I recently watched the cult classic Dangerous Beauty for the umpteenth time, and I noticed a curious link between patriarchy's policing of bodies and the modern phenomenon of transgender identity.
My grandmother was born in 1907 in North Dakota. She wanted to be a nurse but her father equated it with prostitution. She worked as a Red Cross volunteer for over 50 years... long after her father was gone 💔
Thanks for this Chloé, very thought-provoking. For sure the left tends to emphasise the role of manmade institutions (money, government, laws, capitalism) in creating and perpetuating inequality because those can be changed; while the right emphasises natural and biological factors and argues that we're stuck with them and have to work within them. I tend to think of humans as incredibly adaptable and malleable: it's incredible to me how much we're *not* stuck with, how radically our societies, customs and default assumptions have changed from place to place and time to time.
For all that, I don't think we can pin all the assumptions and behaviours of patriarchy on modern money-based hierarchical societies. Before money determined one's status, women would have made mating choices based on men's physical strength and practical skills, and men who didn't fit the bill would have been out of luck. Meanwhile, men would have sought out attractive women and protected them from threats at times when they were vulnerable (e.g. during pregnancy). Would Graeber's argument be that these traditional gender roles served us OK until money and hierarchy corrupted them from a mostly-benign complementarity into the oppressive system we now call 'patriarchy'?
Hi Wabi Sabi! Graeber's argument, which he expands upon in his last book with David Wengrow, 'The Dawn of Everything' is that human societies have been historically more varied, unpredictable, and diverse than we could possibly imagine and it is our ignorance of this fact that stops us from reimagining new ways of doing society.
Hi Chloe, I have to disagree with the premise that the patriarchy originated as a result of wealth inequality. There is much anthropological and historical evidence showing that what we call the "patriarchy" actually has a strong basis in human nature. The idea that is just a cultural phenomenon which teaches us to value wealth and money and status is I think a misconception.
There are some deep, horrifying truths about human nature that it is difficult to look at, and we cannot wave them away by attributing them solely to culture and/or economy.
Regarding Trans-identity issues, yes I agree that there is something culturally that is causing many people to be deeply uncomfortable in their sense of self, I just don't believe that it is the "patriarchy". My gut sense is that it has to do with the amount of time that we are all spending on screens - somehow this uproots us from any real connection to community, place, culture, and even our own bodies.
Regarding the dynamics of your family home, it doesn't seem to be a negative environment at all. It was this environment that helped to shape you - an independent and intelligent woman. Just because a father takes the lead, does not mean that the mother and children are not essentially valuable an important. In fact I think that structures in which everyone "has a place" are healthy.
Two things that come to mind. 1) the power balances created by technology. Guns vs spears. Steel vs bronze. Bronze vs stone. short term benefits of annual agriculture vs hunter/gatherer. Yes, there's greed and malevolence. There's also stupidity and as quoted in Think fast/Think Slow, How does society take care of those who make bad decisions? 2) Division of labor/the need for a scapegoat. Does patriarchy explain our proclivities for certain necessary jobs? Setting aside sex-biases of child rearing, society still might divide out jobs based on aptitude which may be influenced by innate differences like size/finger dexterity/etc. Likewise, humans tend to designate rulers which blended with greed or access to storable wealth leads to power imbalances. The flip is, as Rene Girard said, Leaders are scapegoats in waiting. So, humans choose to grant leaders privileges with the implicit agreement that it's their azz if it goes south.
I think that's why there's a limit to "Who are you if you cease to internalize the voices of those who have come before you who told you what you are, who told you that you needed to be a certain way to be loved, respected, feared, admired, or belong? Who told you you would be banished otherwise? "
You can be who you want (or maybe accept who you are) however know that there's some human (perhaps deranged) that's coming up with a technic that's gonna put you at a disadvantage.
I agree that this lens on the growth of the trans movement is so critically important. The insistence on rigid gender policing and refusal to allow people the flexibility to be however they are, regardless of their genitalia, clearly underlies the rapid growth in people's desire to 'escape' the limitations of one's gender role and be free to mix and match whatever characteristics feel genuine, intuitive, and spontaneous.
I was lucky enough (discussion for another time!) to grow up mostly in an all girls (nonreligious) school, and to see that female behavior absolutely runs the gamut across all human types - whatever roles and behaviors girls grew into as adults. Similarly, my daughters had friends up who LOVED skirts, dresses and sparkly fingernail polish as very young boys, but because these likes were accepted as something anyone could feel, they didn't determine they had to turn into girls to enjoy them. Most simply wore those clothes and nail polish, long hair etc. until some point at which they began to move more toward the middle and even more stereotypically masculine end of the gender continuum - some straight, some gay (sexuality being non-determinative of "gendered" display behavior and vice versa).
I always compare it with the diversity of cultures and habits across countries. In every country you find a wide diversity of accents, songs, stories and behavioral expectations - frequently almost or just as much diversity in a small and limited country as exists across a large country. People are not the same but endowed with mysteriously distinct souls, bodies and lives. How can we possibly expect rigid adherence to stereotypical roles and characteristics to result in a truly healthy society where people are enabled to bring their gifts and differences to enrich the larger community?
Optimally, if we can loosen the extremely rigid behavioral categories being imposed on girls and boys, men and women, I believe the vast majority of people will naturally fall at distributed points along the spectrum of behavioral and aesthetic expression - and our interactions and communications can be enriched by this. (Of course this begs discussion of the fact that at present these categories seem instead to be narrowing in hysterical reaction...creating a feedback system that drives more and more desire for escape from stereotypical behavior limits...sigh.)
