Agree totally, TC. I have no use for religious fundamentalists no matter what religion they follow. They are responsible for the bad rep that all religions have.
Agree totally, TC. I have no use for religious fundamentalists no matter what religion they follow. They are responsible for the bad rep that all religions have.
The problem is that the three "great religions" in the world are steeped in patriarchy and tragically, in misogyny. It is only partially a fundamentalist issue. Religions deserve a bad rep - they deny science, and let's face it, believing in an invisible being who, like Santa Claus, punishes you for being bad and rewards you with heaven after you die if you behave yourself, is pretty damn ridiculous.
I would say it is more than three. Most societies are patriarchal. It would save us a lot of problems if they were matriarchal. After all, everyone knows who mom is and we wouldn't have to keep women under lock and key to make sure that so that we know who the father is. I would say that fundamentalism makes the problems much worse.
Last year I spent my summer reading about misogyny, and its roots go back to before the time of Herodotus. One theory says it's because of the fear of women's ability to have babies, but men's sexual desire seems to have played a greater role. From fear comes hatred, and from fear and hatred comes the need to control. Women's sexuality also plays a part, and the double standard that makes men "studs" and women "whores," "sluts," etc. All 3 Abrahamic faiths teach that women must be controlled lest they corrupt the virtues of men. This is why calling a woman a whore is to insult all women.
I would say men's sexual desire is what it is all about....blame women for male lust. That's why in some cultures they have to cover up completely. In so-called democratic Athens, women were never considered adults and had to be under the control of some man. That's why men did the shopping and women were kept mostly confined to the house unseen. In autocratic Sparta, women actually had more freedom because they had to run the estates because males were in the barracks from seven on. Frankly, the people who ran the religious places knew that women would keep men from thinking about God. So, go to the desert and sit on the pillar and what do you think those guys were actually thinking about. Btw, have you read God, An Anatomy and if so, how did you find it.
Our closest primate relatives are chimps (patriarchal) and bonobos(matriarchal). Part of it has been controlling who has access to a woman because in most societies, land and estate has passed through men. So a male would want to make sure his sons were his and not some stray male. This is probably only part of the story.
I've been seeking out your comments. I don't find your comments beyond the pale. This subset of comments find you in good company. Please don't leave us. Take a break. Listen to the breeze. Take a deep breath and dive back in. Telling us what you think is important for us. Not because you're superior or always right but because the earth is small and we need everyone to succeed. Peace
Thank you very, very much for your kind comment. I paid for another month :) I don't mind criticism but it hurts when people butt in to "support" someone who disagrees with me, and it just gets mean. Last time one of the commenters told others to block me. There were five or six women defending a male commenter who used a famous quote to call MTG a "whore." I absolutely do not tolerate that; it's as vile as calling a Black person the "N word." I felt very disappointed that these commenters thought it was funny. We can hate MTG but we don't use the word "whore" to denigrate anyone. Sexuality-based insults against women have plagued us since biblical times.
You're welcome. Civility is important. People are very frustrated and scared. Sometimes they react with disrespectful language. We must all think carefully before we post. We are all still learning about communicating in a media that doesn't include all the nuance of communicating face to face. I agree calling any woman a "whore" or a man a "whore" for that matter should be avoided.
Right (only part of the story). Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were largely polyamorous, and more like bonobos than chimps. That's why males have such effin crazy levels of libido. Here's an example of the level of libido:
In 11th grade, I loved my English teacher, a middle aged woman who had a good understanding of teenaged boys, and I loved the class she taught. But on this particular spring day, my libido was making it impossible for me to pay attention, much as I tried. It was driving me crazy. So at the end of the class I did something I'd never done before. Heretofore, I'd restricted doing "homework," the word for an activity that one vastly prefers to do with someone of the gender one is attracted to, when when has to do it by oneself, to my room or the bathroom at home. But now I made a beeline for the bathroom at school, hoping against hope that there'd be noone else there. There wasn't, at first, but then there was, and I stopped what I was doing and froze until they left. Then I resumed.
