
.gaia.
abortion rights aside, why are conservative men obsessed with owning and controlling women as if they’re not only second class citizens but property they’re entitled to as well?Because patriarchy treats women as property, and capitalism made that profitable. Engels traced it: once wealth could be privately owned and inherited, men needed heirs of certain paternity, so monogamy was enforced on women (never men) and wives became part of the estate. bell hooks adds that patriarchy is older than capitalism and interlocks with it, white supremacy, and empire as one system of domination. That's why DNA tests didn't end it. Paternity was the excuse; control is the point.
I love the theory that managing women’s sexual lives and affairs emerged shortly after humans discovered animal husbandry, bc before that sex was an enigma and they only vaguely knew that when sex occurred a baby could happen but not with certainty and not with knowing the father, but once we started breeding animals, we realized that we could trace sexual partnership and men realized they could usurp the sexual power women had enjoyed forever and take control over society for themselves