misandry doesn't exist

[MitchierInge]

not in a sort of homologous (if that's the word?) way to misogyny anyway - society just isn't that evolved yet

Social and class are different. All women of all classes are under the influence of the Patriarchy.

Would you work your butt off earning six figures and take control of the children, fridge, homework, etc; and still have time for sexxay fun?

Or would you give the responsibility to another woman whom you pay? Who is percieved to be of a less social standing than you.

Dworkin, of the little I've read of her so far, is extremely thought provoking.

Dworkin - I'm really sorry if my reply is steeped in patriarchial language.

I certainly don't assume Latin or Greek are the roots of English, though I don't think Anglo-Saxon is necessarily less sexist (it might be, there's an argument there I know). And I really did not mean to imply that Latin or Greek (or really any language) is free from misogyny, as I don't see how a non-misogynistic language could develop in a misogynistic society.

I only referred to the languages because the poster I quoted had made a doozy of a misinterpretation.

Personally, I think when we stop thinking in misogynistic terms, we will also stop thinking in misogynistic terminology, and our language will evolve to go with it.

Would you mind explaining to me what you were getting at (PM if you like) as I would like to know and am not sure if I'm answering you satisfactorily or not!

I wouldn't do either of those things Dworkin, because I have a choice, and I chose to be a SAHM.

I wouldn't work my butt off earning six figures, because it's simply not that important to me. If I did, I wouldn't give the responsibility to another woman whom I paid because DH would be a SAHD.

The Patriarchy only really applies to the top of society, but only because women don't want to be up there, and prioritise family over work. Most women just aren't prepared to prioritise work over family life, and the ones that do are few and far between. That's not the Patriarchy's fault. They could be there if they wanted to.

If you're talking about suffering that applies equally to men and women (eg not enough food but both get equal shares of what there is in the household) then yes it is a class issue. If there is not enough food in the household but the men take the lion's share of it and the women and girls end up malnourished, it is not purely a class issue but also a gender one and you see patriarchy in action.
Writing it off as purely a class issue is a tactic used by those men in the Left who would like to maintain the gender status quo (which some do), to dismiss feminism (and keep the women in their organisation in their place making the tea).

Frothy - well it'll be interesting I should think!

But it is a class issue, totally. A whole swathe of the nation being uneducated with no hope of ever getting out of it is a class issue.

An impoverished household where the man takes the lions share of the food - patriarchy.

An impoverished household where each family member gets their fair share of food - ?

The Patriarchy only really applies to the top of society, but only because women don't want to be up there, and prioritise family over work. ..... They could be there if they wanted to .
My jaw dropped at this one.
I am not well versed in discussing these things but the first thing that came to my mind was the BBC presenter who was dropped because of her age... and I see all these presenters who are old, wear glasses, are not good looking etc and are all men...

SaharaMerchant, I don't understand what you mean in that third paragraph. What do you understand by 'the patriarchy'? Because you seem to be using it to mean something quite narrow.

SaharaMerchant have you come across intersectionality? Because you seem to be suggesting that because there is a class structure that oppresses everyone, there cannot also be a patriarchal structure that oppresses women in particular.
You could have a society where everyone at the bottom of the social scale was oppressed but there was no gender oppression. But you could also have a society where there was both. And the latter seems to me to be far more common. Therefore your claim that the patriarchy only exists at the top of the scale makes no sense.
Maybe it is more visible there because you can't write off oppression as caused by anything else.

'Patriarchy is a social system in which the male gender role acts as the primary authority figure central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination'.

This is my understanding, by and large, of the patriarchy.

It always baffles me when people insist that there is no such thing as patriarchy. A hundred years ago, people would have had no hesitation to say that patriarchy existed and would probably believe that it was right to exist. People wrote books on women's supposed intellectual inferiority and their proper place being at home. It was the official line and the vast majority of people adhered to it.

Given all that it would be extremely surprising if some kind of patriarchal legacy didn't still exist today, in our attitudes if not in our laws. Society doesn't change that quickly.

