Human Societies Are Moving From a Patriarchy Back to a Matriarchy

Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar (of the Dunbar's Number fame) and colleagues analyzed 2 billion anonymized telephone calls and 500,000 text messages to arrive at this scientific conclusion: romance is driven by women.

But before you say "Duh!" the study also showed something much more interesting:

... women start to switch the preference of their best friend from about the mid-30s, and by the age of 45 a woman of a generation younger becomes the "new best friend", according to Professor Dunbar.

"What seems to happen is that women push the 'old man' out to become their second best friend, and he gets called much less often and all her attention is focussed on her daughters just at the point at which you are likely to see grandchildren arriving," he says.

Prof Dunbar also claims that the findings suggest that human societies are moving away from a patriarchy back to a matriarchy.

Link | More from The Economist


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I'm fairly sure it's always been a mixed bag. But calling it a "patriarchal" society is a good way for women to externalize responsibility. Just think; if women succeeded at externalizing ALL of their responsibilities, it would look just like a patriarchy. Now since all of her responsibilities have been externalized to the male and it looks like a patriarchy she is in the powerful position of getting a man to do everything, blame him for everything, and complain about not having anything. For someone who likes to be hand-fed and complain about everything under the sun, it's a pretty sweet deal. And, all they have to do is withhold sexual favors.
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Matriarchies are typically stable, slow-to-progress societies with little acceptance of various forms of freedom or creativity except within the narrow bounds of the 'accepted wisdom' - AKA politically correct. It's all about fitting in and not rocking the boats. See 'water monopoly empires' - they can last for thousands of years, and during the entire time there is little improvement in living conditions and little regard for intellectual curiosity.

Creativity and disruption are the key to progress.
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@Gary B

Sounds pretty consistent with the feminine archetype. Also sounds eerily similar to our current societies.

E.g. whether or not female attire correlates strongly with the chances of being the victim of date-rape are irrelevant (See e.g.: Compendium of Crime Correlates), instead attention is focused on whether or not the claim is found to be "offensive" to some women.

Women will say that "nobody should be raping anyone" and that may very well reflect the absolute morality inhering in the universe, but at the same time "nobody should ever break into my home and steal my belongings" is equally true. The fact remains that people DO break into homes and steal belongings, and they are far more likely to break into a home that looks like it contains desirable content.

The prescription to dress modestly is not meant to be a rule women must obey or else they are "promiscuous", however sociological studies also suggest that both men and women tend to see "scantily-clad" women as promiscuous and there is actually a higher probability that such a woman is promiscuous than say a woman who wears more modest attire.

Point is that - at least in Canada - there is major pressure from feminine activists to obscure these facts and label anyone who makes any such cognitive assessment a "womanizer" or something else. Careers have been destroyed over it...
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@Ryan S

Self-victimization is a pretty common tactic used to marginalize feminism, minorities, etc. If you genuinely think feminism is about women trying to slack off while making men do all the work...well, you're probably too deluded for any rational argument to get through.

So I ask you this:

Did you grow up with body issues? Ever been slut-shamed? Develop an eating disorder? Do you get paid consistently less than women for the same job? Is your gender vastly underrepresented in many industries? Have you ever been afraid of being raped? Ever?

No?

Then I'm pretty sure you're not in a position to talk about men being oppressed by women. I'm also pretty sure you don't know the first thing about feminism.
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