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The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism
#1

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

Last month, the anthropologist Melford Spiro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melford_Spiro) died.

Unfortunately, he is not an overly well-known scientist anymore but he conducted some highly interesting studies all over the world. Since we're talking a lot on this forum about feminist indoctrination and the death of traditional gender roles and families, I thought I'd share the rather relieving and encouraging results of a long-term study he did on an Israeli kibbutz over the course of several decades.

For those of you who don't know: Kibbutze are rural communities that were first founded by Jewish settlers in Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century. Many, but not all of them, were roughly based on Socialist and Marxist ideals on common ownership of the means of productions, direct democracy and gender equality. (More intel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz).

Spiro and his wife did research in one of these communities, starting in the 1950s. They were interested in how the gender-equality-ideology (women and men have equal representation in politics, men care for the kids, women drive tractors, etc.) was passed on to following generations.

It failed spectacularly.

Here is one article that describes what happened:

http://www.heretical.com/wilson/rkibbutz.html

Quote:Quote:

Attempts to achieve sexual equality are not unique to present-day Anglo-American society. A brave and fascinating experiment in women's liberation was conducted by the Israelis when they set up their rural communes, the kibbutzim, during the colonization of Palestine in the early part of this century. A central part of their semi-Marxist ideology was the total emancipation of women from all inequalities (sexual, social, economic and intellectual) that had been imposed upon them by traditional society.

According to Israeli Utopian theory, the burden of child-rearing and home-making was the root cause of sex-role differentiation and female inequality. Therefore radical changes in family structure were instituted. Traditional marriage was replaced by a system of cohabitation in which a man and woman were assigned shared sleeping accommodation within the commune but retained their separate names and identities. The children were removed from special contact with their parents and reared with others of the same age in community-run nurseries where they played, ate, slept and were educated. Adults were supposed to think of all the kibbutz children as joint social property and were discouraged from developing particularly close relationships with their own offspring.

Thus freed from the 'domestic yoke', women were expected to engage in agricultural and productive work to the same extent as men, and men were likewise expected to share in traditional female work. Classically feminine clothes, cosmetics, jewellery and hair-styles were rejected. In order to be equals of men, it was thought women would have to look like men as well as share traditionally male roles.

When anthropologists Melford and Audrey Spiro examined the achievements of the kibbutzim in 1950, the experiment appeared to have been largely successful and their preconception of human nature as 'culturally relative' was held to be confirmed. However, in 1975 Melford Spiro returned to the kibbutz for a follow-up study and was surprised to discover that in the intervening quarter-century striking changes had occurred in the domain of marriage, family and sex-roles which 'all but undid the earlier revolution' (Spiro, 1979). The younger generation of women, although raised with unisex models (women driving tractors and men in domestic service occupations) and taught from early childhood that men and women are the same in nature, were now pressing to be allowed fulfilment in the role of mother. 'Women's rights' had taken on almost exactly the reverse meaning to that in our society.

The kibbutz government had become predominantly male, apparently because the women showed little interest in politics, and a traditional division of labour along sexual lines had become established. Men were doing most of the productive work, while women were doing mostly community and service work such as teaching, nursing and housekeeping. Marriage had reverted to its original form, with a full wedding ceremony and celebration, and public displays of attachment and 'ownership'. previously almost taboo, were now commonplace.
The units of residence had changed from the group to the married couple, and couples were now claiming and gaining the 'right' to enjoy the company of their own children. Children slept with their own parents and spent a great deal more time with them. Women had also shown a return to traditional 'femininity' in terms of appearance, temperament (empathy and lack of assertiveness) and hobbies. 'In the one place where feminists thought their ideal existed, the feminine mystique is ripening as fast as the corn in the fields' (New York Times, April 1976).

This collapse in what had seemed to be a successful campaign to abolish gender differences might be explained in terms of exposure to outside – for example, city – influences, but on close examination Spiro found this explanation to be unsatisfactory. Studies of play preferences of kibbutz children revealed that the girls most often played 'mother' (bestowing care and affection on a doll or small animal), while the most common game played by boys was imitating animals (not the domestic animals with which they were familiar, but wild and ferocious animals like snakes and wolves). Social learning theory cannot easily explain why girls should adopt a culturally appropriate model (the parenting woman) in their fantasy play, while boys adopt a culturally irrelevant model (wild animals). Biological pre-dispositions towards nurturance and aggression in girls and boys respectively seems far more plausible as an explanation of this difference. A careful examination of evidence like this led Spiro to conclude that the sex-role counter-revolution that he had observed in the modern kibbutz represented a reassertion of nature, rather than conformity induced by reactionary social influences. For a person previously committed to 'cultural relativity theory', this was a considerable turn-about in attitude.

