I Asked ChatGPT Questions about the Patriarchy — It Makes For Troubling Reading
I check for bias and found a whole world of it
ChatGPT seems to be a hot topic right now, so I decided to test it for bias by asking it some questions that typically need a nuanced answer and are highly at risk of bias and inflaming tensions if poorly worded, so questions about the patriarchy. I started with the easiest question, where did the patriarchy come from? This is the response:
The patriarchy is a social, political, and economic system in which men hold power and dominate over women. It is a system of male domination that has existed in many societies throughout history. The origins of the patriarchy are complex and varied, and it is likely that it has arisen in different societies for different reasons.
In some societies, the patriarchy may have been reinforced by religious or cultural beliefs that prioritize men and male authority. In others, it may have been driven by economic factors, such as the need for men to hold power in order to control resources and labour.
The patriarchy has also been supported by laws and social norms that have institutionalized male dominance and discriminated against women. Despite the many efforts to challenge and dismantle the patriarchy, it remains a pervasive and enduring feature of many societies.
This is a very poor answer for numerous reasons, first of all, it didn’t answer the question, it more tried to tell me what it was, second, agriculture and childbirth have not been mentioned, which are glaring omissions, third, it lacks nuance and the rhetoric is too inflammatory and one-sided.
Also, it makes it sound too much like women are victims of men, but we women are not so easily oppressed by men, saying otherwise diminishes our part in history and oversimplifies how systems of oppression — like the patriarchal system — function. I told ChatGPT this and added that this would be a better-worded short answer:
The patriarchy is a social, political, and economic system of male-led hierarchy that has existed in many societies throughout history, and which stipulates very specific roles for men and women.
The origins of the patriarchy are complex and varied, and it is likely that it has arisen in different societies for different reasons, but the most likely reason is linked to childbirth restricting women from engaging in certain work practices, whether hunting in hunter/gatherer societies, or agriculture in modern societies, which led to men and women more often taking certain roles.
These roles were then over time reinforced by religious and cultural beliefs that prioritised male authority and female mothership, which in later societies became supported by laws and social norms that institutionalized the idea of a male-led hierarchy and female-led parenting.
Despite the many efforts to challenge and dismantle the patriarchy, which is long outdated for the technological world we now live in, it remains a pervasive and enduring feature of many societies, hindering both men’s and women’s abilities alike to choose their own future without prejudice.
ChatGPT thanked me for the feedback, I then asked it to elaborate on the agriculture element. This is the response:
One theory suggests that the patriarchy may have emerged with the development of agriculture, as this shift in economic systems led to the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few men who controlled land and resources.
In societies where agriculture was the primary means of production, men may have held a disproportionate amount of power due to their role as the primary producers. This power dynamic may have been reinforced by cultural and religious beliefs that elevated men and male authority.
The patriarchy has also been supported by laws and social norms that have institutionalized male dominance and discriminated against women. For example, in many societies, women were not allowed to own property, vote, or hold certain jobs. This further entrenched the power imbalance between men and women, as men held a greater share of economic, political, and social power.
Despite the many efforts to challenge and dismantle the patriarchy, it remains a pervasive and enduring feature of many societies.
This is the first decent response I got, it’s an answer without rhetoric and provides a good snapshot of the part agriculture played. But when I asked for elaboration, the rhetoric returned and I didn’t really get much useful info, which is a shame because it’s such an important part of the history of the patriarchal structure.
For example, it created a shift in economic systems that led to a concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few bloodlines who controlled land and resources.
These bloodlines were incentivised to hold on to that power, and this included both males and females. For example, if a woman wanted to ensure that her bloodline retained its power, focusing on a son made just as much sense to her as it did a father.
This is because a son did not have to get pregnant to continue the bloodline i.e. there is a reason that many great female leaders of old were virgin queens, to lead and retain power in the old world, you can’t have time off.
The other way that agriculture helped enshrine a patriarchal system was through the birth of hard labour, which women were not able to in large numbers contribute to.
For example, in the pre-agriculture societies, whereas men predominately did the hunting, women could also contribute through foraging, and they could do this while pregnant and while carrying a child. However, after the birth of agriculture, hard labour became the norm, which greatly limited women’s ability to contribute outside of reproduction and raising children.
I highlighted these points to ChatGPT and asked for elaboration on how these factors further helped enshrine the patriarchal system; however, it failed to provide anything worthwhile, so I moved on and asked it to consider how the high child mortality rate may also have empowered the rise of the patriarchal system. This is the response:
It is true that a factor which may have contributed to the development of the patriarchy is the high child mortality rate in many societies. In societies where children, particularly infants, were likely to die, to ensure the continuation of a bloodline women had to bear many children.
This may have led to a societal focus on women’s reproductive capabilities by both men and women which may have led to a corresponding devaluation of their other roles and abilities. As a result, women may have been relegated to a more subservient position in societies that developed hierarchal power structures, with men holding a disproportionate amount of power and authority.
This is the best output yet, the high child mortality rate, which amongst the poor at times could have seen a woman lose all her children even if she attempted to get pregnant every year she was able, undoubtedly played a large part in the rise of the patriarchal system.
