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

namechange not it is like this because it was men have wanted before.

Things are changing though. As feminism pushes for equality, many men come to see tht there lives will be infinitely improved too.

Sure there will be the old gurad with a lot to loose. But eventually we men and women togehter will force them to change their ways .

Things like 'I blame the patriarchy' as just figures of speech. They are rhetorical short-cuts.

A bit like how people refer to 'the man' or 'the system' or 'the rat race'.

Most people understand that what is being talked about is not a real single identifiable man or that humans are really rats having a race.

beach that's the way I see it.

Patriarchy just means the system which has been predicated on sexisim and which still allows sexism to continue.

Saying you don't 'believe' in patriarchy is as ludicrous as saying you don't believe in gravity. You may not be able to see it but it is everywhere and is the foundation our society is built from.

Some manifestations of it are more visible and socially acknowledged than others eg post pregnancy discrimination in employment but the patriarchy affects us before we are even born. Look at the expectations of children's behaviour of parents expecting boys vs girls. With sex selective abortions and female infanticide women are discriminated against right from the start. Thinking that gender differences are only connected to childbearing is the patriarchy brainwashing you. Believing that 'women's problems' are 'women's fault' is the patriarchy at its most dangerous.

Portofino,

Your link would be interesting if it were free. I don't really want to subscribe to Scientific American. However, even in the intro, the authors say that male/female differences cannot all be ascribed to nurture, even if some of them can.

Exactly wordfactory - it is a self-perpetuating social order.

Social order is a concept used in sociology, history and other social sciences that refers to a set of linked social structures, social institutions and social practices which conserve, maintain and enforce "normal" ways of relating and behaving.

And when one has a social order, one has........drum roll........status groups!

"Status groups" can be based on a person's characteristics such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, region, occupation, physical attractiveness, gender, education, age, etc. They are defined as "a subculture having a rather specific rank (or status) within the stratification system. That is, societies tend to include a hierarchy of status groups, some enjoying high ranking and some low."

Sorry - I can read the article without subscribing......"This finding?that brain structure correlates as well or better with psychological ?gender? than with simple biological ?sex??is crucial to keep in mind when considering any comparisons of male and female brains. Yes, men and women are psychologically different and yes, neuroscientists are uncovering many differences in brain anatomy and physiology which seem to explain our behavioral differences. But just because a difference is biological doesn?t mean it is ?hard-wired.? Individuals? gender traits?their preference for masculine or feminine clothes, careers, hobbies and interpersonal styles?are inevitably shaped more by rearing and experience than is their biological sex. Likewise, their brains, which are ultimately producing all this masculine or feminine behavior, must be molded?at least to some degree?by the sum of their experiences as a boy or girl."

Larry,

Sorry, am writing a bit slowly!

I honestly think in a less patriarchal world, we would figure out a way to make parental leave work in a way that would not damage people's careers -- because we would start from the assumption that having children is a good thing for society and not simply a personal choice that entails personal sacrifice.

We would have true parental leave, not just maternity leave; more flexible working conditions (as Portofino says, many jobs could be done more flexibly); cheaper and better childcare options. We would have more empathy and expect that it's usually possible for people to catch up to their previous level of work after being away for a few months.

After all, if you had a heart attack (god forbid) and were signed off work for six months, you wouldn't expect to have to take a salary cut because you were now six months behind everyone, right?

You might say -- I had no choice to have a heart attack. You can choose to have children.

But while that's true at the individual level, at the collective level we definitely want people to continue having children and should try to encourage that while still maintaining people's productivity. If we truly accept that men and women participate in the workforce equally, and that our society needs to keep reproducing for the future, then we should reject the assumption that having children means sacrificing your career.

So many things would be better for women and men if we lived in an equal society.

Men are realising this. Slowly but surely.

How can any woman not believe in it? you only have to look at who is at the 'top' - who are the judges, the top police officers, the politicians, the captains of industry - far far FAR more men than women. Men rule the world. There is no sense in saying otherwise. They are there, in massive numbers and women are not. I know there's a lot more to it, but when the majority of the power is in the hands of men, that's a fairly good indication that we live in a male controlled world.