The first sign of a confrontation between nature and ideology in the kibbutz concerned the issue of public nudity. The ideological authorities had early on determined that sexual equality would best be promoted by disregarding all differences in male and female anatomy. Boys and girls in the children's houses were therefore raised in a theoretically 'sex-blind' atmosphere, using the same toilets and showers and dressing in front of each other. This worked perfectly well until the girls reached puberty, at which point (quite spontaneously and contrary to prevailing social attitudes) they developed intense feelings of embarrassment and began to demand privacy. The girls began to rebel actively against these mixed-sex arrangements, refusing to admit boys into the showers with them and undressing with the lights out, or in some private place. For some time the authorities refused to change the system but were eventually convinced that the discomfort of the girls was to be taken seriously, and today most kibbutz high schools have separate bathroom facilities for boys and girls.

Again, it is difficult to see how cultural influences could be held responsible for this failure of ideology. Why should shame associated with nudity strike selectively at pubescent girls and not at boys of the same age, or younger girls? The modesty that girls develop at puberty is apparently not due to social guilt induction; much more likely, it is an aspect of the female coyness which is biologically preprogrammed because it served the mating strategy of high partner selectivity and general sexual reserve.

In other words, a great source of arguments against the gender theory-bullshit that roles for men and women are merely arbritary and that heterosexuality is a social construct.

The study confirmed my belief that one should be rather relaxed about feminism and the doomsayers who think the end of the family is nigh.

Nature prevails over social conventions.

Boys will always be boys.
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#2

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

I don't think feminism will win in the long run either but there's a lot of potential damage it can do in the meantime.
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#3

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

Incredible that a study is needed to disprove the notion that throughout the history of nearly every culture in the world, those born with penises have conspired to relegate those born with vaginas (but who are cognitively identical) to a subservient role in their society.
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#4

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

Quote: (11-09-2014 07:11 PM)MattW Wrote:  

I don't think feminism will win in the long run either but there's a lot of potential damage it can do in the meantime.

Excellent point, just like totilitarian communism killed millions before
collapsing. I always thought radical feminism was similar to communism, just without the murder.

You may not like Putin and the oligarchs, but I don't think they're murdering anything like the amount of people Stalin did.
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#5

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

Quote: (11-09-2014 08:34 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

You may not like Putin and the oligarchs, but I don't think they're murdering anything like the amount of people Stalin did.

Dude, I want Putin for president. He's got a dick in his pants.

Besides, it's not like Obama hasn't killed anyone.

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#6

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

Ok so how does this matter?

Human nature exists but society has a huge influence of course, as evidenced by the fact that we complain that American women act differently today than ten, twenty, or thirty years ago.

The fact of human nature existing does not change the trajectory of our society.
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#7

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

Quote: (11-09-2014 07:11 PM)MattW Wrote:  

I don't think feminism will win in the long run either but it has done a lot of damage in the meantime.

There, fixed it for you
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#8

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

Quote: (11-09-2014 08:52 PM)blairnaso Wrote:  

Quote: (11-09-2014 08:34 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

You may not like Putin and the oligarchs, but I don't think they're murdering anything like the amount of people Stalin did.

Dude, I want Putin for president. He's got a dick in his pants.

Besides, it's not like Obama hasn't killed anyone.

[Image: images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTcjbLhKo7fUnumP5h7Cco...kFKRu_ycbs]

Seriously, when people read that the two most powerful people in the Obama White House, who seemingly tell even him what to do, are Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett, does ANYONE think its a coincidence that Barry was raised by a weird single mom?? He has all the signs!
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#9

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

Quote: (11-09-2014 07:11 PM)MattW Wrote:  

I don't think feminism will win in the long run either but there's a lot of potential damage it can do in the meantime.

