Gender bias: Spiritual or Economic cause?

[emilynghiem]

What do you believe caused the current gender bias we see today
in terms of male dominance in patriarchal society:

A. spiritual causes or teachings
B. economic - due to men valued more as hunters of meat
(over women and workers gathering or harvesting the fields)
C. agricultural revolution (where people started to store
and guard more shares, and thus defend their wealth)
D. physiological - men are bigger/stronger than women
E. disagree, do not believe in a predominant gender imbalance or bias

 

[Wingsofwind]

I chose 'A', not because Religion teaches that men are over the women, but because people tend to twist scripture to try and justify the way they treat others.

Scripture teaches that the man IS over the woman, however, it also teaches that the man is to 'LOVE' the woman and treat her with kindness and respect. This is not how many men are though. Many fallow the 'men are over the women', but do not fallow the fact that they are to be kind to the women also.

However, I do think that it is also a bit of all 'A'-'D' in some cases.

 

[editec]

Depends on what society we're talking about, doesn't it?

 

[tonystewart1]

I voted D because for most of our history the superiour physical strength of men has given rise to a bias toward men.

 

[emilynghiem]

I chose 'A', not because Religion teaches that men are over the women, but because people tend to twist scripture to try and justify the way they treat others.

Scripture teaches that the man IS over the woman, however, it also teaches that the man is to 'LOVE' the woman and treat her with kindness and respect. This is not how many men are though. Many fallow the 'men are over the women', but do not fallow the fact that they are to be kind to the women also.

However, I do think that it is also a bit of all 'A'-'D' in some cases.

Dear WOW: I think that is a very fair statement. I'm beginning to think that the socio-economic and physical reality shaped this trend from many factors combined, and either the religious/spiritual teaching enforced it or was justified even more, so they fuel each other. Locally some people focus on the childbearing and rearing role of the woman and how the need for protection increased. Which came first the chicken or the egg, did the reality shape the perception or did the perception shape the reality, or both? I believe these mesh so much you cannot tell, and the cause/effect co-influence each other.

Thanks for your insights.
I agree it ends up being some combination,
but still find it interesting which factors people focus on more,
which explains why they approach relations from different angles.
Yours truly,
Emily

P.S. RE: husband and wife submitting one to another
Yes I also agree the point of Jesus sacrifice and his fulfillment of the message in the Bible is to submit one to another as equals, where there is no division between gender, tribe, race, religion, etc. We are all equal children of God on the spiritual level, though we differ in class and role on the physical level. Ideally the people together are one body as the "Bride" of Christ/Lord/Laws that are universal to all humanity. (gentiles define these by natural laws while the churched tribes follow divine laws, but both are universal and fulfilled in Christ Jesus though they remain distinct paths leading to the same source of truth). The key is forgiveness instead of competing to trump or discredit another group,
but recognizing all people have equal strengths and weaknesses, and we mutually
check and balance each other to bring out the best and correct or prevent the bad.
I see it like an orchestra, where there are different sections that don't play in the same key or the same parts, but when all are in harmony the symphony is perfect or whole.
Instead of blasting each other out, or playing out of tune, we are supposed to each play our parts in balance with the others, and then it works out though they are all different.

 

[Anachronism]

All four "A-D" are legitimate reasons for Male Dominance and Patriarchal Society being the accepted norm in human society.

 

[emilynghiem]

Depends on what society we're talking about, doesn't it?

Hi Ed: You remind me of a classmate of mine in college who won a fellowship to study feminism in Iceland, because in their history the population was so accustomed to women political leaders, it was considered amusing for men to hold office, or something like that.

In my art history classes, one professor taught a whole class on how artifacts showed the trend in civilizations from female goddess/matriarchal worship in prehistoric times to the current trend of patriarchal figures and institutions. He showed examples of how the Egyptian culture depicted the woman on top, as the Sky Goddess being fertilized by the male with an erection from below, because of the water source coming from irrigation from the ground -- while other cultures predominantly depicted Heaven or the Sky as male and the earth as female because the rain came down from above to fertilize the crops.

