by Ramin Mazaheri for the Saker Blog
Iran is a rigid patriarchy, and that is something which is immediately accepted as true by everyone, except for many Iranian women and men.
While the sociopolitical role of father-led ideas is of especial interest when it comes to Iran, the sociopolitical role of mother-led ideas in US culture is something which is far less discussed. This disinterest is surprising, because the US is seemingly the most extensive example of Western matriarchy in the 21st century.
Their elevation of the sociopolitical role of the mother is easily proven: among households with children the proportion of single-parent households (80% of which are female-headed) was 32%, up from 13% in 1967 – a jump of 250%. The US is routinely at the top of Western nations in this category. When so many households are governed by single mothers, this must affect the sociopolitical ideas of these moms, these children, their politicians, and many others as well.
Fifty-five percent of such children have no siblings, and thus are the primary focus of Ms. Single Mom. An American single Mom’s focus on her child is especially intense because we must consider how modern US culture is notable for emphasizing the small nuclear family at the expense of the larger extended family/clan.
There are other historical-cultural inclinations towards matriarchy in the US: Western Anglo-Celtic culture was often a seafaring culture, and such cultures – where the father/husband would be regularly absent for years at a time – necessarily gives much more emphasis to matriarchy. Anglo-Celtic culture, in opposition to Latin and Greek culture, is also incredibly tolerant of alcoholism historically, something else which creates a cultural need for matriarchy. France’s northwestern regions of Brittany and Normandy exemplify the convergence of these trends: it is routinely said by the French that those two areas “are not France”, in large part because these proudly Celtic regions drink to excess and are well-known “anti-Latin macho” matriarchies. This is all relevant because we are talking about the US, whose culture is an offshoot of Anglo-Celtic, and nearby Saxon, cultures.
There is no shortage of Western articles criticizing the political shortcomings of Islamic & Asian patriarchy, but what about the political weaknesses of these West European matriarchies?
However, we must add one further step, as we are discussing the US: What are the political blind spots resulting from a nation with such a high population of single mothers?
If patriarchy produces an excess of masculine belligerence – i.e., physical intimidation, the unwillingness to incorporate new viewpoints, and over-competitive risk-taking – then matriarchy must produce too much female belligerence – i.e., emotional intimidation, hysterical acceptance of new and untested ideas, and stagnation-creating risk aversion.
We see these flaws of matriarchy reflected quite clearly in the West’s hysterical overreaction to coronavirus – the Great Lockdown – an era which should be considered the apex of matriarchal power in the United States.
This idea is more easily proven when we first examine an example of matriarchy gone wrong.
Trump taking hydroxychloroquine inflames America’s single-Mom media
When I heard that President Donald Trump was taking hydroxychloroquine I immediately laughed, knowing that Mommies across the US were going to disapprove of such open disobedience of “the experts”.
After all, a matriarchy does not rely on intimidation or competition – patriarchal forms of creating respect and obedience – it relies on emotional veneration and respect for status. This explains how US culture so easily renounced sensible skepticism towards so-called “experts” who, to achieve their status, surely have worked very hard and under very trying circumstances – just as single Moms must do as lone parents.
However, being based for so long in France, where the hydroxychloroquine debate began about six weeks earlier than in the US, I was already aware that the experts on this drug are not very expert at all. If somebody wants to take it – I hope it works and I’m sure a doctor is prescribing it. If somebody is buying hydroxychloroquine on the street and not consulting a doctor first- I am not an expert but… such people are likely buying other drugs for themselves on the street as well. So, all in all, I saw no reason for Trump’s medical choice to be of interest – it’s his personal choice to make, and the science is unclear.
That said, I immediately tuned into fake-leftist MSNBC and was very amused at the hysteria and self-righteous rage caused by Trump’s usage of hydroxychloroquine. It’s fair to consider MSNBC as the preferred political mouthpiece of American single mothers; the single mother-class does need and do deserve a mouthpiece to voice their sociopolitical concerns.
NBC and Joe Biden, who needs to appeal to the single-mother vote if he wants to win, hilariously expressed the single Mom-esque outrage I expected with their article, ‘What in God’s name is he doing?’ Biden rips Trump’s use of hydroxychloroquine. I note that my mother repeatedly yelled “What in God’s name is he doing” when I was a child, both in reference to myself and to my brother. I should note that my father yelled this as well, but usually at a much, much closer distance to his sons’ faces.
Unsurprisingly, given that they have a lot of capitalism-imperialism to distract from, MSNBC gave a lot of coverage to this story: With Trump pushing hydroxychloroquine, will it become next political fight? The answer is “no”: This is only a story worth fighting for if the goal is to distract from Obamagate, and also the way the Great Lockdown is marching the lower classes towards economic suicide as well as a disproportionate number of corona infections. One has to wonder at the single Mom-psychology at play in this article, given that responsible journalists are aware that hydroxychloroquine is neither a solution nor a real threat?
I perceive two single Mom-esque fears being both inflamed in this article: Firstly, it is a reflection of the fear that children of single mothers will constantly want to emulate the behaviour of the national patriarch, given that they have no patriarch at home to emulate. A second fear is that many single mothers may need Trump to stand in as a projection of their romantic failures: Their anger towards their “Baby’s Daddy” must responsibly be checked in front of little Junior, but Trump provides a socially-acceptable anger outlet. However, what are the effects on little Junior’s sociopolitical development, one wonders?
The bitter misandry (the opposite of misogyny) of a single Mom with an irresponsible ex-partner is rather subliminally reflected in yet another MSNBC article: Kayleigh McEnany believe news organizations should listen to Trump and “take him at his word.” Here’s a follow-up question: “Why?” Surely the single mother has been rather deceived or disappointed by her ex-partner, I think it is safe to generalise. Again, the personal lives of so many single mothers appears to be reflected in their desire to control, infantilise and even “bad romance” Trump.
These are not useless speculations: the role of single Mom-matriarchs in the demonisation of Trump (a self-admitted sexual predator and an adulterous romantic predator as well) is rarely commented upon, but how can the single-mother class not play a significant role here?
MSNBC continued (as we should for just a bit longer) with Trump’s rhetoric on hydroxychloroquine may very well represent a public-health hazard. The demand for censorship regarding hydroxychloroquine, and MSNBC’s implicit suggestion that even discussing it is perhaps worthy of criminalisation, reflects a single Mother’s obsessive worry for the safety of her child, as she must provide twice the normal amount of protection, of course. That article concludes:
“But again, Trump’s most loyal followers won’t know any of this. All they’ll hear is their president encouraging Americans to take a dangerous medication, arguing that it’s harmless, and questioning the value of legitimate research.
