The NYTimes has a story today about women in Pakistan who are risking death at the hands of their families because they refuse to be sold in "marriage" to the highest bidder.
The image on the left is an "Affidavit of Free Will" signed by a woman and the man she chose for herself to be her husband. In spite of this document, the woman's family is still trying to claim that she was kidnapped by her husband.
You see, "Ms. Mochi had been promised since birth to her father’s cousin, 15 years her senior. Her family refused to end the engagement."The fact that this kind of legal slavery is allowed to exist, without any international sanctions whatsoever demonstrates that although it isn't as unquestioned as it once was, Patriarchy still reigns supreme in the world. Under Patriarchy, slavery is OK as long as the slaves are female.
The fact the Nusrat Mochi could be treated as a possession to be bought and sold is clear from the deal her father tried to make:
"Ms. Mochi’s father soon began harassing Mr. Bhatti’s father for the return of his daughter or some monetary compensation. "
Women are treated like animals in many parts of the world. And nobody calls it what it is - slavery.
One of the most laughable aspects of "evolutionary psychology" - and there are so many as this excellent article in this week's New Yorker describes - is the claim that women throughout the history of the world have a "natural" sexual preference for older men. And the fact that selling your daughter to the highest bidder was an even more commonplace practice in former times is ignored, utterly.
Men have treated women like animals. Of course they had the luxury of choosing women based on youth and beauty while women did not have that luxury - men were the consumers, women were the merchandise.
And the evolutionary psychologists will always interpret this system of male dominance as female sexual preference. And they will never stop with this interpretation because it is the very basis of evolutionary psychology itself.
No surprise that a hard-core misogynist like Richard Dawkins is one of the most prominent promoters of evolutionary psychology. Meanwhile Dawkins' rabid fan-boys continue their campaign against women in skeptical circles who speak out against misogyny. (It wasn't enough to attack Jen at BlagHag - they also harrassed her father.)