The reason I listed "agricultural revolution" (separately from the theory about meat changing the economy to favor men, the hunters and the upper class that could store more meat) is that someone debated this point, insisting that more research has shown that this factor had more direct and demonstratable impact than religion, and affected regions and cultures that were not under that influence.

However I do believe that spiritual influences can affect people and generations unconsciously. I personally believe there is some karma involved in the violent transition from matriarchal to patriarchal structures and dominance, that included genocide and abuse/oppression of women and women's knowledge of spirituality repressed from the past. Even if people did not have that knowledge consciously, I believe it is still a factor.

These other socio-economic influences, I believe follow that spiritual trend, and then become the driving force we see. The common factor being that knowledge is power, and where the matriarchal cultures had power based on spiritual strength, then the patriarchal cultures based on physical/economic/political strength over masses with less resources,
then we will reach a balance when we all share equal knowledge on both the spiritual level as well as the physical/economic/political level. Even if we remain in different classes, we don't have to abuse that knowledge to exploit power over those with less.

So fascinating to me how people will frame this issue differently if they focus on the spiritual level or the physical level.

Thank you for your posts, and the realistic check on idealism that you provide.
I will reply to your other one with questions that I forwarded
to friends on another site to try to answer.

I find both the spiritual angle and the totally secular angle
are both necessary complements to put the bigger picture
together, where abstract thought even on a symbolic level
and concrete action in the real world meet in agreement.

I look forward to sharing more with you
from your perspective and sharp focus!

Thanks, Ed
Yours truly,
Emily

 

[emilynghiem]

I voted D because for most of our history the superiour physical strength of men has given rise to a bias toward men.

Hi TS1: Someone else threw in the comment that women in childbearing and rearing roles more specifically shaped this trend toward needing protection of the men, citing that as the craniums of newborns grew with larger brains, then this left women more incapacitated. Very interesting take, I guess, on the Eve story, perhaps: where because of greater knowledge, this increased the women's pain in labor? Never thought of that!

However, if you compare the egalitarian and matriarchal cultures in prehistoric times before patriarchal lineages, the argument is that when women passed property down the female side of the family, the mothers KNEW who their children were, and did not need to defend their assets/property from other women the way men need to with the system of primogeniture. The laws created to control women and children as "assets of the estate" became necessary for a man to make sure his children were HIS, and thus the laws against adultery written by men for men. So that is where I personally trace some of this control issue trend between men and women in relationships, that collective influences church and state and whole institutions.

But when I pose this question online, I get more the opposite views!
People see the trend on the outside, of men dominating women, and then say that this influences the biases in people and within personal relationships by example. I thought it was the other way, where people take their internal or unconscious spiritual programming and then project that outward into relationships and then greater society!

Now I can only surmise that it must be both ways, working at once. There is a mix of internal/spiritual influence from within, and also external influence from institutions and cultures. So you can no longer say it started with one thing more than the other!

So fascinating!

I get different answers every time I ask this question to different people.

Thank you for participating in the poll and adding your comments.
I also find it interesting that as people consider why the other views come at it from that angle, that might increase awareness of how these differences affect us on ALL levels
both spiritually on one level and also physically in our economies and personal relations.

Even when we communicate online, there are tendencies in some people to team up along gender lines or spiritual vs. secular lines, so that we can either keep reinforcing the same lines or we can make efforts to cross over and understand views coming from opposites.

I hope these dialogues encourage more exploration on all sides.
I believe the right answers will come from combining information from all sources,
checking sources and points against each other, and deriving new understanding
where the assimilated whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts we contribute.

Thanks for adding to the mix!

Yours truly,
Emily

 

[midcan5]

That is an interesting question, there is only one Matriarchal society in the world, the Mosuo. I have to think about it a bit before I give my two cents.

[ ????? ]

Long ago I read that a woman is always half in love with a man who listens to her. Half ? Every time I touch my wife in any way she says, what do you want now? I've watched my granddaughters and grandson now, and actually see little difference, but there is difference.

