Origin Of The Oppression Of Women


Selene

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I've been conducting some research on the "oppressed women" story that is sharply displayed today.

As one would predict, Marxism/marxism is heavily invested in this storyline.

This article is from May of 2015 and is entitled "Early men and women were equal, say scientists:"

Mark Dyble, an anthropologist who led the study at University College London, said: “There is still this wider perception that hunter-gatherers are more macho or male-dominated. We’d argue it was only with the emergence of agriculture, when people could start to accumulate resources, that inequality emerged.”

Dyble says the latest findings suggest that equality between the sexes may have been a survival advantage and played an important role in shaping human society and evolution.

“Sexual equality is one of a important suite of changes to social organisation, including things like pair-bonding, our big, social brains, and language, that distinguishes humans,” he said. “It’s an important one that hasn’t really been highlighted before.”

See it was agriculture that killed the Garden of Equality, the Marxist Eden.

“When only men have influence over who they are living with, the core of any community is a dense network of closely related men with the spouses on the periphery,” said Dyble. “If men and women decide, you don’t get groups of four or five brothers living together.”

And agriculture creates the close knit male country club crowd with the wives on the periphery leading the temperance meetings.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6236/796

Any thoughts on this OL?

A...

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Adam, it is more complicated than that. We cannot look to so-called "primitive" people in our modern world and extrapolate back to our ancestors. Today, every society divides labor by sex. In some societies, women hunt and men farm; in others men hunt and women farm. But always, we divide labor by sex. (That began to change with the industrial revolution. The information age has accelerated the change back to equality.) That quite likely was not true before agriculture. Females with children were a special class, of course, but unburdened females probably ranged with the males in daily life.

For one thing, examination of Neanderthal remains shows similar injuries on men and women: they apparently lived very similar lives.

For another thing, with a bow and arrow a woman or child can kill a full-grown male hunter before he gets close enough to strike.

As for agriculture, I recommend Against the Grain: How Agriculture has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning. (Amazon here.) I have two reviews on Rebirth of Reason, the first from SOLO days (2006 here). This is from the more recent discussion 2010 (read here).

It is simply not true that our hunting and gathering ancestors lived on the edge of starvation. The fossil record does not support it. It is true that changing climates changed the locations of the human ranges. The discussion here is about the last 12,000 years. Today, hunter gatherers are marginalized to the worst places. Our ancestors hunted and gathered in relative abundance, which is what made cities possible.

Trade and commerce generally and capitalism in particular were urban phenomena. Successful communities did, indeed, have farming and gardening. Hunting and gathering were not carried out within the city walls. The city was a nexus of trade, wherein the surpluses could be exchanged.

The material success of agriculture in our time was a consequence of the industrial revolution which included the human rights revolution. Agricultural societies had slavery. In cities like Athens, slavery was the mode of the surrounding agriculture. And in the cities, the slaves themselves had more opportunity. Pasion, the richest banker in classical Athens began life as a slave, but was wealthy in that status before buying his freedom and citizenship. That was impossible on a farm.

But the reality of famine is known. Manning cites it, largely from England. I know it from a survey course in History of China. The people were not slaves (generally), but were, indeed, tied to the land by custom. In times of famine in England -- the population being smaller and wealth being accumulated -- food could be bought from outside. In China, that was not always possible. Famines were so widespread in geography and demography that you could not get outside the problem. Moreover, excess food was not available for import because there was no excess money with which to buy it. Agriculture is truly subsistance living.

As noted, starvation is not the only health problem.

Obesity is the other side of the coin. Pelegra comes from a diet of boiled corn -- abundant food: everyone eats all the time: corn pone, corn fritters, corn bread... John Adams was wealthy and well-to-do and had no teeth. Teeth, in particular, were one of the first things that Europeans found startling among aborigines during the age of exploration. Agriculture delivers a monotonous diet low in nutrition, high in calories.

Our mythical ideal of the Jeffesonian yeoman farmer -- 16 famers on four roads of a section with chickens, pigs, cows, grain, vegetable and fruits, hunting deer in the fall and gathering berries in the spring -- is an artifact of the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution. -- and of midwest/central states America in that time, largely a hunting society with immature agriculture Again, in the agricultural South, [where] hunting and urbanism is not dominant, life was different. Once agriculture became dominant in the midwest, the attendant problems arose.

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Adam, it is more complicated than that. We cannot look to so-called "primitive" people in our modern world and extrapolate back to our ancestors.

Really Michael?

Were you under the impression that I agreed with these "'scientists' with a computer model and a Marxist/marxist agenda?"

A...

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Adam, it is more complicated than that. We cannot look to so-called "primitive" people in our modern world and extrapolate back to our ancestors. Today, every society divides labor by sex. In some societies, women hunt and men farm; in others men hunt and women farm. But always, we divide labor by sex. (That began to change with the industrial revolution. The information age has accelerated the change back to equality.) That quite likely was not true before agriculture. Females with children were a special class, of course, but unburdened females probably ranged with the males in daily life.