The risk to the public seems quite real.”
Single-mothers must necessarily view themselves somewhat as being “cultural pioneers”, who have decided to confront the moral/parenting norms of society’s rather sheep-like “loyal followers”. Single-motherhood is – and I make no judgment here one way or the other on it – indeed quite normal, but no doubt they subconsciously often view two-parent households not with resentment but with contempt and “I’m a pioneer, you are sheep” superiority. That article’s hysterical, fearmongering conclusion reveals a quite unfair blanket contempt for Trump’s usually “two-parent supporting” supporters, a contempt which is just as unfair as contempt for single-mothers.
The final sentence indicates another common single Mother feeling – that of being a self-appointed societal guardian and ever-vigilant supreme leader. We perhaps did not know this in January, but in late May it is now clear that the corona risks were not as real as people like The New York Times had warned, with their disproven trumpeting of 1.1 million US deaths in a best-case scenario.
Moving beyond Trump’s inability to stand-in for Dad, Husband or Doctor: US matriarchy’s mistakes during the Great Lockdown
Given the rates of single motherhood we should ask: what sort of government would a single-mother society create and perhaps prefer?
Single-mothers, who are statistically more subject to poverty and over-work, are uniquely compelled to promote the dominance of “the experts” because single mothers are forced to rely on them so much more than the average: after all, they have no co-parent, and thus less time for vetting experts. Whether said “expert” is really just a mediocre teacher, a semi-shady cop or a non-omnipotent epidemiologist, single Mom simply does not have as much time to question their alleged expertise. Thus, unquestioning allegiance to technocrats is something which a single-mother society would likely produce.
Single Mom also does not want her own expertise questioned by her child nor society at large even though a single Mom is doing something which all human history has tried to avoid – raising a child in relative isolation. Thus, questioning any authority at all is often subconsciously disagreeable and threatening in the unstable Single Mother Queendom. We saw how the treatment of Michigander protesters was so hysterical, truly false (the vast majority of protesters stayed in their car), and how it rejected any honest debate. It is not an exaggeration but a reality that single Moms in America must be especially comfortable with investing dictatorial powers in one person – that’s how they must raise their kids in a Western, anti-extended family culture.
While nobody knew this for certain at the outset of the novel coronavirus, it now seems abundantly clear that the need for mass quarantine was overblown and is no longer necessary. Yet there is massive resistance from US matriarchs and their supporters to restart normal human society, despite the psychological, cultural, medical and economic harm continued lockdowns would induce. Sweden and others have shown that a modicum of social responsibility should logically reduce the fear and panic-based notions which initially drove the Great Lockdowns.
A short-sighted insistence on remaining at home indefinitely regardless of the negative ramifications of such overprotection; a demand for total obedience to authorities which never merited nor could even handle such powers (because they are not socialist-inspired)l the decidedly anti-intellectual acceptance of the decisions of mediocre technocrats even after they have been proven wrong – we see all three of the problems I listed with matriarchies: stagnation-creating risk aversion, emotional intimidation, hysterical embracing of new and untested ideas.
I would be wrong to imply that Western/American/Single-Mom matriarchy is always wrong, or that it could not provide even better results than other options in other situations – however, it seems clearly ill-suited to continue leading the West’s Great Lockdown.
I don’t think they ever want to give up their power, and I don’t think they accept fair criticism of their leadership, and I don’t think they have any endgame: these are Moms after all, LOL!
Jokes aside, the problem for the West and their clients is that they all follow the lead of the US, but the patriarchal, “Big Brother”, socialist-inspired states of China, Iran, Vietnam and others have clearly outperformed the matriarchal West during the corona crisis.
Almighty Moms unite to helicopter-parent the West into worry and poverty
I support single mothers, and I share their often silent hope that they do not have to lead dictatorially and all alone much longer: I hope you soon find that special partner to bring into your single-parent home!
(May I note that you cannot find a suitable co-parent under Great Lockdown conditions, which is yet another class-based reason (the needs of the single class) to end the Great Lockdown: a healthy desire to re-embrace to vicissitudes of romance.)
As a leftist of course I proudly call myself a feminist. I never recall a time in my life being unaware of what “feminism” meant (in broad terms), just like for “communism/socialism”. I am not bragging here – I’m just trying to forestall certain criticisms which are given credence by racists and misandrists due to my ethnic and religious background.
In the end, the problem with Western patriarchy is simple to diagnose:
(Of course, Western pro-matriarchs likely patronisingly assume that all patriarchies are alike, just as many arrogantly believe that “Western values” are synonymous with “human values”.)
They confuse “masculine” with power and “feminine” with weakness. This is absurd and wrong, even to the most rigid Asian and Muslim patriarchs: the concept of male-female “equality despite inherent differences” is reflected in the East Asian concept of yin and yang, and in Islam’s concept of men and women having different rights and duties. But in the West – and especially in the Anglo-Saxon world – women are told they must renounce their feminine power and be more like over-aggressive men in order to survive and thrive in their capitalist-imperialist culture, which leads to failure for their women, children, men and society.
What is needed now in the West are more typically-masculine virtues such as risk acceptance: the West fooled themselves into thinking they had the same strengths and capabilities as socialist-inspired nations like China, Iran, Vietnam and others – they employed quarantining, control methods and collective-over-individualist concepts used by Asian nations, but without having similar cultures of government economic intervention nor widespread trust in their governments, and amid the West’s economic Great Recession on top of it all. For socioeconomic survival some risks must now be embraced by the lower classes and their supporters – above all daring a revolution away from Western liberal aristocratic democracy & neoliberalism/neo-imperialism.
However, it is vital to acknowledge that many grandparents are still alive probably thanks to the initial use of more typically-feminine virtues such as safety-seeking and prudence. What is needed, of course, is not capitalist-like domination of one over the other, but balance and the application of the appropriate virtue at the appropriate time.
What’s certain is that nowhere in this article was a condemnation of single mothers: Islam codified divorce 1,300 years before the West – and in a manner which was spectacularly feminist and revolutionary – so such condemnations cannot be found in my heart nor mind. Marriages, sadly, don’t work out some times, and it’s unfortunate that Western culture was so culturally backwards on this issue for so long.
