Genuine question on patriarchy

Focussing in your points about not noticing it in the workplace:

• I had a very well educated colleague, she had multiple degrees, spoke multiple languages and worked hard. The men in my workplace commented that she’d been hired because of how good looking she was.

• I work in a male dominated industry, 21% of staff in my organisation are women. When arguing with my male colleague that there weren’t a lot of women in our organisation, he said there’s loads of women in our head office. That’s because the bulk of the 21% are office based and not field based. I asked him to consider what fields those women were in and he couldn’t recognise that most were in admin roles or typically female orientated business support roles (HR, communications, education). There are very few female engineers, project managers, analysts, technicians. OP, you may have 50% of women in the office but what roles are they in? Are they specialist roles or those that are more business support? How many men are admin assistants compared to women?

• When someone at work is leaving or they’ve had a baby or it’s a big birthday - who does the majority of the cards and collections? I’m assuming 90% of the time it’s a woman, that’s certainly been the case with the organisations I’ve worked anyway. Occasionally a man will delegate it to a woman. Sending round a card and collection is not business critical, so of course it gets shoved to a woman.

• In meetings, who does the note taking? If you’re all of a similar level, are you just assuming the woman will take the notes or maybe not assuming but she just always does? Maybe you could offer to take notes for her or suggest a rota for note taking if there are no admin staff present.

My workplace is quite sexist so I’m hoping your workplace isn’t quite as bad as mine. On the issue of equal pay, it starts much earlier than getting the job. At school, we’re told girls aren’t as good at maths and science but we’re really good in English and art. Boys are told they’re very good at maths and science and they’ll catch up on their English. So my husband did biomedical science at university, I did a BSc too but it was geography so humanities, using those English and art skills. My husband took a job in accountancy with his ‘advanced’ maths skills. I took a job in environmental engagement because my English skills make me good at speaking with people. I use maths and science day in, day out but I still have that little voice in my head that says “I’m not good at maths and science” as I’m working out a 5 year plan of proposed costings based on targets we need to achieve. Environment is a more female dominated industry, there are men but the environment sector actually contributes to getting more women into typically male dominated areas such as engineering and construction. Like most female dominated areas, the pay is not as high as male dominated sectors. So I have higher GCSEs, higher A-Levels, got a higher mark in my degree than my husband and I have a masters degree, which he does not have. Yet he earns 14K more with another pay rise expected shortly, I work in the environment sector there are no pay rises. I’m looking for a new role but my job hunt doesn’t focus on salary. It focuses on flexible hours, the ability to work from home and family friendly work policies because when we have kids, as you experienced, women are expected to be primary care givers.

These are just a few work examples. This isn’t getting into the time in year 9 when I was sexually assaulted in the middle of class and when I pushed the boy’s hand away the teacher told me off, so I stayed quiet after that. It doesn’t include the times I’ve been groped, propositioned and the times I’ve been scared because a man cannot take no for an answer. Or the times I’ve walked home with my keys between my fingers (do you know I was actually told to do that during one of the health visits during secondary school about periods and safe sex). Or the times people have told me I don’t know what I’m talking about because I’m a young woman. Or the times trades people have spoken directly to my husband because I can’t possibly understand them. Or the many inappropriate comments made in a workplace, the “banter”.

As others have said, you experienced the patriarchy in fighting for your daughter. I’m sorry you had to go through that. How you help is by fighting it one bit at a time. So the next time someone has a negative comment about you taking custody of your daughter, ask why you, as a man, aren’t a fit parent by yourself. Challenge their assumptions. Raise your daughter to know that she can be good at maths and science and English. That if someone assaults her, she can and should shout about it from the rooftops.

Think of all the jobs that are traditionally done by women: nurse, cleaner, secretary, carer, primary teacher, cook... They generally involve caring or cleaning up. Most of these jobs are minimum wage or just above. The professional ones are paid a reasonable just above median if you've got experience. Now think about jobs traditionally done by men: refuse collector, doctor, professor, lawyer, lorry driver, firefighter and even miner. If you look, these are all paid better for comparable work for the simple reason that they were done by men in the past and valued more highly. Things are changing and a lot of the service industry jobs are just paid badly full stop with terrible conditions, but generally we have come to expect that the 'going rate' for female jobs to be less and we don't notice any more.
1 in 12 primary teachers are men. 1 in 4 primary headteachers are men. Why?

