What is the patriarchy?

[EatsBrainsAndLeaves]

I am aware that we use words here like the patriarchy as if everyone understands what this means. I know when I first came on FWR I didnt. So I thought it mght be helpful if women who do understand it, explained what they understand the term patriarchy to mean.

We have all seen this and experienced this, right?

This is the patriarchy.

On the question of whether we want to be Victorian sacred flowers who never lift a heavy package or go down a pit I would rather have the freedom to be exploited by capitalist bosses on the same terms as men just as I wanted and used the freedom to work until I went into labour and return full time to work after 2 weeks. These are freedoms. Now most women might not want to exercise them but we need that freedom. 100 years ago many of us simply because of your sex would not have been allowed to practise the work we do (and it was not mining in my case).

In the early 1930s after the market crash my grandfather's scrap book shows some articles mentioning his propoals that male doctors be given jobs over women because they support families and a suggestion that locally they ban women doctors in hospitals. It was not passed thankfully.

"that male doctors be given jobs over women because they support families"
I used to know a single mum with a high flying job who was nevertheless paid less than her male counterparts. She justified this in terms of women with children being less productive then men.

What always amazes me is that the original official reason for women being paid less/banned from certain jobs, ie they didn't have families to support, is no longer relevant (now many women are the single breadwinners), yet new reasons will always pop up to justify the inequality and keep it going.

To be that's also patriarchy, the lies told to women to justify the status quo.

Yes, and women at work need to shout from the rooftiops that they are brilliant, top dog and they want more pay, much more. They don't often. I do try to make sure they get better at it. Ssay I am the best. I will move over 3 yeras for higher pay whatever it takes. I will not think I am lucky to be here but am the best in the business and deserve a massive pay packet. We need women to adopt that attitude which many men have too in order to get higher pay. Every single day of the year I fight for higher pay on things or suggest they go to someone cheaper and less qualified as I cannot discount what I charge. It works very well.

Things are changing. My children's father was one (we think jokingly) told by his headmaster he would not be getting a pay rise because I earned so much.

Very interesting thread. Following on the link about street harrassment (what a great name for it!) I once read about a feminist study where women were placed at four entrances to a park - two were told to smile and two were told to look neutral. The non-smiling women were much more likely to be addressed by men and told to "cheer up" or some such comment than those who looked happy. The men involved in this kind of "harrassment" were not intentionally being horrible or threatening at all, but it does suggest that men feel they have a right to be greeted by women. or for their day to be brightened up by women in some way. It's hard to imagine that they would have addressed neutral-expressioned men in the same way or that women would address men in the same way on the street. That's patriarchy.

Things have improved though. I know a lady, now in her 90s, who had to give up work in the late 1940s because she married a policeman and policemen's wives were not allowed to work back then. The rationale behind it was that, because of shift work, policeman needed their wives (or, presumably, mothers if they were single) to be on-hand at all times of the day to cook their dinner etc!

I'd also like to say that earlier on this thread someone was told off for having the wrong tone in their reply to someone else and, of course, we need to be respectful to eachother. However, other comments such as Saudi women being as hidden as a "Surrey housewife" go unchallenged. I am not a housewife, nor am I from Surrey, but I find such a comment extremely offenisve as well as ridiculously inaccurate. I'd like to think that any feminists who also happen to be Surrey housewives would feel able and welcome to comment on here without having their role or place of origin so denigrated. Sorry for the long post but I feel quite strongly about this.

My belief is the laws to prevent women and children from working in the mines wasn't because of any social conscience (it may have been dressed up as that) but driven by the greed of the mine owners. Because advances in technology meant only half the workforce was needed it was the easiest way to 'sack' those who had been earning a wage and maximise their profits.

Women are second class citizens under the patriarchy and treated and spoke of as such. Every day when you see something or hear something, just think, would that have happened if it was a man rather than a woman?

So when someone says it was not surprising a woman got raped because she was wearing a tight short dress. Just think would they have said the same if a man was raped and he was wearing shorts and no top? Or if a billboard advert presents a woman in a sexualised way - would they have shown a man in the same way? Or if a man talks downn to you - would he have spoken to another man in the same way?

If the answer is no, then these are all examples of the patriarchy i.e. male domination of women as a class.

Me too rosa. I think capitalism is a nasty, oppressive system and I would rather not see anyone oppressed under it, rather than men and women equally oppressed under it.

I'd rather see work such as childcare, that's traditionally seen as being a 'housewife' and sneered at as 'woman's work' properly valued. But I also think that it is appalling to decide you're going to refer to all women as housewives because you wish to pretend they don't have any other job.

I agree Rosa and LRD. I think that when certain posters urge women to drop their "housewife" lives they are buying into the rules of the patriarchy by equating trad masculine with superiority and trad feminine with inferiority.
I like to think women should have the choice and that choosing to look after their children shouldn't have to lead to invisibility in the public sphere, the media or politics or indeed poverty.

I do think 'housewife' is a deeply dubious term though. My mum (who is one of those 'I'd never call myself a feminist' people) used to get so fed up with the census options and I know people who put 'other' and described what they did instead of using it as an option.

So in terms of word choice I do get angry about it, but in terms of the actual job, well, someone has to do it, it doesn't happen by magic.

