I don't get 'The Patriarchy'

[Himalaya]

I am your basic feminist, in the equal pay, equal rights sense, but not in the sense that I've read a lot of feminist theory (ok, I'll admit it, hardly any)

Quite often on these threads I read about 'The Patriarchy' as an explanation for unequal treatment of women and attitudes towards gender, and I just don't get it...

It seems to indicate that men as a group (all over the world, and throughout history?) have acted together with the intention of surpressing women - la conspiricy theory rather than consideration of underlying factors like biology (the 'genes eye' view of unequal costs and benefits of 'investment' in offspring by men and women) and the impact of class and economics etc...

But maybe I'm reading it wrong?

Himalaya - IMO, the very best thing any society can do is to provide great basic education to all children. But all developed societies have a huge educational legacy and it is very hard to turn around under-performing systems quickly, even before you factor in the costs involved.

I am very deeply opposed to current proposals to widen access to our best universities to pupils with less good grades from lesser performing schools; I don't know how any thinking person would find that morally preferable to re-opening grammar schools.

Have only skimmed the thread as my brain goes to sleep when evolution is brought into feminist discussions.

It is very easy to understand the concept of patriarchy.

You just have to understand that patriarchy is male supremacy and that male supremacy functions, as an institution, in the same way as white supremacy.

Fewer woman and people of colour are slaves now, than in the past, but we are not even close to having achieved equality/the end of oppression for either group. This state of affairs is wrong/unjust/immoral/unfair/inhumane/whatever you want to call it.

Only those who support white male supremacy would argue otherwise.

I think it is curious that anyone thinks that the position of "women" and the position of "slaves" as a group in society is comparable.

Really Bonsoir? Why is that?

There are a great many parallels between the global oppression of people of colour and the global oppression of women.

There aren't a great many ways to go about being an oppressor really - the main point is to use violence or the threat of violence to retain political, social, legal and financial; standing, power and influence for one's group. Arguing that the state of oppression is a natural state of affairs is another basic tool. Arguing that the oppression does not even exist, is a slightly more sophisticated tool, as are the normalising and the internalising of the oppression.

Also if you read my post carefully I didn't compare women and slaves.

I compared white supremacy with male supremacy.

I compared women as a group and people of colour as a group.

(Notice how even the clumsy expression 'people of colour' describes white as the norm and black, etc as 'other'. This is another parallel between white supremacy and male supremacy where male is considered the norm and female as 'the other'.)

I read your post carefully first time round and responded to this sentence: "Fewer woman and people of colour are slaves now, than in the past, but we are not even close to having achieved equality/the end of oppression for either group."

OK then I can only repeat that I am comparing the systems and mechanisms used to oppress women as a group, to those used to oppress people of colour as a group, as defined and acted out by white male supremacist society.

I'm not clear on why you think the comparison is flawed.

The only difference between men and women in most developed societies is procreation. Indeed, women have procured a great deal of educational advantage over men in most advanced economies.

How do you propose to level the procreational playing field? I know some very rich people now engage "gestational carriers" in addition to nannies and other child carers in order not to be inconvenienced in their careers. Do you think this is the way forward for developed societies as a whole?

But procreation is not at all the only difference.

I think the way forward for developed societies is to share political and economic power equally and fairly.

A fair and equal society would not penalise women for being the ones who carry, birth and feed babies.

I have never felt remotely penalised for carrying, giving birth or feeding a child. On the contrary, I felt that huge quantities of collective societal resources were put at my disposal in order to make that experience as easy, and as full of personal choice, as possible. That is the luxury of the Western woman. Who is in danger of becoming a spoiled princess...

Women should not have to pay other women to carry babies for them in in order to get on in the world. This notion is patriarchal in the extreme. I am a feminist so of course I don't think this is the way forward.

I'm still interested in why the think the comparison of male supremacy and white supremacy is flawed.

Why are "gestational carriers" patriarchal? Do you think women are being pushed into using "gestational carriers" by men?

Gosh well you must be a lucky exception then Bonsoir.

Personally, I had to give up my job and my financial independence for a while. Western women have many advantages, on that we are agreed (although it is a shame that respect and support for breastfeeding is not really one of them in many areas.)