Then 'The Patriarchy only really applies to the top of society, but only because women don't want to be up there, and prioritise family over work' makes no sense. If there is a patriarchy women don't get the choice, that is the whole point - it is about male authority over women.

I also don't get how it can only apply to the top of the social system when the people in charge of the whole country, the people in government, are men. In the UK Osborne and Cameron and their predominantly male cabinet are making decisions currently that affect the poor overwhelmingly, as people on the threads about benefit cuts know only too well.

So how could that be purely a class issue?

What about working class families ... they still would have male fathers, right?

excellent point Messy.

'A hundred years ago, people would have had no hesitation to say that patriarchy existed and would probably believe that it was right to exist. People wrote books on women's supposed intellectual inferiority and their proper place being at home. It was the official line and the vast majority of people adhered to it.'

I think things have massively changed since then, don't you? There may be traces of Patriarchy left, but not much.

Then 'The Patriarchy only really applies to the top of society, but only because women don't want to be up there, and prioritise family over work' makes no sense. If there is a patriarchy women don't get the choice

Ok then, AFAIC there is no patriarchy to speak of.

Oh ... so it does still exist?

Why do you think there's not 'much' of it left, then? Can you have 'not much' of an entity or ideology?

Wow, are you serious?
Read 'Half the Sky'. Really.

Are you a time traveller from the future?

Because we're in 2012, and I can assure you there is more than a trace of patriarchy in our world.

What year are you from? I want to know how long we have to wait for no pay gap, far less than 1 in 4 women raped or seriously sexually assaulted, no countries in the world where there are no women at all in government, equal literacy rates worldwide, no forced marriage, no FGM, no military use of rape....

'Because we're in 2012, and I can assure you there is more than a trace of patriarchy in our world.'

In the world, yes, but I'm talking about the UK..

S/he is just from the planet of denial. One only has to read the newspaper in order to see the good ol' patriarchy in action. It's full of things like stories about men waging war against each other's countries, men raping women and children, double standard shit about female celebs, page 3...

Glad you mentioned intersectionality, and particularly Crenshaw-Williams' concept of it. It recognises that there isn't a simple "scientific" formula of privilege and oppression (i.e. you don't get a plus point for being white and a minus point for being female, or any variation on that theme,) but that there can be a unique experience for individuals whose identity IS at an intersection between 2 or more identities.

In my experience, feminism, probably more so than the political ideologies of those who advocate for the rights of other oppressed groups, tend to be more inclusive in their definition and less likely to buy into a hierarchy of oppressions (i.e. it's worse being female than being black, it's worse being Lesbian than being gay, etc.)

So, you can be an advocate for women's rights and for workers rights, you can be an activist for women's rights and an anti-racist campaigner, etc. etc. without conflict.

Having said that, some feminists can struggle with "wearing" the privileges that some women enjoy while others don't. I think that can be the case for anyone who fights for the rights of any disadvantaged group where inevitably some within that group will still have more privileges than others, due to things like ethnicity, language, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

So yes, working class women can experience the impact of patriarchal institutions, traditions, practices, etc. in a different way than middle and upper class women do. For example, working class women may be unable to take an extended period of maternity leave from work if they need to get back to their full earning potential as soon as possible. Middle class women who had the benefits of a good education may have more earning potential if their relationship breaks down than a working class woman who's only done manual labour.

However, regardless of class, education or other privileges, women can still be raped by men, can still be abused by partners, can still be denied equality of opportunity in employment, are still judged on the basis of their appearance rather than their achievements in society, etc.

Why are you only talking about the UK SaharaMerchant? Doesn't the rest of the world matter? Feminism is global in its aims.

The 1 in 4 figure for rape and sexual assault is UK. The UK has a pay gap. The UK is far from having an equal number of men and women in government. The UK has a serious problem with domestic violence. The UK still has problems with sex discrimination in the workplace and unequal media representation of women. The UK has thousands of trafficked women working in the sex industry.
This is more than a trace of patriarchy.