As we moved into becoming an agricultural society, women had more babies and became pregnant more. A pregnant person, or one with small children, is naturally somewhat dependent on others. As families started to divide themselves into smaller "units", women found themselves separated from female family members and more at the mercy of husbands and other men in the family. Without the power to walk away easily and still feed their kids, men had a lot more control over things. Birth control and access to family support are probably our two best bets for changing things. Also any effort to separate parenting from poverty would help with this, too, such as "pensions for children" or something similar.
EDIT: Hunter-gatherer societies were not really patriarchal. Men's physical strength has very little to do with this question. The ability of women to feed their children without male help has a LOT more to do with it.
There's a lot of discussion about whether matriarchal societies existed, when, and if they had an impact on patriarchal societies. For the people who said patriarchy is a natural order in the animal kingdom, elephants, hyenas, and killer whales are matriarchal. So the animal kingdom isn't totally patriarchal.
But it's obvious patriarchy has existed a long time among humans, but so has slavery. Science has finally caught up what with feminists, theorists, and common sense have said for a long time – on average, men are more aggressive in social behavior. It doesn't justify patriarchy, but it does partially explain it. So whoever was the strongest and most aggressive, was the "top dog".
But with the advent of the industrial age, male strength and aggression haven't been needed as much as in the past. As far as aggression goes, it has become a detriment and liability to many men, women, children, and society. I think that is why there is such a backlash against feminism, since men see it as man-hating, when it's more about leveling the playing field for all.
Just because you don't like patriarchy, doesn't mean you don't like men. It means much more than just equality for men and women. It also means many of us (both men and women) don't want to reward anti-social behavior, whether the aggression is displayed by women or men. We all need to display aggression at various times, but in our society, we still worship aggression like it's still the days of the old west, and it's not. Patriarchy existed for a long time because of male aggression. Since over-the-top aggression isn't needed in society today, patriarchy is going to continue to change into a different entity.
Early in our evolution, physical strength determined dominance. Males of our species are generally larger and stronger than females. The strongest male took for himself whatever he wanted and others feared him. There was much violence. The savage "tradition" of rule by the strongest, most vicious male became ingrained in our social development. Early males were not interested in their children. But, they fought to the death over females. The strongest males claimed many females as their "property". Later, the children born to a man's property of females became his property, too. Lesser males, the females and the children all served the dominate male. Clan societies evolved and were ruled by dominate males. Patriarchal social structures hail from those early days of strongest, most vicious male rule.
Simple, physical superiority and the ability to control. Women, without the physical superiority have learned to influence this control in more subtle ways. It is the natural order in the animal kingdom, the males fighting each other for control of the females, and then fighting to maintain that control over and of them.
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As we moved into becoming an agricultural society, women had more babies and became pregnant more. A pregnant person, or one with small children, is naturally somewhat dependent on others. As families started to divide themselves into smaller "units", women found themselves separated from female family members and more at the mercy of husbands and other men in the family. Without the power to walk away easily and still feed their kids, men had a lot more control over things. Birth control and access to family support are probably our two best bets for changing things. Also any effort to separate parenting from poverty would help with this, too, such as "pensions for children" or something similar.
EDIT: Hunter-gatherer societies were not really patriarchal. Men's physical strength has very little to do with this question. The ability of women to feed their children without male help has a LOT more to do with it.
Why Does Patriarchy Exist
There's a lot of discussion about whether matriarchal societies existed, when, and if they had an impact on patriarchal societies. For the people who said patriarchy is a natural order in the animal kingdom, elephants, hyenas, and killer whales are matriarchal. So the animal kingdom isn't totally patriarchal.
But it's obvious patriarchy has existed a long time among humans, but so has slavery. Science has finally caught up what with feminists, theorists, and common sense have said for a long time – on average, men are more aggressive in social behavior. It doesn't justify patriarchy, but it does partially explain it. So whoever was the strongest and most aggressive, was the "top dog".
But with the advent of the industrial age, male strength and aggression haven't been needed as much as in the past. As far as aggression goes, it has become a detriment and liability to many men, women, children, and society. I think that is why there is such a backlash against feminism, since men see it as man-hating, when it's more about leveling the playing field for all.
Just because you don't like patriarchy, doesn't mean you don't like men. It means much more than just equality for men and women. It also means many of us (both men and women) don't want to reward anti-social behavior, whether the aggression is displayed by women or men. We all need to display aggression at various times, but in our society, we still worship aggression like it's still the days of the old west, and it's not. Patriarchy existed for a long time because of male aggression. Since over-the-top aggression isn't needed in society today, patriarchy is going to continue to change into a different entity.
Early in our evolution, physical strength determined dominance. Males of our species are generally larger and stronger than females. The strongest male took for himself whatever he wanted and others feared him. There was much violence. The savage "tradition" of rule by the strongest, most vicious male became ingrained in our social development. Early males were not interested in their children. But, they fought to the death over females. The strongest males claimed many females as their "property". Later, the children born to a man's property of females became his property, too. Lesser males, the females and the children all served the dominate male. Clan societies evolved and were ruled by dominate males. Patriarchal social structures hail from those early days of strongest, most vicious male rule.
Because it is the right way.
It is the Order God has structured from the begining.
Simple, physical superiority and the ability to control. Women, without the physical superiority have learned to influence this control in more subtle ways. It is the natural order in the animal kingdom, the males fighting each other for control of the females, and then fighting to maintain that control over and of them.
i really dont know why maybe its done 4 a reason