One of my dear cyber friends that I’ve met through blogging is a woman whose blog is NeuroResearchProject.com. I will refer to her here as “V.” She works in the field of neuroscience and is obviously a prolific reader and blessed with a “curious mind” and I would add, “heart.” One of the many interests we share is the subject of gender and politics, certainly including the realm of “sexuality.” She and I are in accordance with the notion that power is a basic dimension of this intrinsically human realm. And, I might add, I think that power is a basic human issue and is relevant to every dimension of the human experience. If we draw the breath of life, we exercise power in some fashion, even if perhaps it is merely with our “powerlessness.” But that is a dangerous note to make as it easily “blames” the powerless for their lot and does not immediately address the tyranny of those who exercise “real” power in the “real” world. Here I share with you the observations of “V” re this subject and invite you to check out her excellent blog. Her observations refer to a couple of things I had noted to her in earlier correspondence. I also close with a very fascinating poem by a Palestinian woman about the exercise of power in the sexual act.

You said: “we sure did not like what had preceded our reign.”
That’s an interesting statement. In his Psychology Today article, “Why Men Oppress Women”, Steve Taylor said the oppression of women stems largely from men’s desire for power and control, which we talked about in earlier conversations—the power issue. Power and dominance increases dopamine and can hijack the brains reward center. I think men tend to have a disadvantage because of testosterone and one of its by-products called 3-androstanediol which increases dopamine. In his book “How Power Changes the Brain”, Dr. Ian Robertson states that too much power, thus too much dopamine can lead to gross errors of judgment, egocentricity, and lack of empathy for others.

Back to Taylor’s article, he states that the same need which, throughout history, has driven men to try to conquer and subjugate other groups or nations, and to oppress other classes or groups in their own society, drives them to dominate and oppress women. Since men (not all men) feel the need to gain as much power and control as they can, they steal away power and control from women. Taylor’s comment compliments what Dr. Robert Sapolsky observed during the years he spent with the Savanna baboons in their natural habitat. When lower ranking males were bullied by higher ranking males, they usurped authority by dominating the females in the troop, sometimes abusing them. He found that this social/cultural dynamic was not fixed; that it was learned behavior and could change dramatically (far less aggression and oppression). http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/peace_among_primates

You said: “Misogyny was underway but we were compelled by biology to desire them.”
Taylor goes on to say that even the former isn’t enough to explain the full terrible saga of man’s inhumanity to woman. That many cultures have had a strong antagonism towards women, viewing them as impure and innately sinful creatures who have been sent by the devil to lead men astray and has featured strongly in all three Abrahamic religions. As the Jewish Testament of Reuben states:

“Women are evil, my children…they use wiles and try to ensnare [man] by their charms…They lay plots in their hearts against men: by the way they adorn themselves they first lead their minds astray, and by a look they instil the poison, and then in the act itself they take them captive…So shun fornication, my children and command your wives and daughters not to adorn their heads and faces.”

Taylor says this is linked to the view—encouraged by religions—that instincts and sensual desires are base and sinful. Men associated themselves with the “purity” of the mind, and women with the “corruption” of the body. Since biological processes like sex, menstruation, breast-feeding and even pregnancy were disgusting to men, women themselves disgusted them too.

He further states that in connection with this, men have resented the sexual power that women have over them too. Feeling that sex was sinful, they were bound to feel animosity to the women who produced their sexual desires. In addition, women’s sexual power must have affronted their need for control. This meant that they couldn’t have the complete domination over women—and over their own bodies—that they craved. They might be able to force women to cover their bodies and faces and make them live like slaves, but any woman was capable of arousing powerful and uncontrollable sexual impulses inside them at any moment. He concludes by saying the last 6000 years of man’s inhumanity to woman can partly be seen as a revenge for this.

Source: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-darkness/201208/why-men-oppress-women

And now the poem that I promised:

This evening
a man will go out
to look for
prey
to satisfy the secrets of his desires.

This evening
a woman will go out
to look for
a man who will make her
mistress of his bed.
This evening
predator and prey will meet
and mix
and perhaps
perhaps
they will exchange roles.

By Maram al-Massri