do you believe in the patriarchy?

[bejeezusWC]

A poster on another thread said she views feminism as the struggle against patriarchy. That is how I view it too. I believe that is considered the rad fem stance?

Another poster said she didn't believe in patriarchy

I don't geddit

Why/how are women so unequal if not for patriarchal societies? WHO has been oppressing us?

Please tell me what you think, if you don't believe in patriarchy

I very much believe in it- don't understand how you wouldn't!

It exists

i accept that we live in a patriachy, i dont see it as glaringly as some here but i accept it excists, i'm confused to exactly what it means though, or how it would be overthrown or indeed what would replace it?

when i was on holiday in the gambia it was said oftern that it was a matriachal society, to be quite honest, i diddnt realy understand what that mean either, apart from all the young men calling my wife 'bosslady'.

presumably the patriachy of, for example, the 1930's has been eroded considerably compared to today, can this erosion lead to a state where the patriach doesnt excist any more?

if there isnt a patriachy, and it isnt replaced with a matriachy, is there a word for the state of nutral affairs inbetween?

It's a peculiar belief system, much like God, or Santa, or the tooth fairy. It's a convenient cop out, an excuse for women to believe that nothing is ever their fault as everything we do or say is controlled by patriarchy (including this post, no doubt).

The idea that all men conspire to oppress all women here in the West is ludicrous. I think if you substituted class or wealth for patriarchy, you'd have a far more accurate view of society.

Women are scuppered in life regarding making wealth/career choices because they physically give birth to children, and are more inclined than men to nuture them. Until we can grow our progeny in a plastic womb fertilized by laboratory grown sperm, we need to get over it and stop blaming men for not giving birth to children.

I do not see patriarchy in the west, it simply does not reflect the realities of most people I know, only the ones who have been culturally brainwashed to emotionally invest in the notion of patriarchy. They spend too much time with their noses pressed within the pages of Dworkin or Daly literature, or flitting from one feminist blog/forum to another, and not enough time just living their lives and stopping to smell the roses, rather than analysing them.

Surely at the core of feminism is the liberation from systematic oppression of men. I suppose you could believe that individual women are oppressed by individual men but IMO that is an odd way of looking at things and doesn't explain many aspects of the inequalities experienced by women.

And The Gambia isn't a matriarchy. All the power and wealth is owned by men.

sigmunde what defines you as a faminist?

Your characateur of someone who believes in the patriarchy doesn't ring true for me at all

well, the way it was explained is that it's a matriachal society, but yeah, i soppose thats the same as a matriachy, anyway, their words not mine.

I think it depends what you mean by patriarchy. The feminist definition has shifted over time to mean the system that enforces gender roles, and I don't think anyone could disagree with that. I don't believe in groups of rich, old, white men deciding on rules; not anymore.

I don't 'believe' in the patriarchy.

I see it, experience it, observe it and am part of it.

I don't agree with everything in this link, and it is a bit long-winded, but I think it is a helpful explanation.

I particularly agree with this bit from the comments;

So "patriarchy" refers to all of us. It's not a group of people. It's not men. It's a bunch of ideological underpinnings. You have them. I have them. We all have them. It's not a group of white males. It's not a single white male. It's not an organization. It's a whole, deeply entrenched system that informs and shapes how we think, how we interact, how we see each other.

Believe it exists? Yes. But I might not have the same definition as you.

I agree with ecclesvet that we live in a society that encourages gender roles and punishes those who don't conform. I don't believe that anyone in particular comes up with the rules, I don't believe that many people consciously choose to follow or enforce the rules, and I don't believe that most individual men benefit from it.

x-posted with Beachcomber.

I don't define myself as feminist, although I believe that women are equal in importance to men, can achieve pretty much whatever they want with enough drive and ambition etc..

I do not believe that equality means a 50/50 split in the boardroom/politics etc..I believe that equality means choice to do whatever you want...in that case we pretty much have equality.

As I said before, having children is the point at which it falls apart really. That too though, is a choice. Look after your child yourself and accept it will change your career, have your DH/DP do the childcare or hire someone to do the childcare. You cannot change the fact that women have babies. The whole of feminism seems to be based on railing against and bemoaning the fact that women give birth. This is a fact that cannot be changed, really, we need to get over it.

Anyhow, I do not define as feminist because the basic ideology is 'blame someone else', namely men (patriarchy). No taking responsibility, and a whopping sense of entitlement to boot.

