Why Gender Inequality Exists; What Conservatives Don't Want You to Know!

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The True Reason For Women's Oppression

(hint, it's not biological)

With the current Republican, 'War on Women' being waged, this article seems timely. Often you will hear, amongst the many right-wing advocates, the need for a return to, traditional, values; almost always patriarchal in nature.
They often argue that the inferiority of women arises out of the biological dictations of nature. However, there is no evidence of this, when we explore the earliest signs of women's oppression in ancient society.

In fact, the patriarchal society arises out of an ideology and a class system. Ultimately women's oppression became a natural form of societies following the patriarchal function (note: form follows function).

Women's oppression began when ancient societies shifted from horticulture (a communal based method of farming) to agriculture (which became a more individual based system of farming). The important thing to note here, is the shift from communal property, towards individual property. And by property, I do not mean that private property did not exist in horticultural societies (because it did), but rather, the private ownership over the major sources of production (primarily food production).

I think it's high time we began bringing back the classics. I strongly suggest everyone read Friedrich Engels'  The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. A sample of the preface by Pat Brewer is included below,

The shift into intensive agriculture both for food and secondary products became increasingly important. Men abandoned hunting and were absorbed into the new tasks in agriculture and herding.
This shift was also characterised by social and economic divisions which were much more significant than previously — divisions of wealth and poverty as well as land ownership.
Ehrenberg outlines five significant factors and implications of this shift.7
1. Once large-scale herding was established then cattle-raiding as a variation of hunting developed. This was the origin of warfare. For the first time there existed ownership of a resource which was both worthwhile stealing and easy to steal.
2. Individual plough agriculture heralded the shift in gender control of farming. Men controlled the agriculture and herding and women spent more time in food preparation, making craft products like textiles and child rearing.
3. Although less land was need for the same amount of production than horticulture, plough agriculture is far more labour intensive especially where the land is of poor fertility and the question of population growth pressured the most arable land available. Therefore women need to produce more children for more workers and this would put more emphasis on what was seen as their major role. This would also lead to greater value beginning to be put on male children as women withdrew from farming activities and contributed less to the daily production of food which had been their major role and the basis of their equal social status.
4. This had implications for the social organisation of communities and a shift from matrilinial and matrilocal organisation to patrilineal and patrilocal organisation which laid the basis for the replacement of the clan system by individual and husband-headed family units. Male farmers and herders would teach their sons the necessary skills and techniques in the process of intensive farming. This would pressure the inheritance through sisters’ sons of the matrilineal system. In women-dominated horticulture, women teach their daughters who stay with them so inheritance is not a problem. In horticulture property is communally owned and less tools and equipment is needed therefore there is less at stake in inheritance. The dominance of men in production of food and secondary products becomes a source of contradiction to matrilineal and
matrilocal systems of social organisation. Pressure builds up on communal ownership when communal methods of collective labour are broken down by the more individual labour of men in plough farming and herding.
5. Large increases in related tasks and the growth in the range of material possessions through intensive farming and food preparations over time leads to craft specialisation and exchange. In the first instance these were part of the normal range of settlements but given the time and energy involved and the growth of food surpluses, specialisation and exchange occurred, increasing the division of labour.
Trade and commodity exchange were mainly carried out by men on behalf of the household or clan. Increasingly this would put pressure on them to subsume the products of their own agricultural work with the products of the household and would add to the tendency to shift to individual ownership and control over all products.
Material possessions and inheritance led to accumulation generationally which increased wealth and social hierarchy of class, status and power. The wealthy became powerful by lending to poorer clan families who in return gave services such as labour or combat duties. The divide between wealthy and poor widened with the poor becoming more indebted and having less time to spend in the production of their own subsistence. This context sets the framework where people as well as products, animals, goods and land become objects of value for exchange. In this context children or women could be given for labour or reproduction to pay off obligations incurred by the poor.

So while Engels’ theory has had some of its assumptions shaken by the expansion of evidence available today, the overall thesis of a social explanation of the oppression and exclusion of women stands the test of time and evidence well.
A Marxist explanation of the social development of private property and the oppression of women makes sense of the data. There is no evidence to back up biological determinist theories, nor do they rely on evidence. Such theories are ideological, given credence in order to distort, undermine and discourage attempts to eliminate gender inequalities.
It is extremely useful for anyone who is committed to the elimination of gender and class inequality to understand the social basis for such inequality. Engels’ classic work is essential in developing such an understanding. It helps show us the way to advance today’s struggles and move ahead to the liberation of women and society.

It's funny to think but, after reading this, you can't help but just see this theory emphasized and reenforced in just about every traditional social, religious, economic, way of living.

Until then, do all you can to share this book with as many people as you can.