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 - but you would agree, surely, that child labour is not a problem in developed societies?

In fact, it is so difficult to employ children because of legislation to prevent exploitation of minors that it is very hard to think of any way that children can earn pocket money or gain work experience!

I'm not claiming that white supremacy and male supremacy manifest in exactly the same ways all the time . I'm saying that the tools and mechanisms of the oppression are comparable and often the same - unequal political representation of the oppressed group for example.

The reason I am saying this is that sometimes people find it easier to get to grips with what patriarchy is when they compare it to white supremacy. Most people have a pretty good understanding of what white supremacy is, so the analogy is helpful to them.

Most people can see that it was a big deal when a black person become President of the US. Most people can also see that it would be a big deal politically for a woman to be elected president of the US.

Child labour is not an oppressive political system (in the way that white male supremacy is) - it is exploitation of vulnerable members of society.

(Bonsoir I find your comments about my Catholic acquaintance offensive and extraordinarily lacking in empathy and humanity. In fact your comment just comes across as 'I'm alright jackism' with a thoroughly unpleasant streak of victim blaming running through it.)

I think it is only right and proper to point out that some women are victims of their own minds rather than of male patriarchy. I don't think you are offended by that - I think you know I am right but don't want to admit it

"some women are victims of their own minds rather than of male patriarchy." OMG. so a woman being beaten by her husband is a victim of her own mind not iof her husband. He bears no responsiblity for that state of affairs at all?

I am with Beachcomer. Vile.

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

What like in Saudi Arabia where it is illegal for women to drive cars or vote?

Extreme examples of course, just as the white supremacy of, say, South Africa was extreme.

(See above examples of female/black US president for the other end of the scale.)

"I think you know I am right but don't want to admit it"

Bonsoir you couldn't be more wrong and you are creeping me out with that weird wink.

I think your views are offensive and ignorant to the extreme. You are implying that women who suffer domestic abuse deserve it. Whereas I think 'there but for the grace of god go I'.

I didn't say anything of the sort, and by saying I did you are only confirming my suspicion that you are unable to follow a logical argument.

Bonsoir do you understand that the person I have referred to is real? She exists, in exactly the circumstances I have described.

My argument is that the way society is organised at the moment renders women vulnerable to the abuse of male power.

Your argument is that women who are abused by male power 'have made bad choices'.

Ok, now for the logical bit - people do not choose their birth circumstances. They do not choose where they are born and what their parents will be like. They do not choose to be born poor or Catholic or Muslim or female or rich or advantaged or whatever.

Tell you what Bonsoir - let's test your theory;

We'll jump in a time machine and see how your life turns out if you were born into a poor Catholic family with a violent alcoholic father and were married to your violent alcoholic second cousin on your 18th birthday. You have no qualifications because nobody ever read to you at home or helped you with your homework. Nobody ever told you that you were good for anything other than housework and you were never encouraged to think you would be able to get a job. The same goes for most of the women you know. You do have a friend who bucked the trend and left the community and got a job - nobody speaks to her however because she is a stuck up cow who thinks she is better than everyone else. You did once try to leave your husband but your parents turned you away and told you 'had made you bed and had to lie on it' (and your father threatened to beat you if your husband didn't sort you out). You have no front teeth or self esteem because your husband knocked them out of you so it is hard for you to get job/leave your husband/protect your children. Good luck!

Beachcomber

Analogies are good as far as they go - some are good for getting people to spot injustice ('would it be fair if a white person did that to black person' etc..) others are good for working out how systems work.

It sounds like you haven't thought through whether there is anything useful to learn from the analogy of child labour to the situation of women.

Instead you've measured it up against your existing analogy and since it doesn't match up to the theory it can't say anything useful about the reality:

"Child labour is not an oppressive political system (in the way that white male supremacy is) - it is exploitation of vulnerable members of society"

(....therefore it has no useful parallels with the position of women in society, because that is, says the theory, based on an oppressive political system).

Saudi Arabia I would say is a patriarchy, but even so it doesn't work like apartheid. It works differently with equally nasty results.

I don't think the description of the patriarchy -" upheld by violence or the threat of violence to retain political, social, legal and financial; standing, power and influence" - is a good description of the systems that lead to women being paid less in the UK today, or there being less female MPs, judges, captains of industry etc... which is not to say that that that situation is not wrong, just that the causal link to violence is not at all obvious, and if there are other reasons why not look at them?

I don't want to use your friend's terrible situation as a debating point. As you say she is a real person, and if she isn't here on this board bringing up her situation for advice, we should not be using it to score debating points.

Just noticed this from Himalaya;

"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."

Have you never heard of attempts to remedy this? There are many cultures where female children are aborted/abandoned/sold/considered to have less worth than male children.