OhHimAgain

Your post at 19.48 resonated with me. I don't have my own children but I've had relationships with men who have children and you're right, they complain about feeling left out or their ex partners parenting but don't actually want to do anything about it. I suggested a partners children came to live with us if he thought that would be better but he didn't want that because, as you say, reasons. More like he didn't want the responsibility of parenting and was more content criticising his ex. I have not met one single man who when given the chance to have more contact with their children took it. I can't respect men like this, if they want equal consideration as a parent then they need to stop behaving like resentful sperm donors.

I don't doubt the OP wants 50/50 but he seems to think this is the norm and courts place barriers in the way for fathers.

Posted this on the wrong thread!

I thought this might be encouraging. The patriarchy wants to uphold sex stereotypes, feminism wants to break them down, for the good of men as well as women, but women are centred in feminism as women have had the harder time throughout history.

OP -

1. I don't really find talking about "the patriarchy" helpful myself. Maybe if you tried to think about how society causes systemic problems for women, without using that term, it would seem clearer to you.

2. Lots of women have it better than lots of men, patriarchy or not. There are a lot of social forces and individual circumstances at work in every life. It sounds like you had a shitty time, you don't need to feel like "women" have it worse or better.

I know so (so, so) many men who took a giant step back from parenting after a divorce- leaving women literally holding the baby.

Yep.

My ex husband has our daughter EOW and one night in the week. He doesn't consider himself to have less involvement in our daughter's life than I do. And, more than that, whenever he does feel he is out of the loop, it's invariably my fault because she lives with me.

He also says he misses her all the time and would love to spend more time with her.

I have offered 50/50 but his job... time... partner... reasons...

• decide to have CHILDREN!!!

And the thing about wages, is that very often, wage is based on experience.
Nothing really wrong with that. But if a COUPLE decide to have women, then their choice to have children normally impacts women's careers far more than the father's. Women have to recover from birth, they may have chosen to stay home with their children when they are small- all these things impact their career.

And I genuinely believe that women tend to be more biologically bonded to their children ( not always, but generally).

I know so (so, so) many men who took a giant step back from parenting after a divorce- leaving women literally holding the baby.

Instead of looking at men/ women ratio, maybe have a look at how many women in positions of responsibility have children? How many took a break? In more supportive ( and usually less paid) roles, how many of those people are women? With children?

Notice how very often, women have to dress like men to be taken seriously.

I've sat in so many meetings, where people tend to listen more closely to men rather than women.

I actually think what youve experienced is the effect of patriarchy.

• little support fir men victims of DV? That’s because it just doesn’t happen to (real) men
• children given to mothers in case if divorce? That’s because men don’t want to parent full time/will struggle with looking after a child
• people involved in family law being women? That’s because it’s seen as less interesting and the domain of women (see above)

Eg: I appreciate you are working in an unusually balanced environment. But have you ever been careful about how much time is given to work a men in meetings? (Research has shown that if women use half if the time, they are seen as taking over whereas men doing that is normal)

• are mistakes from women as easily accepted than from men (doubt it) etc...

Eg you SEE men being as involved as mothers taking the dcs to school. But can you be sure that they actually are sharing the load 50/50? Research has shown that men are over estimating how they do in the house whereas women are under estimating how much they do.... so just listening to them will give you a skewed idea....

Etc....

www.gov.uk/legal-aid

Looks like you're right, Tinsel

Although, how it's awarded in practise is a different matter.

All legal aid for family court has been scrapped except for female victims of domestic abuse.

I don't think this is true. I know a Father who got legal aid because social services said the child was at risk of emotional abuse from the mother if he wasn't involved in the child's life. This was about 4 years ago.

Thanks, Sackrifice I couldn't find that earlier!

sackrifice
I counted 20 things on that list that I do all the time. The ones I don't do are related to the country I live in or because of my type of housing. It's second nature and until you see it listed that way it's easy to forget how much mental energy is spent trying to make sure you are safe. There are things I do which aren't on that list. I try not to think about how often I feel vulnerable just going about my life because it gives me serious rage.

Things women do just to try not to get raped or murdered on a daily basis.

I cant see a wage gap, I never have, I always thought it was illegal to pay males and females differently for the same work. Maybe its my industry but a job is a job and it comes with a set salary regardless of who gets it.

You are correct, it is illegal to pay men and women differently for the same work. It does still happen sometimes when wages are individually negotiated and employees are bound not to discuss how much they get paid. The wage gap reflects higher numbers of men than women in well paid roles. So, for example, if the board of directors are all men but all the cleaners are women there will be a wage gap. This does not mean the cleaners are being paid unfairly but it requires us to ask questions about why, on average, there are fewer women in senior and well paid jobs. It means examining how we value unpaid domestic work, how to we make policies which support men and women, without favouring either, when they are making decisions about balancing family and work life. Why do we still assume men are better suited to certain roles or that they must earn higher salaries because they are the "bread winner"?

