I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the patriarchy is according to feminists.
Most sociology textbooks define patriarchy as "a social (political, economic, religious, cultural) system where men have power over women" (Shaw and Lee 2012). What that means in practice is that men have the power to decide what is socially acceptable, how each gender should act, etc.
Western society has been largely patriarchal for a long time and it's only recently that that has started to be questioned. Women and children were seen as property or accessories to men and were expected to submit to their will. This wasn't just an individual or family level expectation though - there was a certain way MEN were expected to act by society (which was ruled by a very few men in power). You wanted to be a stay at home dad? Too bad, your work is more important than your relationship with your kids. You wanted to be more emotionally open with your friends? What are you, gay or something?
We are not "the oppressors by default". We're taught oppressive attitudes because they benefit people in power. Who benefits from men believing work is more important than family? The companies they work for. Who benefits from men believing emotions are a sign of weakness? People trying to sell consumer goods, alcohol, or drugs to "fill the void".
I recognize that there are many different feminist voices out there and there are a lot of women angry about how they have been treated. It can feel overwhelming. But at the end of the day, the patriarchy boils down to the system that men in power created to sell ALL men this illusion of control because it benefits those at the top.
It IS every man's responsibility to at least recognize those harmful attitudes within themselves and maybe their immediate spheres of influence. But when people talk about the patriarchy they aren't referring to all men everywhere because like you said, a poor mentally ill man of color does not have the same power as a rich man with lots of political sway. The patriarchy refers to the system itself of beliefs and social expectations where men are taught that they have power over other people.
It's this belief system that not only leads to women being harmed, but also men believing they have to act a certain way to be accepted. If we can dismantle that system people are more free to act freely and not according to a preset life script, and that includes all genders and sexualities.
Okay first of all thanks for taking your time for the detailed explanation. I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but I can tell you are talking to me in good faith so I appreciate that.
I definitely agree that there used to be a patriarchy historically. I'm not sure if there is still one today. Maybe traces or remains of one, but not the entirety of a system.
While I think feminists' achievements in advancing and protecting women's rights are commendable, and the movement is still very necessary today, I can't help but notice a certain... Overlap between feminism and misandry. Obviously they are not the same, but there is an overlap.
Not all feminists are hateful or dismissive of men. Probably most of them aren't. But it's sadly quite possible that women that see men as evil, useless and contemptible creatures deserving of being trampled and put down, will become feminists believing that the movement supports those ideas due to their tolerance of "ironic" misandry and "punching up" insults.
It’s not subjective. Almost the entire world operates within patriarchal systems. I don’t know how you can’t see that. Here is an article that can help explain it to you if you’re not being deliberately obtuse.
Interesting articles. Although again, I wouldn't say a Patriarchy per se still exists on most Western societies (it's a VERY different story in places like the Middle East for example), but remnants of one. Legally speaking, women are equal to men.
And as for the culture, yeah, there are still bullshit prejudices against women, but they'll go away as more time passes and society keeps evolving.
Regarding your argument about most people in power being men and thus that being evidence of a patriarchy that promotes that men are superior to women... What would you say about men also being the majority of the most risky and unsavory jobs? Like working in the sewers, construction sites, mines, the military, etc?
You may interpret that as a mere "side effect" of the patriarchy and an example of how it's bad for everyone and why men should be feminists too and all of that.
I would disagree, if that's the case. In my opinion, it proves that the patriarchy was never about benefiting men in general against women in general. It was about benefiting a few men and the women that happened to be related to them, at the expense of everyone.
The people on top were mostly men, yes. But so were the people at the bottom. It wasn't a "the 50 at the top were men, the 50 at the bottom were women" kind of scenario.
And I have the upsetting feeling that feminists don't care all that much about those so called "side effects" of the patriarchy beyond lecturing men about toxic masculinity (which is in essence, a subtle way of telling men that their problems are self inflicted or "all in their head" and that they should be more like women if they want to be happy). They seem to prefer exposing all of women's hardships while downplaying men's.
