According to Marxist Historical Materialism, humans were relatively egalitarian in prehistoric times. In the neolithic times, agriculture( farming, herding) created a surplus and in guarding that surplus classes developed which led to gender oppression with continues to this day. According to this guy steven goldberg patriarchy is a central innate element of humanity due to testosterone or whatever. How do we as Marxists respond to theories like this?

  • DankZedong
    18·
    4 years ago

    As someone who studies behavior I’d love to see his sources and I’ll look for them later. I suspect it will be Man Strong, Woman Weak ungabunga tho.

    I don’t have the sources right now but for a very long time we as a spieces were quite an equal, maternal society as working together regardless of gender has the greatest effect on advancing (spoiler, this is a communist idea). Only when we got more free time, the men started working more and the wonen working less. Here is when the oppression comes in. Ages of oppression forced women to lack behind in college and jobs because, as it turns out, if you don’t go to college or have a job you will not advance.

    Studies show that women do not lack behind when they do similar classes or jobs as man.

    If you look at socialist states and their equality rights you’ll notice a great influx of wonen in education and jobs throughout the entire society, similar to men. You’d think that if women really were stupid, they’d fall behind when given the opportunity but no.

    Men and women are intellectually similar. To claim otherwise means you are defending a class based system based on oppression.

    Again I don’t have sources right now but you can find them online if you want.

    • DankZedong
      12·
      4 years ago

      A (simplified) Marxist view on this would be the following:

      For a long time societies were presumably egalitarian. Patriarchy started to form when private property became more common, mainly during the development of agriculture. Men, who originally controlled most of the private property, were seeking to pass on their property. As history shows, the logical thing to do would be to pass it on to your own children.

      In order to have the biggest chance of passing it to your offspring, your partner would have to remain loyal to you. Meaning, you would need to be in a monogamous relationship with a woman. It also goes the other way, where the woman needs to be with you only. The biggest chance of passing your property to your own is to be with one woman and to make sure her kids are yours only.

      Here’s where oppression kicks in. In order to not have ‘your’ woman produce offspring with other men, you want to dictate her life. The best thing to do, as we see in all oppressed classes around the world, is to strip away her rights and privileges. In a world where property and richdom dictates status, with which comes the chances to reproduce, you’d want to prevent a woman from having an equal chance. After all, if your wife has the opportunity to accumulate her own property, what does she needs you for? So the best thing to do is to have women take care of your property and your kids while you go out to expand said property.

      If you fast forward this way of thinking for a few ages, societal roles start to emerge. It will be expected of women to not seek career advancement and education. If nobody questions why this is, people assume it is ‘natural’.

      There is nothing natural about this division. Studies show that men and women perform equally in college (with some studies even saying women perform better lol) and in similar jobs. In socialistic societies, where private property is gone (oversimplified take I know), it would make no sense to not have women participate on the same level as men. Marxist theory is inherently feminist. You can’t have class abolition and forget the women. Like I said, socialist states before us showed this, with raising living standards for women to be equal to men.

      As Mao said: ‘Women hold up half the sky’

      Theory on this includes, but is not limited to, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and The State by Engels; Woman, Race and Class by Angela Davis.

      • j proleOP
        8·
        4 years ago

        Marxist theory is inherently feminist.

        Absolutely! Dialectical Materalism is the philosophy and the outlook of the oppressed!

    • j proleOP
      4·
      4 years ago

      Studies show that women do not lack behind when they do similar classes or jobs as man.

      I’m actually reading a book called Brainstorm by Rebecca Jordan Young which flawlessly debunks many gender essentialist theories.

  • Max
    14·
    4 years ago

    How does he respond to societies that didn’t have patriarchy as a central element—which we (at least at this point) seem to have extensive anthropological evidence for? Seems like that’s the end of it—unless he just does a huge amount of crude historical revisionism, I do not know how you could possibly make his argument with a straight face. The eternal patriarchy is definitely a common appeal to nature in 2022, but not an intellectual position anyone who is taken seriously consciously holds.

  • T34 [they/them]
    2·
    4 years ago

    According to this guy, the pavement is a universal innate element of Steven Goldberg’s head.