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    Steven Goldberg, Inevitability of Patriarchy. Why the Biological Difference Between Men and Women Always Produces Male Domination + Why men rule : a theory of male dominance

    Johnathan R. Razorback
    Johnathan R. Razorback
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    Messages : 20743
    Date d'inscription : 12/08/2013
    Localisation : France

    Steven Goldberg, Inevitability of Patriarchy. Why the Biological Difference Between Men and Women Always Produces Male Domination + Why men rule : a theory of male dominance Empty Steven Goldberg, Inevitability of Patriarchy. Why the Biological Difference Between Men and Women Always Produces Male Domination + Why men rule : a theory of male dominance

    Message par Johnathan R. Razorback Lun 10 Juil - 15:46

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Goldberg

    "If a theory maintains its logical integrity, if it is accurate in its presentation of observation and factual statement, if it makes no prediction that proves incorrect, and if it is the only available or most reasonable logical explanation of the reality it claims to explain, then it must take prece- dence over any available alternative theory. Even under these conditions the theory has not been proven correct—no theory is ever proven correct—but its probability of correctness must be acknowledged to be greater than that of the less reasonable theory, far greater than that of the theory that is based on false observation or inaccurate factual statements, and infinitely greater than that of the theory that is internally illogical or that makes incorrect predictions (and which, therefore, could not be correct)." (p.8 )

    "Until recently no one had even questioned the assumptions from which had flowed our conceptions of man and woman. We had, until recently, tended to accept masculinity and femininity and male and female functions as somehow springing from our male and female natures and were satisfied to allow the strength of our beliefs to compensate for the depth of our ignorance. If for no other reason than this, the ologist, the anthropologist, the psychologist, and the sociol- ogist are in the debt of the new feminist movement. For if there is any single question that is at the center of all artistic and most scientific thought (to say nothing of our daily lives), it is this : what are men and women and to what degree must male-female differences be manifested in societal expectations, values, and institutions ?" (pp.23-24)

    "We can, however, speak of superiority in a specific area. Men have a "superiority" in height and women are superior at singing the upper register. American society is superior to that of the Mbuti Pygmy in the ability to produce consumer goods, while Mbuti society is superior to American society in the ability to inculcate hunting skills in its members." (p.24)

    "Anthropologists have written at length of the areas in which women are unquestionably superior to men. It is on these abilities that the world's women have eternally based their joy just as men have emphasized their singular abilities and identified with their manhood. Indeed, while an essay on patriarchy must emphasize the factors that are emphasized here, and while societies would be patriarchal even if women were nothing more than less-aggressive men forced into feminine behavior as response to the fact of male aggression, the likelihood is overwhelming that, whether we are referring to woman's response to male aggression or to the emotions underlying woman's universal role as life creator and life sustainer, feminine behavior and the institutions that are related to this behavior are as inevitable as patriarchy and are inevitable for the same reasons. Perhaps one who wished to examine not patriarchy and male dominance but woman's universal role of creator and keeper of society's emotional resources could invoke a line of rea- soning complementing that introduced below. The author of such an examination could invoke a line of reasoning identical to that used in this book and could demonstrate that women will inevitably hold the powers necessary for incul- cating emotionality in the members of every society and, to a great extent, determining the very kind of people a society is to produce.

    Even if one deals only within the context of "power" (in male-female and familial relationships), neither male dominance nor the other male characteristics we shall discuss necessarily imply that male aggression is more effective than feminine behavior. Male dominance does not necessarily mean that males will achieve their goals more often than females will achieve theirs if we limit ourselves to dyadic (two-person, in this case, male-female) and familial relationships. (The factor that engenders political patriarchy does render impossible a political authority system not ruled by men, for rea- sons that we shall soon examine.) One could make an interesting case that, on a dyadic or familial level, women are more successful at utilizing feminine abilities to achieve their goals than men are at utilizing masculine abilities to achieve theirs. Indeed, the women of every society possess the emotional skills necessary to "get around" men and to "get their way" despite the male's superior aggression. However, a woman's feeling that she must "get around" a man (who is acknowledged by individual emotions and societal values to have authority) is, as we shall see momentarily, a hallmark of male dominance. Some sociologists have defined power in these terms and have suggested that —even in societies and subcultures such as the Shtetl that maintain a high degree of male dominance— women are more powerful in familial and dyadic situations than are the men in whom authority is invested. The line of reasoning supporting this hypothesis would not necessarily conflict with any statement in this book. Such an analysis might conclude that even though the women of every society acknowledge the authority of the male even on a dyadic level, they get their way more often than not by utilizing their feminine ability to "get around" men. An analysis of dyadic or familial groups that sees the "real" power as controlled by women's superior emotional powers is the virtual opposite of the analysis of the environmentalists, behaviorists, and feminists. For such an analysis emphasizes the positive, power-engendering aspects of femininity and implies that the reduction in feninine behavior desired by the feminists would force women to deal with men on male terms and that this ivould inevitably lead to a reduction in women 's real poiver. The feminist who denies the biological basis of femininity, the necessity of femininity as the only defense against male aggression, and the likelihood that femininity is women's greatest strength for attaining dyadic or familial power is left with the conclusion that the women of every society have acted in a feminine way out of stupidity. I think not. Though an analysis emphasizing the informal, real power of femininity might take on Strindbergian overtones, it could proceed without theoretical contradiction or obvious factual inaccuracy. This cannot be said of the feminist line of reasoning, which we shall discuss." (pp.25-27)

