But you don't have the word of other scientists. You have the word of you - and your cultural myths. I'll reiterate one last time - I've refuted all of the things that you've asserted, and you've refuted none of the things that I have presented expert opinion on (not my expert opinion, but that of nationally or internationally recognized experts). You didn't bother to counter my "few handpicked articles" - all from from mainstream science journals and the published works of subject matter experts, because you don't feel that you need to. You feel that you know more than I do even though I've been researching and learning about this for years and you haven't, but you also don't have the goods. You don't have the science or the data or the expert opinions to speak to them - you only have your "I just know" outlook - which is typical for a certain kind of man. So, you may think that you're different, and perhaps in many ways you are, but not in that respect.

Cognitive science says that about 2% of thought is conscious and the rest is cultural programming, childhood indoctrination, the affects of media, etc. I don't know if you are doing this stuff consciously or subconsciously, but what I do know is that it's nearly exactly the same kinds of not very on-point deflections that I hear from a certain type of man rather routinely. If you were to speak to a particular concrete data point where there is room for difference of interpretation, I'd think that was valid, but so far you haven't done that. You've come up with red herrings that aren't really about the topics at hand - in order to avoid having to talk about the substantive stuff which you thought was true but has been refuted by scientists.

You haven't asked any real questions. And as I said before, if you did have actual questions, they'd probably best be answered in the many, many stories that I've already linked to you. These aren't my theories. These are the predominant cutting edge scientific theories. The fact that they don't match "mainstream"cultural narratives is really not that surprising. It often takes a long time for that sort of thing to permeate into the culture, because frankly, we're not a very literate society and that's not widely made available to us and most people prefer the stories that shore up their existing beliefs anyhow.

This history of the domination system is that it does whatever it can to reinforce itself as right, natural, timeless, and inevitable. For example, why is there any discussion at all in this country about whether or not sex is a binary? Scientificially, it's obvious that it's not. Intersex babies are born 1 in every 1500 births and there are well documented genetic conditions where a person may have XXY or some other chromosomal configuration that's not part of a binary. There's plenty of information about this available, but still, we're mostly as a culture still pretty fixated on sex as a binary (because that's an important part of patriarchy and it's been deeply embedded in our stories about what is true - but through the lens of narrative, not through the lens of science).

I would have had no problem at all with you asking me actual questions or wanting greater understanding of certain points that I made, but you didn't come at it from that perspective - you came at it from a defensive one, where it was clear that I'm just another one of those women on Medium who has an axe to grind and doesn't really know how to actually engage in dialogue and learning. That's what you asserted about me, nearly word for word. You said that you are typically treated with contempt by female writers but have you ever stopped to consider why that might be? That you are the common denominator? Perhaps you could take into consideration all the ways that you are bringing that upon yourself? I’ve said that I’m treated a certain way by a certain type of man, but that a lot of men treat me with interest and respect, and even go out of their way to express appreciation or ask meaningful questions, so that’s the difference there.

A lot of men don’t view women as authorities (even about their own lives, and experiences — which is where mansplaining comes in) much less what they know and understand. If you don’t want to be that guy, then stop being it, because I’ve seen a lot of that so far, both in these exchanges and in the ones about housework where you kept doubling down that what the author and others were saying couldn’t possibly be true because it wasn’t true for you and in your experience (as if that’s the metric we should use to evaluate societal trends and dynamics.) In that instance as well, I presented studies that confirm widely accepted understanding of the societal dynamic (which doesn’t mean it applied to every single person — it’s a trend, and a pretty robust one, at that) and you wouldn’t accept those because it didn’t meet with what you have experienced and therefore believe). Once again, a woman couldn’t be an authority on something that was different than what you “just know” — no matter how much evidence she presents. After all, that’s just “cherry picked” — the favorite phrase of certain type of man. It’s OK for her to be smart, as long as she doesn’t think she knows more than you do? I honestly don’t believe that’s who you want to be, but it sure comes off that way a lot of the time.

Debating whether or not the current social system is literally an aberration by your definition of that word is besides the point. That's not a substantive assertion and it's also not a question. This social system is a very recent development, one that came with a lot of downsides. If you want to have a discussion about whether or not patriarchy brought more good than harm, we could certainly do that, but it's a separate discussion from the topic at hand.

