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

haha anne dont be ridiculous!

Porto - I had never come across the term kyriarchy until about a month ago, but have seen it lots since then. Every single time it has been mentioned it has always been in relation to - what about the men.

If I sound a bit dim - I am still very much learning

i agreed with alot of what I saw nyac write

I still think flouncing is daft from places like this... meh

Anyway...my opinion of 'flouncing' is definitely a tangent....

Dittany hasn't flounced has she?

No problem porto - me too!

and me!

Porto - But if you are, for example, black, poor, and/or disabled then you don't really have the privilege of just focusing on women's issues.

Goth - Haven't we had this argument before where various radfems said actually they were black, poor, disabled or a combination thereof?

In fact remember one radfem who is disabled complaining that when she tried to work on disability issues within the mixed sex disability movement, she came across issues such as disabled men arguing they had a right to use prostitutes. She felt she could fight more effectively in the women's movement.

OK...Im OFF, Im OUT OF HERE....cuz I have to pick up the kids dont feel welcome

BBL

EBL, I was not mentioning kyriarchy in relation to what about men... I was mentioning it in relation to other factors oppress women apart from men on the basis of sex...

EatsBrainsAndLeaves Mon 11-Jun-12 14:21:07
bejeezus - dittany is nyac

Oh really...????!!! I thought that was the worst kept secret on MN.

I'm very much with GothAnneGeddes on the whole thing, and thats why I think patriarchy is a big lie. It fails to recognise problems and its used to distort inequalities in other areas. I do think rad feminism as a movement has a vested interest in promoting it, rather than looking at things in more detail.

Dittany having left was mentioned on another thread... Wishing she was back and there was a massive flounce thread. Oh well, obviously she's just name changed and no one realised.

EBL - Woman's movement =/= rad fems. Also, if you look into Womanism, you'll have an insight into why for some women of colour, they found feminsim lacking. As I said upthread, there are critques out there, of all schools of feminism and it's worth looking into.

I only came across womanism today, not heard of it before.

To clarify, I don't think patriarchy is lie, it's just not the full picture (and yes,I'll agree with Hmm, that it sometimes distorts the true pciture of inequality), nor the totality of what we need to fight against.

If it were all about patriarchy, then we'd all be equal amongst ourselves as women, but we're not, as the pulling out of academic qualifications upthread made all too clear...

Hothead - certainly more more money and status then being a Chicana femininst for example.

Ooh, here's quite a good definition of patriarchy.

gray.intrasun.tcnj.edu/Coming%20of%20Age/a_basic_definition_of_patriarchy.htm

Patriarchal social structures are:

1.  Male dominated<span class="line-through">which doesn't mean that all men are powerful or all women are powerless</span>only that the most powerful roles in most sectors of society are held predominantly by men, and the least powerful roles are held predominantly by women

2.  Organized around an obsession with control, with men elevated in the social structure because of their presumed ability to exert control (whether rationally or through violence or the threat of violence) and women devalued for their supposed lack of control--women are assumed to need men's supervision, protection, or control

3.  Male identified:  aspects of society and personal attributes that are highly valued are associated with men, while devalued attributes and social activities are associated with women.  There is a sense of threat to the social structure of patriarchies when these gendered associations are destabilized--and the response in patriarchy is to increase the level of control, often by exerting control over women (as well as groups who are devalued by virtue of race, ethnicity, sexuality, or class). 

4.  Male centered:  It is taken for granted that the center of attention is the natural place for men and boys, and that women should occupy the margins.  Public attention is focused on men.  (To test this, take a look at any daily newspaper; what do you find on the front page about men?  about women?)

Based on Johnson's book 'The Gender Knot'. Which I haven't read, although I might now. Has anybody else read it?

why are you singling out a poster who isn't even here ES? it's incredibly rude.

no one has ever denied women are oppressed in other ways than by gender. what is argued though is that whatever other groups they are a part of that are oppressed they will always find themselves worse off than the men in that group.

so feminism is relevant to every woman regardless of other groups she belongs to.

I am at a loss as to understand what is contentious here. There is an argument that there is a social, political and economic inequality of women and men. Evidence would be a. social valuing of men's roles b. most people in positions of political power and influence are men and c. most poor people are female. This would then be called a patriarchy.

There are also other systems of oppression. Some people are oppressed by more than one system and some some people belong to groups that systemically oppress more than one other group. If you belong to a group that is oppressed by more than one system, your experiences are not going to be simply a cominantion of the two systems, but will form a new type of oppression.

The argument then would be can we understand that intersection purely by considering it and without understanding the two general systems of oppression as well. I would say no. If somebody is, for example, disabled and a woman, they will experience social, economic and physical barriers to space. While that experience is unique, it also draws on a set of ideas about disability and a separate set of ideas about women - how they are responsible for avoiding crime so shouldn't be in certain places at certain times without a chaperone etc. To try and explain that intersection without also looking at a broader understanding of the patriarchal system is to create a whole load of extra work for the people trying to make sense of that intersection and to ignore the intersection is to diminish our understanding of the patriarchy as a whole, and the oppression of disabled people as a whole.

The concepts of patriarchy and intersectionality are not mutually exclusive ideas.

As for all the stuff about people mentioning their degrees, I think that is valid in a situation where there have been numerous threads over a very long time period where people speculate on social - environmental interactions and the relationship between the two concepts as if we are all sitting around in some kind of Geography undergraduate seminar, but they phrase those speculations as if they are some kind of undisputed fact that has the weight of the majority of the scientific community behind it. To dispute it by pointing out very basic facts just leads into a huge derailment of every thread it rears its head on. People have been pushed into saying 'I have a degree in X' because the suggestion is that by not talking about some tangential society/nature debate they are ignorant of the topic.