"...In his classic study of mid 19th century American labor, Norman Ware observes that the imposition of industrial capitalism and its values 'was repugnant to an astonishingly large section of the earlier American community'. The primary reason was 'the decline of the industrial worker as a person', the 'degradation' and 'psychological change' that followed from the 'loss of dignity and independence' and of democratic rights and freedoms. These reactions were vividly expressed in the working class literature, often by women, who played a prominent role despite their subordination in the general society." Introduction Alex Carey 'Taking The Risk Out Of Democracy'

Can you imagine asking a man this question? "The American company Unilever asked 1000 women how long they would give up sex, in exchange for a wardrobe full of new clothes? The majority said 15 months."

"In 1958 The Mississippi state legislature categorized voyeurism as an exclusively male crime, thereby exempting women from prosecution as Peeping Toms, A Peeping Tom, the lawmakers decreed, was "any male person who enters upon real property. . . and thereafter pries or peeps through a window. . . for the lewd, licentious, and indecent purpose of spying upon the occupants thereof."

 

[Marie888]

I chose 'A', not because Religion teaches that men are over the women, but because people tend to twist scripture to try and justify the way they treat others.

Scripture teaches that the man IS over the woman, however, it also teaches that the man is to 'LOVE' the woman and treat her with kindness and respect. This is not how many men are though. Many fallow the 'men are over the women', but do not fallow the fact that they are to be kind to the women also.

However, I do think that it is also a bit of all 'A'-'D' in some cases.

I'm pretty much along the sames lines as what Wings said.


.

 

[Wonky Pundit]

I voted D because for most of our history the superiour physical strength of men has given rise to a bias toward men.

Hi TS1: Someone else threw in the comment that women in childbearing and rearing roles more specifically shaped this trend toward needing protection of the men, citing that as the craniums of newborns grew with larger brains, then this left women more incapacitated. Very interesting take, I guess, on the Eve story, perhaps: where because of greater knowledge, this increased the women's pain in labor? Never thought of that!

However, if you compare the egalitarian and matriarchal cultures in prehistoric times before patriarchal lineages, the argument is that when women passed property down the female side of the family, the mothers KNEW who their children were, and did not need to defend their assets/property from other women the way men need to with the system of primogeniture. The laws created to control women and children as "assets of the estate" became necessary for a man to make sure his children were HIS, and thus the laws against adultery written by men for men. So that is where I personally trace some of this control issue trend between men and women in relationships, that collective influences church and state and whole institutions.

I suspect that such laws did not result so much from men's desire for control as they did from the desire to trace people's ancestry (and to prevent inbreeding).

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Gender bias....point out some direct examples.

 

[midcan5]

F: The writers of the rules were male, females were too busy having/minding the children, the stock, and the hearth.

While I am still on quicksand with this question, a great deal of the answer comes from evolution and natural selection. We often purposely neglect the creation of social structure because we like to think reason guided our choices. Robert Trivers has written some fascinating stuff on natural selection and society. But as I was thinking of this question I was looking at a TED video when I saw the link below. If you have a few minutes listen to it, it touches many topics we discuss and debate. Definitely worth a listen.

Is anatomy destiny? Alice Dreger: Is anatomy destiny? | Video on TED.com


"...t is widely recognized that sexual reproduction helps to keep a population going. Sexual reproduction is a complicated process that is occasionally lost, thereby simplifying the reproductive process. As a general rule, though, in both plants and animals, once a line of descent loses the sexual process, nothing new ever comes of it. It won't branch into several new species the way a sexual species might. So asexual reproduction exclusively in any line of descent appears to be a dead end. If there has ever been a mammal that reproduced asexually, it is not around any more and has no descendants." George C. Williams

 

[syrenn]

What do you believe caused the current gender bias we see today
in terms of male dominance in patriarchal society:

A. spiritual causes or teachings
B. economic - due to men valued more as hunters of meat
(over women and workers gathering or harvesting the fields)
C. agricultural revolution (where people started to store
and guard more shares, and thus defend their wealth)
D. physiological - men are bigger/stronger than women
E. disagree, do not believe in a predominant gender imbalance or bias

A-D all are reasons.

 

[emilynghiem]

Gender bias....point out some direct examples.