The reason polyamory gave rise to this level of libido is that instead of males competing with one-another for females, the competition was happening at the level of the sperm. A guy had to produce a hell of a lot of sperm, and had to keep it coming if he was to have offspring in the next generation. And the theory is that the mushroom cap of the penis evolved to pull the previous guy's sperm out of the vaginal tract. Human penises and testicles are among the very biggest in the primates. Truly monogamous male primates have tiny little penises and do it once a year. See: Sex at Dawn, by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha.
I have great sympathy for men in that regard. Women can hide it all away once they mature. Men must sing little songs or focus on something else. Please know that women love men and enjoy all your talents. But as the transgender conversation brings up and makes us cringe, men can attack, have attacked to satisfy this biological imperative. That behavior has caused male family members to be protective. It has also caused them to attack their own. Until men grapple and control this part of their biological imperative, women will be on guard.
Ms.Dufour, I wasn't looking for sympathy, I was simply stating facts. I'm also a couple of decades beyond the times when desire could drive me crazy. I do blame the men who attack, or otherwise harass women for putting them on guard--which is a perfectly reasonable reaction. I do not blame the women for that. I have a sister, an adult niece, a niece in-law, and some close female cousins, and multiple close friends who are women, and their comfort and security is very important to me.
I tell my own story, and recount the science from the book because I think it's useful to know this stuff, and because I have a powerful intellectual interest in sex. Partly because of that, I was also a research subject in this study, which involved a lot of self stimulation while in an MRI, including to big O (very difficult in MRI): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1743609519318661
I think men have always been allowed to express their sexuality and take pride in it, unlike women. Women, from the time of the Bible, were made responsible for men's sexual behavior, which includes rape and incest. And the wealthier the man, the less they were held responsible. Look at Trump; Lucian Truscott IV recently wrote a great piece about Trump as Rapist. You can find it here on substack. It was also published 2 days ago in Salon.com.
Read, actually I listened to it, twice, Graeber and Wengrow's "The Dawn of Everything." It successfully vexes the notion that widespread patriarchy is any older than 3,000-ish years old, in the context of a 190,000 year-long human history.
I cannot recommend the audio version enough. Your library almost certainly has it via the CloudLibrary.
I have it in my library and I have read it. What we have now falls within the 3 to 5 thousand range or so. I haven't decided what I think of the book yet. We are talking in this thread about the three monotheistic religions and I would include India and China among others civilizations as patriarchal. Most societies in the historical era are patriarchal. Some African societies are matriarchal and I think if I am remembering the book you mention correctly that some Native American societies are as well. It makes sense because you always know who the mother is. As soon as societies are patriarchal, then control of women is necessary if land and estate passes through males. You don't want you patrimony going to someone else's blood.
I read somewhere not long ago that evangelicals, or some of them at least, actually believe that there is a battle, invisible and (I suppose) otherwise undetectable by us mortals (but then, how do THEY know?) literally being raged right now, on some other plane of existence, between God and its angels and Satan and its demons. How can one have an intelligent conversation with someone with such a diseased imagining? I can't remember where I read it, so can't provide a citation, and I really don't want to get into the weeds of evangelicism to search it out, because EW. I suppose I have to acknowledge that in an infinite Universe there COULD be a god, there COULD be a satan, there COULD be angels, demons, and other dimensions on which battles could be fought (I love science fiction and fantasy), but REALLY. And if I've misunderstood their belief and have misstated it, I apologize to the evangelical community.
I think I need to amend this to read that I'd heard this on a podcast, not read it somewhere. If I can find a citatation, I'll post it.
Agree totally, TC. I have no use for religious fundamentalists no matter what religion they follow. They are responsible for the bad rep that all religions have.
