Let's Talk about what Patriarchy Is

I’m going to follow some of the best advice ever given. ”Never argue with an idiot. They will pull you down to their idiot level and win due to their years of idiot experience.”

Hold on a minute - what does "incentivise women to parent alone" mean?

It means providing increasing benefits to single parent households which incentivises people to parent alone instead of relying on one another for support. It also places a higher burden on resourses

I can't see that as anything other than a fairly tight interdependency, and that is going to assert itself no matter what sort of political organisation you want to use. So what would we think that would realistically (not pie in the sky) look like if we were trying to produce a non-patriarchal society? Pre-contraception

Well, yes, because when you examine it, what people tend to mean by patriarchy is a society in which women give birth and raise children, and in which men 'go out' to work; and all of the various societal structures that tend to follow on from that fact or practice.

I'm taking a materialist perspective - if we thing that is some kind of systemic effect that plays out due to reproductive role - and it would be odd if there wasn't - does it really make sense to call anything to do with that patriarchy? Does using the term at all, outside of the technical socio-political meaning, help us see how these biological roles shape society, or does it tend to obscure careful analysis

Both good posts which do highlight the crux of the issue: that gendered roles tend to arise from biological facts and from basic differences between the sexes.That is not to say that the disparities cannot be flattened out considerably, with equality laws and legislation, and with reproductive control.

The previous structures that left mothers with no fiscal support or access to housing except through the father of their child were clearly a blinding success for child welfare. Especially when women were unmarried and dna tests didn’t exist.

Part of structural inequality is the fact that men are regarded as unusual if they actively engage in parenting and praised but women are vilified if they don't and punished by society.

Well we cant say we want primary custody without taking on the responsibility of doing that well.

f you don’t understand the fact that current laws are in addition to and amend preceding laws and why the historical laws were unequal you really need to start there.

WERE is the word of the day

The fact that "parenting outside of the context of a nuclear family" equates to "parenting alone" in some people's minds, and unfortunately often in practice, is 100% the result of patriarchy and it's incredibly destructive. Parenting shouldn't be done alone, there should be communal support structures available.

The data on the comparison of children from 1 or two parent families is crystal clear and was conducted by men and women.

Alisonjabub
I also think it would be a very bad idea to incentivise women to parent alone. It takes two people to make a child and we should be doing everything possible to encourage both parents to be depending on each other for support not trying to make women independent deliberately. Thats not good.

Funny how you're not asking how we can incentivize men to be better fathers and husbands as a way to encourage women not to choose single parenthood.

The fact that "parenting outside of the context of a nuclear family" equates to "parenting alone" in some people's minds, and unfortunately often in practice, is 100% the result of patriarchy and it's incredibly destructive. Parenting shouldn't be done alone, there should be communal support structures available.

Speaking of reimagining patriarchal economic structures, has anyone come across a discussion of Universal Basic Income that really takes into account the realities of caregiving? I would love to see a radical feminist take on UBI.

Also I would like to drop a link to Heather Marsh here - this woman has done some REALLY radical thinking about economic structures and patriarchy and I haven't absorbed much of it yet, but everything I've read of hers strikes me as both correct and razor-sharp.
georgiebc.wordpress.com/ She also has some very strong insights into "the manipulation of the masses by the hierarchy."

so women couldn’t vote because men didn’t allow it. Men eventually allowed it.
That looks like one sex in control to me.
What we have now is the result of millennia of a delegated male power structure that was put in place when being a war leader was required to hold power. Male leader, gives next level down privilege and delegates dominion over the next level down. And repeat. Each man owned his wife and children regardless of his personal position in the hierarchy.

This structure of inheriting land, title, position and ownership of women and children is embedded into our laws. It’s why universal suffrage didn’t exist. It’s why laws had to be passed about women owning property. It’s why married women were not seen as a separate legal entity to their husbands. It’s why the Children’s Act exists.

If you don’t understand the fact that current laws are in addition to and amend preceding laws and why the historical laws were unequal you really need to start there.