For one thing, examination of Neanderthal remains shows similar injuries on men and women: they apparently lived very similar lives.

For another thing, with a bow and arrow a woman or child can kill a full-grown male hunter before he gets close enough to strike.

As for agriculture, I recommend Against the Grain: How Agriculture has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning. (Amazon here.) I have two reviews on Rebirth of Reason, the first from SOLO days (2006 here). This is from the more recent discussion 2010 (read here).

It is simply not true that our hunting and gathering ancestors lived on the edge of starvation. The fossil record does not support it. It is true that changing climates changed the locations of the human ranges. The discussion here is about the last 12,000 years. Today, hunter gatherers are marginalized to the worst places. Our ancestors hunted and gathered in relative abundance, which is what made cities possible.

Trade and commerce generally and capitalism in particular were urban phenomena. Successful communities did, indeed, have farming and gardening. Hunting and gathering were not carried out within the city walls. The city was a nexus of trade, wherein the surpluses could be exchanged.

The material success of agriculture in our time was a consequence of the industrial revolution which included the human rights revolution. Agricultural societies had slavery. In cities like Athens, slavery was the mode of the surrounding agriculture. And in the cities, the slaves themselves had more opportunity. Pasion, the richest banker in classical Athens began life as a slave, but was wealthy in that status before buying his freedom and citizenship. That was impossible on a farm.

But the reality of famine is known. Manning cites it, largely from England. I know it from a survey course in History of China. The people were not slaves (generally), but were, indeed, tied to the land by custom. In times of famine in England -- the population being smaller and wealth being accumulated -- food could be bought from outside. In China, that was not always possible. Famines were so widespread in geography and demography that you could not get outside the problem. Moreover, excess food was not available for import because there was no excess money with which to buy it. Agriculture is truly subsistance living.

As noted, starvation is not the only health problem.

Obesity is the other side of the coin. Pelegra comes from a diet of boiled corn -- abundant food: everyone eats all the time: corn pone, corn fritters, corn bread... John Adams was wealthy and well-to-do and had no teeth. Teeth, in particular, were one of the first things that Europeans found startling among aborigines during the age of exploration. Agriculture delivers a monotonous diet low in nutrition, high in calories.

Our mythical ideal of the Jeffesonian yeoman farmer -- 16 famers on four roads of a section with chickens, pigs, cows, grain, vegetable and fruits, hunting deer in the fall and gathering berries in the spring -- is an artifact of the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution. -- and of midwest/central states America in that time, largely a hunting society with immature agriculture Again, in the agricultural South, [where] hunting and urbanism is not dominant, life was different. Once agriculture became dominant in the midwest, the attendant problems arose.

I wonder what real facts exist behind this slew of opinions?

--Brant

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Selene, you are falling into an old and known error if you dismiss a theory and its facts because you pre-judged the religion of the scientists. Also, as for their religion, I see nothing that leads me to believe that Mark Dyble is a Marxist. In fact biological anthropology is unlikely to attract a Marxist because their fundamental assumptions are diametrically opposed. Moreover, he was employed by an IT firm called "Darwin", not attractive to a Marxist. Here is his LinkedIn UK profile: https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/mark-dyble/38/655/398


The link to Science has not worked all morning. I did find summaries from The Guardian and TechTimes

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-women-equal-scientists

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/53411/20150515/gender-equality-prehistoric-societies-case-hunter-gatherers-study-concludes.htm

Contrary to this is the known evidence from Yanomami (the Fierce People) for them, gender inequality is horrific. They are not alone in the modern world. And I stress that: modern. We have few clear facts about how cultures changed by contact.

However, experiments with money demonstrate that if a tribe has almost any contact with a market society, they "get" money. Those who do not engage in any trade seldom catch on, despite careful teaching by anthropologists in the field. This came up here on OL as "The Success of the WEIRD People." (*Western Educated Industrialized Rational Democratic")

That is why I said that it is complicated. You are being simplistic. "This man sounds like a Marxist. I hate Marxists. Therefore, this man is wrong."

It would be interesting to actually read Mark Dyble's paper. On a similar note, Debt: the Fist 5,000 Years by David Graeber (Melville House, 2011) completely debunks the suppositions of both Marxists and Austrians on the origins of trade and the origin of money. You would do well to learn while you are still young enough.

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I am at fault for not posting the original link in Post # 1 which had that study.

It is from socialist.org...no not Bernie "Grandpa Al" Sanders...

A study has shown that in contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes, men and women tend to have equal influence on where their group lives and who they live with. The findings challenge the idea that sexual equality is a recent invention, suggesting that it has been the norm for humans for most of our evolutionary history.

Mark Dyble, an anthropologist who led the study at University College London, said: “There is still this wider perception that hunter-gatherers are more macho or male-dominated. We’d argue it was only with the emergence of agriculture, when people could start to accumulate resources, that inequality emerged.”

http://socialistworker.org/blog/critical-reading/2015/05/20/new-evidence-on-origin-of-wome

Hence the Marxism/marxism theme...

A

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1. Guilt by association.

