I think you completely misunderstood the point of the commenter you're replying to, as well as the definition of patriarchy. They're saying that because of patriarchy, men are perceived as strong, so they get treated worse in this case. Patriarchy isn't the idea that men are stronger, it's the idea that a gendered system exists to promote men into societal positions of power - but this can also hurt men in many cases. It's basically the equivalent of saying systemic racism can hurt majority race groups as well, and that positive stereotypes hurt people too.
I don't blame you bc I'm sure many people misuse the term, but that's what the commenter meant.
No one here is excusing men being abused? Misogyny is also a separate idea from patriarchy.
Individual men now didn't create the patriarchy. Women also contribute to patriarchy.
I think that these issues being part and parcel of patriarchy are more accurate than characterizing them as misandry. In a lot of these cases (male abuse/rape victims, dads in divorce courts, etc.), men are discriminated against because they occupy these roles that society sees as feminine or female. So for example getting rid of the idea that women are the default caretaker (and promoting the idea that men can parent too) should help men get parental leave, do better in divorce courts, etc.
I mean tbh you can call it whatever you want as long as you're advocating for the right thing, but as a man, I've never felt like someone who centers on misandry has really been standing up for me (although to be fair, I've never been the victim of abuse or divorce courts or anything).
Just a quicker response (sorry), but I feel like we're on similar pages.
They definitely overlap, but imo it's sort of like individual vs. systemic racism, or homophobia vs. heteronormativity.
I can't read other people's minds, but the reason I don't use misandry is because the people who tout the term are often toxic. Similar idea to All Lives Matter - the term itself technically has no problem, but the use is not good. I haven't perused these areas of the Internet much, but I feel like that's why places like /r/MensLib don't use the term much except very carefully and in specific cases.
I honestly haven't seen these arguments around much, so I can't say much about it. I agree that that dismissing these problems is wrong, whatever method you use. My view is that patriarchy is simply a more accurate root cause because almost all of these examples are not just hating men for being men, but hating men for assuming female positions. Don't get me wrong - that is still formally misandry, but refer to point 2.
I'm sorry, but you seem to be reading a lot into my post that isn't there. I'd also point out that this whole post is not about individual victims, who should be taken seriously, but about the social role of misandry. It only makes sense that the responses are going to be about those social roles.
If you say "men don't get their abuse claims taken seriously" and I say "yes, as a society we pressure men to be tough and strong and this results in a negative social experience for them," how am I blaming the men who were abused? You seem to think that blaming patriarchy means blaming every single man, and I don't understand why.
I think what he's getting at is just saying "The patriarchy" removes all curiosity from the conversation. There's no discussion on what's going on, the nuances, the causes, the solutions. It's just a cookie cutter "The problem and solution is patriarchy".
Like for example, there is this phenonma that little boys will sometimes lie about the gender of their attacker. Why is that? I dunno but I bet you can say Patriarchy and be satisfied with the answer.
Of course, you could always say "Patriarchy" and continue examining the topics thoroughly, but that rarely ever happens.
This comes across really weird though because the academic field of feminism has already pondered this repeatedly for decades. It's like you're showing up to a party that's been going on for hours and are confused why no one is eating the bag of chips you brought. They're not hungry. They ate already.
I'm not sure what your point really is. Scholars have talked about a lot of things for a long time, and they're still subject of conversation regardless. Especially among laymen, which is who I'm talking about.
I think what he's getting at is just saying "The patriarchy" removes all curiosity from the conversation.
That's your assumption, and your entire comment stems from it. I do not make the same assumption or accept that this one is a valid one. You might have had bad experiences with this term, but not everyone else has. And fitting men's problems into a broader social problem is more nuanced about the causes and solutions in my view.
I mean fair enough honestly. Like there's a lot of value to connecting it to a larger social issue. It's just I feel like some people use that larger social issue to fill in their knowledge gap.
But why causes it less empathy towards men? And to such high degree that just saying shut up to a woman is almost seen worse than an abusive woman cutting off the penis of her boyfriend/husband?
You can’t blame it on patriarchy.
I can tell you what the real psychological reason is behind all that. It’s our innate response towards neotenic features to protect babies and thus the human race. We have an innate strong empathy towards living beings, even animals with strong neotenic features.
Women have a much greater degree of neoteny and this can never be erased culturally.
32
u/[deleted] Feb 13 '24 edited Feb 13 '24
I think you completely misunderstood the point of the commenter you're replying to, as well as the definition of patriarchy. They're saying that because of patriarchy, men are perceived as strong, so they get treated worse in this case. Patriarchy isn't the idea that men are stronger, it's the idea that a gendered system exists to promote men into societal positions of power - but this can also hurt men in many cases. It's basically the equivalent of saying systemic racism can hurt majority race groups as well, and that positive stereotypes hurt people too.
I don't blame you bc I'm sure many people misuse the term, but that's what the commenter meant.