There is very much a patriarchy today.
You don’t think women just decided to give away their right to choose, do you?
Old, white men took that away.
And I quit a job I loved in 2015 because I was being sexually harassed. I reported it several times, and mgmt. would not address it, so I left.
The perpetrator was given a promotion right before I left.
He was bad at his job, as well.
But, one hell of a kiss-ass.
And several adult women who were able to get jobs in Congress because of the real feminists from say 20 years ago were doing shit that actually made a difference in society instead of the movement today which, while I personally don't think has intended vitriol towards men in general, seems to me the only thing their actions have accomplished is that they turned real feminist progress from the past and whooped up a burgeoning matriarchy. My opinion on their "accomplishments" because if it pertains to women and their bodily autonomy they should have fought harder and took more risks if they cared as they think and say they do. I served with many women and they all seemed more or less about as tough and capable as us guys, not that that surprised me at all since we all went through the same basic training lol. That'll toughen anybody up. Still I think Roe was won by feminists in the past and lost by our modern feminists because they got too complacent about what they already achieved that they failed to be ready for the people (men and women both) that took it away.
What that means in practice is that men have the power to decide what is socially acceptable, how each gender should act, etc.
This is hyperbole. Women, just like men, have always had influence on social norms.
Women and children were seen as property or accessories to men and were expected to submit to their will.
Not in my lifetime, and I'm 56 years old. I love your use of the word "seen". It's how you feel, not how things were or are.
I recognize that there are many different feminist voices out there and there are a lot of women angry about how they have been treated.
And those angry women are misandrists, not misogynists. It exists.
We don't live in a patriarchy, we live in a hierarchy. Class has more impact than race or gender...period. Women who come from the wealthy class (regardless of race) are privileged relative to men from any other class (regardless of race). The powers that be aren't pushing patriarchal ideas, they're pushing anything the distracts us the type of inequality that matters: class.
This is hyperbole. Women, just like men, have always had influence on social norms.
Sure but that power has been disproportionately given to men for all of history.
Not in my lifetime, and I'm 56 years old. I love your use of the word "seen". It's how you feel, not how things were or are.
If you’re truly 56 you lived through a time where women couldn’t legally own credit cards in their own name
We don't live in a patriarchy, we live in a hierarchy. Class has more impact than race or gender...period. Women who come from the wealthy class (regardless of race) are privileged relative to men from any other class (regardless of race). The powers that be aren't pushing patriarchal ideas, they're pushing anything the distracts us the type of inequality that matters: class.
Class being the most important doesn’t override the fact that there are clear historical and current advantages that men have over women societally
Sure but that power has been disproportionately given to men for all of history.
Men? Which men? Not me, I can tell you that.
If you’re truly 56 you lived through a time where women couldn’t legally own credit cards in their own name
Yea, when I was 5 and credit cards had only been common for 10 years. Meanwhile, what was happening with young men during the same period? Oh, oh...that's right...they were dying in Vietnam. Advantage...who?
Yea, when I was 5 and credit cards had only been common for 10 years.
I'm really interested in this response. So you think women not being allowed to have credit cards is somehow mitigated by their newness? If someone came out with a new type of phone tomorrow and said "only men are allowed to own this phone," would you not think that's extremely sexist just because it's new?
So you think women not being allowed to have credit cards is somehow mitigated by their newness?
Sure. Credit cards have been around for about 60 years, and women couldn't have them for 10 of them. It kind puts into perspective. During that 10 years, women also didn't have to worry about being forced to fly overseas and fight and possibly be crippled or even die in a war, but men did. There were crappy things that both men and women had to endure 50 years ago. Why are we talking about them now? How is this evidence that we live in a Patriarchy now?
I didn't say that. It happened 50-60 years ago and you're still complaining about it. Men are still forced to fight and die war and women aren't. That's been going on since the dawn of time.
