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

It's interesting that some people continually discuss a poster, even when she isn't actively discussing the thread. A bit dehumanising, isn't it?

I definitely believe in the patriarchy. Just because you, personally, don't feel oppressed by a concept, doesn't mean it isn't routinely oppressing the majority of people affected by the system.

In practice I just don't think the rationale of female oppression 'works' for many feminist issues in modern society, in that while it is clear there is a problem it is not clear who the oppressor is, or that the mechanism is oppression (= "exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner").

I am thinking of the recent breastfeeding thread, all the threads on WOHM/SAHM issues, single parenthood etc... but I am sure there are others.

e.g. People say it is oppressive/unjust that it is harder to be single parent than a couple. But you could equally say that it is oppressive that it is harder for one person to lift a heavy rock than for two people. It can be argued that society should provide support for single parents, which goes beyond legally enforcing the responsibility of the absent parent to support their child (and I would support that) but there are lots of different levels where that support could be pegged. There is no one level that is obviously the one that ?eliminates oppression? ? it is a question of balancing welfare with not creating perverse incentives that would mean that whatever contribution a father makes is taken out of a mothers allowance.

Similarly with all the career vs SAHMotherhood stuff. People say it is oppressive that society does not recognized the contribution that parents make in bringing up the next generation. But in practice while you can give support to parents whatever policies that you choose will tend to either make it relatively more attractive to be a SAHP or to go to work, relatively disadvantaging SAHMs or WOHMs. Policies that appear to be pro-women like longer maternity leave can end up disadvantaging them by setting couples (in nice non-oppressive relationships) into roles that it is hard to get out of without taking a big drop in family income. There isn?t an obvious non-oppressive solution. Which means maybe the problem isn?t oppression but something a bit more complex.

People say that factory workers in China are oppressed by us rich consumers in the west, but if you ask young women factory workers in China how they feel they are mainly excited by the opportunity to leave the village, and earn money. There are things that they want but it is not for us to ?stop oppressing them? .

These kinds of discussions about women?s economic position don?t fit well into the ?oppression? framework of patriarchy, but they are I think are still important.

No-one said oppression was a simple subject to understand, Himalaya. It spans off at different angles, and it's not until you lift the corner of the blanket of oppression, that you begin to see just how much you're being covered; With regards to women in China, they may not "feel" oppressed, but it doesn't mean they're not. It simply means, that for whatever reason, their oppression is not as clear to them.

Him - I actually know single parents who say they think it is easier to be a single parent, but get jumped on if they dare to voice this.

Workers in China are oppressed by us. But for many factory workers working in factories is a much better choice than the alternative.

SAHM/Careers - This is only a contradiction if you think it should be the woman who stays at home. If we had true womens liberation, measures to recognise the value of bringing up children would advantage both sexes

thank you vashti. it is frustrating and i simply do not have the energy or inclination to disseminate 3 years of hard acquired knowledge to people who don't even want to improve their understanding because all they're interested in is misusing something to back up their agenda. i don't care how arrogant that sounds.

i accept that someone who studied maths knows a hell of a lot more about maths than me and my googling some article about maths by someone with a social agenda to spin things to people who don't know better and then arguing with the mathematician would be ridiculous.

spinning what the mathematician who'd spent years studying maths said to try and make out he was saying something against the basics of maths and i knew better than him would be rude and utterly twattish frankly.

but anyway. back to the bullshit evo-psych garble and misquoting of posters to try and undermine the idea that there is a patriarchy and feminism has a real fight to fight. cos that's obviously very worthy stuff.

Agreed Hothead. And as someone else posted in FWR, radfeminism is much more a lesbian movement than a heterosexual one - so I always find that accusation bizarre

is she starting on single mothers again?

can someone please advise me to hide the thread. i don't think i can bear to hear someone claiming to be a feminist bashing single mothers YET again.

swallowed - I totally understand what you are saying and understand your frustrations. But it is posters like you, beach and nyac who have taught me so much. Some of us do listen and learn on here.

(just love the way she presents 'single mothers' and 'benefits' ((no such thing as a mother's allowance by the way)) as if they were totally synonymous re: all single mothers are on benefits. have we got to the bit about how it is undeniable apparently that two parent heterosexual families are better than any other kind?)

deja vu.

I missed the bit about "Mother's Allowance"... WTF is that, and where do I claim it?

I can hear it now... "Come on, single mothers... Off your backsides, or it's down the workhouses for ya..."