'So "patriarchy" refers to all of us. It's not a group of people. It's not men. It's a bunch of ideological underpinnings. You have them. I have them. We all have them. It's not a group of white males. It's not a single white male. It's not an organization. It's a whole, deeply entrenched system that informs and shapes how we think, how we interact, how we see each other.'

Basically society then.

by matriarchal they might just have meant that lineage is traced matrilineally thechair. as in you belong to your mother's brother's group and property shares etc rather than your fathers. this can provide more liberty for women as they and there children are not direct 'property' of their husbands therefore have less power over them. in reality it can just mean that women are oppressed by their male relations rather than their husbands.

there were societies (trobiands were the last that i know of) where matrilineal descent afforded the women much more liberty - divorce was as simple as picking up your pots and gathering your children and walking back to your families village to stay with your brothers. men couldn't be too harsh knowing that the women weren't tied to them in the same way they would be in a patrilineal society where he owns his children.

This is a pretty good definition IMO.

Patriarchy is the term used to describe the society in which we live today, characterised by current and historic unequal power relations between women and men whereby women are systematically disadvantaged and oppressed. This takes place across almost every sphere of life but is particularly noticeable in women?s under-representation in key state institutions, in decision-making positions and in employment and industry. Male violence against women is also a key feature of patriarchy. Women in minority groups face multiple oppressions in this society, as race, class and sexuality intersect with sexism for example.

that above example also shows that 'having children' does not have to universally mean being disempowered. having children is a biological issue yes but social reproduction can be arranged in diverse ways that would not have to disempower women.

Yes basically society. Although I do think all men benefit from the patriarchy - although some a lot more than others.

Of course patriarchy is society - as in the current existing social order.

What else did you think it was?

society and it's institutions.

I think from the subject line the question is "do you believe that our society today is a patriarchal one?"

Signmund I believe that equality means choice to do whatever you want...in that case we pretty much have equality.

I don't think this is true. On the surface it appears as if we have equal choices in many things, but women and men are treated very differently from the day they are born, and encouraged/discouraged from different behaviours from the moment they can be said to have any behaviour (yes, even when all they do is cry or poo). Our "choices" are not freely made. And that's discounting the overt sexism that many men and women still display. Can you really say you've never heard someone say "that's a job for a man" or "that is women's work"?

Society is a structured form of human organisation - the foundation of the structure of patriarchal society, is the gender binary hierarchy. Simply put, men have higher status than women.

Our social relations, institutions, organisations, culture, paradigms and power structures reflect this.

I think the problem is, as Dittany puts it, feminism is, by definition, political. And, as a corollary, she infers that all feminist research etc should come from the perspective of there being a patriarchal society. If you accept that, then at what point will feminists accept there is no longer a patriarchy? It does seem, at that level, to be a belief, rather than something based on research or individual experience.

I think that it would be very easy to prove the existence of a global patriarchy via independent research. Clearly, through much of the 3rd and developing World, women have a pretty bad time of it.

In the West (and my experience is really the UK and a little of France) less so. Women are doing better in education and in the 18-30 year age group, they are out earning men. Where I and a lot of feminists on this board will disagree is whether there should be a cost career-wise in women choosing to take time out for babies. I feel that someone with nine years experience of work (for instance) should statistically earn less than someone with seven years experience. Otherwise, it seems to me, you are discriminating against men, rather than trying to equalise things. Also, using board level comparisons is looking at a historical rather than a current patriarchy. I think everyone will agree that a woman in her 50s or early 60s will have experienced discrimination in the early part of her career (in the 60s-early 80s), and that will clearly affect her now. I think that if you were to take self selection (bright women who choose not to have a big career) and historical discrimination (as per my point above) out of the equation, salary comparisons would be very different.

I think both men and women have certain pressures on them to perform certain roles. However, in the West, it is relatively easy to choose different routes. At what point would the feminists on this board accept that the patriarchy (in the UK) had ceased to exist? What would be the test? And is it really feasible to expect no gender roles (even on a statistical basis) as long as women continue to give birth and choose to be primary carers for a period of their lives?

I don't "believe in" the patriarchy: I see it.

Those saying that you can't believe in something that is real, remember that some religious people say that they see and experience God's love in the world (just as much as you see and experience the effects of the patriarchy). I think "believe in" is a perfectly good question.