I don't get 'The Patriarchy'

Dittany:'If male violence against women stopped today, women would be free.' Is the economic system of capitalism with a sexual division of labour where women are responsible for unpaid domestic labour a consequence of male violence? Obv. mv is part of that but not the primary cause. Please don't assume I'm arguing some kind of orthodox Marxist 'it'll be OK after the revolution love' bollox, that's not my aim, nor to diminish the impact of mv potential or actual on all our lives. Genuine query.

Ooh, this is getting quite refreshingly heated.... it seems to me that the terms 'patriarchy', 'male dominance', 'sexism' etc are being used interchangeably in ways which could cause difficulty. 'patriarchy' as a system in ancient Rome isn't the same as what some people call 'patriarchy' in modern Western cultures. Well, that's my opinion - does anyone agree? Disagree? Why?
I'm v. interested in the evolution/anthropology debates. What is the problem with my idea on men's investment in promiscuity being overstated, with opposite being true for women?

Some men.

But everything is both simple and more complex. Every single thing. So why does it need stating about patriarchy, as if it's something unusual or some kind of barrier or deficiency? I spend stacks of my writing about one tiny little concept. One thing that on the surface and in common parlance is pretty simple, but of course when you dig further it isn't. You could do that to anything.

AW right. which is why, way back in the dawn of this thread I made the distinction between the Patriarchy in theory (as in: a simple, defining notion of what the Patriarchy is) which is simple, and the Patriarchy in practice (which is more complex). We can agree on that, right?

Bullshit. Men geographically and temporally have been the ones holding on to power. They have universally used violence to gain that power. The concept of patriarchy does not fall apart in specific situations, in fact it is demonstrated over and over again.

dittany I don't disagree with you about how they gained power; I'm interested in how they sustain it. Is it still always just violence? Or is there something more. personally, in my opinion, with no claim to any kind of authority, I think there's more to it. If all violence against women stopped, permanently tomorrow, would women suddenly start enjoying equal status? In my view I think other things would need to change too before the Patriarchy disappeared.

"I think talk of The Patriarchy in the singular is wrong and misleading"

Of course you do. It wouldn't do for women to name what we're up against, because then we might start fighting it properly. It's in men's political interests to try and muddy the waters and confuse things.

"The reality is there are a myriad of patriarchies, dependent on how the particular men in power view the power structure they control."

Once again there you go trying to claim authority on what reality is. Do I need to say where that sort of attitude in a man comes from?

I never claimed to be an authority on anything - I was just expressing my opinion. something my mother taught me to do. I was hoping words like "personally" and "I think" would have made that clear. It was certainly my intention - it's all about intention, right?

Anyway, I want you to start fighting the Patriarchy. ideally I'd like you to tear it down asap; before my daughter starts primary would be great! So go ahead, hunt down that singular Patriarchy and destroy it.

I notice you also haven't quibbled with the actual content of what I'm saying, more just the way I saying it, the intentions you assume I have when I'm saying it and the fact that I have the audacity to say it at all!

I mean, seriously, what do you think? Do you think that talk of The Patriarchy as one, single male conspiracy is accurate, or are there many, operating independently?

My 'but...' was to MrIC btw

But everything is both simple and more complex. Every single thing. So why does it need stating about patriarchy, as if it's something unusual or some kind of barrier or deficiency? I spend stacks of my writing about one tiny little concept. One thing that on the surface and in common parlance is pretty simple, but of course when you dig further it isn't. You could do that to anything.

I fail to see how any number of pages is evidence that something is hard to understand/conceptualise etc. It's possible to both understand something, and discuss what it means in relation to other things extensively. For example, people understand what poverty means in sufficiently meaningful terms, but people also write whole libraries discussing it.

fair point AW. But there are countless causes and forms of poverty; you can know what poverty is vaguely, but to understand all the inter-linking forces that causeit , their relative important, and ways to solve them, isn't the work of a quick visit to wikipedia. I would argue the same holds true here; a basic conception of The Patriarchy as a theory is easy - to understand how it works I think is more complex and I think this discussion, while by no means conclusive proof, is evidence to that effect.

Dittany, for example, prioritises violence as the key (which is interesting as we could spend pages arguing about what to include in a definition of violence). While I completely accept that violence has been a crucial in establishing the Patriarchy and maintaining it, I don't think it stands alone, I think there are other important factors, and violence by itself can't explain the Patriarchy completely. To return to the OP, to say "it's just make violence against women" does indeed exclude other factors and make it sound like it's all some kind of global conspiracy, with is a fallacy on both counts.

oh right, sorry, thought you were referring to a later post. like I said whatever, it wasn't a major point.

You're a bloke and you're demonstrating that argument as are some of the other blokes here.

I've never been a bloke, and never wanted to be one. thanks for just lumping me in with most of what I despise.

I have formulated patriarchy in simple terms, it's a socially created political system founded on male violence against women where men hold the vast majority of political economic and social power. If you can't understand it, that's not my issue, it's yours.

Then why are you making it your issue?

I'm not here to try and persuade anti-feminists like POP and Himalaya about patriarchy.

actually it seems that's exactly what you're trying to do (not that I agree with you calling POP and Himalaya anti-feminists).

Your formulation is great as a starting point, but it doesn't explain why this situation is still sustained in places like the UK and Spain. I'm not denying that male violence against women continues to exist there, but it is not keeping women disempowered in the same way that it does in, say, South Africa or Iran. So what I'm saying is that a formulation like this is too simple - try to apply it the real world (which is what I meant by Reality btw) and it's got too many holes in it, too many exceptions. You have to patch in things like Cultural Hegemony (thanks POP), Capitalism and, indeed, anti-feminism to explain how the Patriarchy persists. You end up with different formulations that sometimes overlap or intertwine (or even contradict) to explain how the Patriarchy works in different locations and a different levels of the social hierarchy.

As such I think the Patriarchy is complex and needs to be conceptualised as such, because simple conceptions easily fall apart the moment you try to apply them to a specific situation and that leads to what is a very real and valid concept being discredited.

Personally (but hey I'm a bloke so wtf do I know) I think talk of The Patriarchy in the singular is wrong and misleading; it makes you think there's a single monolithic conspiracy going on involving all men. The reality is there are a myriad of patriarchies, dependent on how the particular men in power view the power structure they control.

I fail to see how any number of pages is evidence that something is hard to understand/conceptualise etc. It's possible to both understand something, and discuss what it means in relation to other things extensively. For example, people understand what poverty means in sufficiently meaningful terms, but people also write whole libraries discussing it.