I said the notion that "women should have to pay other women to carry babies for them in order to get on in the world" is patriarchal.

Neither France nor the UK require women to give up their jobs for childbirth, so I am not sure where you encountered problems.

I'm still interested in why the think the comparison of male supremacy and white supremacy is flawed.

I think this exchange about child rearing in a patriarchal society is getting a bit silly. I encountered issues like I wanted to look after my baby myself - I didn't want to pay another woman to do it. In order to do this, I gave up work and therefore financial independence for a while. I believe it is quite a common event in women's lives!

Sorry, why you think.

You are gradually answering your own question.

You want it all. Why do you think you deserve it?

Also one just has to listen to the number of women who are treated badly during childbirth.

I was fairly lucky myself but even so I was made to give birth in stirrups (against my wishes) and was threatened with forceps if I didn't 'pull myself together'. I know countless women who had appallingly badly managed births and who have suffered physical and emotional trauma as a result.

People are "treated badly" all over the world, every day. If you don't want to be "treated badly", your only reasonable option is to research the decisions you make very carefully indeed in order to control the outcomes to the very best of your ability.

What on earth is 'wanting it all' supposed to mean?

I think society is badly organised with regards to child rearing. I didn't have a problem with giving up my financial independence for a while. I chose to do it.

However I do have a problem with a society which places so much importance and power on a system which makes it difficult for women to perform natural functions without having to put themselves in the precarious position of losing their independence.

Ok, here is an example. It is not about me because I am lucky in that my children's father is a nice man who did not take advantage of my financial dependence on him.

I know a woman who has 10 children. She has 10 children because she and her husband are strict Catholics. She comes from a culture where women are expected to give up work or work less when they have children. She is financially dependant on her husband - who hits her. He has knocked quite a few of her teeth out. He quite openly says that he will not pay for her to go to the dentist to get her teeth fixed as 'what does she need teeth for, she never goes out, she's is there to stay in and look after the children'.

Get it now Bonsoir? Not everyone is as lucky as you or I. And it shouldn't be about 'luck' in a civilised society.

Beachcomber

I think the flaw in the comparison of male supremacy and white supremacy is because they don't work in the same way.

Bad stuff is bad, because it is bad, not because it 'the same' or equivalent to other bad stuff. Forcing a false equivalence leads to not looking at the problem itself in terms of cause and effect but only by analogy. And if the analogy isn't good then the analysis isn't good.

White supremacy is generally opposed to integration, and is often associated with legal and physical segregation.

White supremacists don't generally have one white parent and one black one, they don't marry black men and women. They don't have half their children come out black and the other half white. And if they did they wouldn't love their black children and their white children equally.

Men and women do this all the time (in fact becoming parents together is the whole point of why there are different sexes).

A lot of what ends up as unequal outcomes - e.g. of men and women at work, starts of from decisions and deals made between parents at home. The white supremacist analogy doesn't work for understanding domestic relationships between men and women, because there is no equivalent analogy.

Bonsoir -

Beachcomber is right on that.

It shouldn't be about luck in a civilized society, and it shouldn't be about luck in a civilized world.

I don't buy your example, Beachcomber, because I don't think that there is any excuse for being imprudent enough to have 10 children when you live and have been educated in a developed society. That woman wasn't oppressed - she was in denial about the fact that she lived with outdated Catholic mores. Society puts every support in place for women to control their own fertility.

Beachcomber -

I think a better analogy is with child labour.

It is a pernicious problem, causing death, injury, missed education, lack of later opportunity etc..

It was widespread in earlier days, when times were harder and family survival was a key priority.

It still goes on today, but solving it takes more than demonising the parents who send their kids to work, and the employers who employ them (actually often the same people, as most kids work on family farms)

Looking at why parents send their kids to work (economic hardship, lack of schools, tradition etc..) and why employers employ them (they are cheaper, the business is doing low grade work, if they didn't employ them they wouldn't be at school anyway, tradition - they see it as training etc..) isn't justifying child labour but trying to work out how to solve it.

Solving child labour doesn't depend on finding the 'bad guy' but solving it for (and with) all involved.