Examples I have collected from many other people (if these are not perfect or you don't believe these count as valid bias, please substitute other examples instead)

* religious and legal institutions
churches that allow men priests but not women
shariah laws that do not treat women with equal rights or defense as men
even constitutional laws had to be amended to give women equal right to vote
(it has been noted that Blacks obtained suffrage before women did)
widows being burned on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands
laws where men can have more than one wife but not vice versa?

* economic and political
the work that women do in the home to raise kids and run households
is not counted in the GNP
more women serve their full prison sentences than men
because there is more room for women in prisons while men's are overcrowded
more female babies being aborted in China
and also women and brides trafficked with various dowry laws


others I don't all agree with but these issues affect other people apparently:
* complaints of women paid less than men for the same jobs on average
(I've seen stats and complaints cited both ways, for and against)
* women running for office are judged differently than men
because of emphasis on appearance and different expectations of behavior
(again this is disputed)

* statistically, female students are treated differently in schools when mixed with male students, attributed to expectations or conditions on boys/males to be different from
girls (the example given to me is that teachers are conditioned to respond to boys speaking out of turn but punishing girls for speaking out without raising their hands,
and also boys/males more encouraged in math and science while female students drop out after a good lead in these fields around a certain age, attributed to socialization)

These are some general examples, I'm sure there are many others
people could cite that you and I may or may not agree with.

The issues I run into on a regular basis
* when speaking with certain guys, even my own boyfriend, he will belittle or discredit my opinion. I don't know if some men are conditioned to do this, from their fathers treating their mothers this way. I have some friends who distrust men, but even then out of fear they will let that person dominate. Whatever you call that, I run into it with certain people who out of either spiritual teaching or personal conditioning let men speak and validate that before they will listen to women. don't know if that is just a personal bias or what.
women do it too, will let men dominate and take the lead. similar to the classroom bias.

 

[emilynghiem]

I suspect that such laws did not result so much from men's desire for control as they did from the desire to trace people's ancestry (and to prevent inbreeding).

Still, people carry the tradition of adopting the family name of the father.
where the wife leaves her family and joins her husbands family. Is this the norm?

I also thought that since the scribes in the churches were the main
source of literate people who wrote and kept records and contracts,
while the masses were largely illiterate, but the church leadership
was male, that is where laws are going to be biased toward
a male audience since those are the property owners
and the laws are written by men for men. Someone explained it to me
that way, and that is why church laws are biased in the male voice as well.

 

[Wonky Pundit]

I suspect that such laws did not result so much from men's desire for control as they did from the desire to trace people's ancestry (and to prevent inbreeding).

Still, people carry the tradition of adopting the family name of the father.
where the wife leaves her family and joins her husbands family. Is this the norm?

To my knowledge, it's pretty close to universal.

I also thought that since the scribes in the churches were the main
source of literate people who wrote and kept records and contracts,
while the masses were largely illiterate, but the church leadership
was male, that is where laws are going to be biased toward
a male audience since those are the property owners
and the laws are written by men for men. Someone explained it to me
that way, and that is why church laws are biased in the male voice as well.

That part is somewhat counterintuitive, it seems to me, because religious leaders in primitive tribes were very often female. It would be interesting to try to determine how that trend went the other way later in history.

 

[Jeffe_Verde]

I chose C based on a few facts and hunches I have carefully fostered and nursed over the years. First I'll list the facts.

Five million years ago humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos were the same critter. 200,000 years ago humans just like me (smelly and woefully undereducated) appear.
10,000 years ago all of our lives were ruined by agricultural revolution. We have evolved biologically to live one way and have been socially compelled to live another way for the last 10,000 years.

The above list of facts are stated in a way that seems exact and none of them are. All the numbers are rounded for readability and the "all of our lives were ruined" quip needs to incorporate the amazing technology I am using to make the quip. I also need to give a nod to the large number of people on the planet that are still living in hunter gatherer societies.

And now for a few carefully fostered hunches:

Gender roles are not in any way universal. In different populations and over different times the roles are different. I have little to no evidence for this other than this authoritative sounding quote, "come on, look around you."