As I wrote earlier, single motherhood is “indeed quite normal”, but single motherhood in Muslim/Asian societies is experienced in a far different manner than in the West – what works for one would not necessarily work for the other. Similarly, the Great Lockdown has been experienced in a far different manner in the West than in socialist-inspired countries, and what has worked for one is creating a socioeconomic disaster in the other.
Where do I stand as regards matriarchy? Oh I certainly don’t mind some now and then; I certainly can’t get away from it no matter what country I am in; even if I could avoid matriarchy it would lead to an unpleasant imbalance.
However, even if it will displease Mom, the West needs to end their Great Lockdown and get started addressing the needs of their lower classes.
*********************************
Corona contrarianism? How about some corona common sense? Here is my list of articles published regarding the corona crisis.
Capitalist-imperialist West stays home over corona – they grew a conscience? – March 22, 2020
Corona meds in every pot & a People’s QE: the Trumpian populism they hoped for? – March 23, 2020
A day’s diary from a US CEO during the Corona crisis (satire) March 23, 2020
MSNBC: Chicago price gouging up 9,000% & the sports-journalization of US media – March 25, 2020
Tough times need vanguard parties – are ‘social media users’ the West’s? – March 26, 2020
If Germany rejects Corona bonds they must quit the Eurozone – March 30, 2020
Landlord class: Waive or donate rent-profits now or fear the Cultural Revolution – March 31, 2020
Corona repeating 9/11 & Y2K hysterias? Both saw huge economic overreactions – April 1, 2020
(A Soviet?) Superman: Red Son – the new socialist film to watch on lockdown – April 2, 2020
Corona rewrites capitalist bust-chronology & proves: It’s the nation-state, stupid – April 3, 2020
Condensing the data leaves no doubt: Fear corona-economy more than the virus – April 5, 2020
‘We’re Going Wrong’: The West’s middling, middle-class corona response – April 10, 2020
Why does the UK have an ‘army’ of volunteers but the US has a shortage? – April 12, 2020
No buybacks allowed or dared? Then wave goodbye to Western stock market gains – April 13, 2020
Pity post-corona Millennials… if they don’t openly push socialism – April 14, 2020
No, the dollar will only strengthen post-corona, as usual: it’s a crisis, after all – April 16, 2020
Same 2008 QE playbook, but the Eurozone will kick off Western chaos not the US – April 18, 2020
We’re giving up our civil liberties. Fine, but to which type of state? – April 20, 2020
Coronavirus – Macron’s savior. A ‘united Europe’ – France’s murderer – April 22, 2020
The same 12-year itch: Will banks loan down QE money this time? – April 26,
2020
The end of globalisation won’t be televised, despite the hopes of the Western 99% (2/2) – April 27, 2020
What would it take for proponents to say: ‘The Great Lockdown was wrong’? – April 28, 2020
ZeroHedge, a response to Mr. Littlejohn & the future of dollar dominance – April 30, 2020
Given Western history, is it the ‘Great Segregation’ and not the ‘Great Lockdown’? – May 2, 2020
The Western 1% colluded to start WWI – is the Great Lockdown also a conspiracy? – May 4, 2020
May 17: The date the Great Lockdown must end or Everything Bubble 2 pops – May 6, 2020
Reading Piketty: Does corona delay the Greens’ fake-leftist, sure-to-fail victory? – May 8, 2020
Picturing the media campaign needed to get the US back to work – May 11, 2020
Scarce jobs + revenue desperation = sure Western stagflation post-corona – May 13, 2020
France’s nurses march – are they now deplorable Michiganders to fake-leftists? – May 15, 2020
Why haven’t we called it ‘QE 5’ yet? And why we must call it ‘QE 2.1’ instead – May 16, 2020
‘Take your stinking paws off me, you damned, dirty public servant!’ That’s Orwell? – May 17, 2020
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of the books ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’ and the NEW ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’.
Very provocative essay, Ramin! Safe to say, I won’t find this kind of analysis anywhere else on the web anytime soon.
As one of the 55% of those who were raised by single mothers who also had no siblings to share that burden with, I can personally attest to much of the dysfunction you’ve outlined here. It’s no surprise that dear old mom has gravitated to authoritarian right wing political figures all her life as well, I guess, from Reagan through Trump right down the line. No surprise either that dear old dad, whom mom married and divorced twice just to be sure, was an alcoholic and unapologetic agnostic while they were married, in spite of the fact that mom was a teetotaler and self-professed (no one who knew her would have) fundamentalist Christian. Probably no need to add that mom has indeed hovered over me her entire life as well, firmly driving a wedge in whatever adult relationship we might have had.
Perhaps these ingrained memories are what irritates me so about all the current CV hovering behavior here in the US. The ritual wearing of the face coverings (not even proper masks) everywhere in public, just as I correctly predicted earlier, has now taken on a social networking virtue signaling aspect that I find most disgusting and troubling of all. I’m quite sure now that public shaming (or worse) will not be far behind. The herd mentality is strong here in the US and growing stronger everyday. A more infantile and totally mommy dependent population just begging to be dictated to, I never could have imagined.
“The ritual wearing of the face coverings (not even proper masks) everywhere in public, just as I correctly predicted earlier, has now taken on a social networking virtue signaling aspect that I find most disgusting and troubling of all. I’m quite sure now that public shaming (or worse) will not be far behind. The herd mentality is strong here in the US and growing stronger everyday. A more infantile and totally mommy dependent population just begging to be dictated to, I never could have imagined.”
For a detailed working out of the idea of the corona panic as a cult that has gripped the Western world (not just the putatively Mom-colored USA), see this:
https://hailtoyou.wordpress.com/2020/05/18/against-the-corona-panic-part-xii-an-anthropological-study-into-the-corona-cult-pro-panic-hardliners-and-the-media-succeeded-in-erecting-a-virus-centered-apocalypse-cult-as-state-religion-and-in/
Ramin’s musings are interesting and fun and thought-provoking but also way off base in a number of ways. As for actual data, nada provided (e.g., actual percentage of single moms in different states/income/political catogories).
Much that Ramin ascribes to Momology can also be ascribed to other social phenomena, such as cult creation (see link above). Now, it may be that single moms are more susceptible to cult conversion. Data?
It may be that moms, single or not, have always been a lot stronger than the dominant culture wants to portray them as. It may be that moms, single or married, have always done the “domestic” work of feeling and expressing anxiety about and for all family members to the point of annoying “hovering.” Not just Jewish moms, who are famous for this overbearing and unnecessary hovering (but after the circumcision trauma who can blame them). This might explain the Karen phenomenon: Perhaps unmarried women aspire to the same social policing status as moms, so they take on the Mom coloration via being Karens.