    "In nearly all his investigations the sociologist deals with social behavior which falls within the limits of biological possibility and he is rarely forced to examine the limits of human possibility or the forces that set such limits. [...]  in our investigation of patriarchy, we will have to utilize the methods and findings of a number of disciplines.

    It is important to emphasize that this is not a sociological, anthropological, or economic analysis per se. It is a theory that attempts to demonstrate the limitations imposed on social possibility and the impossibility of a society's failing to conform its institutions to these limitations. Within the limitations considerable variation is possible. A sociological, anthropological, or economic analysis would attempt to describe and explain the configurations of factors that differ from one society to another in order to discover the differing etiologies of differing institutions in terms of methods of socialization, the social meanings attached to behavior by individuals, economic necessities, the structures of various sys- tems within various social systems and the connections be- tween them, and all the other considerations which are the concern of the sociologist, the anthropologist, and the economist. The theory presented here is important to these sorts of analyses in that —if this theory of limits is correct— any analysis that hypothesizes elements that fall outside the limits of possibility described here, or that contains the implication that such elements could exist in a real society, would have to be wrong. Since every society that has ever existed falls within the limits described by this theory, no analysis of any particular society is demonstrated to be incorrect by this theory. Furthermore, if the theory presented herein is correct it demonstrates that no theoretical analysis which limits itself to the sociological, cultural anthropological, or economic level can ever hope to explain the causation of the behavior and institutions we shall discuss." (pp.29-30)

    "Patriarchy is any system of organization (political, economic, religious, or social) that associates authority and leadership primarily with males and in which males fill the vast majority of authority and leadership positions. triarchy refers only to suprafamilial levels of organization ; authority in familial and dyadic relationships is described by the term male dominance. Patriarchy is universal. For all the variety different societies have demonstrated in developing different types of political, economic, religious, and social systems, there has never been a society that has failed to associate authority and leadership in these areas with men. No anthropologist contests the fact that patriarchy is universal. Indeed, of all social institutions there is probably none whose universality is so totally agreed upon. While I think it fair to say that most anthropologists consider the family, marriage, and the incest taboo universal—and believe that, while it is easy to imagine societies without one or more of these institutions, no real society could survive without them—with each of these institutions anthropologists debate problems of definition and borderline cases. There is not, nor has there ever been, any society that even remotely failed to associate authority and leadership in suprafamilial areas with the male. There have of course been queens in a small number of societies, but the existence of patriarchy even in such societies is demonstrated by the fact that—as in England—queens rule in such societies only when there is no equivalent man avail- able (just as there have been a few societies in which the royal families have ignored their societies' incest taboos in order to maintain the purity of the blood line). There have been "Queen Mothers" in a few African societies, but, while such "Queen Mothers" did have a measure of autonomy de- nied other women in their societies and some authority in secondary areas, in every case they were subordinate to a male king or chief in whom the society vested highest authority. There have even been three cases of women attaining the highest positions of authority in democracies (Israel, India, and Ceylon), though in the latter two instances the woman was the daughter and the widow, respectively, of a revered man and it is hardly likely that either would have otherwise attained power." (pp.30-32)

    "Male dominance refers to the jeeling acknowledged by the emotions of both men and women that the woman's will is somehow subordinate to the male's and that general authority in dyadic and familial relationships, in whatever terms a particular society defines authority, ultimately resides in the male. I realize that this is not the most graceful way of defining male dominance, but it is the most accurate. As was the case with patriarchy, male dominance is universal ; no society has ever failed to conform its expectations of men and women, and the social roles relevant to these expectations, to the feeling of men and women that it is the male who "takes the lead." This book will attempt to demonstrate that every society' accepts the existence of these feelings, and conforms to their existence by socializing children accordingly, because every society must." (p.33)

