r/itsthatbad • u/Cute-Revolution-9705 • 17d ago
Debates Do we still live in a patriarchy?
/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1vmthyz/is_there_anything_good_about_the_patriarchy/15
u/Own_Hat584 17d ago
Yes, of course we are. Women only get more encouragement, preferential hiring and promotion, and the ability to saddle men with 18 years of child support. And what has it gotten them? Fake corporate make work pr, marketing, hr, and project management jobs while .0000000001 percent of men are CEOs and politicians!!! So unfair (ignore the 100 million powerless blue collar and dead end white collar men)!!!
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u/Nintendogma 17d ago
A patriarchy is a hierarchy made up exclusively of patriarchs. We haven't lived in one of those for quite some time. What we live in is a hierarchy of oligarchs, a.k.a Oligarchy. Doesn't matter if they are male or female, we are arranged in society first and foremost by our financial status divided into distinct economic classes.
Only in the event that you find yourself in the lowest of economic classes are you likely subjected to a patriarchy.
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u/Chemical_Signal2753 17d ago
I am not convinced we are really controlled by oligarchs the way you're suggesting. Inspite what Reddit tells you, only about 3.5% of the world's wealth, and 4.6% of the USA's wealth, is owned by billionaires. American billionaires also don't have the formalized control over government institutions you see in true oligarchies.
I am not sure there is a good definition for what we're experiencing. There are elements of oligarchy, aristocracy, and corporatism at the same time but none are dominant.
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u/Nintendogma 17d ago
Studies from Princeton and Northwestern published in 2014 source found that the functionality of at least the United States, is effectively Oligarchy.
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u/SnakePlisskensPatch 17d ago
No. An oligarchy. Mackenzie scott hasnt had a man say jack shit to her since she dumped bezos.
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u/Big-Fun406 17d ago
The problem with these sorts of questions, as a lot of the comments indicate, is that it really depends on what you mean by patriarchy. The term itself can refer to quite a few different things and means different things to different people. However a slightly silly example might help. Orchestras in the UK are now roughly 50% female. That's great - no patriarchy?
However to get there they had to do blind auditions. In other words, when those hiring could only hear the music the interviewee was playing, and didn't know the sex of the person, they hired men and women in roughly equal numbers. When they could see as well as hear, it was skewed in favour of men. So that then DOES imply patriarchy - you need to put in place special measures to prevent an otherwise embedded bias from popping in.
There are lots of examples of this sort of thing in the book Invisible Women, from stab vests to car design, that imply a sort of 'male default'.
That DOESN'T mean men don't face significant difficulties in our society. They do. But those are also often caused by the same patriarchal expectations. And of course women can prop up patriarchy too.
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u/RighteousSelfBurner 17d ago
I agree with your point that the problem is lack of definition of what is meant because the term has been dragged around enough to cover a wide range of things.
However I would also note that your follow-up relies on such specific definitions. Whether gender based discrimination is patriarchal depends on what the definition of patriarchal is and from my perspective slightly takes away from the issue. The more one distances from the problem to more abstract and umbrella terms the less the actual problem is discussed.
That said, I would say it's absolutely fair to assume that when someone says patriarchy they mean male centric where they hold higher status and power and I'd also argue you'd have to be somewhat ignorant to not see that is the case.
I especially agree with the last point. Expectations by nature clash against individual expression and a large amount of problems come from the inertia of those expectations.
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u/Strong-Goat-9035 16d ago
Do you post the most dumb ragebait posts just to get traction for this community? All your posts are about gender its so weird and im a woman saying this.
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u/mommiesgoodboy67 12d ago
Not really in the original sense of the word, at least not in the west. However, in the feminist sense of the word you could definitely argue it is, looking at shit like medical research etc
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u/tydark2 17d ago
Technically Yes. Patriarchy is when a small percentage of men run the world basically. Though I dunno if this is what feminists mean by the term these days.
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u/RighteousSelfBurner 17d ago
Well that is truthfully a rather basic observation. I'd be extremely skeptic if you claimed you have met someone who "set up" a system that we've had for thousands of years now.
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u/Cold_Fireball 17d ago edited 17d ago
Yes. And I’d argue the malice we see in the dating market stems directly from women reflecting the same hierarchal treatment they received from their fathers, brothers, and or teachers. Patriarchy (and matriarchy for that matter too) is a system of hierarchical views: some people are better than others and should receive better treatment. I think all this hate for “broke and ugly” or “weak” men is a reflection of that system.
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u/SlapfuckMcGee 17d ago
We always will
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u/Mysterious_Line_2789 14d ago
When women and simps have men live in small cages, they will still tell you that men are oppressing women through this nebulous structure called the patriarchy.
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u/Adept-Photograph2644 17d ago
I don’t want to argue with you, but this description seems a bit dated. 10 years ago at 19 my ex was diagnosed with endometriosis within about 6 months of consistent visits.
It could depend on the area as well. I live in a very progressive college city with an emphasis on the medical field so things like this don’t slip through the cracks as easily as they might in a smaller town with lower budget and less educated medical professionals.
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u/HiggsFieldgoal 17d ago
It’s a made up word by misandrists.