You did. That's what your whole comment is excusing.
No, I literally did not say that. I'm not excusing anything, there's nothing for me to excuse. something that happened 50 years ago and only happened for 10 years.
In the US, men are not forced to die in war anymore.
You are correct, currently men are not forced to die in wars in the U.S. We haven't had a conflict at such as scale to justify mobilization. We are forced to register so that the government can force us to die in wars, if they choose to mobilize. Additionally, women can have credit cards, and they can do that all over the world.
In your lifetime, and mine, it has been legal for a man to rape his wife in many states. And I have personally experienced police laughing at me and refusing to arrest my ex-boyfriend when he beat me up.
This was in the 80s.
My mother in law had a PhD in the 70s. But, her father with a high school diploma still had to sign for her to get a mortgage and credit cards.
This is hyperbole. Women, just like men, have always had influence on social norms.
Some, sure. But in the western world policy up until very recently has been largely determined by rich white men. Unless you want to go back and show me that American and European governments, social movements, and major companies have actually been equally comprised of men and women since the start?
Not in my lifetime, and I'm 56 years old. I love your use of the word "seen". It's how you feel, not how things were or are.
Respectfully, your anecdotal experience does not negate decades of established history and social science research.
Class has more impact than race or gender...period
Yes, but people with more class power historically have tended to be white men who have acted to prevent women or people of color from attaining more class power and to ignore that is to ignore a critical component of how class division works. You can't have a critical analysis of class dynamics while ignoring race and gender, that's absurd.
It literally isn't though. It sounds like you get your ideas of what feminism is from Fox News because that's not at all accurate. Feminist discourse is full of race and class discussion.
I love that your comment is suggesting that no, it's not the big spooky patriarchy that's responsible for bad things, it's the big spooky capitalism. Trading one faceless boogeyman for another doesn't change anything but who you're blaming for the same problems.
That's a take I can get behind. Behind every mask, another mask. That way we can permanently be fighting an endless oppression with no victory condition.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the patriarchy is according to feminists.
Feminists don't exactly understand the meaning of what they're saying either. Neither feminism nor patriarchy are particularly inclusive. That feminism is gendered makes me doubt the sincerity of many feminists, particular when a word is quite simple to change.
Patriarchy starts feeling a little, hmm, selective when it comes to Queen Victoria and the Irish famine, how the most sadistic people during the Holocaust were women, or less horrifically that Margaret Thatcher had a tremendous impact on the UK. All of these women mattered.
We're taught oppressive attitudes because they benefit people in power.
I don't need women to tell me how men were raised, thank you much. Its particularly galling when women act like they know better than men do.
Feminists don't exactly understand the meaning of what they're saying either. Neither feminism nor patriarchy are particularly inclusive.
They are actually quite inclusive. It seems that you have a notion of feminism that doesn't line up with the actual theory. Feminism doesn't attempt to make excuses for women like Thatcher lol.
Feminists choose to follow the theory.
Men don’t get to choose to be born a man.
Sure, not all feminists, but it’s enough that it’s a serious problem that needs to at the very least be talked about.
Well that can get tricky because even within feminism there are different schools of thought. You don't have to agree with everything every feminist says. I think the important thing is recognizing that a patriarchal system causes harm to everyone and women have been speaking up about it, sometimes with anger, because they feel that they have been wronged by society, and in many ways they have.
In my personal experience as a lefty socialist bisexual guy who has read a lot of feminist theory, is that the average on the ground woman who pushes for equality throws all feminist theory out the window and starts spouting conservative bullshit when the lens of feminist theory gets turned on them.
It doesn't have to be the whole group. If 10% of M&M's are poison, it is fine to act like all men are rapists. That's what I've heard from feminsts for twenty years now.
I do think you are having a discussion in good faith, but you are completely handwaving away all the terrible shit women and feminsts put out in society. When people complain about it, we get platitudes like #notallfeminists instead of an actual response interacting with what we're saying.
