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Would you even need to posit a deliberate restructuring? Hard times mean capital is expensive, which makes physical labor (relatively; not absolutely!) more valuable, which disadvantages men less than women. Hard times mean survival via crime or conquest is more tempting, which makes the physical ability to deter or fight criminals more valuable, which disadvantages men less than women. And if hard times increase child mortality, then even though the need for more childbearing to keep up the number of surviving kids makes women more valuable, it's a form of value that doesn't cash out in power and independence.
I'm not saying there's never been a deliberately patriarchal rules-structuring, just that the explicit restructuring would be a subset of entries on a much longer list full of implicit changes. One might expect that hard times increase the demand for young people to go to work immediately (which relatively energetic ADHD young men might be better at) vs studying for years for a more lucrative professional position (which relatively focused, socially dutiful young women might be better at) ... but for most of human history it's not like women were pushed toward the "study for a lucrative professional position" option anyway, hard times or not. And that at least feels more like a cultural decision than a natural consequence. I vaguely recall reading of a culture (Ba'hai?) in which you were expected to focus on girls' education in hard times, because giving boys education they wouldn't use was a waste whereas girls would be more likely to pass along their education to their children when times improved again.
Great points, regarding whether society restructures deliberately or organically, I think you see both: For organic bottom up, the China One-Child example seems mostly due to individual preferences, with boys being favored due to their ability to earn more income on a farm or a factory for the parents. For deliberate top down, I've heard that suffragette-ism/first wave feminism was suppressed by FDR admin in the recruitment drive to WWII, the beneficiary in this case being the State in need of soldiers.
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Indeed, deliberate patriarchal rules structuring seems like it’s generally been a much better deal for women than whatever was arrived at through implicit changes, as the Abrahamaic religions can attest.
This is probably because even patriarchal fathers care much more about their daughters getting a good deal under the terms of the society they live in than they do about men-as-class.
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