Patriarchy: Private For Profit Ownership of Women AKA The Means of Human Production

Capitalism is just the material extension of patriarchy

All of our social systems reflect patriarchy as the keystone inequality because no American social system is designed with the mandate to meet human needs.  

American capitalism and conceptions of what is politically viable in the name of meeting human needs and responding to social problems are predicated on the assumption that women exclusively bear the burden of creating and sustaining life for men and society to build upon - without recognition of or reciprocation for women’s care, time, and labor.

This extractive dynamic as the bedrock of social order is the root of our systemic dysfunction and the myriad of compounding social crises we face today.  Let’s talk about it through the lens of American capitalism and masculine narcissism.

Capitalism is a system of empowerment and freedom without responsibility for the capital holding class - at the expense and exploitation of basic human needs and community.  The system’s mandate is protecting and advancing the consolidation of power for those who privately own and profit from the means of production.  

Capitalism is the material extension of patriarchy.

Men invented patriarchy to seize control and for profit ownership of the first means of production - women.  Women - and not men - produce human life.  Pregnancy and child rearing are the means of human production.

Patriarchal Power Grab: A Perversion of the Male Biological Mandate of Contribution

Men’s biological mandate is to provide women and their children with food, resources, and protection against external threats.  The obstetrical dilemma describes this biological mandate.  Evolving into bipedal primates (walking upright) limited the maximum width for the human pelvis (the basin shaped bones within our hips that anchors the trunk of our spine and our legs).  

Since humans also evolved large brains, this made birth dangerous, complex, and prone to complications.

Unlike most other mammals who are capable of birthing their babies independently, women require the care and assistance of other humans during labor.  The narrowness of our bipedal pelvis construction is at odds with the relatively large human brain.  

Human babies are born in a premature semi-fetal state in comparison to other mammals to ensure they can actually fit through the narrow birth canal.  This is why the first few months of a baby’s life is often referred to as the fourth trimester since they require near constant maternal attachment and feeding to continue their development.

Most mammals are born with near immediate or quickly developed bodily autonomy.  New born babies cannot hold up their own head for months, let alone move about independently.

Men’s biological mandate has been to provide resources to ensure the mother receives enough nourishment to heal from the extreme physical toll of pregnancy and birth while also continuously feeding her newborn.  Since mother and child are both physically vulnerable for many months following birth, men are required to protect them against external threats and environmental stressors.

Concepts of private ownership emerged from men’s new understanding of individual paternity and the ensuing perspective shift that they would only provide for the children they privately sired and not in cooperative care for all children of the community.

At some point thousands of years ago, men began weaponizing their biological mandate to provide for and protect child bearing women for the welfare of the community and continuation of the species.

I personally believe the shift correlated to the understanding that one man fathered one child - which wasn’t immediately clear during some ancient past when we lived in hunter/gatherer communities.  Sex was natural and it probably took a while for the realization that one man fathered one child to become a common understanding since monogamy is a social construct, not a biological or environmental requirement.  Plus, it takes weeks or months for clear indicators of pregnancy to manifest after copulation.

Men pivoted from fulfilling their biological mandates from a cooperative understanding of contribution to the realm of exploitation by leveraging access to necessary resources to secure personal ownership over women for individual profit.  

Concepts of private ownership emerged from men’s understanding of individual paternity and the ensuing perspective shift that they would only provide for the children they privately sired and not in cooperative care for all children of the community.

This wasn’t accomplished in one pivotal event, but the result of iterations of male driven social shifts and behavioral choices. These shifts in favor of male domination over individual women and sired children and away from community driven resource contribution were formalized culturally by replacing female gods with male gods as the center of religious worship and authority.

Overall, the threat to withhold resources or protection that would inevitably result in the death of the mother and child after birth is how men empowered themselves and subjugated women and children.  

This is the root of male narcissism and what allowed men to artificially center themselves in all aspects of life and society at the expense and devaluing of women and children.  Men disengaged from leading through contribution to community, and leveraged their provider role to subjugate women under a new artificial system of private ownership created to empower and center individual male desires as the force of social order and spiritual worship.

Women had to comply or risk the withdrawal of resources necessary to survive and care for their babies. 

Capitalism mirrors this exploitation and the artificial centering of male desires at every level.

Western Civilization and Patriarchal Exploitation

Male narcissism is the basis of western civilization.  The lauded accomplishments of ancient Greece and Roman cultures were built on the private ownership of women and children.  Society was created by and for men - women were intentionally shut out and relegated to perform all domestic labor and human reproduction for the profit of men who enslaved them.

In Ancient Athens, women were legally relegated to the house.  Only prostitutes were able to exist in the public sphere - obviously, for male pleasure.  They say prostitution is the oldest profession - and that’s true because male concepts of ownership and extractive bartering for resources made purchasing sexual use of women’s bodies for male pleasure the first form of economic exchange.

In most Athenian households, women were separated into their own chambers and were even forced to eat separately from the men of the household.  Common male wisdom of the age held that women were no more intelligent than small children.  Girls were the property of their fathers who would arrange their marriage, as an economic transaction selling full rights to her body and existence to her husband.  Most women didn’t even meet their husbands until the day of the marriage.