Hobbes was completely and totally wrong, and although there are still those out there, some in the scientific community even, who still subscribe to a Hobbesian outlook, I've yet to see any convincing evidence that they’ve got a leg to stand on. We have so much neuroscience, so much human development data, so much psychology understanding, so much anthropological understanding of how humans are hardwired for connection and are some of the most socially interdependent animals on the planet, and all of the ways that his benefited us from an evolutionary perspective to believe in the dominance systems stories of a 17th C philosopher.

One of the differences between the dominance system and the partnership one is in the narratives that are told within them. Dominance systems have beliefs and stories that justify, idealize, and normalize domination and violence (as Hobbes does). Partnership systems have beliefs and stories that recognize our human capacities for negative behaviors but emphasize empathic, mutually beneficial, nonviolent relations and present them as normal, moral, and desirable.

Going on to another one of your assertions, it's pretty widely accepted in scientific circles that agriculture was a double-edged sword that decimated quality of life (including health) for most people, while allowing an elite few to thrive at the expense of those lower down the hierarchy. I could link you probably 50 articles on that, but I'm not going to do it. If you don't believe what I've cited to you, go do your own research on it.

I've already linked you a couple of stories about what a more partnership-oriented society would be like, including a link to The Center for Partnership Systems, which has a ton of resources and information opportunities. I've already said this to you several comments back:

"I'm not suggesting that we can return to forager societies, but I think it's important that we not perpetuate the myths about the world that you (and many others) clearly have been indoctrinated into and that you just said to me a few minutes ago. It impairs our ability to actually realistically grapple with the problems that we face."

Again, this is not an attack on you, but it is pointing out that we've all been fed disinformation - and, I've been working for the past several years to go beyond that disinformation that I was fed too, to learn what the actual science indicates. I'm in a position to answer questions because I'm a bit of a subject matter expert myself at this point. And I'm sorry, but that's an extremely condescending thing to insinuate that I'd be a lot more appropriate and enjoyable asking questions and not attempting to answer them. I am asking questions constantly. It's pretty much what drives me to do so much research based writing. But there also comes a time when that learning and that questioning can be distilled down into having some answers. But apparently, that's not appropriate, and you've already indicated you don't like it when other women writers on Medium do that either - which kind of belies all of your protesting about how gender shouldn't be brought into this when you've done it.

In fact, more than once you've gone out of your way to indicate that I have no standing to act like I know much of anything - despite the fact that I've linked you 12-15 stories filled with research, citations from mainstream science journals, the opinions of known field leaders, etc. And in that respect, you are just another one of those men. You don't respect that I could possibly have any authority or expertise, and you treat me as if I've pulled this stuff out of my ass (repeatedly calling it your theory) and repeatedly asserting that this is cherry-picked information (rather than the mainstream scientific consensus that it is) simply because you've never heard of it before. You haven't heard of it so I must be a just another one of those agenda-driven women writers on medium spouting off their nonsense about stuff that they've just made up. Do you have any notion of how offensive and aggressive that is? How disrespectful and contrary to any stated desire to have a meaningful discussion (or to be different from the perponderance of men on the internet)?

We got off on this side-trail because you said this: "A lot to read and while I reject or at least resist your end of the continuum, I'll be open to it and continue to read." And I asked you what there was to resist because that implies agenda and not having an open mind, but I was willing to let it go and thanked you for the civil discussion, simply reiterating that there was nothing to resist - that it's not a position but simply what the data indicates. From there, you had to launch into tangential discussions about a philosophical discussion you'd had with a friend - one for which there is no provable answer, but only opinion, as if what I had demonstrated to you so far and was about to in the remaining stories was just as flimsy and unknowable. Condescending! Dismissive! Not open-minded! Not respectful of my expertise or the time and effort that I'd spent to present it to you! (Yes, at this point I am angry, because it's tiresome that women still get treated this way in 2021).

So yeah, if you want to rewind and try again, I'm happy to do that. You can start by leaving concrete and substantive comments or questions on something that I've linked to you to read, because this has gone on long enough here.