The Agricultural Revolution created many new opportunities to invent new social roles and invent we did. To the point that one day Henry the 8th would say, "I act and then pay 100 philosophers to tell me I was perfectly just in acting." All of these social roles are arbitrary and our rationalizations for them are as rational as Henry's. I don't believe that there is a biological reason that explains our social roles. The roles are adopted and played out by individuals and some individuals in our society seems keen on measuring us by how well they think we are playing out those roles. While on average men are slightly bigger and a slightly stronger than women there is not really that much a difference. (How strong do you need to be to pull a trigger? and everyone has to fall asleep eventually.) I think that these social roles evolved without any rational explanation and can not be explained as serving any evolutionary advantage. The evolutionary selection is happening inside the vagina on a cellular level more than it is on a social level (Sex at Dawn, page 298 of the linked pdf). I think gender roles are as arbitrary as our ideas about what is sacred and profane in religion. Women are not trading sex for security and meat. Men had no idea a baby had DNA at all, let alone whose it was until 50 years ago. The book Sex at Dawn (an excellent book that surveys the last 30 years of research on human sexuality) dismantles that "standard narrative." The agricultural, industrial and now the information revolutions arbitrarily redefine these social rolls our stupid biology just dose not seem to get it.

I will leave you with this extended quote from from the introduction and a link to a pdf version and a strong suggestion that everyone (over the age of 13) read it The authors suggest that our anatomy and behavior are consistent with a much more egalitarian arrangement than one based on dominance.

In a nutshell, here’s the story we tell in the following pages:
A few million years ago, our ancient ancestors (Homo
erectus) shifted from a gorilla-like mating system where an
alpha male fought to win and maintain a harem of females to
one in which most males had sexual access to females. Few,
if any experts dispute the fossil evidence for this shift.

But we part company from those who support the standard
narrative when we look at what this shift signifies. The
standard narrative holds that this is when long-term pair
bonding began in our species: if each male could have only
one female mate at a time, most males would end up with a
girl to call their own. Indeed, where there is debate about the
nature of innate human sexuality, the only two acceptable
options appear to be that humans evolved to be either
monogamous (M–F) or polygynous (M–FFF+)—with the
conclusion normally being that women generally prefer the
former configuration while most men would opt for the latter.

But what about multiple mating, where most males and
females have more than one concurrent sexual relationship?
Why—apart from moral disgust—is prehistoric promiscuity
not even considered, when nearly every relevant source of
evidence points in that direction?

Here is the URL to the pdf but you need to add the "http" as this is my first post on this board and I guess I need to make 15 post before I can add a link-- (you should buy the book if you are going to read it all . . .)

://luptaanticapitalista.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/sex-at-dawn-the-prehistoric-origins-of-modern-sexuality.pdf

 

[emilynghiem]

http://luptaanticapitalista.files.w...e-prehistoric-origins-of-modern-sexuality.pdf

Wow Jeffe: Thank you also for a very insightful and detailed post. I can't access the online reference either, but I posted above so others can try. I will try to find and buy that book online, and add it to my collection along with "When God was a Woman" and another book someone else lent me that is similar to your theory (that men's physical strength alone was not the driving factor, but the economic shift with how food was cultivated and valued that caused the class system to proliferate).

You give me so much to think about, I will try to reply briefly but will probably discuss this more later with respect to the other thoughtful posts and questions people have added here. In the meantime I will have to post thanks to you and everyone else for such thoughtful replies. I am amazed at all the different ways to look at this, which information people have or which views they don't relate to at all, which explain our different biases.
Even if we can't help seeing things differently, at least it explains why we all have different views politically and spiritually, that are going to affect how we operate in the world, and what we focus on when we are trying to improve society! So interesting, I could read and ponder these answers all day and just come up with more questions to explore!

Thank you and everyone for posting.
I will add some reply points below and follow up with the book as well.
My overall view was that the changes were spiritually driven, unconsciously or consciously,
and then what happens in the world follows from that. I see this angle is not assumed in your research, so that would make it independent; so I am anxious to see where we agree from both angles, assuming the spiritual causes as I do and excluding them to just study the physical and historical phenomena from a more objective perspective.