Well - they were children still (12-14 years old), so most child brides didn’t even meet their husbands until the day of marriage.

This foundation that society and the economy are dependent on male private ownership of women to create life - literally and in terms of all domestic responsibilities - is still prevalent.

Capitalism and Male Narcissism

Now, American women are breaking under the stress of men’s narcissistic refusal to demonstratively care for women as partners, and equally, proactively contribute to household duties and childrearing.  Despite working outside of the home, women are still the primary domestic and care laborers in all regards.

This is why women are more likely to file for divorce than men - they have the economic ability to leave men who are burdens instead of partners, deadbeats instead of fathers, and abusive instead of cooperative.

Instead of stepping up, men are wallowing in narcissistic self pity, violently lashing out, and seeking state intervention to force women back into domestic sex slave roles by undermining their human rights to bodily autonomy and healthcare access. Men are crying about no fault divorce laws and how feminism has ruined their ability to abuse and exploit the women who loved them without consequence.

Hiding behind fear mongering statistics about declining birth rates, men seek to justify the violent sexual and domestic subjugation of women as a required social good.  Because capitalism requires an ever expanding population base - since it is rooted in owning women’s reproductive bodies as the first means of production.  

Also, fantastical and harmful capitalistic expectations for always increasing profit margins require a forever increasing population base to endlessly exploit and sell life back to.

Due to the economic requirement to work outside of the home and the domestic abandonment of male partners, more women than ever are opting out of marriage and child rearing.  Women have been empowered to see the truth that marriage is a system to extract from women to give to men by social media’s ability to directly share their stories, wisdom, and support for each other.  

This direct connection between women - unmitigated by the forced centering of male narratives - has allowed the deconstruction of social myths sold to seduce young women into embracing the patriarchal fantasy of domesticity as purpose.

Various religious doctrines and cultural myths were created to seduce young girls into buying into the projected social role as their own desires.  The devastation of that fantastical lie was always made apparent after the wedding legally bound her to a man who wore a social veneer of chivalry just to expose his exploitative, abusive entitlement behind closed doors.

Culturally encouraged attitudes of incrimination that degraded experienced women as hags and bitter old ladies for speaking on the tragic fate of girls and women subjected to male dominance emerged to discourage young girls from questioning the seduction that being a wife and mother was all she’d ever need to feel fulfilled.  Social media has disrupted this fantasy trope and permanently altered the social landscape.

The Chaotic Male Perspective 

Podcast bros are simultaneously questioning what value women bring to partnership that could possibly require men to meet interpersonal standards of care while also demanding the state forces women into dependent submission to maintain their fantasy of a birthright to own women.  

It must be exhausting and confusing to be so narcissistic that you must talk out both sides of your mouth at all times.

All this to avoid practicing the basic maturity of decentering self to lead through contribution.  All this to avoid cultivating proactive routines of care towards women and children - THEIR OWN CHILDREN, BTW - and learning basic domestic and time management skills.  

All this to avoid being a responsible person who is capable of understanding and meeting the needs of his own family that exist outside of his own immediate desires and fears.

Because gaming is a higher pleasure than taking care of his own children and becoming an emotionally and practically useful presence in his own household and marriage.

Capitalistic Stress and Male Narcissism Inspiring Women to Remain Single

Capitalism and society were built on the expectation that every man is able to purchase a wife from her father to make his life - so he could focus his time and energies on self pleasure and the egoic pursuits of social power. 

Men have never been meaningfully held accountable to character standards to secure a domestic sex slave wife and they do not like it now that women can choose to live independently of their bullshit.

But now, we’ve brought capitalism to the brink.  Two incomes are required for families to survive in most states.  Not thrive, but survive.  The ridiculous overvaluing of shareholders and maximum, permanently increasing returns for capital holders has made it impossible for most families to sustain a stay-at-home wife/mother - even if that is the lifestyle she desires.

Many straight women would choose to participate in partnership and family with healthy men who were capable of being empathetic and proactive partners - but most men refuse to do the work to be a productive member of a household, let alone develop the emotional intelligence to overcome their own narcissism. 

The truth is women are better off living financially independent and single lives than partnering with men.  Male narcissism means partnering with men is worse than being alone for most women.  Women nurture meaningful and supportive relationships with friends, family, and the children in their life.  Men do not.

Women have cultivated a well rounded array of life skills, talents, relationships, and outlets for connection and expression.  Men have not.  

Men refuse to confront their own narcissism and immaturity.  They prefer sabotage, exploitation, and violence as opposed to contributing to their own households. 

Only men can confront their own selves - and so the only course of action is to leave them alone to have their tantrums and mope in the squalor of their own entitlement unanswered.  Maybe at some point, they’ll do something to help themselves.

Until then - it’s all about disempowering patriarchal strangleholds on power, continuously exposing the narcissistic abuse at the root of male entitlement, and making it as socially expensive as possible for capitalists, political actors, social influencers, and any person advocating against the full human rights of all women everywhere.  

Only consequences of isolation, mocking, and total withdrawal of access to feminine attention and care can possibly inspire narcissistic men to try developing cooperative skills and perspectives instead of viciously exploiting women to avoid the work of growing the fuck up.

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