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Deep-seated attitudes to women have roots in ancient agriculture

economist.com

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Re: Deep-seated attitudes to women have roots in ancient agriculture

#51

Post by voxfrege »

stygianguest wrote: post #26
zeteo wrote: post #25

>The plough was heavier [...] it gave men an advantage over women. [...] Women descended from plough-users are less likely to work outside the home, to be elected to parliament or to run businesses And this is why North European countries, which used the heaviest plows [1], are the most backward in their treatment of women. Oh wait... In any case, as anyone who has had a serious conversation with a farmer can attest,…

Also interesting is their assertion that society first changes very quickly after the introduction of the plow, but then has very long lasting effects. Why did the first change quickly but the second have long lasting effects?

That, exactly, was my thought also.

Re: Deep-seated attitudes to women have roots in ancient agriculture

#52

Post by redwood »

It's worth noting that at the same time, with the rise of agriculture came the rise of property and with it --- the rise of ownership of not just the here and now, but also the future... who will own the land in the future?

The focus on thr future ownership gave rise to the focus in single inheritance: a son. And tbe importance of knowing whose son was your's. To ensure lineage men suppressed women as an extension if their property.

Now both theories are complimentary because the reason sons (not daughters) became the targtarget for inheritance probably boiled down to these same issues of strength.

The key change thwt occured is we became more monogomous and suppressive of women even though it was not a natural way to be, to preserve property after death.

Source: "Sex at Dawn", an interesting read on post-religiously framed anthropology

Re: Deep-seated attitudes to women have roots in ancient agriculture

#53

Post by hackinthebochs »

zeteo wrote: post #45
mseebach wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hoeing to ploughing is a discontinuous function. Either you scratch the ground with your hoe or you plough it. There is no middle ground where your hoe gradually gets heavier and turn into a plough.

Again, weight of farm tools is a naturally continuous variable. There are heavy hoes, light plows and lots of ground in between [1] [2]. Transforming weight into a binary variable with an arbitrary separation point is not sound statistical practice. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattock [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ard_(plough)

>Transforming weight into a binary variable with an arbitrary separation point is not sound statistical practice

But the separation is not arbitrary. "Light enough to wield by women" is the important statistic here, so the value in question is binary by nature. Weight in isolation simply isn't what is being considered here.

Re: Deep-seated attitudes to women have roots in ancient agriculture

#54

Post by hackinthebochs »

stygianguest wrote: post #26
zeteo wrote: post #25

>The plough was heavier [...] it gave men an advantage over women. [...] Women descended from plough-users are less likely to work outside the home, to be elected to parliament or to run businesses And this is why North European countries, which used the heaviest plows [1], are the most backward in their treatment of women. Oh wait... In any case, as anyone who has had a serious conversation with a farmer can attest,…

Also interesting is their assertion that society first changes very quickly after the introduction of the plow, but then has very long lasting effects. Why did the first change quickly but the second have long lasting effects?

I don't understand your critique. Can you explain it more?

Re: Deep-seated attitudes to women have roots in ancient agriculture

#55

Post by mseebach »

Spooky23 wrote: post #41

I think the explanation here is much simpler that it needs to be. Pre-agriculture, everyone's job #1 was getting food on the table. Post-agriculture, you had a surplus of food, so people began to specialize. Economic and market forces started to become more sophisticated, as people were secure enough that daily survival wasn't an issue. So economically speaking, before the advent of modern farm machinery, what did a…

It's definitely a case of specialisation, but your explanation doesn't address the correlation between the ancient methods of agriculture and current day labour force participation that the study does:

But in countries like Rwanda, Botswana, Madagascar or Kenya, whose people are predominantly descended from hoe-users, women are far more likely to be in the labour force than those in historically plough-using places like India, Syria or Egypt.

Re: Deep-seated attitudes to women have roots in ancient agriculture

#56

Post by scott_s »

dspeyer wrote: post #36
jostmey wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything the invention of farming may have lead to less violence and greater equality. This was a period of time when humanity transitioned from the Hunter to the Farmer. Farming promoted development. It did not hold it back.