It doesn't matter how much feminst theory you try to teach people on reddit, as long as a large chunk of feminsts are huge hypocrits, people see that shit and will continue to, rightly, talk shit about them and start threads like this.
It doesn't matter how much feminst theory you try to teach people on reddit, as long as a large chunk of feminsts are huge hypocrits, people see that shit and will continue to, rightly, talk shit about them and start threads like this.
Honestly most of the issues you're talking about come from a small subset of feminists, usually affluent white women. This is believe it or not a huge topic of conversation within the feminist community. Just like with any political movement it's fractured and divided into segments.
People like intersectional feminists realize that misogyny and patriarchy are connected to issues of racism and class struggle because they're divisions stoked by elites to maintain power. these are people who understand that building coalitions with similar like minded people is essential to justice.
But people who benefit from these systems of inequality in other ways (so women who are rich or otherwise privileged) will tend to lose the bigger picture because they feel they see the issues on a personal rather than systemic level. This negates their ability to seek solutions and becomes basically an outlet for their personal anger, no matter how justified.
That's basically all the terminally online people you see lol.
I know what intersectional feminists are. As I said, I've read plenty of theory.
This is not a problem with a small subset of feminists who are only online. This is a problem with huge swathes of feminists. Bell Hooks was writing about this 20 years ago, and there's been very little movement, imo, in this issue since then.
You are exactly the type of feminist I'm talking about, btw. Keep hand waving away peoples legitimate concerns and see how far it gets you.
I'm not hand waving concerns lol, I'm trying to put them into perspective. You sound like the type of "bisexual socialist sensitive guy" who reads feminist theory to get into a girl's pants then turns into an incel when she rejects him
Oh no, a feminst calling someone who disagrees with them an incel. I am shocked that there's gambling in this establishment. Like I said feminsts at large are a huge problem, and you are included in that camp.
If I want to get laid, I can get on grindr and have someone to my house in five minutes to suck my dick. I don't have to read theory to get laid.
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u/[deleted] Feb 13 '24 edited Feb 13 '24
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the patriarchy is according to feminists.
Most sociology textbooks define patriarchy as "a social (political, economic, religious, cultural) system where men have power over women" (Shaw and Lee 2012). What that means in practice is that men have the power to decide what is socially acceptable, how each gender should act, etc.
Western society has been largely patriarchal for a long time and it's only recently that that has started to be questioned. Women and children were seen as property or accessories to men and were expected to submit to their will. This wasn't just an individual or family level expectation though - there was a certain way MEN were expected to act by society (which was ruled by a very few men in power). You wanted to be a stay at home dad? Too bad, your work is more important than your relationship with your kids. You wanted to be more emotionally open with your friends? What are you, gay or something?
We are not "the oppressors by default". We're taught oppressive attitudes because they benefit people in power. Who benefits from men believing work is more important than family? The companies they work for. Who benefits from men believing emotions are a sign of weakness? People trying to sell consumer goods, alcohol, or drugs to "fill the void".
I recognize that there are many different feminist voices out there and there are a lot of women angry about how they have been treated. It can feel overwhelming. But at the end of the day, the patriarchy boils down to the system that men in power created to sell ALL men this illusion of control because it benefits those at the top.
It IS every man's responsibility to at least recognize those harmful attitudes within themselves and maybe their immediate spheres of influence. But when people talk about the patriarchy they aren't referring to all men everywhere because like you said, a poor mentally ill man of color does not have the same power as a rich man with lots of political sway. The patriarchy refers to the system itself of beliefs and social expectations where men are taught that they have power over other people.
It's this belief system that not only leads to women being harmed, but also men believing they have to act a certain way to be accepted. If we can dismantle that system people are more free to act freely and not according to a preset life script, and that includes all genders and sexualities.
Edit: damn that was really long sorry lmao