The problem is that the three "great religions" in the world are steeped in patriarchy and tragically, in misogyny. It is only partially a fundamentalist issue. Religions deserve a bad rep - they deny science, and let's face it, believing in an invisible being who, like Santa Claus, punishes you for being bad and rewards you with heaven after you die if you behave yourself, is pretty damn ridiculous.
I would say it is more than three. Most societies are patriarchal. It would save us a lot of problems if they were matriarchal. After all, everyone knows who mom is and we wouldn't have to keep women under lock and key to make sure that so that we know who the father is. I would say that fundamentalism makes the problems much worse.
Last year I spent my summer reading about misogyny, and its roots go back to before the time of Herodotus. One theory says it's because of the fear of women's ability to have babies, but men's sexual desire seems to have played a greater role. From fear comes hatred, and from fear and hatred comes the need to control. Women's sexuality also plays a part, and the double standard that makes men "studs" and women "whores," "sluts," etc. All 3 Abrahamic faiths teach that women must be controlled lest they corrupt the virtues of men. This is why calling a woman a whore is to insult all women.
I would say men's sexual desire is what it is all about....blame women for male lust. That's why in some cultures they have to cover up completely. In so-called democratic Athens, women were never considered adults and had to be under the control of some man. That's why men did the shopping and women were kept mostly confined to the house unseen. In autocratic Sparta, women actually had more freedom because they had to run the estates because males were in the barracks from seven on. Frankly, the people who ran the religious places knew that women would keep men from thinking about God. So, go to the desert and sit on the pillar and what do you think those guys were actually thinking about. Btw, have you read God, An Anatomy and if so, how did you find it.
If men want truly to be loved by women, they have to give up control. I don't know why so many men through history have not figured that out.
Our closest primate relatives are chimps (patriarchal) and bonobos(matriarchal). Part of it has been controlling who has access to a woman because in most societies, land and estate has passed through men. So a male would want to make sure his sons were his and not some stray male. This is probably only part of the story.
It was a very significant part of Islam. Inheritance of land and money required a system of inheritance laws.
I've been seeking out your comments. I don't find your comments beyond the pale. This subset of comments find you in good company. Please don't leave us. Take a break. Listen to the breeze. Take a deep breath and dive back in. Telling us what you think is important for us. Not because you're superior or always right but because the earth is small and we need everyone to succeed. Peace
Thank you very, very much for your kind comment. I paid for another month :) I don't mind criticism but it hurts when people butt in to "support" someone who disagrees with me, and it just gets mean. Last time one of the commenters told others to block me. There were five or six women defending a male commenter who used a famous quote to call MTG a "whore." I absolutely do not tolerate that; it's as vile as calling a Black person the "N word." I felt very disappointed that these commenters thought it was funny. We can hate MTG but we don't use the word "whore" to denigrate anyone. Sexuality-based insults against women have plagued us since biblical times.
You're welcome. Civility is important. People are very frustrated and scared. Sometimes they react with disrespectful language. We must all think carefully before we post. We are all still learning about communicating in a media that doesn't include all the nuance of communicating face to face. I agree calling any woman a "whore" or a man a "whore" for that matter should be avoided.
Right (only part of the story). Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were largely polyamorous, and more like bonobos than chimps. That's why males have such effin crazy levels of libido. Here's an example of the level of libido:
In 11th grade, I loved my English teacher, a middle aged woman who had a good understanding of teenaged boys, and I loved the class she taught. But on this particular spring day, my libido was making it impossible for me to pay attention, much as I tried. It was driving me crazy. So at the end of the class I did something I'd never done before. Heretofore, I'd restricted doing "homework," the word for an activity that one vastly prefers to do with someone of the gender one is attracted to, when when has to do it by oneself, to my room or the bathroom at home. But now I made a beeline for the bathroom at school, hoping against hope that there'd be noone else there. There wasn't, at first, but then there was, and I stopped what I was doing and froze until they left. Then I resumed.