As for single moms projecting their yearning for a partner onto Trump—well, I won’t LOL that out of the park, there might be something to it. But as far as I can see the general disgust with Trump is about equal in men and women. But maybe it is just that more males write comments on blogs. Or maybe it is that people who write comments on blogs who use neutral handles are assumed to be males. I find this all the time. LOL.
One data point that does not chime with Ramin’s hypothesis is that the experts have stated from the beginning that the virus is basically not a danger to children. So, if women are blindly following the experts, as Ramin contends, they will realize that their children are not at risk for the disease. It will, however, require another step
for them to grasp the basic facts of acquisition of herd immunity through exposure to the corona and other viruses and bacteria. In fact, they would have to access various alt-media nowadays to get a coherent understanding of this process. Since the USA is already germaphobic, the lockdown can only make the situation *worse* for the country’s children. Moms understand herd immunity when it is used to explain the need for universal vaccination–say, against measles. They do not get it when the same concept applies to natural herd immunity against a sickness for which it is unlikely that there will ever be a safe and proven vaccine.
All of this is really not the fault of single moms.
Katherine
My take on Trump’s appeal (or lack thereof) is that he somehow successfully projects an (admittedly, rather cartoonish) alpha male image, which is in itself highly distorted due to the prevailing and rapidly ascending feminine cultural zeitgeist, which he’s obviously reacting strongly to and against. I don’t have any particular explanation for that, but also find it puzzling that his support seems to cross gender lines fairly equally. Conversely, it also feels like the putative US “liberal left” realizes Trump’s appeal full well, and goes out of its way to counter it point for point with an obviously feminine cultural appeal, with neither side making much of an attempt whatsoever to cross over in their cultural appeal. That indicates to me that both sides of the US UniParty are at the very least disingenuously capitalizing on these issues (and in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they were actually colluding on them) as a political divide and conquer strategy. But by far most importantly, and of particular note, is that both “sides” come together in lockstep on all the issues that actually matter to them: corporate bailouts, stock market primacy, and perpetual war. So more and more all of this social justice and social shaming nonsense of whatever stripe appears to be simply a diversionary tactic for an oligarchy that’s totally out of better ideas. The sad thing is, it appears to be working all too well.
Katherine, I beg to differ with you on this article. There is some element of truth to single moms looking for experts to help them with the upbringing of their children. I have noticed that all these so called experts and their political/media supporters have families but they rarely mention them, did you ever wonder why? I personally believe that they don’t mention their families because they don’t want to wise up the single moms to their hypocracy. Just consider the nth degree of sexes promoted by the political elites, do yo really think that they will let their children practice the nth degree of sexual practices? The ruling elites/media/technocrats/bureaucrats are bunch of hypocrats in my opinion.
Could not agree more about the ‘masks’. Nothing about this epidemic has really frightened me much, once I saw the data coming out of China and Italy. What did scare me were the masks. Going to the grocery store is now an ordeal, watching these people and their ridiculous masks, scarves, handkerchiefs, etc. trying to stay in their assigned positions, walking only in one direction down each aisle, cringing away from one another. If this is how my fellow citizens react, then I fear I will never feel entirely comfortable in this country, again. The ever increasing risk aversion (actually what George Carlin famously called ‘giving up a bit more of your freedom, for the illusion of safety’) doesn’t seem to reverse itself. Flying on a plane was always an odious experience but after 9/11 it became torturous. One of the great benefits for me in retiring, was that I rarely, if ever, need to fly again, and be yelled at by bureaucratic nitwits, with power over whether I can proceed or not.
” If this is how my fellow citizens react, then I fear I will never feel entirely comfortable in this country, again.”
I share that sentiment entirely. I served in the US Navy, in diesel submarines from 1958 to 64, but if called upon to serve today would not do so. This is now a country with a population which does not inspire me to defend them.
Had to laugh when I got up this morning to see this in my Google News feed:
Trump bashes Michigan AG after she calls him ‘a petulant child’ for refusing to wear mask
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/22/trump-ford-mask-coronavirus/
I guess that’s game, set, and match. Hypothesis supported.
”Anglo-Celtic culture, in opposition to Latin and Greek culture, is also incredibly tolerant of alcoholism historically, something else which creates a cultural need for matriarchy.”
Ramin is usually very much on point, but the above passage is quite preposterous. The ancient Romans and Greeks were both fond of drinking, and especially in the case of the Romans this was a matter of decadence made possible by Empire. I have no idea whether that created ”a cultural need for matriarchy”, but in the modern West beset by gender confusion and social decomposition, marriages tend to end in divorce.
Hi Nussiminen,
Always appreciate your fine comments.
What I meant is that when Dad goes off to the pub 4 nights a week to get hammered, then I certainly hope his home is a matriarchy, LOL!
I’ve read plenty of sources which say that the ancient Greeks drank heavily-watered down wine, stopped at 3 drinks, and looked down on public drunkenness on non-holiday occasions. However, I think that Greco-Roman culture 2000 years ago is perhaps not as useful as more modern Latin European culture: it’s only been in the past decade that France, for example, has started to discuss the public issues caused by “le binge drinking”, whereas in the UK and Ireland such behaviour is surely far, far older.
Like I wrote, drinking and matriarchy versus temperate tippling and Latin machismo rather seems to have already fought it out in Normandy & Brittany already, marking a border between these two different cultures. So there’s a clear tolerance of alcoholism generally in Northern Europe which Southern Europe generally does not share. Is there a link between that and cultural evolution towards patriarchy or matriarchy? I dunno, but I raised the question.
We are not supposed to comment here at The Saker on corona treatments.
This stricture makes it virtually impossible to comment on Ramin’s harping on the uselessness of hydroxychloroquine as a buttress of his other arguments.
All I can say is: Ramin, do more fact checking on the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat many conditions as well as CV.
Your Mom theory is very interesting and has a certain amount of explanatory power and I am taking it on board. But it doesn’t have to and should not rely on weak contentions re HC and setting up the latter as a straw man. This weakens your general argument and also tends to make you an (unwitting) ally of the “corona panickers” and Vaccine Totalitarians.
Katherine
Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are both on the WHO’s list of “basic medicines.”
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/325771/WHO-MVP-EMP-IAU-2019.06-eng.pdf?ua=1
These are the basics that should be in the “tool bag” of every hospital, clinic etc.
