I was on a philosophy call with some of my Praxis friends and our topic of discussion was patriarchy: what it is, does it exist, and is that okay. Naturally, it went far deeper than the original topic.

It got me thinking and I decided to write some things. I’ll be making few articulate stances but more delving deep into different perspectives. I usually write shortly about my experiences so a longer-form plunge into a philosophy should be interesting territory.

I think the source of patriarchy probably comes down to the fact that people with penises are typically physically stronger than people with vaginas.

That places them in a position of dominance, but it also gives them an incentive to become more educated. A caveman discovers fire and teaches his son to make fire, leaving his daughter without this knowledge, because she’ll be building the human race.

Multiply the dominance and incentive to retain information essential to humanity’s survival by thousands of years and you get men who hold political power making the decisions.

So males holding power was, in a sense, up to chance. Men just were stronger.

What are the ethical implications of this? Since males were simply given this power, did they hold a higher responsibility for what happened as a whole? Did they hold an ethical responsibility as cavemen to become aware of a need to include women in the process of education, in the name of far off equality? If there was some burden placed upon the male percentage of humanity, would that burden exist today? If not, why?

I haven’t decided on an answer to these questions but they’re worth thinking about. More generally, the question might be: if one person or group is given huge influence over the course of the entire human race, does that influence, bestowed against their will, bestow with it an inherit responsibility to use that power in a specific way?

(To be clear, I’m not certain this inherit power is a thing. I’m convinced for now but I’m open to arguments.)

After that, someone mentioned the question, “So, if a patriarchal society exists peacefully, meaning men do control it but it’s entirely voluntary and women are not out of power through male use of unethical force, what are we losing?”

It made me ask myself what I value in a society. I concluded that I value a society where every individual has the absolute maximum amount of free will they can have while not messing with others’ free will , which means they are free from as many forms of psychological dogma as possible, including all social norms. On this, I take issue with situations where any identifiable collective maintains societal power.

I dove into this rabbit hole and I might be a radical individualist, opposed to even the slightest form of collectivism. This would make me against even attaching gender to identity. I have not decided or concluded where I stand, but as of now I’m leaning in this direction.

This form of writing was definitely interesting. I don’t think it provides as much value to the reader as other forms, even in just entertainment value, but I do want my website and blog to contain information that defines who I am, including my philosophical stances. Time will tell if this way of writing continues.