What are the causes of misogyny?

[rousseau]

I recently started looking through 'A History of Medieval Sexuality' while on my way to and from work, which began with a look into sexuality in the early medieval period (ball-parking from memory around 600-900 in and around Italy).

What struck me from looking through the first essay is that many of the texts that came from the period revealed already engrained misogynistic attitudes. Commentary on society tended to be pro-male, anti-female.

It's a given that commentary tended to come from males so this is more likely to be the case than not, but it's made me wonder what the origin is of this type of sentiment toward women amongst men.

On the one hand the biological relationship between sexes tends to innately put women in a position of less power than men, especially in primitive societies where they have less means of protecting themselves, and this would seem to give sway to men to oppress women and structure society in such a way that furthers that oppression.

On the other hand, there seems to be social systems out there which aren't so patriarchal, so maybe while an aspect of randomness and biological power tends toward patriarchal, oppressive gender relations, biology isn't necessarily the root cause, and there is some other path which leads to a misogynistic social environment.

Would be interested in the others thoughts.

 

[Bomb#20]

What struck me from looking through the first essay is that many of the texts that came from the period revealed already engrained misogynistic attitudes. Commentary on society tended to be pro-male, anti-female.

It's a given that commentary tended to come from males so this is more likely to be the case than not, but it's made me wonder what the origin is of this type of sentiment toward women amongst men.

Well, a woman always knew whether she was a child's biological parent, and a man never did. That could have created trust issues.

 

[ronburgundy]

What struck me from looking through the first essay is that many of the texts that came from the period revealed already engrained misogynistic attitudes. Commentary on society tended to be pro-male, anti-female.

It's a given that commentary tended to come from males so this is more likely to be the case than not, but it's made me wonder what the origin is of this type of sentiment toward women amongst men.

Well, a woman always knew whether she was a child's biological parent, and a man never did. That could have created trust issues.

Here is a related, off-the-cuff speculation that seems reasonable but I haven't done the work to verify the various assumptions I'm making. Males can have relatively unlimited sex and their reproductive limits are tied only to the number of females they can sex with. Females are far more limited in sex and reproduction due to being the one's to get pregnant and the earlier age at which they can no longer reproduce. This results in a large imbalance in the number of males over number of females seeking sex and reproduction at any time. This makes women a highly valuable fought over resource that it would make sense for males to seek to control. In early human societies and prior to monogamy, it is likely that many males went without any sex or reproduction and for some others only when they used force. Put all that together and you have men fearful about their chances to obtain something they want, sometimes having to resort to force ("having to" meaning they would not get sex or be able to reproduce otherwise), resentful and full of sour-grapes when the don't succeed, and insecurely trying to control women they do have to keep them from other men.

This would foster a view of females as property, and efforts to dehumanizing them to rationalize treating them as such combined with resentful sour grapes.

Note that this is not an "evolutionary" explanation. It merely factors biological and reproductive issues into understanding male behavior and beliefs they may develop and push to justify their actions and to cope with their insecurities and frustrations.

 

[Dutch_labrat]

You are missing an obvious one: The father's heirs.

When you have a paternal society it becomes essential for those males in power to ensure their status and goods are inherited by their sons. Without DNA testing how can you ever be sure who your real son is? By controlling the women you have sex with.

The whole purity and virgin thing, the monogamy, the shaming of female sexuality, it all existed so a man could be certain who his sons were by controlling female sexuality.

 

[repoman]

So the concentration of wealth and power fed into it.

So do hunter-gatherers with little stored wealth care as much about "Mother's baby, Father's maybe"?

 

[Malintent]

The only thing I am aware of that trumps biological sources of misogyny, is religious sources... and it works both ways (but only very rarely in favor of the female).

 

[rousseau]

The only thing I am aware of that trumps biological sources of misogyny, is religious sources... and it works both ways (but only very rarely in favor of the female).

I feel like you could make a pretty good argument that the religious sources come from biological sources.

 

[credoconsolans]

Development of agriculture.

It allowed for excess resources, increase of social roles including those not inclined to working for food. Someone had to make decisions about the excess of resources. Women, stuck nursing and helping care for infants, were rather more busy than men were, and so the idle men started to make those decisions.

Somewhere along the way, it because institutionalized that men made these decisions because men were the only ones CAPABLE of making those decisions.

Now some folks had more excess resources than others. Other people were eager to join their families to these families with more resources. What better way than marriage? And since women were being kept out of the decision-making process, men started making decisions FOR them.

Oppression of women's sexuality started about the same time, because women's sexual drive was at least as strong as men's, but the families, with their resources, didn't want to bring into the family a woman who wasn't carrying the blood of their menfolk and waste resources on a child not of their blood.

So they had to stop her from sleeping around. Since women - who were probably not in agreement with who was chosen for them as a husband - felt no need to stay faithful to the contract arranged for them without their permission, the men had to force draconian measures on the women who rebelled against their rule.

So, rebellious women were shamed, then ostracized, then banished and finally killed outright.

The women left were those docile and/or smart enough to keep their heads down.

The men, seeing how their word and rule wasn't enough to keep women down, added religious threats on top of that, throwing out the female-dominated pantheons and raising to the top macho male gods.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Early Christianity is replete with savagely misogynist theologians, such as John Chrysostom. Paul's claims women were to be held inferior because Eve seduced Adam into eating the forbidden fruit has long been a basis of such attitudes. Many of which were adopted from the Greeks. Who were mainly pretty misogynist in some degree or the other. The few societies that were more fair (Sparta) were seen as oddballs. The myth of Pandora, again, women get the blame for all of the world's evils.

