I did indeed. My reflections on that story are incorporated into this comment, the one where I summarized some of Professor MacEachern’s lectures on the origin of states.
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“I’m not attributing anything — sociologists and experts in the field do that for me. I’m just reporting what they say.”
Then I would carry my debate to “sociologists and experts” if any were paying attention to me. Since they are not, I will think of you as a proxy for sociologists and experts.
What you refer to as the feminist definition of patriarchy is actually the dictionary definition.
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In my experience, when a drop of politics is added to a sea of science, it becomes a sea of politics.
At least a couple of drops of politics have been added to the social sciences. On that basis, I approach social sciences with due skepticism. Why have social scientists decided that a term that refers to a particular relationship between men and women should be expanded to include every imaginable social ill?
I suspect that a particular school of sociological thought applies the term patriarchy to signify that all social ills, injustices, and inequalities are somehow connected to the societal relationship between men and women.
The Wikipedia article on patriarchy includes at least a dozen different definitions of patriarchy.
It includes the one you favor, but most are similar to the dictionary definition. It also includes several theories regarding the origin of patriarchy. Some consider it to have begun at least two million years ago.
Others are closer to the theory that you favor.
For all this conversation about the relevance of applying the term “patriarchy, it’s not a huge issue to me. The World Economic Forum was able to describe all the issues that arose after the emergence of agriculture without applying the term “patriarchy.” Adding the term would have done nothing to clarify my understanding. Neither would it have confused anything. That is why I say it is irrelevant, but its irrelevance is a minor issue; its application neither helps nor harms.
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“That women did not somehow rise up and throw this off because “all people are responsible for their own actions” is a bit like complaining that a junior high student did not stand up to a teacher who was treating them unfairly.”
When I was in second grade, I did stand up to a teacher who was treating me unfairly. Every time this teacher needed to correct my behavior, she would grab me by the ear and start tugging. One evening, my parents sat me down to talk to me about my misbehavior in class. I told them I would not change my behavior as long as she continued her ear-tugging behavior. My parents suggested that if I improved my behavior she would stop tugging on my ear. I said, “Absolutely not. She will have to stop tugging my ear first.
After that conversation, the teacher never again tugged my ear, and my behavior improved.
A better analogy: In a population of junior high school teachers who had equal power and status to one another, somehow, half of the teachers managed to impose the status of “student” onto the other half without the other half acting to prevent it.
If men and women are inherently equal to each other to begin with, one has to wonder why women, beginning from a position of equal power, would allow men to impose their will and gain dominance.
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I do not understand the meaning of this phrase:
“…sovereignty and a form of intimate colonialism.”
I find the entire paragraph mystifying.
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Does patriarchy make men look bad?
I plead ignorance and apathy; I don’t know, and I don’t care.