Ah but rosabud I said it deliberately.I will not be part of a female imposed group which says all women are smiling and nice and real women don't have strong views. I will not accept that women have to tell their friends their bum does not look too big in the skirt. I will not be part of a simpering socialised to be nice group of women. I am a human being and I am entitled to be as forceful, aggressive and loving of debate and power as any man.And I rather ilked my line

"In Saudi at the moment - 2012 - there is a new trend of not naming women in public in documents and the like so they become as hidden as a Surrey housewife even if they are a leading doctor. "

We learned very sadly the other week that some place in Surrey has 64% housewives and that was somehow feted in the press as a huge triumph - a man keeps them and they spend their days on dresses and making cup cakes.

Whoever said that, Xenia?

I see little evidence that 'housewives' as somehow shrinking violets who never say a nasty word.

Xenia, you have such an old-fashioned view of SAHMs. Possibly, as you've never been one, you might want to entertain the idea that you don't know what they're really like.....

Almost nothing is as pernicious an illustration of the patriachy in charge as women who rely on men for money in return for provision of sex, cleaning and childcare services in marriage.

Really?

How so.

I mean, that statement sounds nice, but when I think about it, I'm not quite sure a) that it remotely describes most SAHMs I know or b) that it means anything much.

I agree, Xenia, women providing these vital services of homemaking and child-rearing should not be financially dependent on a man as a result. So what should feminism be campaiging for to alter this? State funding for stay at home parents? Or legislation to ensure that the working parent's wages are divided equally with the stay at home parent under such circumstances?

Xenia -- 'I would rather have the freedom to be exploited by capitalist bosses on the same terms as men just as I wanted and used the freedom to work until I went into labour and return full time to work after 2 weeks. These are freedoms. Now most women might not want to exercise them but we need that freedom.'

You are absolutely wrong to think this is freedom, or a choice we need. When individual women choose to behave like men who have not given birth after giving birth it pressurises others to do the same and employers assume if one can do it everyone can.
And bear in mind how lovely it is to live in the US where women get 6 weeks of unpaid maternity leave and no guarantee of getting their own individual job back upon return.

Choice? Freedom?

For the great majority of people (women and men alike) in the workplace, employment is not an element of their lives where they are afforded much choice. It would be lovely if everyone was in the position to dictate their terms of employment, but that is not the reality for most men or women.

excellent post mathanxiety.

"£Choose to behave like men". That is a very sexist phrase. Who says only men can be those things? Plenty of women are. To suggest women are not ambitious, pleasing, delicate flowers, no interest in money but men are shows women have hardly got anywhere even amongst their own kind on a feminist thread never mind elsewhere in the wider world.

It si not being like a man to want moeny and power and to lead. Those can be human characteristics just as men can serve, please and clean the loo. I claim no monopoly over the wiping of babies bottoms.

Xenia, I think you've cut off that quotation in the critical place, so it doesn't mean what she said at all any more.

Men can't give birth. Some women, for the species as we know it to continue, have to give birth.

I don't think that is to do with being a 'delicate flower', is it? But it does have an impact on how the working world is set up, and IMO it shouldn't.

I think continuing to prop up and glorify a system that discriminates against women and was never designed to serve their interests (or those of a lot of men, either), is what happens when women pretend 'everyone' can and should aim to be a CEO.

If women do all do as you say, and we all sneer at 'housewives', who is going to look after the children? Another low-paid woman (or possibly man), who will then read the same sort of stuff we're reading now, and feel shit that she's being told she's letting down feminism by not getting out there and being a lawyer or a banker?

What's the point of that?

The point is that men as much as women should look after chidlren and do the dull stuff, cleaning, washing children's clothes. The housewife issue, the woman as servant to man with no economic power is at the heart of feminism the world over.

It is not male to want interesting work and a few hours a day with the children and someone else to clean up. It is human.

The fact women give birth does not mean they are left to life of hard labour as in the book of Genesis. They can leave men to do dull stuff and grasp a balanced life with a fair and feminist man.

How do you propose that happens under a capitalist system? That's what I wonder about.

I do take your point about women as servants in many places in the world, but I think there is an issue that you come across as if you think SAHMs in the UK are also in this boat, which it seems exceedingly obvious they are not.

Btw, please, knock off the straw man.

It is utter bollocks to pretend I was citing Genesis or any such thing.

Housewives are servants of a family. Thei whole role is to clean the house and mind children. Usually they go back to work later of course but only in a pin many minimum wage sense. They have no economic status in the home. It is appalling.

Capitalism is the best system we have and is working very well in ensuring more women are the main wage earners and men do their share of the cleaning.

While I don't like the term 'housewife', in the UK, they are not servants of a family. Plenty of people have a joint account that both partners use. You must be well aware of this.

You must also be well aware that plenty of people who take a few years out staying at home with their children go back to work for more than minimum wage. If you're not qualified to do this, that is very sad for you, but it is quite possible and if you put your mind to it, I think you can often do it, even in the current situation, which is very bad for women and for career breaks.

Capitalism is a pretty lousy system, IMO, and works very badly for women.

You still haven't considered who will look after children if not one or other parent, or how that work should be paid and valued. Under capitalism, it is valued very badly, and mostly done by women. Why is this ok with you?