I can try to put aside the spiritual factor in my thinking, but knowing it affects my perception still; I will always have that bias other people don't and try to work around it. And if it is really part of the human subconscious, then this spiritual level can be affecting you and others, too, whether or not this is recognized, it could still be part of human nature driving us and motivating our perceptions and actions. So that part I don't know if it can ever be removed from the equation, if it is really an indelible part of humanity.

More points below. Thanks Jeffe and everyone else for these fascinating replies!

I chose C based on a few facts and hunches I have carefully fostered and nursed over the years. First I'll list the facts.

Five million years ago humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos were the same critter. 200,000 years ago humans just like me (smelly and woefully undereducated) appear.
10,000 years ago all of our lives were ruined by agricultural revolution. We have evolved biologically to live one way and have been socially compelled to live another way for the last 10,000 years.

The above list of facts are stated in a way that seems exact and none of them are. All the numbers are rounded for readability and the "all of our lives were ruined" quip needs to incorporate the amazing technology I am using to make the quip. I also need to give a nod to the large number of people on the planet that are still living in hunter gatherer societies.

And now for a few carefully fostered hunches:

Gender roles are not in any way universal. In different populations and over different times the roles are different. I have little to no evidence for this other than this authoritative sounding quote, "come on, look around you."

The Agricultural Revolution created many new opportunities to invent new social roles and invent we did. To the point that one day Henry the 8th would say, "I act and then pay 100 philosophers to tell me I was perfectly just in acting." All of these social roles are arbitrary and our rationalizations for them are as rational as Henry's. I don't believe that there is a biological reason that explains our social roles. The roles are adopted and played out by individuals and some individuals in our society seems keen on measuring us by how well they think we are playing out those roles. While on average men are slightly bigger and a slightly stronger than women there is not really that much a difference. (How strong do you need to be to pull a trigger? and everyone has to fall asleep eventually.) I think that these social roles evolved without any rational explanation and can not be explained as serving any evolutionary advantage. The evolutionary selection is happening inside the vagina on a cellular level more than it is on a social level (Sex at Dawn, page 298 of the linked pdf). I think gender roles are as arbitrary as our ideas about what is sacred and profane in religion. Women are not trading sex for security and meat. Men had no idea a baby had DNA at all, let alone whose it was until 50 years ago. The book Sex at Dawn (an excellent book that surveys the last 30 years of research on human sexuality) dismantles that "standard narrative." The agricultural, industrial and now the information revolutions arbitrarily redefine these social rolls our stupid biology just dose not seem to get it.

I will leave you with this extended quote from from the introduction and a link to a pdf version and a strong suggestion that everyone (over the age of 13) read it The authors suggest that our anatomy and behavior are consistent with a much more egalitarian arrangement than one based on dominance.

In a nutshell, here’s the story we tell in the following pages:
A few million years ago, our ancient ancestors (Homo
erectus) shifted from a gorilla-like mating system where an
alpha male fought to win and maintain a harem of females to
one in which most males had sexual access to females. Few,
if any experts dispute the fossil evidence for this shift.

But we part company from those who support the standard
narrative when we look at what this shift signifies. The
standard narrative holds that this is when long-term pair
bonding began in our species: if each male could have only
one female mate at a time, most males would end up with a
girl to call their own. Indeed, where there is debate about the
nature of innate human sexuality, the only two acceptable
options appear to be that humans evolved to be either
monogamous (M–F) or polygynous (M–FFF+)—with the
conclusion normally being that women generally prefer the
former configuration while most men would opt for the latter.

But what about multiple mating, where most males and
females have more than one concurrent sexual relationship?
Why—apart from moral disgust—is prehistoric promiscuity
not even considered, when nearly every relevant source of
evidence points in that direction?

Here is the URL to the pdf but you need to add the "http" as this is my first post on this board and I guess I need to make 15 post before I can add a link-- (you should buy the book if you are going to read it all . . .)