Hold on a minute - what does "incentivise women to parent alone" mean?

Creating a society where women can leave an abusive relationship because she has the financial power to do so is hardly that surely?

And why shouldn't a woman "choose" to parent alone anyhow? It may take two people to make a child, but you can't force either to do so but men get a freer pass when they duck out than women do.

Part of structural inequality is the fact that men are regarded as unusual if they actively engage in parenting and praised but women are vilified if they don't and punished by society.

Women's independence is still seen as a threat to patriarchal structures.

I also think it would be a very bad idea to incentivise women to parent alone. It takes two people to make a child and we should be doing everything possible to encourage both parents to be depending on each other for support not trying to make women independent deliberately. Thats not good.

Thinking further, the male default has been hammered in since the beginning of "civilisation". Monotheistic religions generally have a male God. Women are cast as virtuous if they submit to their menfolk because "God" commands it. Even though we like to think of ourselves as more enlightened and progressive, thousands of years of this sort of imprinting remains.

Perhaps as well there is a manipulation of the masses by the hierarchy - if one half of a population is controlling and policing the other by official sanction be it economically / reproductively, that allows the hierarchy to keep the controllers somewhat sweet, even if they are also at a disadvantage.

Sorry if I'm rambling - but analysing the whys and wherefores of the situation has fired my brain up somewhat.

Great post @Kantastic especially this:

Do you see how the expectation that women should perform care work for no financial reward makes women financially dependent on men to survive?

Its almost embarrassing that there are other women out there that think its someone elses responsibility to pay THEM for taking care of THEIR OWN children. There is no desciptive words for how the notion of responsibility has escaped them. Not only that but it would be relying on men to provide for them presumably as the money doesnt grow on trees.

Agreed! Men have biology too! We just tend to see men as the default and thus don't notice that we have built society around their needs. It is always women who have to adapt to this model - yes, legislation can help but only to a certain extent as the underlying structures are built for and by men. This is patriarchy.

Yes but what model specifically? This seems to be where people are having difficulty just because they've heard a catchword like 'patriarchy'. What are these so called structures that are only built to serve men? Where are they? What do they look like? It shouldn't be this hard to list what they are.

Great post @Kantastic**
Agreed! Men have biology too! We just tend to see men as the default and thus don't notice that we have built society around their needs. It is always women who have to adapt to this model - yes, legislation can help but only to a certain extent as the underlying structures are built for and by men. This is patriarchy.

Great post @Kantastic especially this:

Do you see how the expectation that women should perform care work for no financial reward makes women financially dependent on men to survive?

This is at the heart of an essentially patriarchal society - that women are less able to survive economically without men than vice versa. Because women's work is devalued and the facts surrounding reproduction and the positioning of women as caregivers disadvantages women economically compared to men.

It does take a great amount of imagination to imagine a radically different world because the changes would be radical, tweaking won't do it.

More women than men are in university now. How is that in any way of a benefit to men?

If you feel that women are so inferior you should go out and see the advances we've made which mean we're no longer stuck in a place we don't want to be and really do have freedom of choice that we've never had before. Much of this was down to men and i'm very grateful to them for their contribution. FFS, a man invented the pill, which has been responsibile for more women than ever being able to work as never before.

Very interesting discussion indeed.

I personally hear the word patriarchy and respond to it as the shorthand for the fact that overall men have had more power than women for eons, they have a physical advantage over women and have sought their power by violent means militarily and domestically. There seems to be an automatic deference to men in society that comes, perhaps, from the instinctive feeling that if one does not capitulate, one may end up physically co-erced or dead. Of course that is a very broad definition, but it's what goes through my head.

I will qualify all that by saying the dreaded NAMALT and also I know things are improved now compared to other times in the West - in other countries and cultures the concept of patriarchy is sadly alive and kicking.

Then again, the use of the word is becoming tainted with a hint of tin foil hat - the leap is often made that it is a descriptor for conspiracy theories implying that all men are conspiring against all women to keep them in their place. Of course it is way more complicated than that.

