"We raise girls to cater to the fragile egos of men."

[LittleBlue]

97. It stands to reason that the non-patriarchal societies died out

or never existed in the first place.

I would guess it's mainly because patriarchal societies are more aggressive. The warlike people generally destroyed or subjugated the less aggressive peoples. The Romans and Anglo-Saxons did this to the original tribal Britons, and then the Danes did it to them, and then the Normans did it to them. Each one was successively better at warfare, each one a more aggressive people.

If matriarchal societies ever existed, they were out-competed by patriarchal ones. It cannot be purely cultural, as even societies separated by over 10,000 years and whole oceans (Native Americans) have these practices. Natural selection and all that. They were the most competitive.

So it stands to reason that societies where women raised children were the most competitive. And you see this in nature as well, although some animals are matriarchal. We just happen to be animals that tend to let women raise children. Actually I'm struggling to think of a single animal, even the extremely matriarchal elephants, where child-rearing isn't done by mothers.

That's the best way to think about it, IMO.

EDIT- Also, as long as everyone is on the topic of girls, can we please spare a thought for the 234 kidnapped girls currently being sold into sexual slavery in Nigeria? They are being sold, as we speak, for $12 per girl. No exaggeration, this is happening right now. 10% of our oil imported is from Nigeria, and the Goodluck Jonathan government is doing precisely nothing to help them. This would not be allowed to stand if these were white girls in Europe or the US.

PLEASE help by demanding that we assert ourselves in this. There are more replies/recs in this thread than on all the threads about these abducted girls combined.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/work-un-and-nigerian-government-bring-home-girls-kidnapped-boko-haram/fFcLj7s2

We only have 3,000 signatures of the required 100,000, and it's looking like we won't make it by May 25.