure biology is driving a great deal of that. There may be a perfectly good reason why matriarchal societies are so rare and small. It may be a nearly freak occurence of culture being able to sufficiently override biology.

 

1 hour ago, Taomeow said:

...because it is the women who get pregnant and give birth to children of both sexes, so anyone who doesn't has no business deciding on things reproductive and things property.

 

Yes, that is the pro-abortion stance, that since men aren't giving birth they have no right in the discussion at all, even if it's their child. I used to agree with that since I was raised to do so.

 

I still agree that women have been enslaved by unwanted pregnancy since the dawn of time and finding a solution for that is important. I am not sure however that the solutions so far have been particularly effective and/or have brought the results desired. I think abortion, like privatized prisons, seemed like a good idea, and may on rare occasion be the only reasonable option, but it should be "on rare occasion." The vast majority of the time like the prison situation it is just a horrific result that hurts everyone involved except those making money off it, and actually is geared to intentionally generate more of the very problem we were trying to prevent in the first place.

 

At this point, short of outright rape (which I think needs to be given some clear gradient of definition in our society), women DO decide whether they are going to have sex. The problem isn't unwanted pregnancies, that is the symptom. The problem is a complete lack of responsibility and accountability for women in our society -- including the government's happy willingness to allow any woman to have any number of children and never have a job or a man or worry about food and housing. Not that I'm suggesting people starve in the streets, but I AM suggesting -- like the above -- that our approach to solving a problem has instead actually made it more common, so we probably need to think up some new approaches.

 

Where I'm from if a woman doesn't work with a kid she gets welfare and food stamps and HUD. I know women with 5 kids all by different men and never a job in her life. If a man doesn't work with a kid he gets put in jail for lack of child support. If a woman doesn't want to have a child she can abort it or adopt it out. If a man doesn't want to have a child he will still be responsible for it financially for 18 years, or in jail if he's not and he can be found to punish. If our legal culture required a woman register (and DNA test at birth) a father, and a father had the right to sign to agree or not agree for a lifetime of responsibility (no responsibility, no involvement), then we'd actually have something fair to both genders -- and women would know in advance what they'd be dealing with in the future as well. Until our culture fairly treats men as well as women in the birth situation, it's going to be a mess. The lack of decent work toward better birth control; particularly for men; the tendency of the groups most against abortion to also be against birth control; these things are maddening, since obviously that is one of the primary points to begin with in preventing unwanted pregnancy and relationships and families with angry, 'trapped' people of either gender.

 

Statistically, getting and staying married has a radically different result on just about every area of life for parents and their children. The ongoing liberal media influence toward the idea that fathers are disposable and irrelevant and unnecessary is incredibly destructive IMO. :-(

 

1 hour ago, Taomeow said:

Matriarchy is not a "rule" of anyone or anything over anything not already ruled upon by nature.  Everything else goes against nature, and can never succeed because of that, in any shape or form.    

 

Hmmn. You mean humans are not part of nature? :-)

 

I don't know of any creature in the animal or mammal kingdoms -- those we have enough of a handle on to understand a bit -- that does not have both a seniority and an authority heirarchy (oft related but not always the same thing).

 

Maybe what succeeds only in part, like the current democratically-centered capitalism culture, works only in part because humans en masse are not ready for anything else, and so something working in part is all they're up for anyway.

 

The argument starts sounding like that made for socialism/communism: that "everybody will be equal" and so everything must be good. When everyone's a buddha, that can happen. Until then I expect it's profoundly rare and for good reason. We are where we are today because that's where we are. I suspect when humanity is evolved enough on the whole to deserve something better suited to them, it will naturally happen. Maybe we can see where we are on that scale simply by what we have. They say people get the government they deserve. Maybe the same goes for culture. :-)

 

RC

[Taomeow]

RC, you are way off, but I don't want to hijack the Trump thread trying to get your full attention to what I'm really saying vs. the interpretations you offered that have nothing in common with what I'm saying.  Peace out.   

[redcairo]

Apologies for not being on the same page.

Sometimes messages aren't the best way to deal with complex topics, for sure. :-)

 

Peace,

RC

[Marblehead]

1 hour ago, redcairo said:

Apologies for not being on the same page.

Sometimes messages aren't the best way to deal with complex topics, for sure. :-)

 

Peace,

RC

Sometimes I don't even have the book opened.

 

[Stosh]

2 hours ago, redcairo said:

Apologies for not being on the same page.

Sometimes messages aren't the best way to deal with complex topics, for sure. :-)

 

Peace,

RC

  

[windwalker]

12 hours ago, redcairo said:

I still agree that women have been enslaved by unwanted pregnancy since the dawn of time and finding a solution for that is important.

 

 

They'rs a lot of guys that have been "enslaved" by a system that gives all the rights of whether to have a child or not to the woman and still holds the man accountable for it.... 

 

Quote

Where I'm from if a woman doesn't work with a kid she gets welfare and food stamps and HUD. I know women with 5 kids all by different men and never a job in her life. If a man doesn't work with a kid he gets put in jail for lack of child support. If a woman doesn't want to have a child she can abort it or adopt it out. If a man doesn't want to have a child he will still be responsible for it financially for 18 years, or in jail if he's not and he can be found to punish.