EBAL and FD - But that's the thing - what is the point of talking about something in terms of 'oppression' if the best thing for the person identified as the oppressor to do isn't to stop what they are doing right now.

who was it who used to call people 'mundane'. i think it's going to be my new short hand word for dull, heteronormative people full of bigotted, small minded dull, dull, dullness.

But it would be. For the Chinese women the best thing would be for those women to be getting a fair wage and good treatment e.g. health and safety rules, for their labour. That would mean a number of things including us paying much more for goods made in China

You've lost me, Himalaya...

Only fascists believe that the best thing for the oppressor to do is carry on oppressing...

vashti thank you as well -- ditto to what swallowed said. I almost never mention my degree but I think it becomes relevant when people start saying that you don't agree with them because you don't understand the subject matter or how theoretical analysis should be done.

see that is just more bullshit straw man crap. either we have to oppress the workers in china or they will all starve because they need the jobs.

errrr no. there are a billion stops between the two why pretend otherwise? as if saying oppression of chinese workers is wrong is the same as saying hey we should just stop all trade with and manufacturing in china.

ffs.

do you think people are really, really thick?

all you seem to be about himalaya is preserving the status quo and normative values. how does that serve you? do you think maybe you're in a relatively priviliged position so feel the need to fight off anyone who is actually trying to change things to be better for others?

like the heteronormative shit you pull and single mum bashing - do you think you enjoy being a heterosexual middle class married woman and see anyone fighting for better rights for other kinds of families as a threat to your privilige?

from here that is what it looks like.

Him - That is a good point. Are you a herterosexual able bodied white middle class married woman?

Oh yes, all those happy factory workers in China. Labouring under the kind of conditions that we in the West were lucky to escape last century.

Do you deny that factory workers in the UK were exploited and oppressed by industry etc. in the 19th century? It's not really much different, just globalised.

I am not bashing single mothers - I am just saying that there is not a perfect set of 'non oppressive' policies that could be designed to eliminate the economic disadvantage of being a single parent.

So you cannot design and agree on the best set of policies just by saying 'don't be oppressive'. The same is true for BF/FF, SAHM/WOHM questions, loads of complex questions in society.

So why not start by calling them complex questions, instead of saying that the only correct way to look at them is through the patriarchy lens of oppression.

sure there is - the valuing of raising children as part of the 'work' of an effective society and the provision of decent affordable childcare and/or tax breaks for lone parent families. they've got it sussed in other countries and we don't live in some singular paradox where it's not possible for us.

you haven't commented on your privilige by the way.

Is that all feminism is?

Sigh.

SAF, Beach, we're doing it wrong...

Sorry, patriarchy's calling. Says it wants it's right to oppress us back.

This is interesting.

The existence of patriarchy may be traced back to ancient times. Lerner has stated that the commodification of women?s sexual and reproductive capacity emerged at about the same time as the development of private property, thus setting the stage for patriarchal social structures. The Bible is sometimes cited as exemplifying the original ?father-rule? form of patriarchy in many of its stories. An example is the Adam and Eve story of creation, in which Adam is created first, followed by all the animals. Then Eve is created from part of Adam so that, in a sense, he may be considered her parent (Pateman 1989, p. 451). As such, Adam is clearly in the dominant position. This is consistent with Lerner?s explanation that ?men learned to institute dominance and hierarchy over other people by their earlier practice of dominance over the women of their own group? (1986, p. 9). The sexual subordination of women was subsequently written into the earliest system of laws, enforced by the state, and secured by the cooperation of women through such means as ?force, economic dependency on the male head of the family, class privileges bestowed upon conforming and dependent women of the upper classes, and the artificially created division of women into respectable and not-respectable women? (Lerner 1986, p. 9).

The classic form of patriarchy decreased in its prevalence during the seventeenth century. The transition to what Teresa Meade and Pamela Haag have described as a broader fraternal-right patriarchy or ?domination of society by the ?brotherhood of men?? (1998, p. 92) is often associated with the rise of ?capitalist rationalism? because the prior standard of fathers ruling over sons was not compatible with the demands of capitalism. Meade and Haag also note that ?the defeat of classic patriarchy in the Enlightenment era meant that the father?s absolute power over sons was lost and patriarchy moved to the broader civil society? (1998, p. 92). This transformation occurred to the detriment of women whose work in the home was suddenly separated from what was considered to be the larger economy.