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.

How could it possibly be part of the patriarchy to value childcare?

You surely know that for the human race to continue, someone has to do childcare? And you like capitalism - well, under capitalism, people do get valued and paid for what they do. Unless you know about some kind of childcare fairies who work for nothing, how do you imagine childcare is going to be carried out?

It's all very well to say what you say, to claim it's patriarchial to value childcare and we should all go out and earn loads of money instead - but what exactly do you do at the end of the day when there are still, in fact, children who need looking after?

And in any case, that is not valuing childcare. That is being a patronising git. Valuing childcare means paying for it. Just as valuing nursing means paying for it, or valuing kindergarten teaching means paying for it. Or working in a mine.

How much do you/did you pay the nannies who took care of your children?

How did you arrive at that figure?

Incidentally, while I am aware of the etymology and the connotations of the word 'value', and well aware it can be used in a quasi-religious, spiritual sense or in a moral sense, I think it's pretty obvious that both the kind of religion and the kind of morality in which 'value' is used in this way are misogynistic. And I think you know that.

The normal meaning of 'value' when we're actually talking about money - as we were - is neither spiritual nor moral, and pretending it is is bloody weird for someone who calls herself a capitalist.

Cross posted. math said it a lot more clearly.

This is patriarchy:
Bestselling DVDs, currently on amazon.co.uk

Count how many of the covers feature a woman who is not one of the following:
a) highly sexualised
b) only exists in the story because she's a wife/girlfriend/mother (ie, because of her connection to a male character)
c) chasing or obsessing over a male character, as the main part of her storyline

Then reverse the genders and count again. That's Patriarchy. And those DVD covers are effectively picked at random, because the "bestsellers" will change over time, so I haven't picked a particularly biased sample.

Xenia, I do understand you when you say that the patriarchy makes a pretence of valuing housewives, of putting motherhood on a pedestal and falsely imbuing it with saintliness in order to get women to do it unpaid, simply for the love of it. Yes it's a huge con, but ....

... that doesn't mean that motherhood shouldn't be valued. Instead of applying the patriarchal values of professional = fab / domestic = crap, and every woman jumping ship to the better paid, better respected occupations that men have traditionally enjoyed (as you would have them do), surely an alternative route would be to make motherhood both better paid and respected. Which would also effectively encourage more men to do it anyway.

You talk about children as if they were just a chore but when I had DS it was like falling in love and no amount of money could have kept me away from him. Yes it was dull at times, but then so was sitting in front of a computer fixing the problems of big city banks who I couldn't give a crap about. The way forward for feminism isn't to penalise women for taking time off to be with their DC but to find ways to successfully integrate them back into the workplace. There's no reason why choosing to be a mother should mean choosing to be poor. That's the challenge for feminism IMO.

Yes, sexist men saying my wife is a saint, I could never do what she does as a means of persuading the woman it's a wonderful tax to mind the 3 crying toddlers all day whilst ironing shirts and cleaning the loo.. massive male con to keep women down. if it were such a fun task men would jump at it. If you can persuade women it's sanctified and fun and right and psychologically the only true path - the Kinder Kuche Kirche philosophy men, cultures, religions use the world over to keep women in the home, within the home sphere only and without power and influence, then men keep women where many of them want them.

For feminists to become part of that order by saying housework and childcare is wonderful, all hail this fun task which is unpaid and unappareciated - give up work, be home, bake cakes is just terrible.

"For feminists to become part of that order by saying housework and childcare is wonderful, all hail this fun task which is unpaid and unappareciated - give up work, be home, bake cakes is just terrible."

Then make it paid and make it appreciated! But don't get rid of it, because someone has to do it!

Interesting thread.

I've wondered in the past about equal pay issues; and seen the comparison between school dinner "ladies" and street cleaners.

If they were equal jobs, you'd expect some men to want to be in the warm and dry, and some women to want to be away from other folk's kids.

I assume some of it is expectation, and I gather some "council" jobs like binmen were handed down amongst families. Nowadays, with the preponderance of wheelie bins, I can't see why there aren't more women doing the job, unless it is sexism in recruitment?

messyisthenewtidy Mon 17-Sep-12 11:42:34
...housework and childcare is wonderful, all hail this fun task which is unpaid and unappareciated...

Then make it paid and make it appreciated! But don't get rid of it, because someone has to do it!