://luptaanticapitalista.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/sex-at-dawn-the-prehistoric-origins-of-modern-sexuality.pdf

1. RE: five million years ago chimpanzees humans and bonobos are the same
a. I thought the oldest remains that are 3 or more millions of years old are
prehuman but not fully human, and are NOT the same as chimpanzees
b. Also, if the humans have the ability to evolve into modern humanity,
but the chimpanzees do not, doesn't that make them different?
Are you saying that our physical behavior is pretty much the same on the outside?
How we act in packs and try to survive is the same? Is this what you mean?

I believe the human conscience collects and carries things from one generation to others.
So whatever prehumans are doing, some of that knowledge and development may
be carried on, some of it may not be if there is a disjuncture, if these prehumans stopped and new lineages began and they were not direct descendents, but in stages nonetheless.
I don't think the knowledge carried by other animals is the same; some are more sentient and intelligent than others, but the human conscience operates differently. So even if we appear to be acting like other animals, our learning curve is different; I find that we carry knowledge even unconsciously from past generations that affects future generations.

2. As for the shift from packs/harems to one-on-one monogamy for mates/marriage
how can you not include the introduction of patriarchal laws that preached AGAINST "immoral sex" even wiping out the female goddess worship to make wives subjugate to their husbands. The scriptures in the Bible referring to the genocide against women praying to the Queen of Heaven, tribal worship of Ashtoreth, etc. are cited in "When God Was a Woman" by Merlin Stone, which describes the "co-opting" of symbols from matriarchal cultures (such as serpents representing spiritual knowledge) and turning them into evil things to be feared and put down. I would not take it that far, as this book seems written with an opposing bias against Christianity, and I believe Christianity is supposed to liberate humanity from these material wars and conflicts for worldly dominance by establishing the spirit of truth bringing equality and freedom for all people, not one tribe or person above any other, restoring justice/peace/harmony on earth.

I do see a shift from the egalitarian matriarchal tribes to the patriarchal structures,
that I believe was part of a SPIRITUAL process of reaching a karmic balance. And I believe that SPIRITUAL drive motivates humanity to go through all these other changes we see.

Just because cultures were not consciously exposed to this religious teaching, does not mean humanity in general is not motivated by the same spiritual drive, even unconsciously in our consciences whether this is emotion or instinct or what. So I see it is "flipping" from matriarchal societies where the focus on spiritual knowledge lay with women worshipped as the source or creators of life, to the patriarchal where the trend flipped the other way in reaction to the first, and then the point is to reach a balance between these two extremes, not to continue strugging but to break the cycle of wars caused in the process.

All these sociological historical, political economic facts and trends about the world
reflect this same struggle to go through these changes toward reaching some equilibrium, balance or entropy/order. It still fascinates me to see how this is manifested, though again I admit I may always have this bias toward seeing it as 'spiritually driven' first and then manifested in the world second.

Although my Christian friends agree on the idea that the patriarchal rules in the Bible are the spiritual reason for many of these things, very few are okay with the idea of the stage of "Lilith" before there was "Eve" -- that the higher/unconscious reason for the patriarchal dominance was an attempt to balance out the matriarchal dominance from early stages.

Some of my friends really struggle with that. I hope the archaeological research helps to further that process. From what I understand, the artifacts at sites such as Catal Huyuk among the oldest civilizations found have uncovered written records of women passing property to their daughters, along with the fertility figures that point to matriarchal trends.

If you look at people spiritually first, before economically/politically for value, then you might see men and women equal where even if the roles are different (such as women doing internal work inside the home or inside huge companies organizing and multitasking behind the scenes, while men do the external work as protectorates and hard labor requiring greater physical strength and are more visible) this does not affect how you treat people. But if you go by what you see in the world as physically men are needed as leaders to fight wars against other invading forces, to protect the women and children, and you start valuing external visible roles in public, more than the personal internal roles where women excel in nurturing relationships with emotional intelligence (using both sides of the brain interchangeably while men's brains tend to use one side or the other), this bias combined with the other factors helps explain why that would take predominance.

 

[emilynghiem]

That part is somewhat counterintuitive, it seems to me, because religious leaders in primitive tribes were very often female. It would be interesting to try to determine how that trend went the other way later in history.

