I’m not sure I understand the conclusion. It seems fair to say women were well treated within their community, though the society was brutal as a whole. The women had tough abortions given the tech level, and the men lived violent lives. This case illustrates that gender equality is not necessarily correlated to other types of desirable outcomes, unless I’m misunderstanding.
Depends if the proposed connection is "matrilocality is correlated with more gender equality" or is "matrilocality is correlated with a peaceful society with less toxic masculinity" (my impression is that modern - and probably also the old - feminism tends to associate the two things, but it seems two independent dimensions)
that ol romantic nobel savage trope is sadly lot less fun in reality even if you aesthetically prefer Matriarchs to Patriarchs. the piles of skulls just really wreck the vibe either way
It's hard to believe that a culture/people would be sustained over any length of time if they consistently forced abortion on all women in their 20's. Such a society would have very few babies. Also the abortions described here must have been very dangerous, probably often resulting in infection and/or damage of the reproductive organs causing infertility. That part was so hard for me to believe!
The narrative about the brutal forced abortions is astonishing. Have you encountered anything like this elsewhere? Are you sure this is not simply Christian commentators demonizing the natives?
I’m not sure I understand the conclusion. It seems fair to say women were well treated within their community, though the society was brutal as a whole. The women had tough abortions given the tech level, and the men lived violent lives. This case illustrates that gender equality is not necessarily correlated to other types of desirable outcomes, unless I’m misunderstanding.
Depends if the proposed connection is "matrilocality is correlated with more gender equality" or is "matrilocality is correlated with a peaceful society with less toxic masculinity" (my impression is that modern - and probably also the old - feminism tends to associate the two things, but it seems two independent dimensions)
that ol romantic nobel savage trope is sadly lot less fun in reality even if you aesthetically prefer Matriarchs to Patriarchs. the piles of skulls just really wreck the vibe either way
thanks for your work
It's hard to believe that a culture/people would be sustained over any length of time if they consistently forced abortion on all women in their 20's. Such a society would have very few babies. Also the abortions described here must have been very dangerous, probably often resulting in infection and/or damage of the reproductive organs causing infertility. That part was so hard for me to believe!
The narrative about the brutal forced abortions is astonishing. Have you encountered anything like this elsewhere? Are you sure this is not simply Christian commentators demonizing the natives?
Very interesting stuff. I don't quite see the conclusion from the arguments though
This is typical for the low productivity societies. That's just a form of the population control.
re the final paragraph: what lead to this dramatic change from 'head hunting by males' to the current minimal amount of interpersonal violence?
:How have the incentives to commit deadly violence changed? ie less reward from zero sum violence
:Have the original Austronesian (headhunting) cultures been replaced with a more pacific (East Asian originated) culture?
:Has there been an ethnic (genetic) replacement of Austronesians with (more pacific) East Asians?
Great questions! Stay tuned for my next essay! :-)
> what lead to this dramatic change from 'head hunting by males' to the current minimal amount of interpersonal violence?
Hegemonies suppress internecine warfare.