How Patriarchy, Dominance, and Agriculture Ruined Our Quality of Life
A very short exposition
The social system of patriarchy began around the same time as agriculture- about 10K years ago. Prior to that (97% of human history), people lived in highly cooperative and egalitarian bands of about 25–50. But with agriculture, for the first time, you have substantial personal property, property that you’d like to go to your heirs. In order to ensure paternity (hence the name patriarchy) women had to be controlled and their sexuality policed.
What resulted was not just stratification between men and women, but a larger stratification of society in general for the very first time. You’ve got a social system that is based in coercion and control — a pyramid-shaped dominance hierarchy. Instead of “let’s all hunt and gather together and share in the results, raise the children of this tribe together without caring too much who the father is and have a generally pleasant life” you’ve got a situation where competition, might makes right, and getting ahead at other’s expense becomes an integral part of the fabric of the society. Social castes emerge for the first time, with only a few elites at the top.
Agriculture did allow the population to explode because it could feed more people and women could have a baby every year (gatherers didn’t tend to because…