The index starts on p. 62 of the pdf. There you can see the locations of all the mentions of any medication in the rest of the document.
Katherine
The article’s logic falls apart when one is aware of the multiple lock downs across many different societies to control the virus spread. It’s not to do with matriarch or patriarchy but epidemiology and the economic system.
Epidemiology and Economics would have strictly forbidden ‘lockdowns’. They are particularly destructive of any economy. At first it was just sheer incompetence and the odd desire to emulate China, but it quickly became a question of political power. ‘Wow, we can get people to dance around with pool tubing on their heads to keep anyone from getting to close, this is fantastic. Who would have thought it?’
“Epidemiology and Economics would have strictly forbidden ‘lock downs”
No, epidemiology experts rather than Internet cranks recommend such and to good effect in the absence of tracking, testing or vaccination. Capitalism demands that the working class, those unable to earn money in their sleep, be kept going at any human cost to fatten the bottom line.
” Western Anglo-Celtic culture was often a seafaring culture,”
One again we have this confusion of what is what. I have to emphasise that this is wrong. Anglo’s are derived from from the Saxons of what is now Northern Germany, plus some Danish / Dutch influence, and modern English Anglos, are genetically an 80% combination of Franco – {modern day northern France} and German genetic blood lines.
As for tolerance of alcoholic drinking – among the Celtic people – and please dont confuse us with the Gaelic people of Scotland and Ireland – this has never been the case. That on occasion a man might “take a bit too much” as celebration certainly has been accepted as “guys will be guys”, but constant heavy drinking was always frowned on.
True Celts are now found only in Cymru, predominantly in the middle and northern shires of Powys and Gwynedd. Sadly, [the English have polluted Ceredigion, with English imports but also the foreign people they have welcomed]. This has been determined following a widespread genetic study of genotypes across Britain.
They have never, ever, taken to the sea. Few Welsh can swim, or ever could. Boats were not built, as the Celtic people are wholly land based. Only the Scandinavian influenced Anglos took to the sea as did their Danish/ Scandinavian forbears.
However, I have to add to a growing weariness with this tendency to blame single mothers – as a class, which includes all single mothers, everywhere – for todays’ ills.
It’s as though you think that you can take a situation out of it’s context; that because one is a single mother, for whatever reason, each one has the same character ; that of developing an overbearing, patriarchal personality which wishes to dominate offspring and others alike.
Why they never look back in History I dont know. I am the product – as a +1 generation – of a “single mother” – as was my very stable, honest Mother.
You see Ramin, there was this male caused disaster called WWI. Many men not only died during it, but shortly after from the effects.
My Grandmother was left alone when her husband died 8 yrs after the war ended from effects of it, in a world with no Welfare, no Government support, to raise 12 children. i.e. a “single Mother”.
But we are Celts and family is all. Everyone turned to, to help. The oldest helped bring up the youngest. My Grandmother was no more strict, probably than any other parent who had been born in the 1880’s and brought up in those pre-modern days. Not one of her children was ever in trouble with the law. They all became honest hard working adults – one won a Kitchener Scholarship and ended up a University lecturer in Economics finally instituting the School of Business Studies at Bahrain University!!
And my Grandmother was one of thousands. None of them have been identified as causing anything drastic to society.
And, due to a tragedy of mental illness, I too, was a single mother. I have two happy successful children now with their own kids.
You cant take a situation out of context of the times it occurs in, the cultural memes and teachings those people were partially formed by. And you can’t get a “one size fits all” to explain a general condition. We are all part of a system, a complex one as it’s made of many sub-systems. These direct so much of what we see of a society on the surface.
Are you going to get the family minded, hard working, child devoted “single Mother” – who only wants to set her children off on the sea of adult life in a seaworthy ship with full sails, wanting to engage in the two-faced, lying manipulative hurly-burly of modern political life; long hours spent “networking” and manipulating while some paid help minds her kids?
No – you are going to get the kind of woman who likes that sort of existence, who has bought into the male image which is what modern “feminism” is. And she will reflect the male world because that is the only way to be successful in that environment.
And therein lies the problem; not some single issue like the increase of single mothers – for different reasons than those of yesteryear – but the systems that are the society.
And that is where to point the finger.
Thank you, Patricia, for bringing some common sense, and some history, into this thread.
Few women choose to be single mothers (a few do, just to plug that small hole).
The idea that they do and that there is a group of irresponsible breeders out there who are stupid enough to keep having babies but smart and influential enough to affect American policy at the national level is about on a par with Reagan’s fantasy of welfare queens as a linchpin of his own inhumane trickle-down-fantasy economic policies.
Furthermore it has been pointed out elsewhere that single mothers are some of the hardest hit by the current situation. If they are lucky they still have a job. Many families, including those headed by a single woman, rely on a grandparent for childcare while the mother goes out to work. But of course Granny is at the greatest actual risk. So there goes the childcare. What is the single mother to do? I would expect single mothers to be strongly represented among those who need a return to “normalcy” in order to survive.
Furthermore, historically many women who find themselves on their own give up a lot to raise their children, such as their own professional and intellectual aspirations. Even if the children were unwanted, or even the result of rape, most women will not walk away from their children, as many men find it easy to do.
Katherine
We were born before the wind
Also older than the sun
Some added history. When Wales was burried under hundreds of feet of polar ice our Island situated in the Gulf Stream flourished. Our people built New Grange thousands of years before any Celt crossed the English Channel. As the ice retreated, Wales, Scotland and England were nought but barren wind swept rocks. From the melting polar caps, the ocean water rose, then the Atlantic Rift split apart and a large part of our Island fell bellow the ocean. Tir Na Nog was no more.
Our peoples then migrated across the water to the new lands uncovered from the ice. We settled and populated Cymru and the rest of the Isles……….building Stone Henge to pass the time. When Indo European Celts finally arrived in the ‘new world’ they marveled at the massive structures left behind. Who were these people capabile of building such magnifcant structures, the Celts wondered.
While I am part Celt, part Viking, I will always be a Tuatha De Danaan
“Tuatha De Danaan??
Danish Irish in other words Sean. Its the paradise of the Irish. The Iris are not Celtic apart from a few in the very south, opposite Wales, who mostly got there by being abducted by the Danes of Dublin in raids on Cymru. The Cymraeg of long ago referred to now Dublin as “The Danish City”. Thats in the records too.
Do you have any evidence for the claims you’ve made out here? I have Celtic History going back before Cesar. They dont mention anything you have claimed here.
