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

inde of course you can do that.
Women are beautiful, wonderous, sexual creatures.

But when you start to use those fabulous differences to defend sexism, then to my mind you've got it all wrong.

Ick at 'admire their shackles femininity'.

Anyway, I read the other day that;

"According to the UN, up to 27 million people are now held in slavery, far more than at the peak of the African slave trade. The majority of the victims this time are Asian women."

(This is the link it comes from although it isn't really about VAW.)

Saying it is "natural" for men as a group to rape or assault women because they are larger and stronger, is like saying it is natural for men who are taller and stronger to rape shorter weaker men. Nobody ever says that. I wonder why?

Wordfactory

I totally agree.

Women are first and foremost human beings. Sticking us on the pedestal of femininity to be admired, is just benevolent sexism. (And it isn't that benevolent.)

Beachcomer
Is it not possible to admire and love femininity and not also treat women as equals? I hope if you do you are wrong because I don't think many people think that men are generally born more masculine and women more feminine. That being the case isn't it better to admire and respect femininity rather than looking on it as something that makes women somehow inferior.

Inde, I am just wondering what femininity is - how are you defining it?

Inde, femininity is a social construct, the point of which is to identify women as being of lower social status than men. Femininity is a set of social and cultural norms, expectations, practices and roles which confine and restrict women (and which change over time).

Femininity is a performance.

Admire it if you wish, but by doing so you are capitulating with the patriarchal social hierarchy which places men in a superior position to women. And that isn't treating women as equals.

I suspect it depends upon ones definition of femininity.

As a word it does have undertones of weakness. Personally I prefer femaleness which to my mind has all the connotations of what makes me strong and wonderful as a woman.

If a man wants to see those things that make me a woman and admire them, then he should be my guest. But if he uses them as some sort of reason to treat me unequally (because he's just so in awe of them) then he will hear me roar .

I suspect it depends upon ones definition of femininity

was just going to write that!

It is from the Latin, meaning 'to suckle' (i have just learnt )

I struggle with 'femininity' and think I tip over into 'Eco Feminist' here-my thoughts are not clear on the subject.

My dd1 is very 'feminine' (still tooooo young though) despite my efforts to balance out advertising etc. It started from toddlerhood, and she naturally seems drawn to pink/fluff/glitter etc. She enjoys it and I think that is ok I dont feel she has been pressured into it IYSWIM

ramble ramble - what am i trying to say????

i feel sometimes feminism paints femininity as a 'bad thing' in women (i think that is my unconscious POV) and it really isnt (is it?)

my childrens father is from a African culture; where the ideas of feminine/masculine beauty are almost reversed-pink is consider a mans colour, women shave their heads whilst men grow their hair/have extensions and plaits, men pant their faces whilst women dont, women are considered strong and do alot of physical work. Its still a patriarchal society though....

I also think its a bit of rhetoric sometimes, that is a bit out of proportion and divides people and detracts from real issues....and is also a bit 'high brow' and alienating

meaning...i suppose....that I dont think if we freed society from 'gender expectations' we would be any closer to equality for female-sexed people, compared with male-sexed people...

finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/05/10/faq-but-men-and-women-are-born-different-isnt-that-obvious/

Masculine and feminine traits have been culturally placed in opposition to each other, and claimed to thus complement each other and result in harmony when men and women are constrained within the accepted sex roles. Masculine roles differ across societies, but are always portrayed as not only different from but also superior to the feminine.

Gender essentialism is the assumption that women are naturally like this, while men are naturally like that, and nature made it so and anyone who deviates from that pattern is a freak. Most commonly it comes in the form of ?women are naturally submissive and men are naturally dominant?.

Plus wiki is not too bad on femininity although it doesn't explore the masculine/feminine hierarchy in any depth.

I read the passion of new eve when I was far far too young for it and ever since 'femininity' has been synonymous with something that men are naturally better at than women, what with it being Their Thing not ours.

(not that there is anything natural about surgery, cosmetics etc of course but men do make more convincingly 'feminine' specimens than actual women don't they?)

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

So patriarchy is a socially conditioned state, a state imposed upon and by all of us, male and female?????? It isn't patriarchy at all..........it is class.

