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

Any situation where you get one particular group over-represented will necessarily reflect their perspectives and preoccupations. Whether that's primary schools being institutionally skewed towards female, left-wing thinking; the police force until the Macpherson report at least, being skewed towards white right-wing thinking; or whether it's politics, higher education, science, business, medicine, law, art, philosophy, religion being skewed towards male thinking.

And when those aspects of society are skewed towards male thinking for thousands of years while they are actually developing, in most areas of the world, you get a world like the one we have where we have hierarchies, awards, competition, uniforms, institutions, mechanised violence, adversarial politics, segregated roles, criminality, scientific use of animals, space travel, religions with dictator gods who think like men, and so on. The world would be a completely different place if it had been skewed towards female thinking since its inception.

Nickname - This is where I get uncomfortable, because what you're implying is that men are essentially macho, aggressive and women are the softer more caring sorts. Which is really evo-psych in patriarchy-blaming clothing.

IMHO, men having been generally physically stronger and not sidelined by having children, have managed to wangle themselves into a position of power in society and the behaviour you speak of doesn't spring from maleness, but from power-holding (and power-keeping, i.e subjugating anyone who might take your power from you).

of course it's a fact unless you water down totally the meaning of the concept of biological evolution.

Goth,

I don't understand how people can lightly dismiss what seems to be termed evo-psych. It strikes me as such an obvious and huge influence on everything we do. It also seems that we have been "civilised" human beings for a nanosecond in terms of our genetic evolution and it takes a lot longer than that to change what is natural.

As someone pointed upthread, natural does not mean right or fair, and it is the job of a decent society to moderate our natural instincts via laws and a strong moral code. However, to deny our monkey forefathers have any influence on our behaviour seems to counteract both intution and evidence.

GothAnneGeddes. There's some truth in what you say that the institutions of patriarchy represent a certain type of male that rose to the top, but patriarchy also survived at the personal, domestic level and relied on men lower down the social spectrum.

I certainly wouldn't say that women are necessarily a softer, caring sorts, but I do think they are different to men and that a world shaped around them and their preoccupations would be different to the one we have in some fundamental ways. What those differences would be is largely speculation, although we can look to quasi-matriarchal societies and families and all-female institutions for some clues. I suspect a female political and philosophical world would be a great deal more subtle and complex than the male version, but not necessarily any more pleasant.

Men are inherently "this" and women are inherently "that" has always been a tool to oppress and restrict women. To me, it's a restrictive way of thinking, so I doubt it can ever be a tool of liberation and pointing to a better future.

GothAnneGeddes Thu 14-Jun-12 13:32:42
Men are inherently "this" and women are inherently "that" has always been a tool to oppress and restrict women. To me, it's a restrictive way of thinking, so I doubt it can ever be a tool of liberation and pointing to a better future.

Which is why defining things as the patriarchy is particularly unhelpful rather than looking at the world as having a lot of unequalities, within which lots of different groups fair worse than others. Every time you insist on using generalisations and insist on defining the patriarchy, you actually end up constricting yourselves rather than actually addressing inequality.

Dittany - that is not what I was getting at at all. And the arguments about women not being allowed into front line combat are far more complex then you're making out.

The usual reasons for not allowing women are that men would would be distracted/ the public would find women dying in combat more upsetting - not commenting on the worth of these reasons, just putting them forward.

There is also the fact that some women want to participate in front line combat and that throughout history, women have fought in wars alongside men.

Dittany - that is not what I was getting at at all. And the arguments about women not being allowed into front line combat are far more complex then you're making out.

The usual reasons for not allowing women are that men would would be distracted/ the public would find women dying in combat more upsetting - not commenting on the worth of these reasons, just putting them forward.

There is also the fact that some women want to participate in front line combat and that throughout history, women have fought in wars alongside men.

Thanks for the book recommendation Dittany. Have ordered it.

OK Dittany on your question on rape and marriage.....

I don't think marriage should be a defence for rape (...obviously, but just wanted to make that clear).

I think your question is why don't i see the fact that until relatively recently it was, as hands-down evidence for The Pariarchy? (is that right?)

I am guessing that my understanding of the facts of the matter are much the same as yours - marriage was a way of controlling women's fertility, a wife was seen as part of a husband's property (and her father's before that) therefore rape was seem as a property crime against the man rather than a crime against the woman. Therefore there was no concept of rape within marriage. ...is that right?

Yes I agree that is patriarchy (as in families ruled by men) - but I think the question we differ on is how that situation came to be.

My understanding (although obviously I'm no expert) of The Patriarchy theory is that it says that it happened because men decided to use their greater physical strength to oppress women, invented patriarchal marriage as a way to institutionalise that and control them and have oppressed generations of women with it ever since.

That's the bit I think doesn't stack up, as it seems to imply that there was some time before men decided to oppress women when the idea of consent was universal and respected. I don't think there is any evidence for that (and good reasons to think it isn't the case).

I also think it doesn't recognise that the exchange between men and women implied in patriarchal marriage - i.e.; support, protection and recognition of paternity by a man in return for a guarantee of fidelity by a woman - made sense both ways (in those days - pre-contraception, when survival of children was far from assured, and when life was pretty dangerous and nasty).

Either way it doesn't change the question of whether rape in marriage is now defensible.

The kind of political system that tends to institutionalise the norms, power relations and expectations that exist in society at that time and then not be much good at undoing them until there is concerted pressure.

Same reason we drive on the other side of the road from everyone else in Europe.

I think if you are asking how the laws on marriage got to be the way they were, it's perfectly reasonable to ask how the norms that preferred the laws got to be the way they were.

Similarly if the theory of the patriarchy starts with 'men were stronger' then I don't think it's gone back far enough.

Norms that preceeded the laws....

Dittany -

You keep saying no one cares, as if there is no controversy, and that the theory of The Patriarchy is compatible with the idea that there is an evolutionary basis (including sexual selection) to human psychology and a psychological basis to human societies (I think it's known as "evo-psych bollocks" around here).

The two theories are not compatible. You believe in one. I believe in the other.

What we have been talking about on this thread is why some people don't believe in The Patriarchy which was the OPs question. This is why I don't believe in The Patriarchy.

Yes if you make the definition wide enough I will agree we live in a patriarchy - where men hold more power. But by that definiton every single human being from Norway to the Yemen and since quite possibly the very first human beings, has lived in a patriarchy (since she will have done more than her fair share of childcare), not to mention our primate cousins.. But at that point it looses any analytical power.

Why not just say we disagree on the this theory?

sociology rocks!!!

I've got a degree in sociology, so grab your cocoa and a sleeping bag while we talk about patriarchy.... only joking....

In 2012 we are more likely to be discussing gender identities and the emasculation of men...

patriarchy is losing....but I'm not sure if anyone is winning

Society is becoming less and less gender orientated, Oh there may be a few pockets of patriarchy lurking in the shadows, but I truly believe that by the end of my lifetime, the genders will be equal. After all aren't girls scoring higher in maths now than their male counterparts? We no longer live in a manufacturing society where brawn reigns king...laws for equality make it illegal to even comment on a nice pair of boobs...(I used to like them telling me I had a nice rack, back in the day of course before I BF DCs :) )

patriarchy may still be alive, but hes gasping and choking for breath...

Male supremacy isn't some airy fairy theory or concept that may or may not be true, on a par with the fairy stories of evo psych which can't ever be proved because they are pure speculation. Male supremacy is an observable reality that exists in fact all over the world. Really I find it incredible that it's being spoken about as if it's some outlandish theory, it's bizarre.