My grandmother was born in 1907 in North Dakota. She wanted to be a nurse but her father equated it with prostitution. She worked as a Red Cross volunteer for over 50 years... long after her father was gone 💔
Woah.
Thanks for this Chloé, very thought-provoking. For sure the left tends to emphasise the role of manmade institutions (money, government, laws, capitalism) in creating and perpetuating inequality because those can be changed; while the right emphasises natural and biological factors and argues that we're stuck with them and have to work within them. I tend to think of humans as incredibly adaptable and malleable: it's incredible to me how much we're *not* stuck with, how radically our societies, customs and default assumptions have changed from place to place and time to time.
For all that, I don't think we can pin all the assumptions and behaviours of patriarchy on modern money-based hierarchical societies. Before money determined one's status, women would have made mating choices based on men's physical strength and practical skills, and men who didn't fit the bill would have been out of luck. Meanwhile, men would have sought out attractive women and protected them from threats at times when they were vulnerable (e.g. during pregnancy). Would Graeber's argument be that these traditional gender roles served us OK until money and hierarchy corrupted them from a mostly-benign complementarity into the oppressive system we now call 'patriarchy'?
Hi Wabi Sabi! Graeber's argument, which he expands upon in his last book with David Wengrow, 'The Dawn of Everything' is that human societies have been historically more varied, unpredictable, and diverse than we could possibly imagine and it is our ignorance of this fact that stops us from reimagining new ways of doing society.
Sounds like my kind of thinker 🙂
Hi Chloe, I have to disagree with the premise that the patriarchy originated as a result of wealth inequality. There is much anthropological and historical evidence showing that what we call the "patriarchy" actually has a strong basis in human nature. The idea that is just a cultural phenomenon which teaches us to value wealth and money and status is I think a misconception.
There are some deep, horrifying truths about human nature that it is difficult to look at, and we cannot wave them away by attributing them solely to culture and/or economy.
Regarding Trans-identity issues, yes I agree that there is something culturally that is causing many people to be deeply uncomfortable in their sense of self, I just don't believe that it is the "patriarchy". My gut sense is that it has to do with the amount of time that we are all spending on screens - somehow this uproots us from any real connection to community, place, culture, and even our own bodies.
Regarding the dynamics of your family home, it doesn't seem to be a negative environment at all. It was this environment that helped to shape you - an independent and intelligent woman. Just because a father takes the lead, does not mean that the mother and children are not essentially valuable an important. In fact I think that structures in which everyone "has a place" are healthy.
Two things that come to mind. 1) the power balances created by technology. Guns vs spears. Steel vs bronze. Bronze vs stone. short term benefits of annual agriculture vs hunter/gatherer. Yes, there's greed and malevolence. There's also stupidity and as quoted in Think fast/Think Slow, How does society take care of those who make bad decisions? 2) Division of labor/the need for a scapegoat. Does patriarchy explain our proclivities for certain necessary jobs? Setting aside sex-biases of child rearing, society still might divide out jobs based on aptitude which may be influenced by innate differences like size/finger dexterity/etc. Likewise, humans tend to designate rulers which blended with greed or access to storable wealth leads to power imbalances. The flip is, as Rene Girard said, Leaders are scapegoats in waiting. So, humans choose to grant leaders privileges with the implicit agreement that it's their azz if it goes south.
I think that's why there's a limit to "Who are you if you cease to internalize the voices of those who have come before you who told you what you are, who told you that you needed to be a certain way to be loved, respected, feared, admired, or belong? Who told you you would be banished otherwise? "
You can be who you want (or maybe accept who you are) however know that there's some human (perhaps deranged) that's coming up with a technic that's gonna put you at a disadvantage.
I agree that this lens on the growth of the trans movement is so critically important. The insistence on rigid gender policing and refusal to allow people the flexibility to be however they are, regardless of their genitalia, clearly underlies the rapid growth in people's desire to 'escape' the limitations of one's gender role and be free to mix and match whatever characteristics feel genuine, intuitive, and spontaneous.
I was lucky enough (discussion for another time!) to grow up mostly in an all girls (nonreligious) school, and to see that female behavior absolutely runs the gamut across all human types - whatever roles and behaviors girls grew into as adults. Similarly, my daughters had friends up who LOVED skirts, dresses and sparkly fingernail polish as very young boys, but because these likes were accepted as something anyone could feel, they didn't determine they had to turn into girls to enjoy them. Most simply wore those clothes and nail polish, long hair etc. until some point at which they began to move more toward the middle and even more stereotypically masculine end of the gender continuum - some straight, some gay (sexuality being non-determinative of "gendered" display behavior and vice versa).
I always compare it with the diversity of cultures and habits across countries. In every country you find a wide diversity of accents, songs, stories and behavioral expectations - frequently almost or just as much diversity in a small and limited country as exists across a large country. People are not the same but endowed with mysteriously distinct souls, bodies and lives. How can we possibly expect rigid adherence to stereotypical roles and characteristics to result in a truly healthy society where people are enabled to bring their gifts and differences to enrich the larger community?
Optimally, if we can loosen the extremely rigid behavioral categories being imposed on girls and boys, men and women, I believe the vast majority of people will naturally fall at distributed points along the spectrum of behavioral and aesthetic expression - and our interactions and communications can be enriched by this. (Of course this begs discussion of the fact that at present these categories seem instead to be narrowing in hysterical reaction...creating a feedback system that drives more and more desire for escape from stereotypical behavior limits...sigh.)