 

If our legal culture required a woman register (and DNA test at birth) a father, and a father had the right to sign to agree or not agree for a lifetime of responsibility (no responsibility, no involvement), then we'd actually have something fair to both genders -- and women would know in advance what they'd be dealing with in the future as well. Until our culture fairly treats men as well as women in the birth situation, it's going to be a mess. 

 

 

Totally agree, this alone would give woman the power they seek and men the choice that they really don't have....

Right now there's really no incentive, and dispite all the talk of  equality in the US society they play both sides depending on what benefits they can receive.   

 

Because I'm a woman I should have any job even if I can't really do it, because I'm a woman I should not have to register for selective service.   

 

Strange isn't it, they want to be able to go into combat arms, "for promotion" and yet not be made to because its "war"  and most know or should know that every advantage that one has helps to keep one alive.  Being a woman does not confer any advantage to survival in war.  

[zerostao]

Cherokee society was a matriarchy. We know what happened to them, especially once gold was found in Georgia.

[windwalker]

1 hour ago, zerostao said:

Cherokee society was a matriarchy. We know what happened to them, especially once gold was found in Georgia.

 

If they could not defend what they thought they had,

they never had it.

   

Number one rule of nature 

Edited November 16, 2017 by windwalker

[Wells]

On 9.11.2017 at 4:30 AM, Taomeow said:

I am a believer in traditional matriarchal societies

 

In other words: You believe in oppression of males.

 

On 9.11.2017 at 4:30 AM, Taomeow said:

So please.  Enough with the misogyny card.

 

O.k. but then also enough with the misandry card.

[Wells]

On 9.11.2017 at 4:30 AM, Taomeow said:

I don't think we ever got anything right on this planet since the patriarchal takeover.  As in, never, and nothing.

 

So back into the caves and dying with an average age of thirty in agony because of an infection.

[rene]

18 minutes ago, Wells said:

 

In other words: You believe in oppression of males.

 

By that reasoning, if 'matriarchy' is an oppression of males, then patriarchy is an oppression of females.

 

 

18 minutes ago, Wells said:

 

O.k. but then also enough with the misandry card.

 

It might be you missed the point entirely, as your next post also shows.

 

Sorry TM - didn't mean to jump in to what was addressed to you.

 

[Wells]

.

Edited January 29, 2018 by Wells

[ralis]

I will make this brief.

 

The Tao is about balance in nature and the patriarchy has thrown nature off balance.

 

1. As far as I know, the rise of the patriarchy began during the Axial Age with the rise of city states in which one male god reigned supreme i.e, monotheism. That in of itself is a rather large study.

 

2. The church (papacy) with it's patriarchal male god killed thousands if not millions of women (witch hunts) who were healers, midwives etc. which were accused of consorting with the devil. There is more historical info on that which is an extensive study in and of itself.

 

3. Holy wars, crusades and the Spanish Inquisition all in the name of an overarching all seeing male god.

 

4. Leonard Shlain's books delve into this especially 'The Alphabet vs The Goddess'.

 

5. The incessant harping of Spencer's Social Darwinist propaganda circa early 1900's, by some here has no scientific basis. Spencer's work has been debunked by research scientists and one in note, E.O. Wilson. In sum species work as a complex system and not as survival of the fittest. By extension, the biosphere is a complex system in which a balance must be maintained.

 

More later.

Edited November 16, 2017 by ralis

[rene]

On 11/8/2017 at 7:30 PM, Taomeow said:

I am thinking of starting a matriarchal political party.  But first I would have to write a manifesto and sharply delineate the difference between a woman of patriarchal functions and a woman of matriarchal functions in society.  I submit there's no women in power today, period.  None.  Not one.  If she has power, she has patriarchal power in a patriarchy.  If she is a carrier of matriarchal power, no one has seen her or heard of her.  She keeps the species alive, but she's fucking tired. 

 

Tired...  She might let go and then watch it all turn into a rotten pumpkin it's always been behind the grandeur illusion.

 

 

Most excellent OP post, TM. ( and Thanks to whichever Mod split this off into it's own topic!!)

 

It would be difficult, at this point, for the shift to occur...without a rotten pumpkin event long enough for it to actually become fertilizer, rather than re-generating it's own seeds. And you are right, she is very fucking tired, but her strength is enduring and eternal - and although not always easily perceivable, she is even now present in each moment. Not possible for it to be otherwise; such is the nature of tao.

 

 

 

[rene]

18 minutes ago, Wells said:

 

I am impressed by your deductive abilities to state the obvious, definitively worthy of a Sherlock Holmes.

Sorry, that comparison could be interpreted as misogynistic, I meant: Miss Marple.

 

And I am impressed by your smart-ass reply; very 'manly' of you.

[thelerner]

If its any consolation, on the micro-level, within individual families, there is a solid shot at matriarchy or at least equality.   (in my book good equality is sharing and each to there strength)  In many 'macho' cultures where woman traditionally played second fiddle, often wives were strong, decision making heads of the household in most matters.   'Soft' power to be sure, but power nonetheless. 

Edited November 16, 2017 by thelerner
meant to write wives and hadn't

[Wells]

I am asking myself why there are so many more men than women who achieve rainbow body / enlightenment.

I thought that just depends on the level or capacity of the student, at least that's what all the gurus and books claim...

Edited November 16, 2017 by Wells