 

[Deepak]

So the concentration of wealth and power fed into it.

So do hunter-gatherers with little stored wealth care as much about "Mother's baby, Father's maybe"?

What of lions? When there's a new leader of the pride he will kill the former leader's cubs to stop the females from nursing and get them ready to mate sooner. Too even in hunter-gatherer societies there was a power structure, and perhaps a line of succession.

 

[repoman]

So the concentration of wealth and power fed into it.

So do hunter-gatherers with little stored wealth care as much about "Mother's baby, Father's maybe"?

What of lions? When there's a new leader of the pride he will kill the former leader's cubs to stop the females from nursing and get them ready to mate sooner. Too even in hunter-gatherer societies there was a power structure, and perhaps a line of succession.

Maybe better to look at how Chimpanzees and Bonobos males and females interact. Humans seem to be somewhere in the middle.

 

[Bomb#20]

So the concentration of wealth and power fed into it.

So do hunter-gatherers with little stored wealth care as much about "Mother's baby, Father's maybe"?

What of lions? When there's a new leader of the pride he will kill the former leader's cubs to stop the females from nursing and get them ready to mate sooner. Too even in hunter-gatherer societies there was a power structure, and perhaps a line of succession.

What of warblers? When a cuckoo eats a warbler egg and lays her own in its place, if the warbler spots the deception she'll try to push the cuckoo egg out of the nest, and if she can't get rid of it she'll abandon the whole nest. Power and status are beside the point -- all that matters is parenting effort. Genes that make you more likely to let yourself be tricked into raising a child that isn't your own tend to be deselected.

 

[Rhea]

So the concentration of wealth and power fed into it.

So do hunter-gatherers with little stored wealth care as much about "Mother's baby, Father's maybe"?

I imagine the caretaker role would feed into this. A father needs to know who will take care of him in his old age. Hence his need to control a woman in order to know which children he can control... when he is no longer in control.

 

[Deepak]

What of lions? When there's a new leader of the pride he will kill the former leader's cubs to stop the females from nursing and get them ready to mate sooner. Too even in hunter-gatherer societies there was a power structure, and perhaps a line of succession.

Maybe better to look at how Chimpanzees and Bonobos males and females interact. Humans seem to be somewhere in the middle.

While I understand a bit about both I'm certainly not an expert. Can you put a finer point on what you mean?

What of lions? When there's a new leader of the pride he will kill the former leader's cubs to stop the females from nursing and get them ready to mate sooner. Too even in hunter-gatherer societies there was a power structure, and perhaps a line of succession.

What of warblers? When a cuckoo eats a warbler egg and lays her own in its place, if the warbler spots the deception she'll try to push the cuckoo egg out of the nest, and if she can't get rid of it she'll abandon the whole nest. Power and status are beside the point -- all that matters is parenting effort. Genes that make you more likely to let yourself be tricked into raising a child that isn't your own tend to be deselected.

I was not actually aware of that - never really read much about birds with a couple of exceptions.

 

[JohnG]

Maybe a combination of things. Tribes tended to be small and inbreeding was rampant in earlier times. New genes were likely the result of the spoils of war/raids, in which case men would capture and dominate women.

That being said, as a self aware species, there is no excuse for men acting like lobotomized chimps in present society. That's one many things we have to put behind us.

 

[rousseau]

Maybe a combination of things. Tribes tended to be small and inbreeding was rampant in earlier times. New genes were likely the result of the spoils of war/raids, in which case men would capture and dominate women.

That being said, as a self aware species, there is no excuse for men acting like lobotomized chimps in present society. That's one many things we have to put behind us.

There's a bold claim if I've ever seen one

 

[Tristan Scott]

Jung thinks it runs deeper. He thinks that men have an inherent hatred of their mother and therefore all women because of their impurity. I suppose that could explain why in many religions and mythologies the hero(ine) or prophet is, many cases, born of a virgin.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Jung thinks it runs deeper. He thinks that men have an inherent hatred of their mother and therefore all women because of their impurity. I suppose that could explain why in many religions and mythologies the hero(ine) or prophet is, many cases, born of a virgin.

I vaguely recall someone mentioning Jung elsewhere in another thread fairly recently, and I responded with great skepticism...

 

[Tristan Scott]

Jung thinks it runs deeper. He thinks that men have an inherent hatred of their mother and therefore all women because of their impurity. I suppose that could explain why in many religions and mythologies the hero(ine) or prophet is, many cases, born of a virgin.

I vaguely recall someone mentioning Jung elsewhere in another thread fairly recently, and I responded with great skepticism...

OK. So are you skeptical that Jung said such a thing, or of the merit of what he said?

 

[ronburgundy]

I vaguely recall someone mentioning Jung elsewhere in another thread fairly recently, and I responded with great skepticism...

OK. So are you skeptical that Jung said such a thing, or of the merit of what he said?

I'm skeptical that Jung ever said much of anything that wasn't woowoo horseshit. Progress in science based psychology is still harmed by being associated with his ideas.
The virgin birth concept isn't likely about some need for the woman to be "pure", but rather merely a story device to reinforce the super-human, beyond nature origins of the hero(ine). The mother being a virgin is just a way to ensure the idea that the father is something other than just a man, and thus so is the child.