Class sets women apart from men but also sets all women apart from each other, so whilst as women we are biologically the same our social experiences will always be quite different and that is mostly dependant upon the class to which you are born. Sex and biology is an inescapable fact but class is a totally social construct which can with will, be smashed.

we are all different to each other-because our identity is multi-faceted
but we are united into 'groups' by each/some of our charcteristics

eg. I feel defined, by being;

1. A woman
2. Working Class

because we are in one 'group' doesnt mean the other categorisation has less impact on our lives

Again-its rhetoric isnt it- call it 'class' if you want...the effect is the same

So patriarchy is a socially conditioned state, a state imposed upon and by all of us, male and female??????

You cant just eradicate the effects of history on the present...'male privelege' is ingrained in most of us to a greater or lesser extent, sub-consciously to a greater or lesser extent

its the same with racism

Class, as in classification women are both a class and a class within other classes.

Economics and class are far more determinate in social relations. Whether that be as sex class or economic class. The term patriarchy is abstract and misleading and leads women to always see men as having little socially in common with them.

When some feminists talk about women being expected to perform femininity( what ever that is defined as) they also point out that women as a group are both similar (biological determinates) and different (social determinates) ie women are all very different.

I share just as much in common with working class men as I do upper middle class women. I share biology with women and experience my life in social relations similar to that of my male working class counterpart.

If life experiences and access to wealth, equality and power should NEVER be determined by biological sex, then we have to move away from using patriarchy as an abstract term which sets people apart based on biology but it also sets them apart socially. If sex is only biology and therefore women should be equal to men, then our social relations need to be based on something other than just sex. Ie the term patriarchy actually works to define differences based on sex when in actual fact we need to move beyond that. Just my opinion of course

Beachcomber
I appreciate that you are posting what is generally the feminist viewpoint ie that Men and Women are only different by conditioning. I also appreciate that it is a genuinely held belief and could be true. I think the only way we could prove it for sure is to carry out cruel nazi style experiments where children were brought up devoid of anything that could influence them including human contact.
I don't believe it is true though and I don't think that most people, men or women do. For one thing I think there is an evolutionary advantage to making the sexes have different brains just as there is with most animals. Even if male and female brains didn't develop differently in the womb there is also the effect of hormones like testosterone.

Every species seems to demonstrate that larger, more powerful, more cunning individuals will seek to dominate others for the larger share of resources, mating rights etc. It seems only humans have developed a complex system of morality by which individuals are expected to suppress behaviour we consider unacceptable. Individuals are required to monitor their own behaviour, tame it where necessary and face punishment if they don't.

Thank god we do this, and as the decades pass we continue to attempt to refine and improve our journey away from our animalistic natures. Unfortunately though we have been "animals" far longer than we have been thinking, moral creatures. As long as people continue to exercise free will, as long as it is physically possible to rape, murder, attack steal from or otherwise exploit other people then it will continue to happen. There will always be people who choose to transgress and throw off what they see as the shackles that human civilisation imposes (all the better if they can reap the rewards without accepting the obligations)

I don't think human nature will ever completely change I'm afraid, at least not in any comprehensible timescale. Of course that doesn't mean we should ever give up the struggle to escape from the worst of our animal natures and work towards the most just society we are able to create.

beachcomber

thanks for the link, havent time to read it right now, but this is true i think;

Masculine roles differ across societies, but are always portrayed as not only different from but also superior to the feminine

so i think what needs to change is- masculine roles need to stop being viewed as superior- i dont think women need to stop being 'feminine' (its my understanding that is 'ecofeminist' thinking, as i said before)

its hard to determine though IMO whether women are feminine because of expectations/pressure or through choice??

whether women are feminine because of expectations/pressure or through choice??

Some of it is socially conditioned but equally nature must play a part. I was a dress wearing (my mother liked ditsy dresses) tree climbing, stick waving terror who started fights and played with the boys, so despite her efforts to make me feminine, I was/am what I am, or rather who I am.

Going back to something Sigmund said:

'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.'

But simply calling it society and leaving it at that is not very useful society only refers to the relationships, institutions and norms that humans create for themselves. The word doesn't tell you anything about the character of that society about its power balances, degrees of freedom, who benefits and who doesn't. Without knowing about such things you can't really understand the nature of society.

So I am just curious, for people who don't accept the concept of patriarchy, how would you characterise society then?

And I like to think that 100 years from now, we'll look back at all this talk about cavemen and hunter-gatherers and cringe, just like today we look back at social darwinists justifying racial subjugation with their cranial measurements.

We seem to have overcome plenty of other evolutionary hard-wiring just fine. Does anyone really think it's impossible to eradicate gender inequality because of our primitive lizard-brains?