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Notes -
There is a certain beauty to some definitions of Rectangle. The one I am singling out is
Why? this was the definition listed in my high school Geometry textbook. I remember it because the wording was a little peculiar. But, later I came to enjoy it. This is the kind of subtlety only a math nerd could appreciate.
I began to appreciate it once I learned how feminist theory defined patriarchy. The wording (doubtless there are many) I recall is, "a system of gender roles which is harmful to men and women" or some such. Some might say that this definition smuggles in a claim: that gender roles are harmful. That's not quite correct. You see, a non-harmful system of gender roles would simply not be Patriarchy as a matter of definition.
The reason I wrote this post was because of the earlier discussion that "Rape is about power, not sex." I was reminded of many past times I've heard rape defined this way. You might say that this definition smuggles in a claim: that men are motivated by power (or some such). But that is not quite correct. You see, a man who is motivated by sex is simply not committing rape as a matter of definition.
My textbook used the phrase, "at least one right angle," like Wikipedia uses a right angle. This is critical to leave the reader mentally itching, to leave him thinking that maybe a rectangle contains a mix of angles -- some right, and some not.
Behold! The full force of a theorem (not a definition)! So there is no doubt in the mind that there could ever be a parallelogram with mixed angles. This relation between the angles cannot be expressed with mere definitions.
Much later, I learned a name for this: The virtue of precision. Definitions should be as small as necessary.
What other imprecise definitions smuggle unproven claims?
I think the issue with that definition is that it is too weasely. There's too much room to maneuver and keep claiming a patriarchy.
Harmful to which men? Harmful to which women?
Does it matter if a society made rational trade-offs of one kind of harm against some benefit that outweighs the harm?
I think before the Industrial Age, having a division of labor made sense. With all of the developments after the Industrial Age we shrank the scope of the woman's societal role until it was almost nothing (cleaning clothes for a family of five took 20 hours before washing machines!), forcing them to adopt "men's" societal role.
Now there's effectively only one role in the larger society. Stay at home mothers frequently get involved in MLMs, because there's nothing to do for most of the day - laundry takes two hours, watching one kid isn't that stimulating and a person can only take so much TV.
I'm reminded of complaints I've seen from the manosphere talking about the "feminization" of our culture.
I think many people are basically agreed that the life the average person lives in our society is fundamentally unsatisfying. But I don't think "patriarchy" or "feminized culture" get to the core of the issue. We're social animals staring at screens of various sizes throughout the day. We're so prosperous that we don't depend on each other for our individual survival, so it becomes much harder to cultivate deep friendships. We have a service economy that forces a lot of people to do jobs that humans in the ancestral environment we evolved for would have hated too.
Humans weren't built for this, and it has nothing to do with whether our society is benefitting men or women more. Ideally, society would settle on a set of norms that benefit everyone so far as possible, but we're so rich and prosperous that we get whatever we want to satiate our petty impulses and desires and rarely get what we need for a deep and fulfilling life.
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