The concept of matriarchy is associated with a domestic scenario - the concept of patriarchy with government.

Whether either word is helpful or relevant while trying to address clear inequalities and injustices done to women is interesting to ponder.

there seems to be an underlying assumption that society is a blank slate onto which a ruling class such as the patriarchy imposes its will.

but there is no such assumption, that's just something anti-feminists project onto the concept. (Apologies if you are not an anti-feminist; I am only saying you are using an anti-feminist trope.) No one thinks patriarchy is a conspiracy.

The court IS the structure.
Courts are only the tip of the iceberg. They are an attempt to regulate to some extent culture, human behaviour. A law is useless unless it is enforced, see tax evasion, rape. It is also useless if it cannot be accessed by everyone regardless of funds.
There is a difference between passing a law and eradicating a practice.
There are laws against FGM but it's failed to make much impact. Cultural practices are often a far more powerful structure.
The idea that women are responsible for male violence is one of them.
This is why patriarchy is so endemic and powerful and it exists within the courts and legal profession.

Biology is what holds us back not men.

The problem is you are thinking in a very narrow way. Why do you think that society is structured in such a way that female biology holds us back?

Why do you think that it's the case that caring for young children, one of the most important jobs in our society and the job which has the most significant long term economic impacts, is financially unrewarded?

Isn't it possible to picture a different world where care is seen as economically valuable? After all, an excess of lawyers doesn't make the world a better place, and there's a limit to the demand for engineers. But there is an almost unlimited and constantly increasing demand for care and despite your belief that it's an unskilled job I can tell you that's not true - there is a very big difference between a good care worker (or mother) and a bad one, it's just that the difference doesn't show up on any economic balance sheets. Do you see how the financial devaluation of care work is linked to the devaluation of women and the expectation that women should perform care work for no financial reward?

Do you see how the expectation that women should perform care work for no financial reward makes women financially dependent on men to survive?

Is it possible for you to imagine that the economy could be structured differently? Yes, it would require a massive re-imagining of almost every social structure - that's the point. Patriarchy isn't something you can banish by tweaking a few laws.

There is a limit on how far the patriarchy (to the extent such a thing exists) is able to impose its will on society, and equally there is a limit on the extent that feminism can impose a countervailing will on society.

It is obviously true that circumstances have a huge effect on changes in women's power and status. For example the effects of the 1st world war and Spanish flu led to greater women's freedom and rights, but was followed by the Depression and rise of fascism where women lost their rights and jobs in Europe.

Ww2 led to greater opportunities including state nurseries only to see women being pushed back into the home and nurseries closed.
There are very few societies where women's rights haven't followed these patterns of gains followed by back lash.

Medical progress is now leading to surrogacy.

It isn't necessarily consistent but a return to a balance in favour of men's primacy in decision making. Patriarchy is not a group of individuals plotting in darkened rooms, it's more an ingrained habit which has a narrow self interested perspective.

If I have an issue with the way the concept of "the patriarchy" is used in feminism, it's that often there seems to be an underlying assumption that society is a blank slate onto which a ruling class such as the patriarchy imposes its will. So if society is a certain way that's because the patriarchy has deliberately designed it to be like that.

This seems to ignore the fact that there are limits on the extent to which any ruling class really can control society, and the extent to which social structures often emerge spontaneously as the result of a complex web of interactions amongst social, economic and material factors.

For instance by far the biggest factor that has contributed to women's liberation has been improvements in childhood medicine. Why? Because improved childhood medicine meant lower child mortality, which meant women could have fewer children, which meant women spent a shorter period of their life on children rearing, which meant women had increased opportunity to engage in public life and advocate for their rights.

None of this was something willed by the patriarchy or any other ruling class, or even by women themselves. It was simply a spontaneous development resulting from improvements in medicine.

There is a limit on how far the patriarchy (to the extent such a thing exists) is able to impose its will on society, and equally there is a limit on the extent that feminism can impose a countervailing will on society.