Part I is a must-read.
Excerpts follow.
“Men seeking their own security attempt to construct strong male-bonded alliances, typically based on patrilineal (agnatic) relationships … [Women] biologically reproduce the group, providing brothers and sons for this male alliance. The fraternity’s dependence on women … leads to the necessity for men to control them.” p2 [This socially constructed system of male security alliances is called by the authors the Patrilineal/Fraternal Syndrome.]
And there you have it: the explanation for male dominance over women.
And it begs the question, what do they need security from but each other?
“[And as the book demonstrates,] the search for security through a male-based fraternity that strongly subordinates women, pushed to its logical end, has serious and negative ramifications for the security, stability, resilience, prosperity, health, and happiness of the collective as well as negative security effects regionally and even internationally.” p3
“Gowaty continues, ‘The antithetical icon of autonomy for many women is rape …. The insight that violence against women is sexy (turns men on) provides a powerful proximate analysis that explains what many of us know in our guts—sexuality is the fulcrum of subordination/domination.” p13-4
“When individual men subordinate women in their household, they receive tangible and quite personal goods and services, including sexual services; services to maintain the household, such as water, fuel, and food gathering; elder care for the man’s parents; and bearing and rearing children.” p22
“The continual threat of violence, perpetrated almost exclusively by men, has indelibly shaped humankind.” p22
Read that one again.
And again.
“Such economic dependency and emotional vulnerability are purposely created to ensure women’s compliance.” p33
“[W]omen are the means whereby men reproduce themselves.” p41
“Think what it is to a boy, to grow up to manhood in the belief that without any merit or exertion of his own, … by the mere fact of being born a male he is by right the superior of all and every one of an entire half of the human race… People are little aware … how early the notion of his inherent superiority to a girl arises in his mind; how early the youth thinks himself superior to his mother, owing her perhaps forbearace, but no real respect …” John Stuart Mill p46-7
“[T]hose ‘in charge’—overwhelmingly men—are profoundly, and thus humiliatingly, dependent on those whoa re ‘not in charge’, that is, women. Ann Jones p47
“He wants her, but he loathes that he wants her and he hates her even more for not wanting him.” p47
“[W]ithin virtually all societies, it seems, women’s everyday physical insecurity is viewed as completely unremarkable” p95
I’m reminded of all the men so surprised we’d choose the bear (and surprised that we walk to our cars with our keys between our fingers). I mean, duh. Guys, get a clue.
“Even the ‘bro talk’ about ‘tits and asses’ that accompanies Wall Street financial circles shows how ‘the bonding … goes hand in hand with the objectification of the other sex.” p98
“A man’s honor lies between the legs of a woman.” p100
Yeah, whose bright idea was that?
“[T]he woman’s body is perceived not to belong to her, but to the group…” p102
And yet they abuse it, allow it less food, force it through multiple pregnancies, etc. Men are so fucking stupid. They probably don’t even know it’s their sperm that determines whether the women gives birth to a boy or a girl.
“[T]he ability to exclude fellow humans from our emotional in-group may well be the trait underlying much of what we call evil … Men first learn to practice such emotional exclusion on women.” p115
“[T]he degree of women’s access to political power in a society is predictive of the likelihood of that state engaging in interstate disputes and war.” p115
“[T]he typically high fertility rates of Syndrome societies, resulting from the repression of female family planning interests …” p116
In other words, overpopulation is caused by men. By rape.
Read that again.
“What evolution has produced in men, generally speaking, is a tendency ‘to seek power with an almost unbounded enthusiasm’ and to engage in ‘unprovoked aggression.’ Potts and Hayden observe that ‘male Homo sapiens … have an inherited predisposition to team up with kin—or perceived kin—and try to kill their neighbors.'” p117
“And yet, as [Sarah] Chayes points out, corruption may not so much undermine the government as to be the purpose of government. … ‘What if the Afghan government wasn’t really trying to govern? What if it was focused on another objective altogether? … If that government was actually a crime syndicate in disguise, the dearth of good people was no surprise. … That was the Afghan government, It was not incapable. It was performing its core function with admirable efficiency … Governing—the exercise that attracted so much international attention—was really just a front activity.'” p132-3
Sound familiar?
“Ironically, then, even though the Syndrome is designed to maximize resource access by men relative to women, overall prosperity, generally speaking, is typically lower in Syndome countries. … It is almost as if gendered relative gains are much more important (if the gains are for men) … ” p172
“‘A “full potential” scenario in which women participate in the economy identically to men would add up to $28 trillion, or 26 percent, to annual global GDP by 2025 compared with a business-as-usual scenario. This impact is roughly equivalent too the size of the combined Chinese and U.S. economies today.’ [McKinsey & Co.]” p172
“Apparently, discriminatory laws an dpractices concerning women’s property rights, land rights, inheritance rights, and access to capital must all be maintained even if greater prosperity for all is sacrificed as a result.” p173
We will subordinate you if it kills us.
And they say men are the logical ones.
The authors go on to show—nay, to prove—that subordinating women leads to
– less political stability
– a lower quality of governance
– less freedom of religion
– greater corruption
– more interest in acquiring, accessing, and importing weapons
– less wealth
– more economic inequality
– less food security
– and more …
“The subordination of women does not lead to a happy society for anyone, even men.” p294
They conclude that “The Syndrome matters, and it matters greatly.” p303
And “As [Rose] McDermott puts it, ‘If these findings were about something not related to women, chances are that they would be treated as revolutionary in international relations theory; indeed, the effects [of the Syndrome] are much stronger than those supporting the notion of the democratic peace that has spawned an entire cottage industry of inquiry.'” p308
(And whether the society was ‘Western’ or not was significant in only one model.)
“[N]othing will change until men change.” p373
And there isn’t enough time for that to happen.
Especially because “catastrophe”—like, oh, I don’t know, extreme heat, extreme storms, fires, flooding, destroyed housing, water shortages, and food shortages—”is likely to lead to greater subordination of women.” (p377)