Sorry, that is
“WHO Model List of Essential Medicines”
Katherine
Matriarchy? No, the women who have power are patriarchal females: The last thing they do is truly support working, single women and most of them not only represent men of power and wealthy but also are married to them.
Enough of putting up ” straw women” arguments, please. If women had more women as support networks maybe they would stay married—that is what get most women through some of the rigors of an unfair patriarchy, after all, but it is the effect of the fragmentation of social relations brought by predatory capitalism which has lead to the rise of single mothers. We did the best we could….give us a break!!!
I suggest as part of the maturation process, that men as well as women learn to forgive their parents….5th commandment is to honor them…but the word honor in the ancient language also means heaviness…Yes, we take on the heaviness of past family “stuff” passed down unwittingly onto our innocent heads….Our job is to deal with it, forgive it and end it. Such is the adult meaning of “honor”.
Now that the scolding is over—please don’t call me a Karen!!! ( joking)
Hey, are you trying to flip the boat over………….lol, what you wrote is so true. I like the “deal with it, forgive it, and end it”, very Zen.
Cheers, M
I just asked my son what a Karen was, I do live a sheltered life, very funny………..thankfully not many are immigrating north, shopping is hard enough as it is.
Re “Karen,” I just recently learned this new term. I think in a satirical video of some kind. And it did immediately resonate.
The reason why is that I have been following comments in my hometown newspaper and in that island community (I am off-Island for the duration the “debate” regarding shutting down, preventing people from coming to the island, making them get a test before then can get on the ferry, forcing them into ridiculous quarantine situations, etc., has been interesting to observe. And I have observed what almost looks like a clique of commenters with feminine handles who have taken it upon them selves to be the community scolds regarding distancing, mask wearing, dropping a dime to the police if ‘scapers (land scapers) don’t wear masks and there are more than three at a site, etc. etc. etc. So when I heard the term “Karen” I immediately had a context for the word.
It would be interesting to know the first usage and why the name Karen does seem kind of appropriate . . .
Katherine
“Karen’s” argue with the manager of the local grocery store wanting then to honor an ‘expired’ grocery coupon.
Darned! I thought the Karens were an ethnic group with sustainable swidden farming practices in the mountains of northern Thailand and Myanmar. I guess I’d better look up the term.
But we should also remember that momism is the cradle of the Jewish jenyus: The constant admonishions and implortaions from rom the Yiddishe Mamas about “if you my son is not the best, then you are a failure”. This I was told by a Jewish lawyer i met at a bar 150 metres from Wall Street 15 years ago — he thoght the myth of jews like him having mor IQ than the common man just hogwash. And we have the exquisite example in the Richarrd’s song:
(My mother said) I had to be this
and I had to do that
I really had to be a perfect ‘some-one’.
“And why can’t you be the captain of the cricet team?!”
(…)
Notice that this is not working.class soccer, but about cricket and being upward mobile.
Methinks the startin paragraphs of thi excellent article are too hard on US “mom-ism”. The phenomenon was early observed my Hugh Heffner of Playbouy fame (Playboy was a monthly featuring photos of young woman bearing their breasts but only partially any pubic hair from the fifities and later, but also carrying important dissident articles and reveilling or revelling in the strangenesses and the brutality of Amerika)-
Prime example of “momism” should instead be such states as Norway. The mother of infamous Stoltenberg wrote about this as a sociologist whilst being junior minister in Labour governments. Cøebrating it or not I donot know.
“… then matriarchy must produce too much female belligerence – i.e., emotional intimidation, hysterical acceptance of new and untested ideas, and stagnation-creating risk aversion.”
So very true, especially the last. Whereas men are generally inclined to accept risk as an inherent element of life and individual freedom itself and to seek and invent ways of dealing with it as a challenge like any other, women are much more strongly inclined toward risk avoidance and collective protection mechanisms. So much so that much of their political influence is directed toward the creation and furtherance of an idealized “risk-free” societal environment (a delusion, of course) and the condemnation (or outright prohibition where possible) of all masculine tendencies they perceive as inconsistent with that goal. They seldom, if ever, seem to discern the ironies of state and corporate “herd management” that the furtherance of their emasculation efforts entails. Unfortunately, today’s western manhood — what’s left of it — seems scarcely more discerning, and its sons under feminist “single parent” influence are highly unlikely to do any better.
@Ramin Mazaheri – Reading this article is like listening to someone playing an off-tune Piano. It is like after good start, you got diverted into the ‘swamp’,but then,you managed to make a decent finish.My pick is below, & please tune up your Piano
“They confuse “masculine” with power and “feminine” with weakness. This is absurd and wrong, even to the most rigid Asian and Muslim patriarchs: the concept of male-female “equality despite inherent differences” is reflected in the East Asian concept of yin and yang, and in Islam’s concept of men and women having different rights and duties. But in the West – and especially in the Anglo-Saxon world – women are told they must renounce their feminine power and be more like over-aggressive men in order to survive and thrive in their capitalist-imperialist culture, which leads to failure for their women, children, men and society.”
And there might be some direct correlation to this metric: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/478234-testosterone-crisis-america-future/
From the linked article:
” Identifying the cause, for now, is a bit like playing bingo for diagnosing modern-day malaise. The ubiquity of internet pornography? The decimation of manual labor among the working classes? Soy-based baby foods? Since studying the effects of any one of these things would never be funded for study by the educational-industrial complex, it is impossible to know how they might tie in.”
“I don’t think they ever want to give up their power, and I don’t think they accept fair criticism of their leadership, and I don’t think they have any endgame: these are Moms after all, LOL!”
I LOLed! As a Mom I can confirm that Moms definitely do not have an endgame to being a Mom! :)
This man stimulates thought. This man has many brilliant insights. This man has many unique historical and accurate references. This man’s “conclusions” on so many issues he makes commentaries on may or may not be as “valid” as his didactic pronouncements indicate. Great articles to read ; but he is not Ludvig Von Mises.
but he is not Ludvig Von Mises
Well, let’s all thank our lucky stars for that at least!
According to movie producer and friend of Rockefellers. Aaron Russo, Women’s Liberation was financed by Rockefellers “to tax women and break up families.”
The Elite Bankers were unhappy that 50% of the population was not paying taxes and that children with full time mothers could not be properly indoctrinated.
The social engineering that followed liberation worked to perfection.
In the 1970s, school boys were dumbed down so girls could compete. And today 60% of the college student body is female, even though 5 out of 6 people with IQ 145 are male.