Hi WP: Yes, I am very curious about the change in trends. The sociological/economic explanations are just fascinating to me because I originally came to this from a general
spiritual perspective. But when I tried to align this perpective with the Bible, it became necessary to cite anthropological and archeological findings in order to back it up.
So now I am trying to reconcile both, but the resources people cite keep expanding in all directions, so there are more and more accounts to consider in the bigger picture!

What makes sense to me, where I can best align the trends in human history with even the stages depicted in the Bible:
1. First there is the matriarchal stage. In the Jewish Caballah there is Lilith before Eve, brought up equally from the dust as Adam. But Lilith dominated Adam (women dominated men) because women had more knowledge of spirituality and birth/life. So this led to imbalance and was wiped out by destruction. (even the Bible does not specify where the daughters of the earth came from that later sons of Adam and Eve coupled with)

2. Next there is the lineage of humanity with Adam and Eve, where Eve is derived subjugate to Adam spiritually, I believe as an attempt to offset any spiritual dominance of women over men by way of giving birth. This was supposed to make them equal (sort of like the idea in Taming of the Shrew, that women would be too powerful if they didn't submit to men to give them equal control, or however you want to say something along those lines) But biting into the apple of knowledge, and being manipulated by fear which Satan represents, this disrupts the harmony and balance; people have enough knowledge to be fearful of domination by others. So the pendulum swings the other way, where the patriarchal rule leads to oppression and abuse as a reaction against the dominance of women in the past. This is both conscious and unconscious, even if people are not aware of the spiritual drive or karma from the the past to the future. If they are aware, that can makes the reactions and backlash even worse, and adds to cycles of conflict and war.

By the letter of the law, laws on property and marriage are imposed to try to control assets, including women and children as heirs of the male side of the family. This is done through the church, where the literacy and leadership is based. This is reinforced by the class, political and economic structures that are built on this trend, which override or dominate over egalitarian systems that by nature are more passive, work by cooperation, and not based on bullying using greater force to dominate over the weaker party or class.
[other people contest this point, saying it was something to do with meat and agriculture changing economic values and less to do with personal control in family relationships]

Whether you see men as being physically stronger, and able to overpower women, or you see state politics as having military force and able to dominate over civil institutions, internally and externally, individually and collectively, we see analogous reflections of the same trend, for whatever reasons you want to cite for this.

3. Now where I see Jesus and the sacrifice of Christ in all this (whether this is a linear trend from female to male, or it is relative to different cultures and timelines not all representing the same trends in the same way) is to break the cycle of abuse and oppression, no matter if this is caused internally externally or both, by man or God.

By forgiveness of past injustice wrongs and conflicts, humanity can heal and restore just and peaceful working relations in good faith, on both the level of personal relations, and then institutions, and whole nations and societies on a collective scale.

And you could see Jesus as a male sacrifice as atoning for all the disproportionate suffering and genocide of women at the hands of men, if you want to take it that far.

The point is to have some centrally recognized atonement that can justify resolving all this mess or karma or sin and suffering in the world. So if Jesus is the messiah for all humanity, bringing salvation to all souls, then HE must represent the key to the process.

I equate Christ Jesus with the spirit of restorative justice, in which all wrongs are righted, all wounds are healed, and all damages made good by restitution to restore peace on earth. The idea of a sacrifice to end all sacrifices, to answer for all sins for all humanity over all time, transcends linear time and space, so this applies relatively to each relationship, each conflict, each instance individually or globally in need of redemption.

In Christ Jesus, the spirit of universal truth sets humanity free from past strife and division, where we are no longer divided by male or female, by class bond or free, or by affiliation whether Jew/churched tribes under divine laws or secular gentiles under natural laws.
We are given access to spiritual forgiveness and grace to overcome these things that separate us, and bring corrections to check and balance and prevent abuses in the future.

All these issues people have brought up here, are part of the spiritual and social conditioning we have, whatever the source or cause, which can either be used to divide or to overcome by awareness of where our biases come from, what information we have our neighbor does not, and how can we benefit from sharing our combined knowledge.

So very fascinating, thank you!