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

Himalaya QED.

i agree to some degree that we defend our current stories
(Although I think most resonable people reassess regularly)

But we all did go through a process to arrive at our 'current stories'..in which we assessed information etc etc

Yes it's natural to defend our thinking -- what I slightly resent in Larry's post is the idea that by disagreeing with him, I'm not rationally analysing evidence, or am displaying cognitive dissonance. When really, I just haven't seen any compelling evidence to support the claims that patriarchy is not relevant in a UK context.

Dreaming,

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/young-women-now-earn-more-than-men-2364675.html

The article above shows that women are now slightly outearning men in the 20-29 year age group. It also shows that they are getting better outcomes in education. Clearly it is a newspaper article and not an academic paper but it cites its sources and they are reputable. For instance:

"Figures show that women aged between 22 and 29 in employment are now earning more on average per hour than men of the same age.

The figures were unearthed by Mary Curnock Cook, chief executive of the Universities and Colleges Admission Service, during research into the gender gap in education."

And:

"Research by the Higher Education Policy Institute shows that women now not only outnumber men overall at university, but they also outnumber them at every type of university. They are also more likely to get a 2:1 degree pass and are less likely to drop out. The institute's figures show 49.2 per cent of women opt for higher education compared with just 37.2 per cent of men. In the post-1992 universities (the former polytechnics), there are 23.8 per cent of the women cohort and 18 per cent of men."

And:

"Last month, the Chartered Institute of Management reported that junior female managers are earning marginally more than their male peers for the first time, but that the pay gap stubbornly persists when averaged across all job and age levels. The institute warned that it would take a century before the average salary for female executives caught up with that of their male peers."

I am not accusing you of cognitive dissonance in disagreeing with ME but of failing to engage with evidence such as the above. I have also said that it is natural and I am sure I am equally guilty...so hardly personal or offensive.

YY dreameing those of us that disagree with larry are just blindly sticking to our stories

those who agree with larry have intelligently and rationally evaluated all available information and come to the only logical conclusion that there is...

FD -

I think your list is a good list of things that are wrong but to me isn't a list that proves the patriarchy

(Cuts to domestic violence refuges.

The fact Rape Crisis receives NO central government funding.

The fact women are still doing the majority of the housework.

The fact donkey sanctuaries receive more in charitable donations than women's refuges.

etc... )

Just take the Donkey sanctuary one. Donkey sanctuaries receive more charitable donations than homeless charities, alcohol and drug charities and a whole host of other things. Animal charities receive more than health, arts, sports, disability, schools or elderly causes. And with in animal charities people give more to donkeys than to species that are endangered but not so cute.

When you ask people to rank how charitable donations should be divided between different causes ('use their system 2') their stated preferences don't match what the population actually chooses to give to.

(This isnt an argument that feminists shouldn't promote women's causes and need to promote homelessness, elderly, sports etc.. btw). But it is a pretty good bit of evidence that the comparison between Donkey sanctuaries and women's refuges is not a case of something specific called patriarchy, but reflects a more general pattern of people not being very good at directing charitable giving to what really matters to them.

Does it mean it is not a problem? No. Because it being a problem doesn't depend on the patriarchy theory, it just depends on it being a problem.

But understanding the causes might be a way for charities to figure out better ways to attract giving towards the causes that people really prioritise when they think about it properly.

bejeezusWC

Nope, we are all defending our stories.

garlic - what do you mean by QED?

Quoting my own post from yesterday, Himalaya:

Eclectic, the only one of Frothy's points that can't be blamed squarely on patriarchy is the donkey sanctuary one. And that can be answered with the fact that helplines for abusive males, which are under-subscribed, get government funding while the over-subscribed lines for abused females don't.

• I suggest you use your analytical capacity to work out what I meant by QED ...

garlicfanjo

No, really tell me. It would be nice.

bejeezus

Larry, thank you for the link. My take on it is: well, this is a logical outcome, right? Women are going to uni in greater numbers and achieving better degree results, and thus they have closed the pay gap for the 20-something cohort (I think this is a better way of putting it than saying they 'perform better than men', given the pay differential is so marginal, and pay is only one criteria in career performance.) I do think the pay gap is only one facet of comparing career experiences: for example, if more men than women are doing career-enhancing internships or postgrad degrees in their 20s, then it is less positive that women are finding equality at getting entry-level jobs and then not progressing. (Am not saying this is true, just showing that 'facts' are not dead ends but windows into further research.)

Where our interpretations differ is that I see this not as evidence against the existence of inequality, but as a limited success in the struggle to change that inequality -- hopefully, a success that will continue and spread. Many, many people have fought hard to improve women's lives in the UK and it's great to see that in some areas there is progress.

I guess you see that progress as evidence that the patriarchy has been vanquished or that it is not as powerful as people say. But if you look at the entire lived experience of British women, you will see that there is still so much to be done whether it's in the later stages of women's careers, violence against women, poor maternity services, porn culture, sexual harassment we are still so far from real equality, if you look in the aggregate and at the big picture.

I am not trying to be pessimistic. But for me, weighing on the one hand all the positive things that have been achieved for women's rights, and on the other all the structural and systematic obstacles that still exist and that still cause so much misery, I think it is too soon to say that there is no patriarchy in the UK. I would need to see a lot more progress before saying that.

i had an interesting anecdotal experiment of the patriarchy in the 1990s. For five years I had a male secretary. He was in his late 20s. I was in my 50s.

