do you believe in the patriarchy?

Ebal -

I believe in sexism. I believe in "institutional sexism" in parallel with institutional racism - I.e. Where there are specific things about the way organisations and laws opperate which create sexist and discriminatory outcomes.

I believe in patriarchy - rule of families by fathers, and the laws that support that (in countries where it does)

I don't believe in The Patriarchy theory as the overarching explanation for these things.

Going back to your parallel. The patriarchy has been defined here as = male supremacy. I don't think all forms of racism are explained by a belief in white supremacy. And I don't think all problems experienced by non white groups are explained by White supremacy. Even in a country like South Africa where white supremacy was the problem, its legacy means dealing with patterns in industry, education, infrastructure etc...which mean you can't just keep saying 'we are fighting white supremacy'.

I think the parallel with racism is useful. But the major difference is that sexual differences go back much further than racial ones and women (at least in terms of the survival of their children) benefited from patriarchal family relations just as much (actually moreso) than men. But we don't live in the same harsh environment that we evolved in, so it's no justification to continue that way.

And that's exactly what happened, isn't it?

Misrepresentation of what was said, I think you'll find.

The nobel representation, btw, is organised by the patriarchy, and supported by the patriarchy. But, y'know... It's a conspiracy theory...

FD - I think if a theory causes someone to think they can dismiss research as bullshit without engaging with its content, but because the the Nobel Prize is part of the patriarchy then yes I think they have entered the conspiracy theory zone.

Don't you?

Or is that ok?

The Big Pat is a conspiracy theory?

So, you don't believe that the routine financial, emotional, physical, psychological and sexual oppression of women, both as a singular and as a group, exists, then?

Him - Is it the word patriarchy that is the issue? Because honestly, I agree with Zombie, its like saying you don't believe in racism imo.

Nothing to believe or not believe.
It's there.
It's been there for centuries.
Shutting one's eyes and screwing up one's ears wont make it go away.

I see "The Patriarchy" more as a value system than a specific theory, conspiracy or otherwise. It is a value system that conspires to keep women down.

It is, certainly, deliberately invoked on a regular basis by men keeping women down. That doesn't mean they all sit round some kind of patriarchy conference table, devising sexist strategies. It means patriarchal values are employed in decision-making. That happens a lot because patriarchy is a very pervasive value system.

Beachcomber

I do not question that violence against women, rape, porn, prostitution, trafficking, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, the glass ceiling, lack of financial power, unequal social status, lack equality for female politicians etc. are serious, real issues, injustices and problems.

I don't defend any of them.

I just don't think the explanation of 'The Patriarchy' is adequate, or consistent with other stuff I believe about how the world works.

I do think it is conspiracy theory territory when people say that by definition, Nobel prize winning work can be dismissed without addressing what it says, as it must be bullshit put there to uphold the patriarchy. I don't think that kind of anti-intellectualism does women any favours.

The Patriarchy is a theory. Theories should be able to be questioned and discussed. It is not rude to discuss a theory.

SAF

"Seriously you have nothing better to do with your time and energy? nothing you're passionate about?"

Sure lots. Like most people on MN I am here to chat about things I am interested in in between doing other things.

Beejeezus started the thread with a question mentioning me obliquely so I answered.

I think its kind of a 'shut up' tactic to tell someone who is chatting politely on a forum (like everyone else who is chatting on the forum) that they must be a sad sack with no life for being there. I can't really win with that question other than by shutting up.

It seems that certain posters believe the oppression is by "others" not the patriarchy but can't quite say who as is it too complicated.

seriously you have nothing better to do with your time and energy? nothing you're passionate about? i genuinely am curious as i find it really, really strange.

ok it makes sense if you're an entitled misogynist male who thinks feminists are threatening your god given right to rule over women - they're invested and are passionate about their investment.

but women? very. very. odd.

utter twilight zone of late. i can't bear to be here much.

it amazes me the hours of time that women put into telling feminists they're wrong. obviously everyone has priorities and limited energy so can't focus on all the worlds problems so direct their campaigning and time and energy toward the things that matter most to them.

for some people that's donkey's - odd but fair enough - they're obviously really passionate about the well being of donkeys.

but telling feminists they're wrong???? that's an odd one to invest so much time and energy into given all the problems there are in the world.

thechairmanmeow, and why have you shown up on this thread just to get personal with me?

Are you trying to gaslight me or have you just not read the thread? .

The pedant in me can't be restrained just now ... myriad is an adjective and comprise is a direct verb. I thank you.

Your post at 15:42 is daft, Himalaya. No-one's suggested the British preference for charity towards animals over charity towards people isn't a problem. We were discussing the validity of Frothy's points as demonstrations that we live in a patriarchal society. I acknowledged that the donkey sanctuary point was weak on that front and answered the objection with a directly relevant comparison (men-women instead of donkeys-women).

If you want to start a conversation about donkeys' importance to society as compared with women's, go ahead. I won't be on it.

Good post at 15:25, Beach. Is anyone else finding Mumsnet a bit other-worldly at the moment??

beachcomer why do you posts comprise of sacrasm in reaction to opinions that havent been voiced.

Oh and I forgot poverty too. We barmy feminists are convinced that poverty is a gendered issue too.

And childcare, infant feeding and the structure of the working world.

Quite potty!

