Talk:Patriarchy

BCE vs BC

I find the generalised use of BCE/CE vs BC/AD very annoying in this article. BC/AD is the more common usage in English speaking countries and the ERA terminology simply obfuscates the original meaning of the term. All eras are 'common eras' the terminology is ridiculous at best. There have been debates on Wikipedia on this topic, and although BCE/BC has been deemed acceptable, I think it should only be used in specific culturally relevant instances, such as articles pertaining to Jewish history, general articles on history should use acknowledge terminology.--Tallard (talk) 08:29, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Sarah Grimké on Scripture

"In the 19th Century, Sarah Grimke dared to question the divine origin of the scriptures."

This is patently incorrect (unless Grimké recanted all of her previous views at some late point in her life, in some text of which I am completely unaware). What Grimke questioned was the accepted interpretation of the scriptures -- a non-trivial distinction that probably got lost between either the cited book's summary of Sarah Grimké, or the summary of the cited book into this article.

Grimké questioned many many things it came to the Bible, and many of the ways she dealt with problematic passages were quite revolutionary. But one thing she did NOT do was question was divine origin of the scriptures.

From Grimké's Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and the Condition of Woman (Boston: Issac Knapp, 1838):

"King James's translators certainly were not inspired. I therefore claim the original as my standard, believing that to have been inspired, and I also claim to judge for myself what is the meaning of the inspired writers, because I believe it to be solemn duty of every individual to search the Scriptures for themselves, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, and not be governed by the views of any man, or set of men."

"I shall depend solely on the Bible to designate the sphere of woman, because I believe almost every thing that has been written on this subject, has been the result of a misconception of the simple truths revealed in the Scriptures, in consequence of the false translation of many passages of Holy Writ.

"Most commentators, having their minds preoccupied with the prejudices of education, afford little aid; they rather darken the text by the multitude of words."

"Now I must understand the sacred Scriptures as harmonizing with themselves, or I cannot receive them as the word of God."

And from Pamela R. Durso's The Power of Woman: The Life and Writings of Sarah Moore Grimké (Mercer University Press, 2003):

"She instead contended that male translators and interpreters of the Bible had introduced and propagated the mistaken concept of subordination. [...] Because she had serious doubts about men's ability to provide unbiased translations and interpretation of scripture, Sarah exhorted women to produce a new hermeneutic. She believed that once women had the scholarly tools necessary for the study of scripture, they could construct an accurate interpretation." (132)

"Sarah argued that the Bible had been incorrectly translated and misinterpreted, and she set out to present her own interpretation of scripture. The foundational understanding for her Biblical interpretation was that men and women were of equal worth because both were created in the image of God, and based on this truth, she offered her own explanations about various scriptural passages that dealt with the role of women, and in doing so, Sarah became one of the first Americans to provide a biblical challenge to the treatment of women and to the limited role and opportunities offered to them" (186).

Also per the above, it was Grimké's extensive interpretation and exegesis, not a questioning of the inspiration of the Bible, that inspired Stanton:

"In refuting the position that women should be subordinate to men, Stanton relied on Sarah's biblical analysis of male superiority. She valued Sarah's insight into scripture so much that she incorporated much of Sarah's exegesis in the publication in 1989 of the controversial Woman's Bible. [...] The intent of the Woman's Bible was to correct the prevalent anti-female interpretation of scripture." (189)

Grimké criticized the translation of various words, criticized traditional interpretations of passages, and was highly skeptical on men's ability to translate and interpret passages about women correctly. She spilled an inordinate amount of ink talking about the historical and cultural context in which the original passages were written, attempting to demonstrate that many of them applied to specific historically-bound situations and were not universal commands. But the fact that Grimké went to such lengths to interpret/explain those passages was precisely BECAUSE she believed the Bible was the divinely inspired word of God, and an authoritative text from which to defend the equality of women. It's part of what makes her brand of feminism distinctive. --Glass Gypsy (talk) 06:27, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for correcting and expanding the material related to Grimké. Your explanation seems quite thorough and convincing. Kaldari (talk) 06:38, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually...

Now that I've bothered with all that... a) the feminist critique of patriarchy starts a helluva lot earlier than Grimké, b) that paragraph focuses only the roots of American (Christian) challenges to patriarchy, which is laughably disproportionate, and c) given the limited content in this article already, how much space should actually be taken up with the feminist critique?

And am I crazy for thinking that this article could be a hell of a lot longer and better and more detailed than it is?? There's pages about individual poems that have more text in them than this one, and it's not like patriarchy is some minor insignificant topic. --Glass Gypsy (talk) 06:51, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

This article has a very problematic history and has been gutted and refactored a few times over the years. Please feel free to jump in and start expanding it! Kaldari (talk) 23:37, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Discussion on Kaldari Patriarchy edit

This is commentary on the recent edits to the Patriarchy wiki page. The Feminist viewpoint on Patriarchy seems to be out of place and not belonging in the Patriarchy wiki page. That paragraph appears to be defining Feminism by explaining their viewpoint. Furthermore, that viewpoint seems to be loaded with a negative bias towards Patriarchy. I am not defending Patriarchy or disagreeing that what explained is their viewpoint or saying they are wrong in their viewpoint (I agree with some of it), just that it has no place on a different wiki page other then the Feminism wiki page. If we include the Feminist opinion toward Patriarchy, why not include everyone else's opinion on Patriarchy?

