[einhverfr]

Instead of a longish reply, I have decided to leave it at a citation you are looking for and a simple observation. (This is edited, so if there are posts to it that seem like a "Good Day, Fellow" "Axehandle" conversation that's my fault).

The citation is "Etching Patriarchal Rule" by Elaine Combs-Shilling, which discusses henna ceremonies and family structure in Morocco.

The observation is that every one of us has lopsided views that, for sake of getting everything done, we must generally assume to be mostly correct.

[jessedhillon]

The critique is not that you have a lopsided view. It's that you have put forward just an incredibly simple perspective but apparently have derived such significant meaning from it, and such weighty conclusions. Even now, you think that quoting someone adds heft to your evidence when the even more obvious question -- why are you limiting your analysis to intra-household dynamics only? -- doesn't seem to enter your mind.

(Also, I have lived among several cultures.)

I mean, you're correct that nobody can possess true objectivity. But the conclusion to be drawn from that, the better conclusion to me it seems, is that your own ideas need to pass through much more rigorous filters from multiple -- even antagonistic -- perspectives before being suitable for consideration by others.

About supremacy of one's own ideas -- yes we all have this bias. The point is that, knowing that you have this bias, it seems to me that you have not attempted to correct for it at all. As you have presented them, these ideas fall down to even basic opposition.

[einhverfr]

It seems to me that any reasonable length comment is incapable of capturing the complexity of any viewpoint.

> why are you limiting your analysis to intra-household dynamics only?

Because before industrialization:

1. Most households were businesses, and

2. Society largely functioned as a union of households, not a union of individuals (Indonesia is still this way, btw). Interestingly this was the basis of Aristotle's social theory and is generally considered to be representative of the Indo-European world before industrialization. From this perspective democracy would mean "one household, one vote" which is a fair summary of the pre-19th Amendment status quo, actually. Obviously this doesn't work if votes are private (and secret) or if women don't have the keys to power by collaborating to get agendas passed.

So intra-household dynamics is the question of power where those are the case.

Edit: the other problem is that extra-household dynamics and gender before industrialization leads to all kinds of apple/orange comparisons. How do you compare political assembly membership with collective plotting on political issues while washing laundry down by the river? Does it matter if the man's wife will likely know how he voted?

[einhverfr]

Just to make one clarification:

Obviously the household exists in a context regarding dealings with other households in a traditional culture so intrahousehold dynamics are important. Again, I said I saw modern feminism and women's suffrage arising as a response to changes in the interhousehold space brought on by industrialization.

This being said matriarchy and patriarchy are almost always a question of intra-household dynamics. The question is, whether women effectively hold the keys to power or whether women are isolated from eachother, unable to effectively organize and make their agendas compelling. A strong matriarchy/patriarchy in the household is a good indication of women being able to do this (again one sees this in Greek material despite the fact that the society was formally patriarchal with formal privileges associated with men only, see the drama of Lysistrata for a dramatic account, but also look at Faraone's works cited above).

The family is also generally a state in miniature. What goes on with the family is a mirror of state power structures (see Elaine Combs-Schilling, "Etching Patriarchal Rule" for some brief discussion of this, but also see "Mass Psychology of Fascism" by Wilhelm Reich for a psychologist's view). So intra-household dynamics are the among the best indications of political power structures in the whole of society.

In short, whoever has power at home, has power everywhere.