2. The socialists just found the story on The Guardian.

3. Yes, although Karl Marx was shocked at the fact that capitalism took women out of the home, modern Marxists endorsed gender equality. In Ayn Rand's Russia, after the communist revolution, women could enroll in university engineering curricula. Similarly, the reason why we have that famous snapshot of Martin Luther King in a "communist training school" is that only the communists were fighting for racial equality. The same applies to gay rights today, though, perhaps less so. After the revolutions of the 60s, libertarianism adopted a lot of communist agenda items about race, sex, and gender, corporations, environment and ecology.

Imagine an alternate history in which rather than embracing the Taliban, the USA had partnered with the USSR to modernize Afghanistan.

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I'm skeptical of any argument that relies heavily on a reconstruction of the past that can't be verified. We don't have that much knowledge of what life on earth was like before the agricultural revolution.

Just like there are limits on predicting the future, there are limits on knowledge of the past.

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I'm skeptical of any argument that relies heavily on a reconstruction of the past that can't be verified. We don't have that much knowledge of what life on earth was like before the agricultural revolution.

Just like there are limits on predicting the future, there are limits on knowledge of the past.

Do you mean like this one?

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=15329&page=2#entry233530

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@Selene no... there's plenty of documentation of the Mexican American War, it happened less than 200 years ago. The argument we are discussing here relies on 'history' from thousands of years ago.

Ah, I see, so what are the parameters of your time theory of being able to rely on documentation?

Second, how do you evaluate conflicting historical analysis within your time frame, e.g., the Mexican War?

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My theory isn't based on time, it's based on available evidence. American history is well documented, there are birth records, tax records, records of slaves etc

There's nowhere near that kind of documentation if you go back 10,000 years. At that level all you have are stone tools and maybe some wooden ones.

As for conflicting historical analysis, I look for where there is agreement first. Then I see where there is disagreement and question the motives of the disagreeing parties.

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As for conflicting historical analysis, I look for where there is agreement first. Then I see where there is disagreement and question the motives of the disagreeing parties.

Is this a critical analysis model that you developed, or, did you learn it from someone/text?

A...

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My theory isn't based on time, it's based on available evidence. American history is well documented, there are birth records, tax records, records of slaves etc

There's nowhere near that kind of documentation if you go back 10,000 years. At that level all you have are stone tools and maybe some wooden ones.

As for conflicting historical analysis, I look for where there is agreement first. Then I see where there is disagreement and question the motives of the disagreeing parties.

What is an example of conflicting historical analysis going back several hundred years?

--Brant

this helps get rid of much current ideological distortion such as the role of the New Deal in the Great Depression or how WWI informs today's world or Ayn Rand on Native Americans

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First conflicting analysis that I can think of actually goes back more than a thousand years and is biblical in nature.

Abraham was said to have been told by god to sacrifice one of his sons. Some believe it was Isaac (mainly Christians and Jews), others believe it was Ishmael (mainly Muslims and Bahaii).

Of course it is possible that Abraham never existed, but this is still an unresolved debate.

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Of course it is possible that Abraham never existed, but this is still an unresolved debate.

Unresolved by whom?

If I asked 100 of my fellow professionals would they make a reference to this "unresolved issue?"

A...

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Skippy...

Sit down and try to concentrate on what you have posted:

For example, in post # 17 supra, you answered Brant's question quickly and stated that the:

First conflicting analysis that I can think of actually goes back more than a thousand years and is biblical in nature.

The first! Not one of the top 5...the first one...

You then conclude post # 17 supra that:

this is still an unresolved debate.

So the number one, top of the heap, and the first one is still unresolved...

You are then asked, by me, who these folks are...and you act as if you are shocked to be asked.

You then talk about it being so long ago.

No offense pal, you make no sense at all.

A...

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Origin of the oppression of women?

Didn't it have something to do with an apple and a talking snake?

:smile:

Michael

I don't know.

We should ask RR since it is an old dispute.

I think they were smoking a cigarette after some great sex and smoke got in Eve's eyes and she did not realize that she had grabbed the forbidden fruit.

Adam that coward, tried to put the blame on Mame, however she did not exist then so he oppressed poor little ole innocent Eve.

And hell, oops, vagina girl, Evita said:

What difference now does it make!!

A...

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Selene, sorry you aren't interpreting my responses in a more charitable way...

I believe that the Bible is a historical document. I do not believe it is 100% accurate, but it is one of the best references we have for events that happened thousands of years ago.

I thought of Isaac and Ishmael first because it is one of the most important.

Another historical debate is whether China discovered America before Europe did... it's not clear to me which side is right there.

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You get stuck on the first point forever.

Forget the "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" musings.

Explain to me without emotion, assumptions or feelings, why you do not source a statement that you made about Oregon?

Frankly, that was completely new to me. So I thank you.

Now we do not have to walk a mile, or take a train to a library and run microfiche through a viewer and find the obscure record.

Everything is at your fingertips.

It impresses me as intellectual laziness, or, there may be another reason.

A...

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