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We haven't, Dill. Not all of us.

I was on a train this morning, and a man came through asking for help for a friend who was homeless. He made several announcements about the dire straits the friend was in, claiming he needed a certain amount of money. He has nothing, tossed out! No home or food, etc. The man in front of me reached into his pocket and offered what was clearly his own breakfast bar. He'd barely extended it when the man seeking help waved it away and said, "No man. I had MacDonald's."

Right there before me was evidence of the best in humanity, and if not the worst, certainly the questionable. These people come through all the time, making it impossible to know who really needs help, and who is simply trying to play off people's kindness. Who would let such people know they had a wallet? Not me! Which is terrible. The only time I've felt I could safely pull out my wallet was a few months ago. A man called out that he was a veteran in a bad place, and he needed some help. Something in his voice told me he was being honest, and I gave him what I could. That so many drown out the voices of those who really need help? It makes me wonder, too, "How have we come to this?"

A couple days ago I was hurrying through the station, and a man (for no particular reason) tossed out his cane and tripped me. I still don't know why? Just because he could? I had an armload of books and was wearing a backpack, so my weight was all off. I tottered for a moment, and then I crumpled onto the pavement. As I turned to meet the eye of the man who did it, I saw a stranger rushing forward to help me. He put out his hand, concerned before I'd even hit the pavement, I think, and ready to help. The best, and the worst, as Dickens might say.

I think sometimes all we can do is choose to look at the one putting out a hand. They are still out there. They seem to appear even as we topple. I know that from experience. x

gesundheit

slushy

But "patriarchal" refers to the system of the patriarch, which was an enormous part of our history in Europe and America. The Christian God was a patriarch, and the king was his little patriarch, and the head of the household (father/husband) was the baby patriarch. It was the medieval order. Everything else was property, and to break with the system was to defy God. So women were as children, as servants, as objects. If you can think of a better word than "patriarchal" to describe the social system which put men in charge and made women legally and historically invisible (but socially scrutinized), I'll be applauding you for rallying to change it. I can't think of a better word at this point. Maybe as the history continues to be analyzed and assessed by both men and women, a different word will be born.

It (sounds like) you may see "patriarchal" as a reference to something earlier in history, when women fell into the natural role of nurturer, and men acted as protector? (Sorry of I've misinterpreted you.) That's not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to the actual social order which pinched away women's rights and voices until they were invisible.

There's a book by Gerda Lerner I really want to read, called The Creation of Patriarchy, which may help me better describe what I refer to when I say "patriarchal." (I'm) referring to the idea that laws (in our western history, and currently today in other places) happened through men, and these laws until very recently denied women a public voice, removed from them their property upon marriage, removed from them their name (and their mother's name) upon marriage, and created an economic situation which required a woman to marry to be supported, to spend her entire life economically dependent on her husband, and to be trapped within a situation which forced her to do and say what would please her husband -- because if he left her, she had no power, no recourse, and no hope. Legally her husband could take her children. Legally she could be kept stupefied (what university would take her in the nineteenth century?) I understand that there were exceptions (brothers often taught their sisters), but the system left women socially and economically pinched. Literature from the past was usually published by men. History recorded male exploits. If a woman spoke too aggressively against such a system, she was scorned because her role within the system was intimately tied to religion and family. The Christian religion insisted she keep her mouth closed and be "a good little wife." Her role as "mother" was placed on a pedestal. She was told that to be an angel was her lot in life, and anything else was satanic. If she chose not to marry? She was a laughingstock. If she left her husband? She had stolen his property. If he chose to rape her? She was his property. She was, in short, enslaved.

When I say "patriarchal," I'm referring to the social system which did this to women. I don't mean "a patriarchal system benefiting those ghoulish men, past, present, and future! POWER TO THE WOMEN. Let us be outraged." I mean "a society constructed around the idea that the man (patriarch) was the head of the household, and that a woman had no need for voice, education or money, because a man could do all that for her, and he called that protection, and she had no voice to call it otherwise" -- shades of which can still be seen in the generic "he", in the continued absence of women from history books, in the uneven pay rate in America and I assume elsewhere (which some say is a myth, but I personally experienced), in the fiction which continues to suggest that a woman's only tale/role is the love story (we're beginning to get past this), in the continuing idea that a woman who speaks out against all this is out of order somehow -- breaking out of her role.

If you are curious, you might read a bit of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. For writing it, she was called a "hyena in petticoats." But all she was really suggesting within the (1792) essay was that women were not actually as stupid or silly as men seemed to believe they were. For goodness sake, educate them, and you'd find them abundantly willing to learn. Society was disgusted with such a claim and felt certain she was heading England toward revolution. And that she was a bitch.

I know (and passionately believe) that all sorts of different strengths and weaknesses contributed to our history. I honor the efforts well beyond the women's role in our history. Right now I am particularly interested in the women's role simply because I have begun to notice how often it has been omitted from books. That doesn't mean I'm not equally interested, for example, in the story of the boy who headed off to war in 1915. Or the struggles of the father who worked endlessly to try to provide for his family. Or the plight of the enslaved man who rallied himself to freedom. Or the many, many men who conducted themselves with honor within such a system, or the many, many (countless) people who simply existed, unaware that the system was there and just trying to keep alive.