This, very much this. Using Sweden as an example feminism seems to exist as a gateway to the hard left ideas and emasculating men (who are more small government and freedom leaning) so they can't fight back. At best it distracts people from real issues like what the Fed is doing.
It is a gateway drug and it has taken its toll on our society by promoting r type behavior. It won't last because it is nothing more than a deconstruction
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#10

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

This was a good read read. But let's just remember that Feminism was never to be feared and it isn't a end goal (I.e. the idea of gender neutrality or women upheaving men). Femenism is just a useful placeholder as a means to steal wealth from men, transfer it to women, and then steal it from women who have no ability to protect it.

Next, general Western society in my view would revert back to its natural norms as these rural Jews did but it won't happen as fast since the only reason we keep spinning our wheels is because the State has the ability to entrench and force the system of wealth and power transfers from men to women. The rural Jews did not have over arching State institutions and apparatuses to force them to maintain the egalitarian structure since they made up the institutions themselves. We won't see changes back until our Governments here in the West go broke and who knows how long or soon that will come about.
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#11

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

Quote: (11-10-2014 01:17 AM)kosko Wrote:  

This was a good read read. But let's just remember that Feminism was never to be feared and it isn't a end goal (I.e. the idea of gender neutrality or women upheaving men). Femenism is just a useful placeholder as a means to steal wealth from men, transfer it to women, and then steal it from women who have no ability to protect it.

Next, general Western society in my view would revert back to its natural norms as these rural Jews did but it won't happen as fast since the only reason we keep spinning our wheels is because the State has the ability to entrench and force the system of wealth and power transfers from men to women. The rural Jews did not have over arching State institutions and apparatuses to force them to maintain the egalitarian structure since they made up the institutions themselves. We won't see changes back until our Governments here in the West go broke and who knows how long or soon that will come about.

Exactly - first of all the Kibbutz went even further than the current state and it was supposed to be largely self-sufficient. Government and the corporate world now balances things out, so that the feminist gender equality nonsense is upheld. While the pendulum will swing back sooner or later it can take decades or longer.
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#12

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

An example of why I am sanguine about cultural and political movements. Humans have, and are going to experiment with, all kinds of societies. Things correct themselves over time.

As long as we don't kill ourselves by nuclear war, bioengineered bugs, superintelligent terminator robots, or poisoning the planet, things will be OK.
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#13

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

The fact that women drifted out of leadership in a utopian communist collective farming system suggests there must be an enormous amount of manufactured artificial social pressure to put women in leadership in modern societies. Maybe they were actually demanding results from the people in charge...
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#14

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

Quote: (11-09-2014 11:36 PM)dholland662 Wrote:  

Quote: (11-09-2014 07:11 PM)MattW Wrote:  

I don't think feminism will win in the long run either but there's a lot of potential damage it can do in the meantime.

This, very much this. Using Sweden as an example feminism seems to exist as a gateway to the hard left ideas and emasculating men (who are more small government and freedom leaning) so they can't fight back. At best it distracts people from real issues like what the Fed is doing.
It is a gateway drug and it has taken its toll on our society by promoting r type behavior. It won't last because it is nothing more than a deconstruction

I'm not totally opposed to allowing people equal opportunity, but my issue is that feminism complains that even when said opportunities exist for both genders, if one gender - women - does not take advantage of these opportunities, its a fault of the patriarchy and feminism fails to ask why and look inward.

Sweden seems to have a lot of eqaulist opportunities in this regard, but they also seem to have a lot of dissatisfied people. I could be wrong, I am typing this from my phone, but I do believe Sweden has an abnormally high suicide rate for a country with a high quality of life. I don't want to impose the correlation of feminism = suicide, but it does say that maybe over equalizing a country in a more direct manner is less important than liberals would like to assume.

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#15

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

There was this Norwegian documentary called "Hjernevask" that detailed this very same phenomenon. Norway is considered the most gender equal country in the world nowadays, but surprisingly, an even greater number of women chose to remain at home and raise children even with their opportunities to become engineers and other masculine professions.
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#16

The Failed Kibbutz Gender Experiment or Why I Am Not Too Afraid of Feminism

In the Netherlands, as liberal a place as any, most women chose to work meaningless part time jobs and use the time saved to hang out at coffee shops with their other female friends.

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