OK, I'm going to say this one last time and only because then I'm going to use it for a story. Let's redefine the big words, since they just seem to confuse you because you've got so many preconceptions about them. Here is the way that humans evolved - something that is agreed upon by nearly all anthropologists.
For 97% of human history, we lived in tribes of 20-50 hunters and gatherers. Food sharing, cooperative child rearing, and otherwise just looking out for and taking care of each other was the primary survival strategy. There were no nuclear families - the tribe was the family, with a lot of related kin. We know that tribes used to trade people often in order to promote genetic diversity. There was no way to verify paternity, so clans were matrilineal, but it hardly mattered because everyone took care of everyone else.
Some of this we know from other scientific disciplines and some of it we extrapolate by looking at modern H/Gs. They are not a homogenous group, but they do have many things in common, including being very individualistic while at the same time very cooperative and putting the good of the tribe to the fore. They practice something called reverse hierarchy and enforced egalitarianism where the majority keeps anyone who gets too big a head or too many ideas about power in check. This often takes place via teasing, or perhaps even shunning, but ostracization from the group and execution have also been known to take place in extreme cases. In the case of execution, the immediate family caries out the sentence so that there is little room for feuds and bad blood to arise because the cohesion and wellbeing of the group is the most important thing.
We call this an egalitarian society, not only because men and women have equal rights and power (they don't always in modern H/G tribes), but because of the socio/political structure which does not favor a chief or other full time or hereditary leader. Ad hoc leaders emerge for certain tasks and decisions are made by the group for the good of the group. As I said to you at least 5 different times, no social classes, no significant wealth disparity, no ruling class, no hierarchy of traditional power that is maintained by intimidation - these are the things that make for an egalitarian culture. Most of what you would call indigenous peoples are still based to a large extent in this social system. Even if they get to the point where they have a chief (polynesians), or women don't have near the power than men do (Australian aboriginals), there are still strong elements of egalitarianism which are a sharp contrast to the highly stratified social hierarchies and wealth disparity of Western cultures. The good of the tribe still matters more than individual fortunes, and the wellbeing of the group is still a central focus although at the same time, individual independence and autonomy are also valued in a way that is not typical for Western cultures.
As we go along in human evolution, this sort of social structure continued well into the Neolithic and proto-agriculatural enclaves, like Çatalhöyük, one of the best explored and excavated archeological sites in the world. Enforced egalitarianism was the norm here as well (just as it was in Paleolithic tribes). It wasn’t until near the end of the settlement’s existence that more hierarchical societal mechanisms come into evidence. Ian Hodder, the archeologist in charge of the site, believes that it was a highly developed system of beliefs and rituals that helped the settlement to be cohesive in the absence of leaders. Mind you, this was a settlement of 10,000 that existed for several thousand years with no leaders. This is what the term egalitarian means from a socio/anthropological standpoint.
Around 6-9 thousand years ago, the socio/political climate began to change. As I quoted to you from the article in the World Economic Forum, the rise of agriculture brought new challenges and new social structures. Women went from being primary food producers (hunting is sporadic and even today many H/G tribes get most of their daily calories from gatherers) to being relegated to the inside of the house. They began to have children every two years, other than every four. Land and material possessions were beginning to be accumulated and there was a desire to pass them down to definite heirs whose paternity was verified. The only way to assure paternity was to socially and sexually control women, and they were no longer social adults as they had been for 97% of history, but now wards of first their fathers and then their husbands.
Along with the loss of autonomy for women came new hierarchies related to jobs that arose related to having food to store, and distribute for the first time - such as administrator, and soldier. We went from social groups where cooperation and social cohesion were central to ones where individual gain at the expense of others was the norm. This is called patriarchy. As I said to you at least half a dozen times, and as all of my linked articles made clear, patriarchy is not just about power differentials between men and women, although those did arise for the first time 6-9 k years ago also. They were just one aspect of a larger socio/political development characterized by Might Makes Right. Those with more power took what they wanted, and those who did not have the power to resist, fell under their control. This applied not only to women, but also to weaker, poorer, men as well and a highly stratified class system emerges for the first time in human history. As I know that I very clearly said to you, more than once, social stratification is the central element of patriarchy.
As I've already pointed out to you at least twice, mummies of ancient cultures show that the elite and the royal ate much better and had a lot less disease than the commoners. This is a distinct contrast from egalitarian cultures which are characterized by food sharing as a central element. Western cultures developed out of this tradition of hierarchy and elites. This all took place in a very specific timeframe in a very specific way about 6-9 thousand years ago. There is a clear demarcation from when nearly the entire human population used cooperation, food sharing, alloparenting, and other egalitarian dynamics as a survival strategy to when Might Makes Right took over. Anthropologists refer to this as the rise of patriarchy.
For the umpteenth time, I have never, ever, even once asserted that indigenous cultures are patriarchal. In fact, I've specifically pointed out to you several times how overwhelmingly, they are not patriarchal, and it is only with colonialization that they become this way - regardless of the specifics of male/female relations in these indigenous communities - because that is not the arbiter of what patriarchy is. And as I pointed out to you as regards Native Americans, your assumption that they are patriarchal is entirely off base. Nearly all Native American cultures are highly egalitarian, as are Australian aboriginals, and nearly all indigenous cultures that have not been corrupted by Western contact. The Yanomama, who you referenced, are a great example of a culture that has been warped by hundreds of years of brutal Portugues and Spanish contact. I don't have room to go into that further here, and that's an entirely other subject matter, really.
Being upset with me for something that I have repeatedly told you is not my position is entirely due to your tunnel vision and preconceived notions on this topic. You are so entrenched in deciding what I mean, that you can’t even pay attention to what I actually say.
This discussion began because you asserted that feminists had pegged patriarchy as beginning around 10k years ago and I corrected you, pointing out that it was actually anthropologists. I provided you with story after story, scientific article after academic journal after direct quote from books on the topic to support this, but you wouldn't listen because you have a clear framework in your mind that you have already decided upon, which precludes you actually listening and paying attention to something else. You kept putting words in my mouth, and accusing me of things that even when I vehemently told you I did not believe, you still insisted that I thought. This is not a good way to learn something new or to engage with science. It’s also a terrible way to have a discussion with someone.
The long and short of all of these paragraphs returns to my initial comment - that about 6-9k years ago the prevalent social system for humans changed from "everyone help and take care of each other" to "Might Makes Right" and "I got mine!" This is widely articulated as the rise of patriarchy as the dominant socio/political system. This includes the social and sexual control of women, which had never existed before but it is not limited to that - something which you can't quite seem to wrap your head around no matter how many times I say it. Patriarchy is a socio/political system of the maintenance of traditional power via intimidation. It is a dominance-based hierarchy that emerged with the Agricultural Revolution. Any power differentials between men and women are only one aspect of this social system, and evidence of some power differentials is not on its own necessarily a marker of patriarchy. As I said to you early on, racism, homophobia, police brutality, school yard bullying - these are all functions of patriarchy, and I linked you several stories explaining this but it seemed to go over your head because it wasn't in line with your preconceived notions.
Honestly, if this still doesn't register, I don't know what else I can do? At least I got a story out of it....