The icing on the cake prevents single moms from receiving welfare, if they have a man living in the house.
I believe the real reason was to get working age women into the work force. Without it, as you 50% of the working age population does not produce work hence making labor costly.
There were plenty of side effects to it, single mom’s being one. I don’t think Rocky wanted to break up families so they tax them. If anything it’s a drain on society.
I’d be most interested to see some solid documentation of this Rock initiative. I don’t put it past them.
As for dumbing down the boys, who did the dumbing down?
I went to school in the fifties, and throughout my school career, girls were always ahead of boys in the classroom.
My intuition is, circumcision and, and/or, bonding with Mother’s milk, in the Controllers of population reduction, was a serious tragedy. The Metzitzah B’peh is a ritual of extreme imbalance. The current virus dictate is about the same ongoing disconnect to nature. Mothers’ nursing infants, e.g., where is the study about this nature nurture? Until the traumas of circumcision and lactation absenteeism are included in assessing our humanity’s not worthy ego disconnect, we are in essence experiencing tunnel vision. Thanks Saker for your enlightening blog!
Like Ramin, I’m a broad minded guy, but maybe even more so!
In my case there was the single mom after 7th grade……but three sisters…. and no brothers…..4 to 1.
I thought of them as regular persons, just with different plumbing than mine. No profiling.
As an emergency ward nurse, mom implored me to never ride motorcycles…as she was drained both physically and emotionally for a decade by having to nurse young men, all too often, that had mangled their bodies in crashes in traffic and were barely clinging to life.
Of course growing 5 inches my senior year in high school and beginning to feel my oats as a young stallion, I blew off her worries with manly disdain. This because the pressure to compete in life and not be timid but come of age, was strongest then, when her worries were most intense.
Yet, behind my bravado, I could use my imagination and risk/reward calculator, and pretty quickly rule out the whole scenario of “going down on the pavement” at 50..60 —or 70 miles per hour. Never came close to choosing two wheels over four wheels stability….with a steel perimeter around the driver to boot.
She had gotten my attention, although I pretended otherwise, of course.
Since then I have always considered risk aversion as more complex than traffic safety matters. One shudders at the “safe” choices that create the modern “soy boy” …the trans faux femme …..and balloon the ranks of the incels:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=incel
Scroll down to the want ad for a wife, after ….
“The writer of the following document (grammatical & spelling errors included) is the clearest example of INCEL that ever lived;
The INCEL in question wrote the following;” (see link above)
If you are a single mom (or any woman) ….. just realize how truly pathetic and bizarrely tortured and torturing of themselves and the fairer sex males without balanced appreciation of females are trending…… more and more to be.
Moms separated from deadbeat dads…..are not quite THAT sad! Not even close!
Ramin wrote:
” I never recall a time in my life being unaware of what “feminism” meant (in broad terms), just like for “communism/socialism”. I am not bragging here – I’m just trying to forestall certain criticisms which are given credence by racists and misandrists due to my ethnic and religious background.”
I have kidded him gently in the beginning of this comment for what I am 90% sure was an unintended pun (and not a bad one!), unless he is even more daring than I suppose.
Those are the risks of being a journalist in one or two languages that are not one’s native language!
And I’m not sure the slang term for women when intentionally used, as it was 100 times more than today, a century ago…1920’s ….. and well into the 1950’s…….. was not used more innocently and casually than it sounds today…….HOWEVER, changing the subject, now…..LOL….. I would be interested in hearing more from Ramin on what he has discussed about Islam Socialism in terms of its more specifically Lunar or “Feminine Side” in Astro-theological terms…….in Contrast to Christianity and its Son/Sun or far more solar ORIENT-ation.
Now, there’s raising a risky subject!
But perhaps not as risky as letting one’s immunity get flabby by mainly staying indoors for 3 months straight.
This is all very well yet it goes much deeper and deeper … philosophically I mean. Consider the following discussion between two gophers:
“What is the difference between postmodern feminism and marxist feminism,” said one gopher to another as they were digging a new burrow for Harry’s wife Doris.
“Well,” said Jordan Gopher as he paused and scraped some damp soil from between his claws, “it is largely a matter of feeling the difference or the sensation of being aware of the difference just as I can feel the difference between a warm beer or a cold beer after I taste it. Hopefully that will happen shortly.”
“You mean postmodern feminism is like a warm beer?” asked Albert Gopher slowly shaking his head in confusion.
“In more ways than one,” replied Jordan as he resumed his work. “You see the taste of warm beer makes me feel pain whereas with cold beer my spirits rise. This might not be the same for a Marxist as opposed to a postmodern beer taster. The Marxist beer taster will have an objective set of standards or a thermometer he uses to judge the temperature whereas the postmodern taster just feels the sensation which may differ depending on the circumstances.”
“You mean if he is in an igloo?”
“Exactly!”
“Well it is mighty hot down here so to drink a cold beer later would be just perfect.”
“Not according to the postmodernist. Later is not an option.”
“Why?”
“The circumstances might change depending which tavern we use. That Gopher disco where all the females wear sexy clothing is very different to our local where the barmaids wear none at all.”
“So even if the beer is the same it might feel different,” asked Albert beginning to get the drift.
“Right, everything depends on time, place, air conditioning, phases of the moon, whether the tide is in or out, what the barmaids are wearing, etc.”
“So what the barmaids are wearing can affect postmodern feminism.”
“I see you are getting the drift,” replied Jordan as he moved a large boulder to one side.
“Maybe that is why Harry married Doris. She was a very sexy barmaid you know. This postmodern feminism seems to have its advantages just like finishing this dammed tunnel will.”
Very funny.
Of course, warm beer is de rigueur in the British Isles.
But it’s always fun to see male imaginations running wild.
Yours, a committed masculinist
I like your writing a lot but I don’t understand your attitude toward the old. Don’t you come from a culture which respects the wisdom of old men? I don’t think that all old people are wise, but some are and by the way I don’t think that the lockdown has much to do with saving the old anyway. The culture of the West is matriarchal as you say but it also glorifies the young. It doesn’t have any real interest in the tales of the old and for the same reason in history. As for the future, it has become a quite abstract and boring concept. Postmodernism has swallowed it together with many useful instruments of analysis. Westerners live in a culture of the present. Tomorrow most of them will have forgotten why they suddenly got poorer. If they try to remember, nobody will listen. It will be a thing of the past.
” by the way I don’t think that the lockdown has much to do with saving the old anyway. ”
rigthto.
