The other problems with patriarchy

First, there is the essential patriarchal assumption that what women have to say is emotional -- that what they say has no effective content. It is a particularly bizarre one from my point of view. Consider that if someone wants to have any sort of relationship with me and yet they believe that my words have no effective content, they're going to have a hardest time ever trying to do it.

There are many other 'paradoxes" of patriarchy. I believe the fundamental reason behind all patriarchal formulations of the world relate to the male's sense that his psyche has become split due to the forces of sexual attraction, which he considers to be a force actively exerted on his mind by women.

His solution to this sense of primeval splitting is to try to erase women's independent status whilst trying to make them a part of himself (through such tropes as "women as property" etc.). That way he feels he can regain the lost primal unity. The problem is that it doesn't work that way because the problem with the patriarch is inside his own biological constitution (i.e. he is troubled by having sexual desire, since he feels this compromises his sense of independence). Therefore no amount of blaming women and no degree of controlling women will 'restore' this sense of unity with himself, that never really existed in the first place.

Currently, in conservative circles, the Bettina Arndts of the world are saying that the solution to male problems is for women to become more sexual or to talk about their lack of sexuality in marriage. Meanwhile Kay Hymowitz is saying that the problem with men is that women are too sexual.

Neither of these "solutions", which are diametrically opposed, can solve the fundamental problem that males have -- which stems from the fact that women, being independent beings in their own right, cannot ever, in practical terms, be absolutely controlled by men.

The key point here is 'absolute control', since anything less than this cannot make men sufficiently happy as it will not 'restore' the primeval unity of the psyche that men seek -- and lacking for which, they blame women.


ADDENDUM


I don't think reproduction is the central issue. Rather, It has to do with men feeling incomplete because of the issue of sexuality which is a core part of their identities that nonetheless seems to be "outside" of them -- that is seeming to be controlled by women and their whims (simply because women now represent "emotion" in split mind of the patriarchal male). He gets very angry as a core part of his identity seems to be under the control of another, hence his misogyny.

Gia Harris: How does that relate to to being 'outside them'? I'm thinking why dont women have this issue? Our sexuality could be considered outside of us if we want a man but he says no. Why the huge issue for them? or is it just like a child throwing a tantrum screaming 'but its MINE I want it!' lol



I don't know, Gia, but it may have something to do with the way sedentary agrarian (quintessentially patriarchal) society developed. It seems like the concept of rationality also developed at the same time when adjusting one's environment in the face of hardship was no longer possible. Instead of adjusting one's environment in the face of difficulties (moving away), it became more practical to stay in one place and tend to the land. So, repressing one's awareness of the changing states of the environment enabled one to take a longer term perspective, which required putting aside one's immediate impulses or "feelings". I think that males took on this role in particular, adopting asceticism as a sign of higher status over women.

I think that as men became the guardians and leaders of this sort of society, where wealth was accrued more greatly than previously and where hierarchies developed, they began to identify themselves with "rationality". I think it was this that caused the primeval splitting, because they could no longer experience their emotions and feelings, including sexual impulses, as coming from within them. It must have seemed as if these sensations were coming from the outside, instead -- from "women". Males defined themselves by asceticism, presumably, at this stage of historical development. Only later did they engage in another stage of trying to reclaim their sexuality. By this stage, asceticism and psychological splitting had already become normalised as fundamental to the masculine sense of identity.