What is the patriarchy?

Thanks rosa good post.

*onemorechap" yes that phrase is rather "antique" and it suggests antique attitudes to women, ie that they need to snare a poor unsuspecting man into marriage. 1) Women are quite capable of survivng outside marriage 2) Men who get married are making an equal decision to enter the contract - to suggest otherwise is to suggest that for men to be married to women involves them being "conned" and therefore devalued and/or degraded in some way. The phrase suggests that a monogamous relationship for a man is somehow unappealing and not natural whereas for a woman it is the normal state of affairs either because she is not entitled to the same freedoms as a man or not capable of existing in any other state. It's very offensive, I think.

The modern equivalent of "pursued an interest" is exactly the same. Possibly it's worse as the word "pursue" suggests something predatory whereas "set her cap" sounds rather girl-like and naive. Either way, both definitely imply a sense that marriage/monogamous relationships are required for women whereas they are to be avoided for men.

I am rather confused. What is 'an old fashioned view of breasts'? What exactly needs to change? Do I need to look out for Xenia doing a bare breasted march down the Mall, when she has a free day? Is the up to date view that we should all be free to go topless where ever we wish? I think that the people of the Solomon Islands might be a bit insulted if honoured guests are not appropriately dressed. Or is it just that a man dares to have an opinion? I'm not to keen on men with vast beer bellies taking off their tops.

Ok FU, I was quoting the MNHQ comments from memory, might have been a bit wrong.

TheDoctrineOfSnatch You are wrong. This is a 'feminism and women's rights forum' (ie a forum to discuss topics pertinent to feminism), not a 'forum to discuss feminism'.

Yes Rosabud. I said that.
Why?

I said it in response to she met him at University and fell for her flatmate. That much is certainly questionable. Is the language too antique?

She decided to pursue someone she was interested in... is that better?

Umm, yep!

Rosa, this is not a feminist forum, it's a forum to discuss feminism. Can I make that into a TSSDNCOP style acronym..?
TINFFIAFTDF

Oh sorry.

Did I just read the words "set her cap at him" on a forum to discuss feminism??

This is a good article
www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/thanks-kates-breasts-youve-shown-its-not-ok-for-us-to-leer-8153345.html

The problem is that women are sexually objectified and women's bodies have been commodified and can be pimped around the internet and into the press.

I invite you all to come on over to a thread currently running in Chat about the question of the KM photos to see some good examples of how living in a patriarchal world affects even women's perceptions of right and wrong in the moral sense and individual rights and liberties in the civil sense. It has all got quite mixed up with rabid anti royal sentiment, but there is a rich vein of victim blaming that is gobsmacking.

Even the title 'Kate Middleton hol pics thing -- why did she do it?' speaks volumes.

Look folks.
Xenia is right.
So if she is saying Kate shouldnt sunbathe topless then it is because Xenia does not sunbathe topless.
There is nothing magical about what Xenia says.
Whatever she says,does,thinks is right,and whatever she doesnt do or doesnt think is wrong.
Simples.

If you want to get anywhere Eats you need plain English - that is sheer gobbledygook.

Who gives a shit why she doesn't want to? She doesn't want to. The law was broken. The end.

Don't worry about the patriarchy, worry about the overarching male hegemony..

I suspect their protection officers ought to suss these thigns out. Second she should never sunbathe topless. It is not really allowed as part of the rules if you want to be the potential King's consort. We all know that. Thirdly though I accept French law was likely to be broken.

She has not said why she is unhappy with her breasts being seen though. Are they deformed? Is she ashamed of them? Will she be breastfeeding in public in due course? Does she have old fashioned views about breasts which need to be changed?

Um they may have all been sunbathing nude, we just didn't know about it before the days of long lenses!

This is not really about breasts - it is about privacy. Kate was not in a public place. She was not on a public beach. If you see the pictures on the BBC website yesterday it shows the view from the road where the pictures were taken. It is so far away that it is impossible to make out whether a person on that balcony was male or female or even be sure it is a person. The only way to do that is through powerful long photographic lenses.

Without long photographic lenses those pictures would not have been possible.

The couple were entitled really to think they could act as normal people do in that situation i.e. sunbathe, lounge around without some cash-grabbing paparazzi hoping to make big bucks out of them by flogging them to some trash magazine.

What is really more concerning is that if paparazzi could take a photograph at such a distance then a long range marksman could do the same. And I imagine that is what security will now be focusing on (though why they hadn't before heaven only knows).

Looks like the last little bit of normality this couple thought they could have is gone for good.

(sorry, can't go topless down the Mall today, too much work. As a family we have though always done a lot of nude swimming. Even my grandparents in the 1930s did it - although that was in the North Sea which is pretty cold. I prefer warmer climes for stripping off)

It certainly can be pretty convenient to have a spouse minding children for a few days a week whilst you get a full night's sleep, nights out, a lover even for men or women so inclined, and a muggins spouse at home doing it all. That tends to occur where there is an imbalance in earnings between the couple. What if you said to him I would like 3 nights a week without the child around you have it - would he arrange things to ensure you had that freedom too?

I suppose the Duchess has at least progressed beyond the earlier royals in that she is prepared to sunbathe topless, something many of them would not have risked. Progress of a sort but we need to reach a position where we can be as free as the Solomon islanders to show breasts without anyone missing a beat.

Summerflower - yeah totally! I was more defending Kate against Xenia's insistence that she march down the Mall bare breasted!!

She may well believe that there is nothing wrong with baring her baps (and indeed there isn't) but she has, like the rest of us, been conditioned to be embarrassed by it.