The reason polyamory gave rise to this level of libido is that instead of males competing with one-another for females, the competition was happening at the level of the sperm. A guy had to produce a hell of a lot of sperm, and had to keep it coming if he was to have offspring in the next generation. And the theory is that the mushroom cap of the penis evolved to pull the previous guy's sperm out of the vaginal tract. Human penises and testicles are among the very biggest in the primates. Truly monogamous male primates have tiny little penises and do it once a year. See: Sex at Dawn, by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha.
I have great sympathy for men in that regard. Women can hide it all away once they mature. Men must sing little songs or focus on something else. Please know that women love men and enjoy all your talents. But as the transgender conversation brings up and makes us cringe, men can attack, have attacked to satisfy this biological imperative. That behavior has caused male family members to be protective. It has also caused them to attack their own. Until men grapple and control this part of their biological imperative, women will be on guard.
Ms.Dufour, I wasn't looking for sympathy, I was simply stating facts. I'm also a couple of decades beyond the times when desire could drive me crazy. I do blame the men who attack, or otherwise harass women for putting them on guard--which is a perfectly reasonable reaction. I do not blame the women for that. I have a sister, an adult niece, a niece in-law, and some close female cousins, and multiple close friends who are women, and their comfort and security is very important to me.
I tell my own story, and recount the science from the book because I think it's useful to know this stuff, and because I have a powerful intellectual interest in sex. Partly because of that, I was also a research subject in this study, which involved a lot of self stimulation while in an MRI, including to big O (very difficult in MRI): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1743609519318661
No, I haven't read it, but I certainly will.
I think men have always been allowed to express their sexuality and take pride in it, unlike women. Women, from the time of the Bible, were made responsible for men's sexual behavior, which includes rape and incest. And the wealthier the man, the less they were held responsible. Look at Trump; Lucian Truscott IV recently wrote a great piece about Trump as Rapist. You can find it here on substack. It was also published 2 days ago in Salon.com.
https://www.salon.com/2023/07/22/the-big-why-whats-behind-donald-trumps-apparent-self-sabotage/
Dear Gus. I knew he was horrible, but seeing it allcollected in one place demonstrates TheRump is barely human!
Read, actually I listened to it, twice, Graeber and Wengrow's "The Dawn of Everything." It successfully vexes the notion that widespread patriarchy is any older than 3,000-ish years old, in the context of a 190,000 year-long human history.
I cannot recommend the audio version enough. Your library almost certainly has it via the CloudLibrary.
I have it in my library and I have read it. What we have now falls within the 3 to 5 thousand range or so. I haven't decided what I think of the book yet. We are talking in this thread about the three monotheistic religions and I would include India and China among others civilizations as patriarchal. Most societies in the historical era are patriarchal. Some African societies are matriarchal and I think if I am remembering the book you mention correctly that some Native American societies are as well. It makes sense because you always know who the mother is. As soon as societies are patriarchal, then control of women is necessary if land and estate passes through males. You don't want you patrimony going to someone else's blood.
I read somewhere not long ago that evangelicals, or some of them at least, actually believe that there is a battle, invisible and (I suppose) otherwise undetectable by us mortals (but then, how do THEY know?) literally being raged right now, on some other plane of existence, between God and its angels and Satan and its demons. How can one have an intelligent conversation with someone with such a diseased imagining? I can't remember where I read it, so can't provide a citation, and I really don't want to get into the weeds of evangelicism to search it out, because EW. I suppose I have to acknowledge that in an infinite Universe there COULD be a god, there COULD be a satan, there COULD be angels, demons, and other dimensions on which battles could be fought (I love science fiction and fantasy), but REALLY. And if I've misunderstood their belief and have misstated it, I apologize to the evangelical community.
I think I need to amend this to read that I'd heard this on a podcast, not read it somewhere. If I can find a citatation, I'll post it.
Spot on, Marycat.