do you believe in the patriarchy?

I suspect it depends upon ones definition of femininity.

As a word it does have undertones of weakness. Personally I prefer femaleness which to my mind has all the connotations of what makes me strong and wonderful as a woman.

If a man wants to see those things that make me a woman and admire them, then he should be my guest. But if he uses them as some sort of reason to treat me unequally (because he's just so in awe of them) then he will hear me roar .

Inde, femininity is a social construct, the point of which is to identify women as being of lower social status than men. Femininity is a set of social and cultural norms, expectations, practices and roles which confine and restrict women (and which change over time).

Femininity is a performance.

Admire it if you wish, but by doing so you are capitulating with the patriarchal social hierarchy which places men in a superior position to women. And that isn't treating women as equals.

Inde, I am just wondering what femininity is - how are you defining it?

Beachcomer
Is it not possible to admire and love femininity and not also treat women as equals? I hope if you do you are wrong because I don't think many people think that men are generally born more masculine and women more feminine. That being the case isn't it better to admire and respect femininity rather than looking on it as something that makes women somehow inferior.

Women are first and foremost human beings. Sticking us on the pedestal of femininity to be admired, is just benevolent sexism. (And it isn't that benevolent.)

Wordfactory

I totally agree.

Saying it is "natural" for men as a group to rape or assault women because they are larger and stronger, is like saying it is natural for men who are taller and stronger to rape shorter weaker men. Nobody ever says that. I wonder why?

Ick at 'admire their shackles femininity'.

Anyway, I read the other day that;

"According to the UN, up to 27 million people are now held in slavery, far more than at the peak of the African slave trade. The majority of the victims this time are Asian women."

(This is the link it comes from although it isn't really about VAW.)

inde of course you can do that.
Women are beautiful, wonderous, sexual creatures.

But when you start to use those fabulous differences to defend sexism, then to my mind you've got it all wrong.

Wordfactory
Is it being defensive or is it just adding a male point of view to the debate. Don't you feel like defending women if someone says something you see as misogynistic? As it happens in most instances so do I.
As for your last paragraph I don't think that believing men and women are different makes rape dv etc. more likely. Men should be brought up to respect women and treat them as equals. I think you can do that and still admire women's femininity even if that means seeing them as different.

I consign the idea of feminists being conspiracy theorists to the dustbin containing the words things these days have gone too far the other way.

Yes, there are just far too many women in positions of influence and power. And far too many men being harrassed and discriminated against in the work force.

Marx, Martin Luther King, Gandhi - paranoid conspiracy theorists, all of 'em.

Again I agree with wordfactory - nature/female male brains and all that stuff is a red herring (or an attempt to justify male violence against women 'men are big and strong and have penises and hormones so they, like, have to dominate women and oppress them').

Do people genuinely think that it is the natural order for men to subjugate and oppress women? And that is is the natural order for men to be violent against women?

Now, that, is sexist.

I think the whole idea of saying we are conspiracy theorists is laughable. As if we have to make this shit up .

FAQ: Isn?t "the Patriarchy" just some conspiracy theory that blames all men, even decent men, for women?s woes?

Feminists don't think that there is a conspiracy going on (that makes us sound a bit paranoid and tinfoilhatty - did you mean to do that inde?).

We just, yunno, observe reality and note that even nice men; benefit from male privilege, are often oblivious to male privilege and resist relinquishing male privilege.

Do people accuse people of colour of being conspiracy theorists when they point out the existence of white supremacy ?

trills having had mixed sex twins (a feminists dream no?) I have changed my mind on the nature/nurture debate. Darn my open mind. I think nature plays a larger part than once I did.

However, this is a red herring, I think. Those differences don't explain away even a teeny amount of sexism.

inde many feminists (myself included) don't believe is some sort of Bond-like conspiracy. Ooh let's keep them women in their place.

Men who see this and say this is what happens are in my experience being dreadfully defensive. Refusing to accept that sexism exists. That they are being sexist but not having the guts or the energy to change.

Focussing on how men and women are different is a red herring. And one the patriarchy loves .

That simply does not explain rape, domestic violence, sexual harrassment, unequal pay in the work force, judicial and penal inequality.
Only one thing explains those things - sexism.

I'm not saying that gender differences are 100% conditioning, I'm simply saying that any innate differences are likely to be smaller than many people think and not necessarily the things that people think they are.

SM yes the patriarchy is society, but accepting that said society is predicated on sexism and still allowing sexism to continue...that's a bit long winded no?

Once the patriarchy is defeated we will still have society. Just an equsal one vis a vis the sexes.

*Believe it exists? Yes. But I might not have the same definition as you.

I agree with ecclesvet that we live in a society that encourages gender roles and punishes those who don't conform. I don't believe that anyone in particular comes up with the rules, I don't believe that many people consciously choose to follow or enforce the rules, and I don't believe that most individual men benefit from it.*

That is pretty much my opinion Trills. It sometimes seems that feminists are suggesting that we men are involved in some sort of conspiracy and we all consciously want to keep women to some lower role in life. That isn't the way I think and isn't the way most men think in my experience. Where we possibly differ is I believe that men and women are born equal but different and that hormones mostly at puberty increase that difference. I also think that the way we are brought up makes a difference as well though and men and women who don't conform to the norm or don't want to conform are pressured to tow the line. I think unfortunately that this rejecting people who don't conform is probably down to how we have evolved and is perhaps in us all to a lesser or greater extent. It is something we should all try and resist.

i'm begining to get this patriachy thing,
cave man and women had much less in the shape of organised society around them, the women had the babies so the men had to do the hunting, nature chose these roles, not patriachy.

through sexual selection men became bigger than women, so women choseing bigger stronger men has resulted in a gender difference in size, this alone has given men the upper hand historicaly, males have been domminant is society for one reason, because they could.

as society grew social structures made it possible for women to enter the workplace and still have babies , the bigger the organisation the greater the oppertunities, i wonder what data there is from very organised societies , i wonder what childcare options there were in communist russia for example?

i'm rambleing now, feel free to contradict me, i'm sort of just thinking aloud.

'So "patriarchy" refers to all of us. It's not a group of people. It's not men. It's a bunch of ideological underpinnings. You have them. I have them. We all have them. It's not a group of white males. It's not a single white male. It's not an organization. It's a whole, deeply entrenched system that informs and shapes how we think, how we interact, how we see each other

Basically society then

Yes. Thats the point isnt it sigmund?'

Why are you calling it patriarchy, if it means society? I would suggest that patriarchy only means society from a feminist viewpoint.

For the rest of us society=society. Different.