'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

Yes. Thats the point isnt it sigmund?'

Why are you calling it patriarchy, if it means society? I would suggest that patriarchy only means society from a feminist viewpoint.

For the rest of us society=society. Different.

i'm begining to get this patriachy thing,
cave man and women had much less in the shape of organised society around them, the women had the babies so the men had to do the hunting, nature chose these roles, not patriachy.

through sexual selection men became bigger than women, so women choseing bigger stronger men has resulted in a gender difference in size, this alone has given men the upper hand historicaly, males have been domminant is society for one reason, because they could.

as society grew social structures made it possible for women to enter the workplace and still have babies , the bigger the organisation the greater the oppertunities, i wonder what data there is from very organised societies , i wonder what childcare options there were in communist russia for example?

i'm rambleing now, feel free to contradict me, i'm sort of just thinking aloud.

*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.*

That is pretty much my opinion Trills. It sometimes seems that feminists are suggesting that we men are involved in some sort of conspiracy and we all consciously want to keep women to some lower role in life. That isn't the way I think and isn't the way most men think in my experience. Where we possibly differ is I believe that men and women are born equal but different and that hormones mostly at puberty increase that difference. I also think that the way we are brought up makes a difference as well though and men and women who don't conform to the norm or don't want to conform are pressured to tow the line. I think unfortunately that this rejecting people who don't conform is probably down to how we have evolved and is perhaps in us all to a lesser or greater extent. It is something we should all try and resist.

SM yes the patriarchy is society, but accepting that said society is predicated on sexism and still allowing sexism to continue...that's a bit long winded no?

Once the patriarchy is defeated we will still have society. Just an equsal one vis a vis the sexes.

I'm not saying that gender differences are 100% conditioning, I'm simply saying that any innate differences are likely to be smaller than many people think and not necessarily the things that people think they are.

inde many feminists (myself included) don't believe is some sort of Bond-like conspiracy. Ooh let's keep them women in their place.

Men who see this and say this is what happens are in my experience being dreadfully defensive. Refusing to accept that sexism exists. That they are being sexist but not having the guts or the energy to change.

Focussing on how men and women are different is a red herring. And one the patriarchy loves .

That simply does not explain rape, domestic violence, sexual harrassment, unequal pay in the work force, judicial and penal inequality.
Only one thing explains those things - sexism.

trills having had mixed sex twins (a feminists dream no?) I have changed my mind on the nature/nurture debate. Darn my open mind. I think nature plays a larger part than once I did.

However, this is a red herring, I think. Those differences don't explain away even a teeny amount of sexism.

FAQ: Isn?t "the Patriarchy" just some conspiracy theory that blames all men, even decent men, for women?s woes?

Feminists don't think that there is a conspiracy going on (that makes us sound a bit paranoid and tinfoilhatty - did you mean to do that inde?).

We just, yunno, observe reality and note that even nice men; benefit from male privilege, are often oblivious to male privilege and resist relinquishing male privilege.

Do people accuse people of colour of being conspiracy theorists when they point out the existence of white supremacy ?

I think the whole idea of saying we are conspiracy theorists is laughable. As if we have to make this shit up .

Again I agree with wordfactory - nature/female male brains and all that stuff is a red herring (or an attempt to justify male violence against women 'men are big and strong and have penises and hormones so they, like, have to dominate women and oppress them').

Do people genuinely think that it is the natural order for men to subjugate and oppress women? And that is is the natural order for men to be violent against women?

Now, that, is sexist.

Marx, Martin Luther King, Gandhi - paranoid conspiracy theorists, all of 'em.

I consign the idea of feminists being conspiracy theorists to the dustbin containing the words things these days have gone too far the other way.

Yes, there are just far too many women in positions of influence and power. And far too many men being harrassed and discriminated against in the work force.

Wordfactory
Is it being defensive or is it just adding a male point of view to the debate. Don't you feel like defending women if someone says something you see as misogynistic? As it happens in most instances so do I.
As for your last paragraph I don't think that believing men and women are different makes rape dv etc. more likely. Men should be brought up to respect women and treat them as equals. I think you can do that and still admire women's femininity even if that means seeing them as different.