The Future of Patriarchy?

Patriarchal societies came to dominate our world because they were better at waging war and making women have babies. Male solidarity endowed militaries with greater comparative advantage, enabling imperial expansion.

Conquered people were either killed or culturally assimilated via religions that strengthened male solidarity and dominance, while glorifying motherhood, and threatening eternal damnation. Religions which amplified male solidarity and female fertility were most likely to thrive, militarily. By maximising the two major drivers of population growth (conquest and fertility), patriarchies won.

Some of patriarchal societies idealised female seclusion. In such places, patriarchy persists. Elsewhere, female employment, activism and representation have soared with growth and democratisation. I call this “The Great Gender Divergence”.

If I am correct, what are the major implications - in terms of effective interventions and testable hypotheses?

Street mural in Fes, thanking valiant efforts during COVID [women are absent]

Major implications, research ideas and testable hypotheses:

1. Patriarchy persists via male solidarity and ideologies that men are high status, while women are low status.

2. Patriarchy is most persistent in South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, because male honour depends on female seclusion.

   Even if women work, this does not reduce abuse because they cannot credibly threaten exit. Divorce is morally prohibited. Trusted fraternal networks are cemented by socialising women to marry and stay put - enduring all violence. I call this “The Patrilocal Trap”. East Asia overcame this because they idealised meritocracy, upward mobility and economic prosperity.

3. Interventions to 'empower women' that fail to rupture fraternal solidarity, as well as ideals of seclusion and status, will be ineffective. Even after driving was legalised in Saudi Arabia, married women were less likely to travel unaccompanied.

4. Backlash occurs after threats to men’s status.

   When US states passed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), men became more sexist. In Spain, feminist marches appear to have aggravated sexism and galvanised votes for the far-right. Gender sensitisation and Self-Help Groups in India led to women being publicly humiliated. These effects seem strongest in hierarchical societies that idealise collective harmony - like South Korea, where the MeToo movement triggered hostile sexism and the election of an anti-feminist president.

5. Gender equality may be more effectively advanced by:

   1. Economic growth that raises earnings, or greater desire for economic prosperity - so that societies overcome the Honour-Income Trade-Off.

   2. Weakening fraternal solidarity: the emotional and expected loyalty of tribe, caste, paternal cousin marriage, prohibitions on divorce, religious rituals, misogynist music, criminal gangs, male-only clubs, collective agreements against women voting. From 300 CE, the Western Church banned cousin marriage and glorified love. This created a latent asset for gender equality.

   3. Institutionalising checks and balances - to curb bullying, intimidation and harassment (e.g. fears of law suits, media scandals, and female-friendly unions). This is how Western organisations became more gender equal.

Women garment workers in Casablanca, Morocco