I believe the section violates the 'Wikipidea Pilar' of a neutral point of view and also simply does not belong on the Patriarchy wiki page.

Thanks for reading this, take care. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.129.191.66 (talk) 23:03, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

According to the Neutral Point of View policy, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint." It also states that "it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic." Since the feminist viewpoint regarding patriarchy is a prominent viewpoint, it must be given representation in the article. Similarly, we should include all viewpoints regarding Patriarchy that are significantly prominent (with due weight). If you know of other viewpoints that could be added to the article, please feel free to suggest them. Kaldari (talk) 23:35, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Domination of Women

Women may be dominated under historical patriarchial systems, however, this does not define a patriarchy. A patriarchy can and, in many cases, has existed without domination of women. This is just as true for matriarchy - domination of men does not define a matriarchy and does not happen in many cases. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MatthewJDavis (talk • contribs) 01:07, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Come on, did you really expect this article to be NPOV? Look at the 'See Also' section: 'Domestic violence', 'Rape', 'Sexual violence'. 83.71.12.44 (talk) 18:37, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

@MatthewJDavis: How can one class have power over the other and it not be considered domination? Merriam-Webster gives 3 definitions of domination:

• supremacy or preeminence over another
• exercise of mastery or ruling power
• exercise of preponderant, governing, or controlling influence

Patriarchy seems to meet all 3 definitions, so I don't really understand your argument. Kaldari (talk) 22:27, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

See also section

Hi, I removed the links to Anti feminism, Domestic violence Rape and Sexual violence of the See also section, because I could find no mention of these themes in this article. I could find no reference to patriarchy in the linked articles either. I think the reverting, if at all, of these links should be accompanied by some explanations as to the reasons of the presence of these links.

I also replaced the link to Anti feminism by one to Feminism. Please note that I am not discussing the appropriateness of the mention of the Feminist viewpoints on Patriarchy in the article. Marsupilamov (talk) 14:08, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

What, no flags?

I am confused. (Seriously, good work!) Billbrock (talk) 00:31, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Added counter examples

Yeah, this "history article" [sic] is a laughably biased short story about how feminism is awesome.

I believe in female social position and also (duh) female freedom--I think women are equally smart, capable, etc. etc. as men--but the slant on history here is blind to contrary evidence. Not an encyclopedia entry as much as a college freshmen gender studies paper written to please a teacher who already agrees with this story.

Not sure, for instance, if non-Christians are the enemy here (like Alexander the Great and Aristotle) or Christians (like Paul and Luther).

In a TINY STEP in the right direction, I added examples from Plato about honored women, and also statements about the primacy of women from Muslim, Catholic, and Orthodox sources.

I added a bunch of "Who? What? Where? Which?" to just a few the nasty weasel words throughout.

Feel free to build on my work--or scratch it if you think the essay should stand as is.

If so, we need a (laughably simplified) version of how women were dominant until the 19th century, when Christian men rebelled against Christianity and asserted that men need rights too. Cheers, CircularReason (talk) 17:15, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

If women were dominant, why were they not allowed to own property or participate in higher education, government, or religious leadership? You seem to have a strange definition of "dominant". Kaldari (talk) 18:34, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

While I disagree that women were dominant, the issues of higher education, property and government were, until recently, almost exclusively the domain of the rich, which were a tiny minority of the overall population. Patriarchy implies a systematic dominance of males; from my POV, poor males did not enjoy such dominance, but rather had relatively equable terms with poor females, as a general rule.

Do you have any examples or sources? I can think of several examples of how even poor men were historically dominant over poor women. For example, until recently it was legal and socially accepted for men to physically discipline (i.e. beat) their wives if they refused to obey them in most parts of the world, as wives were considered property of the husband. No such right has ever existed for women. Kaldari (talk) 19:47, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

"No such right has ever existed for women". Except it totally has. Just google "husband beating" or "castration" --83.84.137.22 (talk) 22:16, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Encyclopedia.com is an unreliable source?

That whole paragraph was attributed to the same source, but someone requested a citation in the middle of the paragraph. This seems arbitrary to divide up a paragraph that is already cited and ask for a separate citation. And on what basis is that source unreliable? --Nameshmame (talk) 05:38, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

On what basis is it reliable is the correct question, reliability is not the default. At WP:RSN we've already said that generalist encyclopedias should be avoided where possible. This particular encyclopedia basically reproduces other sources. In any case, a quick google books search turned up clearly reliable sources. But the issue seems to have been solved now so I won't add the ones I found. Dougweller (talk) 11:05, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

NPOV dispute?

Page is carrying a NPOV dispute tag and refers here, but I don't see any discussion regarding NPOV. I'm going to remove the tag; if there is in fact a dispute, please point me to it. Thanks MinervaK (talk) 22:05, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not sure what that tag was referring to either. Kaldari (talk) 22:55, 12 November 2012 (UTC)