Isn't it pretty well established that farming led to an increase in violence? Thinking in terms of "development" is generally a bad approach. History doesn't have levels. Using generic terms like that implicitly assumes all sorts of correlations that don't actually exist.

Isn't it pretty well established that farming led to an increase in violence?

Not that I'm aware of. My understanding is that agricultural societies were less violent. As I understand it, when humans are in hunter-gathering societies, we are more territorial and less accepting of those outside of our tribe. (On the order of 50 people.) I'd like to know if that understanding is wrong.

What I do know is that we have gotten much less violent over time. The 20th century, even with all of its wars, was still much less violent than all previous centuries.

Re: Deep-seated attitudes to women have roots in ancient agriculture

#57

Post by comrade_ogilvy »

scott_s wrote: post #56
dspeyer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it pretty well established that farming led to an increase in violence? Thinking in terms of "development" is generally a bad approach. History doesn't have levels. Using generic terms like that implicitly assumes all sorts of correlations that don't actually exist.

Isn't it pretty well established that farming led to an increase in violence? Not that I'm aware of. My understanding is that agricultural societies were less violent. As I understand it, when humans are in hunter-gathering societies, we are more territorial and less accepting of those outside of our tribe. (On the order of 50 people.) I'd like to know if that understanding is wrong. What I do know is that we have go…

I would suggest there are two related factors here.

Before significant agriculture some amount of warfare was simply a part of life as usual. This scenario suggests martial competence is fairly ubiquitous, and thus dominating enemies without paying a high cost in blood is difficult (e.g. you might need great political skills to stitch together a powerful local coalition).

However once significant cities were established, being skilled at warfare was potentially very lucrative. This means a soldier specialist may be a very rewarding career.

Is it really the plough itself, or that the larger cities the plough helped create were a big incentive for professional soldiers to become the ruling class?

Re: Deep-seated attitudes to women have roots in ancient agriculture

#58

Post by s_baby »

zeteo wrote: post #25

>The plough was heavier [...] it gave men an advantage over women. [...] Women descended from plough-users are less likely to work outside the home, to be elected to parliament or to run businesses And this is why North European countries, which used the heaviest plows [1], are the most backward in their treatment of women. Oh wait... In any case, as anyone who has had a serious conversation with a farmer can attest,…

A) That's a straw man argument. North European countries are no longer agrarian societies. Compare pre-enlightenment northern europe to their counterparts and you'll have a more honest comparison.

B) The separation of work due to existential needs was not sexist. It's just the initial condition that created the asymmetry in gender roles. That's to say a more agrarian society isn't necessarily more sexist than a less agrarian one. It's all the other factors that mold this asymmetry.

Re: Deep-seated attitudes to women have roots in ancient agriculture

#59

Post by s_baby »

Spooky23 wrote: post #41

I think the explanation here is much simpler that it needs to be. Pre-agriculture, everyone's job #1 was getting food on the table. Post-agriculture, you had a surplus of food, so people began to specialize. Economic and market forces started to become more sophisticated, as people were secure enough that daily survival wasn't an issue. So economically speaking, before the advent of modern farm machinery, what did a…

This "historians" theory is a version of anthropology. Except it's missing one key piece. The orthodoxy holds that heavy plows and other strenuous activity leads to miscarriage. People can call all the other evidence as speculative but this assertion is much harder to dismiss.

Re: Deep-seated attitudes to women have roots in ancient agriculture

#60

Post by s_baby »

bitwize wrote: post #29

Plows were usually drawn by animals, not people. If this hypothesis holds, horses and oxen should have even higher status than men. This is all an exercise in intellectual wankery that reminds me of the bit in Cryptonomicon where Randy's girlfriend publishes a paper correlating Unix beards with female oppression. Oh, and by the way, 'twas Margaret Mead -- a woman and hardly an apologist for the patriarchy -- who put…

You must not remember the story of the golden calf. There are plenty examples of worshiping domesticated animals.
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