Im trying not to be bitter about how hard it is to raise my child in a world that sees me as a second class parent due to my gender

And that ^ is the patriarchy.

I didn't see any of this, until I started looking.

No, neither did I.

And I have friends who are high up in their organisations who deny that women are disadvantaged in the workplace/professionally - if they can do it, all women can.

Yet, in the next breath, they will tell me about a meeting they've had with their boss because they are having issues with insubordination, inappropriate sexual comments or complaints that they didn't speak to male team members 'nicely' enough when a deadline wasn't met. Has anyone ever complained about a male supervisor because they weren't 'nice' enough?

No.

Because men aren't expected to be nice. They're expected to be purposeful, directive and assertive. When women do this they're "not being very nice" and bossy.

That's the patriarchy.

I understand that [anecdotally] around 90% of court cases end with sole residency to the mother

But have you asked yourself why that is?

It's not because the courts 'favour' women over men it's because nuturing/caring is seen as an innate quality of women. Ergo, women are best placed to care for the children. Men have More Important things to concern themselves with, like Business. And the courts assumed that no self respecting man would want to restrict/demean/disadvantage himself by being the primary carer.

This means that women continue to be disadvantaged because it is presumed they will be the primary carer - someone else has explained the financial implications of this; but men who want to be an equal part of their children's lives are disadvantaged because they have to fight so much harder.

This isn't the fault of women. Or feminism. It's the patriarchy.

this is exactly what I mean. In my clubbing days Ive witnessed guys make some women truly uncomfortable. I can understand that happens because I have seen it.

The difficulty for women, Bodd, is that, even when men have seen it and are aware it happens, they a) have no idea what it feels like to have to be vigilant, constantly, because this is a constant risk/threat to women and b) very rarely challenge the men who do it so it is perceived by the men doing it, and the women on the receiving end of it, that it is condoned.

Legal aid is about income not sex.

Whilst I don't have personal experience, my understanding is that of the OP's, that Legal Aid is now only available to women who have a recorded history of DA regardless of income.

Bodd I'm happy to explain what I think, because I felt the same way as you a few years ago. I thought the equality battle had been won. Turns out, I just wasn't looking in the right places- my privilege as an older white woman was blinding me to what was still going on elsewhere.

I left a part time job in a very small business when I was 20 because the boss kept trying it on. It still happens.

Sexual assault- is totally normal, and still is.

Austerity impacts women and children disproportionately.

The average woman of 40 has a far smaller pension pot, and wage than a man of 40.

Industries which are dominated by women have lower wages than those do instead by men- so the same work may well get the same wage, but men and women are not doing the same jobs. 'Women's work' like caring involves heavy lifting, exposure to abuse etc yet gets paid far less than men's work.

I could go on and on.

I didn't see any of this, until I started looking.

All legal aid for family court has been scrapped except for female victims of domestic abuse.

Why do you think this is?

It's because of the patriarchy.

The patriarchy tells us that only women are victims because men are too strong; too powerful and not 'wimps'. It doesn't recognise that men can be victims too because what woman would have that kind of strength and power over a man? What man would let a mere woman treat him like that?

That's the patriarchy.

It's also the patriarchy that tells us boys don't cry and that any 'soft' emotions in men are weak (because the patriarchy associates those qualities with women and whatever a man does want to be, he sure as hell doesn't want to be seen as a woman!) It's the patriarchy that means suicide is the biggest cause of death in men - because society shames men who are 'weak'. Because the patriarchy says that men are strong. It's women who are weak.

It's the patriarchy that means SAHD are a rarity and often mocked when they do. It's why men often feel unwelcome at 'mother and baby' groups (because they're not mothers) but it's mostly women who stay at home and take care of the children because that's "women's work" and beneath a man.

That's the patriarchy.

It's the patriarchy that means many female police officers go out without wearing stab vests - because stab vests are designed for a male torso, meaning they're often too long and don't accommodate breasts.

Many men make the mistake of thinking that feminism is the cause of men's troubles. It's not. It's the patriarchy and many men would actually benefit from feminism, if they would only support it.

Sorry about your experience OP. Not sure how to answer your question but I understand where you are coming from

Can you give any examples of thing you do to keep yourself safe specifically from sexual assault, Bodd?

These can be things you do both inside and outside of the home?

Things that you are aware of constantly when you leave the house?

Some university students were asked this. The women's responses filled the sheet. The men? They wrote "nothing".