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?

If somebody speaks of unevolved societies and things evolving by accident they don't understand evolution.

POP 'There are unanswered questions on the other side of this debate too though, aren't there? If male dominance is purely down to culture, when did things turn to shit? Where's the evidence that things have ever been different, anywhere? If there are no psychological differences between male and female humans, what are we to make of the TG community who fight so hard for corrective surgery, believing themselves to be born into the wrong gender? Nobody has answered these questions - where is your evidence?'

Humpty Dumpty - ?When I use a word,? Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, ?it means just what I choose it to mean?neither more nor less.?

""It may come as a shock to you that not everyone grasps this fact as self-evident"

Could you be any more patronising? Seriously check the way you're talking to me. This is a feminist space, not a space where you get to talk down to women.

I know that people do not think in terms of a patriarchy. I've been a feminist for nearly thirty years. Whether it's hard to conceptualise (which is what you were claiming) is another matter. Most women, as garlicbutter already points out, have no difficulty at all in understanding male power and how it operates.

So as I implied already, I think if you want to be accurate the people who have the problem with it are men. And I think a lot of that is feigned stupidity because most men have pretty much zero desire to give up power and privilege over women."

Well, for the third time on this thread alone, I apologise to you Dittany - it wasn't my intention to be patronising, and I'm sorry you read it that way. I'm sorry if I'm encroaching on your space.

Still I stand by my assertion - I don't think most women (or men) actually give much thought to how male power operates. As brief visit to the AIBU forum will provide plenty of research data on that. if women grasped how it operated then there would be no need for this (feminist) forum: the whole of Mumsnet would be the feminist forum! If only.

It's been interesting, but I've been teaching Feminism recently (in the context of English language teaching) and only one students had ever given male dominance any thought at all (let only considered notions such as the Patriarchy). These are educated people and, for the most part, women, living in one of the most socially liberal countries in the world (Spain). So, no, I don't buy your argument that a) women have no difficulty at all in understanding male power and b) it's only men that struggle.

POP thanks for the correction re:Pinker.

Isn't denying transgendered people an equal say Patriarchy in action?

The context of garlic's comments was nothing to do with the everyday definition of evolution.

MrIC - I have no idea why you keep apologising to Dittany. Is cultural hegemony what you were trying to say? 'The theory claims that the ideas of the ruling class come to be seen as the norm; they are seen as universal ideologies, perceived to benefit everyone whilst really benefiting only the ruling class.' - it becomes so ingrained it becomes invisible?

dittany

I'm sorry you read it that way because I had no intention of patronising you!!

Look, I'd much rather engage on the content of the debate rather than the perceived tone of the words/phrases that it's couched in.

I don't teach Feminism - I teach English as a foreign language, but I get to design my own lessons and picked Feminism as a discussion topic because I thought (rightly as it turned out) my students would find it interesting. fyi, several of them changed their opinions about Feminsim for the better as a result.

"Your assertion was that patriarchy was hard to conceptualise. That's what I took issue with. It's not difficult to conceptualise when it's explained and many women also understand it spontaneously through their own observations without needing to be taught about. You made up your "people don't think about patriarchy" as a non-response to what I said."

Actually I said people don't think about male dominance, but whatever.

Anyway, fine. But I still disagree. If it was so easy to conceptualise why are we on Page 7 of this thread? why can't a feminist of 30 years standing such as yourself not formulise it for us in simple terms - how it came about, how it is enforced, how it is sustained, what forms it takes, and how we (or the women, with me standing at the back cheering and hoping I wont be mistaken for being patronising) bring it down.

POP yes, cultural hegemony is a very useful term here - thanks!

Look, I'm only posting back here so it doesn't seem as if I'm running away.

I apologise for using the word 'unevolved' when very tired and aware I should have been using a longer, more hyphenated expression. I don't imagine anyone here misunderstood what I meant.

