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The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longitudinal study

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longitudinal study

#21
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I seriously wonder if this is why we ended up with a patriarchal 'civilization'. Simply because so many women are silently traumatized. Men are also, in general, significantly stronger physically.

Patriarchal civilizations only began to outcompete non-patriarchal ones with the relatively recent advent of grain agriculture. There were many hundreds of thousands of years where men were stronger physically and patriarchy wasn't dominant (I mean that some civilizations were patriarchal and others were non-patriarchal).

Right, this rings a bell from an ancient civilizations class that I took decades ago. I wish that I remembered more from that class, but it's been so long. I guess it's time to crack open the text books that I kept.

Re: The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longitudinal study

#22
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I seriously wonder if this is why we ended up with a patriarchal 'civilization'. Simply because so many women are silently traumatized. Men are also, in general, significantly stronger physically.

Patriarchal civilizations only began to outcompete non-patriarchal ones with the relatively recent advent of grain agriculture. There were many hundreds of thousands of years where men were stronger physically and patriarchy wasn't dominant (I mean that some civilizations were patriarchal and others were non-patriarchal).

Always a fascinating Alt-History scenario to me: what if the patriarchal societies didn’t win out early on? How drastically different would history had become?

Re: The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longitudinal study

#23
post #15

I think I remember reading (maybe in the book WEIRD) that in Western societies, as the "rule of law" spread and as society became more individualistic overall, murders shifted from being between strangers or weak acquaintances (ie a dispute, a robbery, etc) to being intrafamily (ie killing a spouse, parent, etc). Ie 200 years ago, it was unheard of, but now most murders are like that. Abuse might be different, I coul…

Isn't intrafamily killing more or less a staple of ancient literature? Cain/Abel, Romulus/Remus, Clytemnestra/Agamemnon, etc. There is quite a high local murder rate at the moment, but most of that seems to result from drug-business disputes, or simply the availability of firearms to settle neighborhood disputes.

Under Roman law, the paterfamilias (i.e., the eldest adult male of the extended family) had the right to kill any other family member, at his pleasure. He could also control who (or even if) they married, sell them into slavery, etc.

Re: The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longitudinal study

#24
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I seriously wonder if this is why we ended up with a patriarchal 'civilization'. Simply because so many women are silently traumatized. Men are also, in general, significantly stronger physically.

Patriarchal civilizations only began to outcompete non-patriarchal ones with the relatively recent advent of grain agriculture. There were many hundreds of thousands of years where men were stronger physically and patriarchy wasn't dominant (I mean that some civilizations were patriarchal and others were non-patriarchal).

[deleted]

Re: The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longitudinal study

#26
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't intrafamily killing more or less a staple of ancient literature? Cain/Abel, Romulus/Remus, Clytemnestra/Agamemnon, etc. There is quite a high local murder rate at the moment, but most of that seems to result from drug-business disputes, or simply the availability of firearms to settle neighborhood disputes.

Under Roman law, the paterfamilias (i.e., the eldest adult male of the extended family) had the right to kill any other family member, at his pleasure. He could also control who (or even if) they married, sell them into slavery, etc.

"Over time, the absolute authority of the pater familias weakened, and rights that theoretically existed were no longer enforced or insisted upon. The power over life and death was abolished, the right of punishment was moderated and the sale of children was restricted to cases of extreme necessity. Under Emperor Hadrian, a father who killed his son was stripped of both his citizenship and all its attendant rights, had his property confiscated and was permanently exiled."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pater_familias

Re: The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longitudinal study

#28
I find this to be the most telling stat:

"In a few cases (N So roughly 5% (<5 of 84) of the control group were discovered to have themselves been abused and needed to be dropped from the study. I was once in a law lecture on medical ethics. We were discussing genetic testing of newborns and how this could detect incest/abuse. A medical doctor in the class was dead against such testing. In his experience, amongst pregnant teenagers (17 and younger) about 10% were pregnant by their own fathers/brothers. His opinion was that our society is not ready to deal with this, that such abuse is far more common than anyone is willing to admit. He actually said: You better build some more prisons before you start testing babies for this. The OP study seems in line with his numbers.

Re: The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longitudinal study

#29

I think I remember reading (maybe in the book WEIRD) that in Western societies, as the "rule of law" spread and as society became more individualistic overall, murders shifted from being between strangers or weak acquaintances (ie a dispute, a robbery, etc) to being intrafamily (ie killing a spouse, parent, etc). Ie 200 years ago, it was unheard of, but now most murders are like that. Abuse might be different, I coul…

> 200 years ago, it was unheard of That doesn't mean it didn't happen - I assume it happened more in the past and just almost never reported.

Also, during this period, the population moved from rural dwellings to cities, where there are (usually) more jobs and more written rules and policing.

But note that in the period in question, the human population has increased by a factor of 7.[0]

The population of the planet has more than doubled since 1970.[0]

More people in cities. And more voices, more disagreements, and more misfortunes to report.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Past_populati...

Re: The impact of sexual abuse on female development: a longitudinal study

#30

I find this to be the most telling stat: "In a few cases (N So roughly 5% (<5 of 84) of the control group were discovered to have themselves been abused and needed to be dropped from the study. I was once in a law lecture on medical ethics. We were discussing genetic testing of newborns and how this could detect incest/abuse. A medical doctor in the class was dead against such testing. In his experience, amongst preg…

That whole comment was chilling AF
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