Whenever we went together to a meeting (where we were unknown) or people came to our office, the immediate assumption before any introductions was that he was the boss and I was the secretary. Was this the patriarchy in action i.e. man must be the boss because he is male and women are subordinate or was it simply the conditioning we are all subject to? Of course it was immediately clear on introduction or when I started to engage with the meeting and my authority was not questioned. The other interesting thing was that the assumption was made by both men and women. The women, who were often quite senior, always apologised and quite often said something along the lines of "how silly of me" or "and I think of myself as a feminist" or some such... The men rarely said anything and it was quite interesting to see their reactions when my secretary offered tea or coffee and got up to make it. You could see their tiny brains whirring.....

I mention my age because you would have thought it might have occurred to people that as I was 30 years older it would be likely that I was the more experienced of the two and therefore the boss. But it rarely did.

At first it angered me, then it irritated me and then it amused me. Once or twice I had real fun with it e.g. assuring the men they were in safe hands as I could actually do joined up writing....

How is observing that women are exploited, killed, beaten, raped, assaulted, trafficked, prostituted, pimped, pornified, objectified, commodified, bought, sold, abused, subjugated and dominated, the world over, count as 'sticking to a story' despite evidence to the contrary?

For Crying Out Loud.

How does noticing that women women hold fewer than 13% of the world's parliamentary seats and less than 1% of the world's property, despite doing two thirds of the world's work, count as 'backing up one's own story'?

How does protesting against the fact that 1 in 4 women in the UK are affected by domestic violence count as 'cognitive dissonance' ?

How does noticing that women have been considered as men's property up until not very long ago and that we still live in the cultural legacy of that time (indeed there are cultures where this is current practice), count as faulty reasoning?

WTAF?

I suppose noticing FGM, honour killing, arranged marriage, attacks on reproduction rights, cultures where women are chaperoned and not allowed to vote, is 'cherry picking' .

We are just back to the 'patriarchy' is a figment of feminists' imagination crap that we had earlier.

This place is like some kind of Twilight Zone.

Listen to yourselves.

Garlic

My point is are we in the business of looking for things that can be "blamed squarely on patriarchy" or are we looking for problems and ways to solve them?

FD said it was a problem that donkey sanctuaries get more money than women's refuges. I agree it is a problem.

I gave a bit of analysis as to what might be the cause of the problem ..

you said 'it can be answered with the fact that helplines for abusive males, which are under-subscribed, get government funding while the over-subscribed lines for abused females'.

Its like if a problem can't be ascribed to the patriarchy suddenly isn't a problem any more, it becomes boring, and the answer is to go look for a framing of a problem that can be ascribed to the patriarchy.

Yeah, feminists sit around scratching their heads and trying to drum up things to blame on patriarchy.

That's why we're feminists, you see. Because we have this bizarre and irrational desire to prop up the fanciful notion that male dominated society exits. A desire that has sprung out of absolutely nowhere and which has no basis in women's lived experience. None. At All.

Anything that we can't pin on The Patriarchy just bores us to tears, so either we just pretend that everything is The Patriarchy's fault, or we ignore everything that we can't quite blame on The Patriarchy, and we scrabble around trying to find something else.

We do this because we are a bit barmy you see. We are into conspiracy theories and have a blind 'faith' in the existence of The Patriarchy. We keep getting presented with all this evidence that violence, rape, porn, prostitution, trafficking, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, the glass ceiling, parliamentary representation, financial power, social status, etc. aren't gendered, but we just cling to our irrational and utterly fanciful position that they are gendered.

There aren't enough faces.

How rude can you get?

I think I almost preferred it when people just came on threads and posted 'you lot are INSANE for wanting to discuss this. INSANE I tell you'. At least it was honest.

Oh and I forgot poverty too. We barmy feminists are convinced that poverty is a gendered issue too.

And childcare, infant feeding and the structure of the working world.

Quite potty!

beachcomer why do you posts comprise of sacrasm in reaction to opinions that havent been voiced.

Your post at 15:42 is daft, Himalaya. No-one's suggested the British preference for charity towards animals over charity towards people isn't a problem. We were discussing the validity of Frothy's points as demonstrations that we live in a patriarchal society. I acknowledged that the donkey sanctuary point was weak on that front and answered the objection with a directly relevant comparison (men-women instead of donkeys-women).

If you want to start a conversation about donkeys' importance to society as compared with women's, go ahead. I won't be on it.

Good post at 15:25, Beach. Is anyone else finding Mumsnet a bit other-worldly at the moment??

The pedant in me can't be restrained just now ... myriad is an adjective and comprise is a direct verb. I thank you.

thechairmanmeow, and why have you shown up on this thread just to get personal with me?

Are you trying to gaslight me or have you just not read the thread? .

utter twilight zone of late. i can't bear to be here much.

it amazes me the hours of time that women put into telling feminists they're wrong. obviously everyone has priorities and limited energy so can't focus on all the worlds problems so direct their campaigning and time and energy toward the things that matter most to them.

for some people that's donkey's - odd but fair enough - they're obviously really passionate about the well being of donkeys.

but telling feminists they're wrong???? that's an odd one to invest so much time and energy into given all the problems there are in the world.

seriously you have nothing better to do with your time and energy? nothing you're passionate about? i genuinely am curious as i find it really, really strange.

ok it makes sense if you're an entitled misogynist male who thinks feminists are threatening your god given right to rule over women - they're invested and are passionate about their investment.

but women? very. very. odd.

It seems that certain posters believe the oppression is by "others" not the patriarchy but can't quite say who as is it too complicated.