I don't know if one could say that female children are loved less (and I'm not sure the concept is useful in raw political terms), but they are certainly treated differently. (A simple example would be female children not being educated or taught work skills.)

I didn't say that child labour has no parallels to female exploitation - children and women are both sectors of society that are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse of power.

I said child labour is not an oppressive political system - it is exploitative behaviour which exists within a political system. Patriarchy is a social and political system.

How do you think oppressive systems operate if it is not through violence or the threat of violence? Dominating behaviour is aggressive, controlling and manipulating. Perhaps you prefer the term 'force' to violent? It is possibly better adapted to the patriarchy operating in the UK.

Oh and I'm not talking about real life women in order to 'score points'. I'm talking about real life women because feminism is concerned with the real life experiences of real life women.

Feminism isn't a debate or a game - it is a value system and political movement.

Beachcomber - the French education system and the French health care system give women every possible opportunity to escape primitive family values. If women choose not to do so, that really is their issue, not one of a patriarchal society. I know plenty of women and men born with very little into primitive family values systems in France who have flourished thanks to a society that supports individual choice.

Of course, some people choose not to seize the opportunities that civilised society offers and remain in primitive states of mind. That is unfortunate, but it is not the fault of a patriarchal or primitive society.

This is just more victim blaming Bonsoir.

The difference between your opinion and mine, is that I don't think that I am better, cleverer, wiser, more deserving or have made better choices than people less fortunate than me.

I just think that I am fortunate and privileged. I have done nothing to earn that good fortune or privilege.

Can you really not perceive the difference between family legacy (which might not be ideal) and modern society? That no woman in the Western world is the victim of a "patriarchal society" (of the Saudi sort)?

And are you really so blissfully unaware that modern society or not, the biggest influence on a person's psychological and emotional development and outlook, is their experience of childhood and the norms in their own immediate family and the messages they take from that, Bonsoir? And that it may take them years and years to escape the conditioning of those early experiences and grasp the benefits of modern society, particularly if they are not socially and psychologically placed to take full advantage of those benefits, by which time they have made the bad choices that you so smugly dismiss as the result of lack of proper research? Denial isn't something anyone consciously chooses you know.

I knew you didn't have much empathy, but I had thought you were better informed.

What HexBeX said.

I don't believe I ever said the West is like Saudi Arabia - I just used Saudi Arabia as an example where legally enforced segregation exists in answer to Himalaya's post claiming that segregation existed in white supremacies but not in male supremacies. I specified that Saudi Arabia is extremist (just as societies which segregate whites and blacks are extremist but that doesn't mean that racism only exists within these extremist cultures).

Having said that, my FIL lives in a muslim country, and the women I have spoken to there, feel very sorry for western women as they see how objectified we are. They think our culture is women hating as women are treated as a sex class and are surrounded by images of fetishised women/women's body parts.

(Families are a part of society BTW.)

If you think no women are victims of patriarchy in the West, then I suggest you check out the thread about the channel 4 porn documentary for a bit of a wake up call. Remember that everything in the film is condoned by 'modern society' and is either legal or would never get to court. Most people in 'modern society' have no problem with the industry being documented, and a lot of people in 'modern society', probably wouldn't even realise that the woman in the film is raped within seconds of meeting a man who is supposed to be interviewing her.

I don't think French women have it so easy.

HerBex - I am perfectly aware of the influence of family heritage and I am trying to point out that it is only family/cultural heritage, not the economic and social systems we live in, that may be "patriarchal".

How can you claim that economic and social systems are patriarchal without citing data and evidence (one way or the other)? And not to distinguish modern economic and social systems from outdated ones (whose habits might linger misguidedly in families) is just wrong.

No wonder the arguments in the Feminist section of MN are so confused!

Bonsoir there is plenty of data and evidence, most of it not very cheerful such as ;

rape conviction rates
domestic violence rates
the pay gap
the plain to see unequal political representation
the plain to see unequal economic power/positions of authority held by women
the feminisation of poverty
most commercial films
most commercials
most children's toys
the existence of the porn industry (and society's tolerance of such misogyny)
the existence of the stripping industry (and society's tolerance of such misogyny)
the existence of prostitution (and society's tolerance of such misogyny)

Might I add to the list of evidence of patriarchal society in the west;
the institutions of the main religions
the majority of popular culture
the fashion industry
the grooming industry
beauty pageants
misogynist crap like 'burlesque is empowering' and 'pole dancing is a cool fitness trend'
rape culture
the undervaluation of breastfeeding and childcare in society
Page 3
soft porn in full view of children in newsagents
the soft porn that is most music videos

"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."

HImalaya, female infanticide is as old as many cultures. I recently read an article where a NGO found no girl children at all in one impoverished village in India.

There are so many holes in your argument