    "Emphasizing that dominance and deference refer not to the customs but to the feel- ings is important only when one is examining the ten or twelve "chivalrous" societies, in which women seem to re- ceive deference, or American society, in which customs of deference are minimal when compared to those of virtually any other society. Examination of the ethnographic materials on these "chivalrous" societies demonstrates that chivalrous male deference is seen in these societies not as a reversal of male dominance but as a complement to feminine fragility. In American society, for example, a man's holding a door for a woman is seen as a symbolic gesture acknowledging not female authority but masculine strength ; a man's walking nearer to the curb acknowledges not the female's dominance but the male's feeling that the woman is to be protected." (p.34)

    "The voluminous writings of the feminists attest to the fact that, despite the virtual absence of customs of deference in American society, the feelings and emotional expectations that underpin the customs of every other society affect our be- havior as surely as these feelings affect the behavior of the men and women of every other society. Thus the author of the feminist essay complains that she feels that she has some- how lost an argument with her husband, that somehow she was wrong, even when she knows intellectually that hers was the better argument, that she was right, and that her husband was being emotionally dishonest. Thus the feminist novelist objects to the fact that it is somehow the male who "takes the lead" in endless numbers of situations as varied as crossing streets and choosing friends. The husband tends to "tell" ("my husband told me to take the TV to the repair shop") while the wife tends to "ask" ("my wife asked me to take the TV to the repair shop") . To be sure, women do, as these novelists acknowledge, have a great deal of power in that they make decisions in many areas, but it is the feeling that the husband lets them make such decisions (that he delegates authority, that he "allows") that annoys the feminist and that is the evidence of the presence of male dominance. Likewise the feminist points out that nearly all women (and men) associate authority with the father, save those few who begrudge their fathers their refusal to invoke male authority. Our acceptance of the feminist's description of her feelings and observations does not require that we attach a judgment to these feelings and observations or that we accept her assumption that this manifestation of sexual difference has its roots only in social factors." (pp.35-36)

    "[I'm not] denying the obvious fact that, whatever qualities one considers masculine or feminine, every member of each sex will occasionally exhibit the behavior of the other. I am saying only that every society recognizes a particular emotional difference between men and women, that this difference always works in the same direction (i.e., no society's members feel that it is the ivoman who "allows"), and that every society associates authority in all areas that are not specifically delegated to women with men."(p.36)

    "Male dominance refers to a feeling acknowledged by both male and female emotions. Male authority refers to society's associating general authority in dyadic relationships with the male. Both male dominance and male authority are universal. In every society authority is delegated to women in a number of areas ; there is no conflict as long as each sex stays in its own area. When there is conflict, the feelings of male dominance will always come into play and general male authority will sometimes be invoked in some societies and will always be invoked in others. Power is the ability to influence the actions of others and to attain one's end. Women in dyadic situations often have the power advantage, but this advantage does not flow from their invoking authority and it is attained by overcoming the feelings of male dominance through feminine means, intelligence, etc." (note 6 p.36)

    "Men and women of every society feel this way and acknowledge this feeling in the society's institutions. The question that is of theoretical importance is why this is the case and why, if male dominance is not conformation to some element that is either suprasocial or inherent in the very nature of society, does no society reverse this or fail to manifest sexual dominance at all ?" (p.37)

    "One might be tempted to argue that either patriarchy or male dominance has its roots in some suprasocial element or in some element that is inherent in the nature of society, but that, since either of these institutions might inevitably generate the other, we need not assume that both flow directly from the suprasocial or inherent-societal element. Thus one might argue that either a suprasocial or inherent-societal element generates patriarchy and that, since political authority will be associated with males, authority in dyadic relationships will be associated with the male through a filter-down process; this view would still see male dominance as inevitable, but not as a direct result of the suprasocial or inherent-societal element. Or one might see male dominance as a result of a suprasocial or inherent-societal element, but argue that patriarchy is a generalization of male dominance. Neither of these lines of reasoning is very persuasive. The evidence we shall discuss in Chapter Three, a great deal of primate re- search that we shall not discuss in this book, and our observation of small, isolated societies with minimal political differentiation all lead to the conclusion that there would be male dominance even if there were no political stratification. The argument that male dominance is a direct result of a suprasocial or inherent-societal element but that patriarchy is merely a generalization of male dominance which may be inevitable but which does not flow directly from a suprasocial or inherent-societal element is equally unconvincing for nu- merous reasons we shall discuss throughout the book. In short: we shall see that both patriarchy and male dominance are direct results of a suprasocial element and that one need not refer to patriarchy to demonstrate the inevitability of male dominance or to male dominance to demonstrate the inevitability of patriarchy (or male attainment)." (p.38)
    -Steven Goldberg, Inevitability of Patriarchy. Why the Biological Difference Between Men and Women Always Produces Male Domination, New York, William Morrow & Company, 1973, 256 pages.

    https://archive.org/details/whymenruletheory0000gold



    _________________
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