If there is a difference between what Himalaya (seems to be) saying and my own, widely-shared view, I can't see it:- There is a 'Patriarchy'; it is underpinned by male violence; rape is a valuable tool in the suppression of women and the maintenance of patriarchy.

The other evolutionary stuff is of interest to me but I don't consider it essential to this discussion. In the end, the existence of 'The Patriarchy' is easy to abserve and to demonstrate. I find it insidious, oppressive an unfair; I would like the playing fields of life to me more level.

It is not anti-evolutionary of me to want equality because no species would survive if its members exerted all possible power against one another. The development of many 'higher' instincts beyond reptile level is what makes us mallalian and human - sharing, compassion and tolerance being among the more deeply rooted of those instincts. But even the reptile doesn't kill because it can - an ability is not the same as a drive.

Leaving this to ramble along now!

stacks of typos. Tired again.

I fail to see how any number of pages is evidence that something is hard to understand/conceptualise etc. It's possible to both understand something, and discuss what it means in relation to other things extensively. For example, people understand what poverty means in sufficiently meaningful terms, but people also write whole libraries discussing it.

oh right, sorry, thought you were referring to a later post. like I said whatever, it wasn't a major point.

You're a bloke and you're demonstrating that argument as are some of the other blokes here.

I've never been a bloke, and never wanted to be one. thanks for just lumping me in with most of what I despise.

I have formulated patriarchy in simple terms, it's a socially created political system founded on male violence against women where men hold the vast majority of political economic and social power. If you can't understand it, that's not my issue, it's yours.

Then why are you making it your issue?

I'm not here to try and persuade anti-feminists like POP and Himalaya about patriarchy.

actually it seems that's exactly what you're trying to do (not that I agree with you calling POP and Himalaya anti-feminists).

Your formulation is great as a starting point, but it doesn't explain why this situation is still sustained in places like the UK and Spain. I'm not denying that male violence against women continues to exist there, but it is not keeping women disempowered in the same way that it does in, say, South Africa or Iran. So what I'm saying is that a formulation like this is too simple - try to apply it the real world (which is what I meant by Reality btw) and it's got too many holes in it, too many exceptions. You have to patch in things like Cultural Hegemony (thanks POP), Capitalism and, indeed, anti-feminism to explain how the Patriarchy persists. You end up with different formulations that sometimes overlap or intertwine (or even contradict) to explain how the Patriarchy works in different locations and a different levels of the social hierarchy.

As such I think the Patriarchy is complex and needs to be conceptualised as such, because simple conceptions easily fall apart the moment you try to apply them to a specific situation and that leads to what is a very real and valid concept being discredited.

Personally (but hey I'm a bloke so wtf do I know) I think talk of The Patriarchy in the singular is wrong and misleading; it makes you think there's a single monolithic conspiracy going on involving all men. The reality is there are a myriad of patriarchies, dependent on how the particular men in power view the power structure they control.

I fail to see how any number of pages is evidence that something is hard to understand/conceptualise etc. It's possible to both understand something, and discuss what it means in relation to other things extensively. For example, people understand what poverty means in sufficiently meaningful terms, but people also write whole libraries discussing it.

fair point AW. But there are countless causes and forms of poverty; you can know what poverty is vaguely, but to understand all the inter-linking forces that causeit , their relative important, and ways to solve them, isn't the work of a quick visit to wikipedia. I would argue the same holds true here; a basic conception of The Patriarchy as a theory is easy - to understand how it works I think is more complex and I think this discussion, while by no means conclusive proof, is evidence to that effect.

Dittany, for example, prioritises violence as the key (which is interesting as we could spend pages arguing about what to include in a definition of violence). While I completely accept that violence has been a crucial in establishing the Patriarchy and maintaining it, I don't think it stands alone, I think there are other important factors, and violence by itself can't explain the Patriarchy completely. To return to the OP, to say "it's just make violence against women" does indeed exclude other factors and make it sound like it's all some kind of global conspiracy, with is a fallacy on both counts.