But then you have to think in terms of other “isms” and “archies” at what point are any of them dead? What unit of measurement do we use? What metric has to drop to zero before something is dead? We've yet to resolve at what exact point humans are dead, or at what point they come alive. The measures we pick are somewhat arbitrary.
If a single practitioner of patriarchy still exists should we say that patriarchy still lives? What if it can be shown that at some point in the future no such people will exist? Can we not say that for all practical purposes it is dead?
Racism has been dying in America for many years. It seem inconceivable that we would backtrack on those changes. But at what point beyond “irreversible” can we all sort of relax and let the rest happen “organically”.
I ask this because I notice that in all social movements there is an almost inevitable backlash. The nature of the backlash is that the more you push against it, the more it tries to push back. Furthermore, as the backlash grows weaker at some point unpleasant things can happen. The group still practicing the what the majority considers to be “undesirable” behavior feels marginalized and may grow ever more violent in their opposition while the new majority point of view may denigrate the minority to an almost subhuman status. We've seen this over and over in history with defeated opposition groups sent to institutions to be “reformed”, “re-programmed”, just left to rot, or killed.
From the general back to the specific, some say that the push to get women into the workforce was a ploy by the Soviets, or by the far left generally to break down the family unit in the United States. Some also say that the very very rich (substitute Illuminati, what have you) want every able bodied person in the workforce as a way to maintain slave wages. I find elements of truth to both of these theories, even though they are at odds with one another. Both can be true to a certain extent (as can other explanations) because the world is a complex place and every issue we have to deal with can be tugged in multiple different directions at once.
To me, if you isolate our considerations to the developed nations of “the west” the genie is out of the bottle and there is no putting “Her” back. But what about the rest of the world where patriarchy clearly is as prevalent as ever?
We live in a time where civilizations are clashing in ways that they never have before. Having filled the earth there is no place for renegade ways of thinking to escape to (at least until major advances in space travel take place). So for the foreseeable future, civilizations with moribund patriarchies are going to rub elbows with civilizations where women are considered property. Because those other civilizations are relatively unchanged from thousands of years ago, while we in the west are still transforming ourselves, we could be at a major disadvantage.
I can see a few ways that this might play out. But I’m not confident in any of my own forecasts. And wishing doesn't make it so.
It seems obvious to me as it must to many feminists that women have been artificially confined to secondary roles for most of human history. In a system where every single individual has complete freedom of action (with physical force taken out of play) women will achieve (and in fact already have) a far more equitable status. Their ascension may in fact continue to the point where they have some degree of supremacy. Trends don’t always continue apace however. Women’s achievements may slow to a halt at the exact position of total equality or may shoot past such a state or may swing in a pendulum fashion never reaching full equilibrium. We just don’t know, and I suspect we can’t know.
I do though think they if we put the emphasis on individual freedom of action foremost in our goals a lot of infighting can be avoided. If women in 2050 are the vast majority of college graduates and corporate managers and there is no law or externality that forces that to be the case, why should anyone now care? If on the other hand, there is systematic discrimination against any group of people for any reason then why shouldn't we all care?
From the general back to the specific, some say that the push to get women into the workforce was a ploy by the Soviets, or by the far left generally to break down the family unit in the United States. Some also say that the very very rich (substitute Illuminati, what have you) want every able bodied person in the workforce as a way to maintain slave wages. I find elements of truth to both of these theories, even though they are at odds with one another. Both can be true to a certain extent (as can other explanations) because the world is a complex place and every issue we have to deal with can be tugged in multiple different directions at once.
To me, if you isolate our considerations to the developed nations of “the west” the genie is out of the bottle and there is no putting “Her” back. But what about the rest of the world where patriarchy clearly is as prevalent as ever?
We live in a time where civilizations are clashing in ways that they never have before. Having filled the earth there is no place for renegade ways of thinking to escape to (at least until major advances in space travel take place). So for the foreseeable future, civilizations with moribund patriarchies are going to rub elbows with civilizations where women are considered property. Because those other civilizations are relatively unchanged from thousands of years ago, while we in the west are still transforming ourselves, we could be at a major disadvantage.
I can see a few ways that this might play out. But I’m not confident in any of my own forecasts. And wishing doesn't make it so.
It seems obvious to me as it must to many feminists that women have been artificially confined to secondary roles for most of human history. In a system where every single individual has complete freedom of action (with physical force taken out of play) women will achieve (and in fact already have) a far more equitable status. Their ascension may in fact continue to the point where they have some degree of supremacy. Trends don’t always continue apace however. Women’s achievements may slow to a halt at the exact position of total equality or may shoot past such a state or may swing in a pendulum fashion never reaching full equilibrium. We just don’t know, and I suspect we can’t know.
I do though think they if we put the emphasis on individual freedom of action foremost in our goals a lot of infighting can be avoided. If women in 2050 are the vast majority of college graduates and corporate managers and there is no law or externality that forces that to be the case, why should anyone now care? If on the other hand, there is systematic discrimination against any group of people for any reason then why shouldn't we all care?
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