Galloism wrote:Duvniask wrote:I'm honestly not seeing the problem with what I believe to be Grave_n_idle's point, although I think they could have worded it better.
One can (and I must underscore the word can, it is a hypothesis) trace the origins of patriarchy to sexual divisions of labor arising in tribal society, where infant mortality was high and women would be preoccupied with bearing and nursing children constantly for the tribe to survive - a division of labor along sexual lines would initially serve a utilitarian purpose, i.e. that of survival. As women are the ones to bear children, and take ~3/4th of a year to do so and can generally only carry the children of one male at a time, I therefore do not find it hard to see why women would end up being viewed as the tribe's "prized possessions" so to speak, as things that men must secure access to. Why would men be the ones who would have to secure access to women, as the active element, and not vice versa? Well, I think one could chalk that up to men being the ones doing the majority of the hunting, fighting and so on under the previously described sexual division of labor - it puts them in a position to dictate.
See, what you said actually makes sense and is likely what really happened - it was a division of labor thing. But that doesn't necessarily imply that "more valuable as a commodity" means "less valuable as people", which is what Grave n Idle was pushing (without source). Data suggests we currently view men as a more valuable commodity than women and less valuable as people.
I think that using the word "commodity" has only served to confuse the discussion.
As for the part about women's feelings being empathized with to a greater degree, I would be careful if I were you to avoid taking this to mean that women's agency or will is prized more than that of men or that patriarchy does not exist anymore - power is not always kindest to those who wield it. I think part of the confusion here stems from Grave's criteria of being "valued as people" is different from your own. We can for example empathize with kids while not treating them as adults capable of making rational decisions, which is in a sense not fully "valuing" them as people. Similarly, we may occasionally give women the "pussy pass" as Reddit likes to call it, but that by itself does not tell us the whole story of who wields the most influence in society.
But that doesn't mean those two are linked, nor does it mean that's what gave rise to the patriarchal society. Your explanation - an outgrowth of division of labor - is of course more nuanced and makes more sense than Grave-n-Idle's, which was completely different.
My argument isn't that much different. I'm in effect also saying that women having a greater role (and burden) in reproduction led to an incentive to divide labor along sexual lines, which eventually led to the unintended consequence of patriarchal society where men hold most of the power - it wasn't strictly speaking inevitable, but it might well have been incentivized. I did paraphrase this argument from Gerda Lerner, which I suspect Grave might also have done.
I think this is a case of you confusing the use value (utility) of something with its exchange value.
He said value as a commodity. Commodities are things you buy/sell/trade. By definition, something with a higher value as a commodity will trade at a higher value (in free markets) or mostly so (in mostly free markets).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_value
We of course don't trade people this way anymore, but there was a time and place we did (seriously, how fucked up is THAT), and when it comes to determining commodity value of a person to society, going to look at the actual trading price of a slave is the most accurate possible measure of doing so.
Again, I think using "commodity" has only confused the discussion, even if it is not strictly speaking inaccurate. The simple viewing of women as something prized and sought after is a sort of objectification, i.e. they are seen as an object to be desired and used for the purposes of reproduction and continuation of the tribe, and less as a person with their own will and decisions to make. That is their "utility" as an object, their use value. In that way, them being a "good" is very much related to their personhood being reduced in significance.