Historically the child mortality rate has been crazy high, and the rise of agriculture through its creation of the poor and peasants, who did not per se exist in the pre-agriculture world i.e. most tribes likely had hierarchies but not ones that included working-class folk and “peasants” et cetera, would have seen that rate increase further.
Because of this, women would have spent an increasing amount of time pregnant and focusing on trying to keep children alive, and men would have spent an increasing amount of time trying to support them as they made those efforts, which again would have further enshrined men prioritising earning and providing, and women prioritising childcare.
I told ChapGPT all of this and then pushed for further elaboration, asking how this may have affected men as well as women, and in its defence, it highlighted how it would have put extreme pressure on men to provide for women, forcing them to do whatever it took to earn and provide for their wives.
But again, it struggled to escape what I cannot help but feel was a heavy bias of saying the patriarch oppressed women and non-masculine men only, which is inaccurate and unfortunate. It also oppressed the majority of men, a reality which often gets lost in modern vernacular.
With this in mind, I decided to try a different kind of question, I asked if men have ever oppressed women, but the rhetoric returned, with the answer sounding like it was implying all men have evilly oppressed all women since the dawn of time, which is troubling.
In a way the answers were starting to sound a bit like Anakin Skywalker after he had turned to the dark side, so talking in absolutes rather than teaching nuances. We need to show how women are oppressed by the patriarchal system, but we also need to show how men are as well, and that it was not men who do the oppressing, but the leadership.
I tried again, this time I said:
To a large extent, the patriarchal system oppresses men just as much as women, can you tell me how this is so?
Unfortunately, it could not, simply giving a rehash of previous answers, so I tried a different type of wording:
Women are not victims of men, they are victims of the same things as men, structural inequalities that restrict the vast majority of men and women from opportunities, could you provide examples of how the patriarchal system played and still does play a hand in this?
Again, the answer was just a rehash of previous answers, and no matter how hard I pushed I could not get it to provide the nuanced answer I was looking for, which is that, when it comes to the patriarchal system, it was used not only to oppress women, but also men, and I am not talking about just the men who did not conform to traditional masculine roles and expectations — which is all ChatGPT appeared able to say — I am talking about all men outside the minority in charge.
Basically, the patriarchal system in effect perfectly allowed a small group of bloodlines to keep their place at the top of the social hierarchy. It did this in many ways, the most well-known way is perhaps by in effect turning women into dependent citizens of their families and then husbands, which by default immediately robbed fathers and husbands of their freedom as well.
This is because by turning women into dependents of men, it by default forces men to gain employment and become earners as young as possible, and as soon as they are earning it forces them to take a wife and provide for her, and in a short space of time their children.
To understand how damaging this is on a person’s future prospects, simply look at how difficult it is for a single parent of any age to succeed in life, let alone a young single parent living in poverty.
So, the patriarchal system by oppressing women, equally by default oppressed men i.e. by restricting women from the workforce it limited women’s prospects, and by forcing men to take up the slack by providing for women it limited men’s, which made it a perfect system for keeping those in power, in power, because there were very few people who had the time let alone freedom and education to challenge them.
More than that, by enshrining this system in law, so by giving men certain privileges over women, but women certain privileges over men, it created a divide between men and women which exists to this day simply because, to gain equality, men would have to give up their privileges over women, and women would have to give up their privileges over men. This is standard divide and conquer.
The fact even today there is reluctance on both sides to do this — the gender wars being a perfect example of this reluctance on both sides — is a reason why we still struggle to get full equality between the sexes i.e. everyone thinks equality is great until they have to give up something they have for others to get it.
This is a reality that leaders have used likely since the dawn of time to control people. For example, it’s believed by many scholars that the Indo-Aryan invasion of the Indian subcontinent several thousand years back is what led to the Hindu caste system.
To keep control of the populace, because the Indo-Aryans were few in number compared to their conquered people, they segregated them into different groups, and gave each of the groups privileges over the others. This gave them power over all the groups because each of those groups did not want to give up their privileges over the other groups, though at the same time they wanted what the other groups had.
The outcome was rather than directing their ire at the leadership, who gave them these privileges, they instead focused their ire on groups that had the privileges they wanted. Divide and rule. The patriarchal system, divide and rule.
Final words
After spending a lot of time playing about and asking about various different subjects, I found that there were examples of rhetoric from each side of the spectrum in different areas. So answers that supported the incel movement, extreme feminism and more.
This is troubling output from a bot that people will come to and likely trust for providing answers to questions like this i.e. bots like this need to be helping bridge the divide by providing understanding, not expanding them by selling rhetoric and bias.
I have to be honest, I was not expecting this, but perhaps I should have been, after all, ChatGPT draws much of its information from the Internet, which is flooded with extreme rhetoric from all sides.
In conclusion, I think that ChatGPT is brilliant as a starting point for an article, and for getting an outline of an article that you already know enough detail about to write yourself.
But as a means to answering questions, especially complex ones like the historical roles of men and women, it has a long way to go before ridding itself of the many biases, mistruths and more that flood the Internet from which it is drawing its pool of information.
As such, I worry that bots like this rather than selling understanding and helping to spread nuanced knowledge that helps bridge divides, will instead end up simply selling more mistruths and rhetoric that further expands them. Time will tell.
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