As Ernst Wolff recently pointedly pointed out, how anyone can think the lockdown has anything to do with health is daft. TPTB have *never* cared about the heath of the hoi polloi. If they did, they wouldn’t have defunded hospitals and medical care, reduced nurses’ salaries, allowed companies to make mega-profits off dodgy health care. Etc. For sure in the UK, the USA, and France. I believe also in Italy and Germany. The plan (in the USA) has been to milk even the pandemic for profits. If TPTB cared about our health the helicopter money would be used to ensure *free* testing, treatment, both out-patient and in-patient care, food, medications etc. to all those who need it.
So, the lockdown is not about the health of the people. I think that is pretty much settled.
The obvious question: What is this really about?
Katherine
Nice article with great insight into western thought, which perfectly explains why emotional blackmail has become the norm in western political culture.
I have one disagreement though. Islam itself is matriarchal at its core and it was perfectly explained by Colttaine in his YouTube video “Islam is right about women” where the narrator breaks apart many misconceptions about the place of women in Islam.
I agree that Islam is matriarchal – the always amusing Bro93 asked: “I would be interested in hearing more from Ramin on what he has discussed about Islam Socialism in terms of its more specifically Lunar or “Feminine Side” in Astro-theological terms…….in Contrast to Christianity and its Son/Sun or far more solar ORIENT-ation.”
I thought briefly about it and… I dunno, it’s all rather feminine, right? What’s “feminine” about Christianity, I wondered? Rather most of it, to me! Women are certainly the backbone of the Abrahamic faiths (and maybe even of all religious faiths), so… I dunno – I don’t really have a ready answer to Bro93.
All I can say is that Islam is more “masculine” than Christianity in that it is so much more logical and elevating of logic. However… it is still a faith, so… at some point typically-feminine “intuitive” thinking must take over for “logic”.
A good question by Bro93 though – somebody better schooled on Islam than me could surely come up with a good analysis.
Again, just to be clear: the point is not capitalist-like domination of one or the other in a zero-sum game, but the equality of male-female and cultivating the good sense to use the appropriate characteristic at the right time.
Ramin, do you read the saker Blog?
Interpret the facts through any lens you want, but get the facts straight.
I remember a community translation being posted on this blog from a respected french researcher stating that chloroquine works for coronavirus.
Putting anglo and celtic culture together is in my more germanic view strange.
So far I have not studied much celtic history but there are some celtic graves around where women are buried with the signs of leaders.
Matriarchy may be a common thing in celtic culture that pre-dates strong alcohol.
The phenomenon of single moms is not the same as matriarchy. One could argue that it is much more possible foer a single mom to raise kids today then fifty or hundred years ago.
The other aspect is that to raise kids and work as second priority has not changed that much while the role for men as breadwinner has for a good part of the population disappeared.
The men are still there and drown their pain in booze.
Anyway one describes it, this is not a phenomenon of the ruling class.
With Corona democracy is canceled in the west.
To me it looks like the rulers are using the usual fear tactics to get the regular people to to as the rulers want. The old religious tactic of inventing sin and providing an invented soution for a hefty fee does not work anymore but the fear of death works even better whed it is the absolute end.
Then the narrative needs to be enforced. This is done in all possible ways. Make single moms protect their kids, discredit old white men and whatever else.
All differing views and alternative cures need to be discredited. The official media report fear from different angles.
When alterntive media get scientists to state their view they get discredited, the videos deleted, websites taken down, and attacked ad hominem.
My view here is based on the German discourse in alternative media.
The scientific discourse that should have happened was blocked with power becuse it showed that this virus is about as dangerous a bad flu. It can kill but mostly together with a serious preexixting illness.
Once that knowledge is in the rational thing is to stop the police state, open the economy and clean up the economic mess.
When that does not happen, there is a different agenda behind it.
That has little to do with matriarchy.
If you want to look at religion, then look at the symbols the powerful are using. You will not find much originally christian signs there but satanic ones.
Right on! At age 7-8 in Michigan i was forced to “swear aligance to the flag of the United States and to the ideals for which it stands”. Returning to Missouri at 15, I noticed my black friends turning mute and I abstained. At Berkley at 16 I rejected itt all.
Returning to the US (jost NY) in 2005 I talked with Jewish lawyers and brokers at a bar just 150 metres from the Wall Street stock exchange. They had lost all faith in the US — but also in Israël!
How does the practice of “honor killing” in which a women who was seen with a man who is not her husband had to be killed in order to protect the family’s reputation fit with this theory? The men involved did not suffer the same fate. I don’t know how common it was in Arab culture (from which Islam sprang) but just the thought of it does not seem seem to suggest any kind of balance that Ramin speaks of.
Also, the practice of paying a dowry does not suggest balance. This was common also in European cultures, if I’m not mistaken.
It seems that in many places, women were treated as chattel.
It’s an interesting theory Ramin puts forward, but I think the attempt to bring coherence to a very messy history is too simplistic.
There has been a good information campaign over the past year in France about the rampant killings of women by their partners – they point out how many of these are basically “honor killings”, i.e. for adultery/cheating on their partner. But, due to the reason of Islamophobia, it is somehow not an “honor killing” when a woman is murdered over adultery in the West. Both East and West (and North and South) have these vile practices in equal measure, I imagine, despite the West’s claims that they are superior here. Countless French women murdered by their partner certainly disagree that war-torn Afghanistan has a monopoly here.
Dowries were used in Islam to ensure women had some economic independence in case there was divorce, as women did not earn wages outside the home and thus could not generate income. Dowry is thus not just a payment for sex, like prostitution, nor it is it payment for someone to do the work of a housewife – a dowry is a way for a woman to have the economic wherewithal to leave her husband if she chose and not become homeless. Regulating dowries and inheritances are thus part of the very real pro-feminist societal revolutions installed by Islam.
Thank you for your response, Ramin.
I can now see how the practice of dowries attempts to balance the apparently inferior social position of women. How much it succeeds is an open question, I think.
Re. “honor killings”, I’m referring to situations in which a young unmarried woman goes out on her own and then because of a suspicion that she may have done something that may bring shame on the family, one of her close relatives feels obliged to kill her or maim her. There is nothing equivalent for male “offenders”, I’m pretty sure. I think such a practice betrays the view of women’s position in a society that condones or has condoned such practices. I see no “balance” there. It is disrespectful in the extreme.
I do think your thesis is an interesting one and contributes to an understanding of modern societies.