I hope we can develop better words to describe history as we discover and analyze it, and as language evolves. "Patriarchal" sounds like the right word to me? But perhaps that's because a better word has yet to be invented. Cheers.

If it all worked out according to the ideal? Sure, the patriarchal structure was intended to benefit both men and women. A woman could expect (in an ideal system) to be treated with kindness throughout her childhood, have a man selected for her from the men her father knew, have her wordly things kept for her by her new husband, be cared for by her sons until her death, and die safe and comfortable. (Bearing in mind that most women in England were not taught to write in the 1500s and early 1600s, because a writing woman was a dangerous woman. And for an intelligent woman, such an existence was likely abominably dull. But let's assume the ideal, and hope she was an idiot.)

The historical truth, though? It didn't always work out as planned. Husbands drank and abandoned their wives, fathers died early and step-fathers came in to take on the old property, leaving the unwanted step-daughter to the wolves. Even those who married happily according to the ideal found, all too often, that they were widowed early and left on the mercy of the community. Such women were considered surplus women and were glared at suspiciously by men and women alike who needed to see that the patriarchal structure was fully intact to feel that life was orderly.

Then there was all the rape. What do you think happens in the 1600s when a maid works in the city away from home, and the master coerces her into sex (lest she lose her job, or else be accused of licentious behavior and cast out of every home forever)? She becomes pregnant, she is seen as a drain on the community, and she is publically whipped, sometimes in the middle of labor, in order to force her to name the father. And if the father is an influential man? It's hard to say what's worse: being whipped, or facing what will happen once she names him. Women colluded in this too: midwives tortured single women during labor to get them to name the father. To not be married in the 1600s was considered an enormous social crime for a woman because an unmarried woman had no patriarch. She was out of control: a witch. That was true of those who chose not to marry, and those who married and lost their husbands either to abandonment or death.

You suggest that the supply of a patriarch in such a world was a benefit. I agree, so long as he was kind, because woe to the woman who was without one.

The English language developed out of this society, which was patriarchal. That's not blame? Why would I blame Charles for that? I blame him for everything I've already said above within this thread, but I don't blame him for being born into an ancient structure which is still in the middle of evolving.

I brought up the grammar issue of the generic "he" as a point within a grammatical discussion. Charles had claimed he wasn't suggesting the grammar rules were set in stone, yet he was using a nearly three-decade-old "standard" as if it was current.

Take a look at the rest of this thread, and then ask yourself why you've leapt upon the word "patriarchal" as a problem within this discussion. Memphis can say Linguist-weenie (or whatever he said), Charles can call people hicks rather than sticking to topic, Vern can suggest that Charles is an old man who doesn't get out much, Charles can suggest that Vern has the mentality of a middle schooler, Charles can suggest that all women who are feminists are either female sexists or lesbians (never minding the fact that there are many, many male feminists in the world) -- and no one objects. But let someone refer to the patriarchal structure in society, which you yourself have conceded exists, and this is taking it just a shade too far! If hearing the word "patriarchal" startles you or Charles enough to make you clam up and feel "blamed," that's your issue. I'm certainly not going to apologize for referencing historical fact. If it stings, it's probably because of that evolution I mentioned earlier.

Getting back to my point? Language evolves, has evolved, and is evolving. Charles claims that it is currently standard English to use the generic "he" to refer to everyone. I say that it was standard up until the 1990s. The growing realization that language can be tyrannical is reflected in the very style books (reference books) Charles insisted earlier in this conversation people should refer to when discussing English. Editors are now on the watch for bias-free language. The use of the word "mankind" would likely receive a query from an editor: "Do you mean humanity, or are you referring to men only? Consider revising." The use of a phrase like "Indian giver" would receive a similar query.

Language is changing and those who cling to biased forms of conversing within formal writing (or frankly, casual discussion) will be left behind. It's as organic as you say the patriarchal structure is/was. People who continue to say "he" this and that, when what they mean is "they" will start looking ridiculous, and people won't take them seriously. Because twenty-five years have passed since using  the generic "he" within formal writing was "standard."

I say again: the generic "he" is NOT standard English. Language has evolved. Either Charles concedes that, or he concedes that Vern is correct, and he is claiming that the language rules are set in stone.

Either way, I rest my case.

At least he admits that's where he stands!!

And three: she, who is just pleased to say she has a pronoun!

Referring to people as "slaves" identifies them with their oppression rather than their humanity. It's far more appropriate today to say "enslaved people."

Centuries of smothering female significance under the catch-all pronoun "he" is a manipulative and political top-down tactic which impacted history by making it perfectly natural to assume females could be subsumed under the male experience.

You think language is important? So do I.

Here's a semi-colon for your evening: ;

That's uncanny! I didn't know I was quoting the Calvinist Baptist!

Good research!!!

Are you calling me a prescriptivist?!

(No idea. Sorry!)

Back to the topic predominating the thread?

I just read this article and thought it was interesting? (For those who haven't heard of prescriptivism/descriptivism, a brief definition follows. But the article I was citing is here.)

(source)

"The rustling of silk is discontinued,
Dust drifts across the courtyard,
There is no sound of foot-fall, and the leaves
Scurry into heaps and lie still,
And she the rejoicer of the heart lies beneath them:

A wet leaf that clings to the threshold."

- Ezra Pound

One of my favorites:

“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” – Middlemarch