Yeah, feminists sit around scratching their heads and trying to drum up things to blame on patriarchy.

That's why we're feminists, you see. Because we have this bizarre and irrational desire to prop up the fanciful notion that male dominated society exits. A desire that has sprung out of absolutely nowhere and which has no basis in women's lived experience. None. At All.

Anything that we can't pin on The Patriarchy just bores us to tears, so either we just pretend that everything is The Patriarchy's fault, or we ignore everything that we can't quite blame on The Patriarchy, and we scrabble around trying to find something else.

We do this because we are a bit barmy you see. We are into conspiracy theories and have a blind 'faith' in the existence of The Patriarchy. We keep getting presented with all this evidence that violence, rape, porn, prostitution, trafficking, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, the glass ceiling, parliamentary representation, financial power, social status, etc. aren't gendered, but we just cling to our irrational and utterly fanciful position that they are gendered.

There aren't enough faces.

How rude can you get?

I think I almost preferred it when people just came on threads and posted 'you lot are INSANE for wanting to discuss this. INSANE I tell you'. At least it was honest.

Garlic

My point is are we in the business of looking for things that can be "blamed squarely on patriarchy" or are we looking for problems and ways to solve them?

FD said it was a problem that donkey sanctuaries get more money than women's refuges. I agree it is a problem.

I gave a bit of analysis as to what might be the cause of the problem ..

you said 'it can be answered with the fact that helplines for abusive males, which are under-subscribed, get government funding while the over-subscribed lines for abused females'.

Its like if a problem can't be ascribed to the patriarchy suddenly isn't a problem any more, it becomes boring, and the answer is to go look for a framing of a problem that can be ascribed to the patriarchy.

How is observing that women are exploited, killed, beaten, raped, assaulted, trafficked, prostituted, pimped, pornified, objectified, commodified, bought, sold, abused, subjugated and dominated, the world over, count as 'sticking to a story' despite evidence to the contrary?

For Crying Out Loud.

How does noticing that women women hold fewer than 13% of the world's parliamentary seats and less than 1% of the world's property, despite doing two thirds of the world's work, count as 'backing up one's own story'?

How does protesting against the fact that 1 in 4 women in the UK are affected by domestic violence count as 'cognitive dissonance' ?

How does noticing that women have been considered as men's property up until not very long ago and that we still live in the cultural legacy of that time (indeed there are cultures where this is current practice), count as faulty reasoning?

WTAF?

I suppose noticing FGM, honour killing, arranged marriage, attacks on reproduction rights, cultures where women are chaperoned and not allowed to vote, is 'cherry picking' .

We are just back to the 'patriarchy' is a figment of feminists' imagination crap that we had earlier.

This place is like some kind of Twilight Zone.

Listen to yourselves.

i had an interesting anecdotal experiment of the patriarchy in the 1990s. For five years I had a male secretary. He was in his late 20s. I was in my 50s.

Whenever we went together to a meeting (where we were unknown) or people came to our office, the immediate assumption before any introductions was that he was the boss and I was the secretary. Was this the patriarchy in action i.e. man must be the boss because he is male and women are subordinate or was it simply the conditioning we are all subject to? Of course it was immediately clear on introduction or when I started to engage with the meeting and my authority was not questioned. The other interesting thing was that the assumption was made by both men and women. The women, who were often quite senior, always apologised and quite often said something along the lines of "how silly of me" or "and I think of myself as a feminist" or some such... The men rarely said anything and it was quite interesting to see their reactions when my secretary offered tea or coffee and got up to make it. You could see their tiny brains whirring.....

I mention my age because you would have thought it might have occurred to people that as I was 30 years older it would be likely that I was the more experienced of the two and therefore the boss. But it rarely did.

At first it angered me, then it irritated me and then it amused me. Once or twice I had real fun with it e.g. assuring the men they were in safe hands as I could actually do joined up writing....

bejeezus

Larry, thank you for the link. My take on it is: well, this is a logical outcome, right? Women are going to uni in greater numbers and achieving better degree results, and thus they have closed the pay gap for the 20-something cohort (I think this is a better way of putting it than saying they 'perform better than men', given the pay differential is so marginal, and pay is only one criteria in career performance.) I do think the pay gap is only one facet of comparing career experiences: for example, if more men than women are doing career-enhancing internships or postgrad degrees in their 20s, then it is less positive that women are finding equality at getting entry-level jobs and then not progressing. (Am not saying this is true, just showing that 'facts' are not dead ends but windows into further research.)

Where our interpretations differ is that I see this not as evidence against the existence of inequality, but as a limited success in the struggle to change that inequality -- hopefully, a success that will continue and spread. Many, many people have fought hard to improve women's lives in the UK and it's great to see that in some areas there is progress.

I guess you see that progress as evidence that the patriarchy has been vanquished or that it is not as powerful as people say. But if you look at the entire lived experience of British women, you will see that there is still so much to be done whether it's in the later stages of women's careers, violence against women, poor maternity services, porn culture, sexual harassment we are still so far from real equality, if you look in the aggregate and at the big picture.

I am not trying to be pessimistic. But for me, weighing on the one hand all the positive things that have been achieved for women's rights, and on the other all the structural and systematic obstacles that still exist and that still cause so much misery, I think it is too soon to say that there is no patriarchy in the UK. I would need to see a lot more progress before saying that.