This is all very interesting. But I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn I come at this from a different and more conservative direction.
I will start by saying I left the world of anthropological/archaeological gender theory in 1995 after an unsatisfying experience with an archaeology seminar called "Gender in Prehistory." My general approach though is shaped by this archaeological/anthropological training, and it is to assume social structures flow out of economic system and general level of security and lawfulness (i.e. can a member of society assume that they will be protect by "government" or society and if not, how do they handle it). So I assume our present system of nuclear families comes out of an agrarian/industrial economy. Social systems are propped up by laws (e.g. the tax code that gives deductions for children) and by social pressures and perceptions of morality. Conversely, the decrease in daily freedoms of women in places like Iraq and Afghanistan could be attributed at least in part to a desire for more security in an extremely insecure place. (Havenstone gives a good anecdotal example of this with a description of the rise of the burqa in one Afghani city).
Given all that background, I see the last 50-60 years as a time of huge upheaval of the family as domestic concerns no longer enough to fully engage women and they seek to become fully economically integrated into the industrialized/knowledge based economy that doesn't require brute physical labor. So I see social changes as flowing from this economic change. (As an aside, my professor of that archaeology class saw the rise of labor saving domestic appliances like washing machines as "bribes" to get women to leave the workforce they had entered in WWII and return home).
Anyway, all that is preface to my saying that a structured heteronormative "patriarchal" environment arose because it met some social need. Obviously there are people who don't fit in to that, and I think as a subculture they should be supported and celebrated. But I question whether the advocates you start out quoting will meet the needs of the majority. They may or they may not, but there may be as many people out there who would be as underserved by a free-wheeling, anything goes, pluralistic society as those who are underserved by a heteronormative one. That's my main response to the example you cite above: some people do need to belong and there's nothing more wrong with that than with the people who follow a different path, and coercion to follow a new norm is no better than coercion to follow the old. I see that coercion though as a natural part of just getting along in society.
We're at a time of huge upheaval and instability in our social structures. I think that's why the "Culture Wars" have been so fiercely played out in politics over the past 20 years. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
no subject
I will start by saying I left the world of anthropological/archaeological gender theory in 1995 after an unsatisfying experience with an archaeology seminar called "Gender in Prehistory." My general approach though is shaped by this archaeological/anthropological training, and it is to assume social structures flow out of economic system and general level of security and lawfulness (i.e. can a member of society assume that they will be protect by "government" or society and if not, how do they handle it). So I assume our present system of nuclear families comes out of an agrarian/industrial economy. Social systems are propped up by laws (e.g. the tax code that gives deductions for children) and by social pressures and perceptions of morality. Conversely, the decrease in daily freedoms of women in places like Iraq and Afghanistan could be attributed at least in part to a desire for more security in an extremely insecure place. (Havenstone gives a good anecdotal example of this with a description of the rise of the burqa in one Afghani city).
Given all that background, I see the last 50-60 years as a time of huge upheaval of the family as domestic concerns no longer enough to fully engage women and they seek to become fully economically integrated into the industrialized/knowledge based economy that doesn't require brute physical labor. So I see social changes as flowing from this economic change. (As an aside, my professor of that archaeology class saw the rise of labor saving domestic appliances like washing machines as "bribes" to get women to leave the workforce they had entered in WWII and return home).
Anyway, all that is preface to my saying that a structured heteronormative "patriarchal" environment arose because it met some social need. Obviously there are people who don't fit in to that, and I think as a subculture they should be supported and celebrated. But I question whether the advocates you start out quoting will meet the needs of the majority. They may or they may not, but there may be as many people out there who would be as underserved by a free-wheeling, anything goes, pluralistic society as those who are underserved by a heteronormative one. That's my main response to the example you cite above: some people do need to belong and there's nothing more wrong with that than with the people who follow a different path, and coercion to follow a new norm is no better than coercion to follow the old. I see that coercion though as a natural part of just getting along in society.
We're at a time of huge upheaval and instability in our social structures. I think that's why the "Culture Wars" have been so fiercely played out in politics over the past 20 years. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.