It is, of course, paid in many cases.
[Like we used to pay for cleaning and ironing when kids were young]
Either the houseworkers pay for it between them, or they divide the tasks as they decide.

A lot of the issues seem to be around the fact that couples are crap at dividing tasks. If DW works shifts, quite a lot of these issues get tackled.
Certainly childcare/cooking/washing. I was a crap cleaner, as was XW - so help was got in.

Xenia the men you know who say this - how old would you say they are, typically?

onemorechap - council bin men have until last year been very well paid for the level of skill demanded. There has been a large look at pay in councils under the law of equal pay for equal work and binmen across the country have been downgraded as a result.

I suspect being a binwoman amongst a load of men would be difficult. I know I would never have applied for that job.

EatsBrainsAndLeaves Mon 17-Sep-12 14:03:51
There has been a large look at pay in councils under the law of equal pay for equal work and binmen across the country have been downgraded as a result.

I thought it was mixed? Some pay rises for school catering?Some reudctions for binmen

I suspect being a binwoman amongst a load of men would be difficult. I know I would never have applied for that job.

Wonder if that's why you see fewer male dinner folk?

Men who say their wife is a saint and no way could they look after 3 under 5s all day without help? Not sure. Heard lots of people say it over the yeras, usually utter sexist pigs who just can't be bothered will all the hard work and boredom and have found some born again Stepford Wife who is using her talens in applying domestos to the loos before she rushes off to stop the toddler killing the baby.

On equal pay there were very important cases a few years back on comparing council jobs and it was found yes bin men had all kinds of extra pay so that was all mostly sorted out. London Underground has advertised in Cosmopolitan and you see more and more women driving black cabs in London. My daughter's friend is a pilot (female) rather than an air hostess etc. Things are going well for many.

lso more and more women rae working for themselves and picking areas where most people don't have skillls or talents. Why am I worth an hour what a minimum wage worker is paid for a week'#s worth? I am nothing special but I picked my work with care. If you pick something anyone with an arm can do like scrub a floor or hold a crying baby or shovel soil then the pay is always going to be low and your work unappreciated.

I've never heard any men of my acquaintance say that, so I was curious.

I personally don't equate low pay with unappreciated. I appreciate the child care workers at DS2's nursery very much indeed and I tell them so.

Sorry if others have posted this already - I haven't read the thread yet.

Patriarchy is simply male dominance or male rule.

When feminists say 'the patriarchy' it is a bit of a slang personification of an abstraction - similar to when civil rights activists refer to 'The Man'.

There isn't really a singular 'man' or conspiratorial group of patriarchs organising specifically to perpetuate male dominance, although there are some groups that look lot like it - for instance the Catholic patriarchy who have historically had HUGE global dominance above monarchs and who specifically deny the ordination of women, or male pornographers who dream up ways to quarry female bodies and souls to near destruction as a way to glorify male sexual dominance.

Because male dominance is so complete and universal: Who leads and who obeys in every culture? - it not only organises the way humans relate to one-another overtly or through 'tradition', it has its stamp upon the very language we speak and words we write, the way we are raised to view the world, how we view others and our selves. It has its stamp on the knowledge that is passed to us and the knowledge that is suppressed, what is considered the norm and what is considered 'other'. It is a 'total dominance' of one sexual class by the other.

So if (to reference something upthread) there is a matriarchy (female dominated/organised group of people) within the wider patriarchy, the language, thought,etc will still reference that wider patriarchy, so it will manifest very differently to a patriarchy and could never be a 'total dominance' by women.

Maybe you work and associate with too many sexist pigs Xenia?

Why do you think other women should jump at the chance to join you in an environment so awash in BS?

I really dislike the phrase 'I am worth' X amount. The conflation of what one is paid with what one is worth is wrong.

We are made like that even when people live in tribes in jungles. There will always be men and women who do better than others even if it's just their looks, health, height, size of penis gourd over their grass skirt.

However the point that men g on about how they could never do the job their wives do is patronising and used as a tool to make housewivse think they do something special reserved only to them and that keeps them down , in kitchens and earning nothing.

Xenia, I have never heard men of my acquaintance talk like that about their wives. I would not be surprised if your line of work and your seniority within it brings you into contact with older, richer, more traditional/chauvinistic men than me and than others on the thread, though.

Once again, who should be doing the childcare that needs to be done 8am-6pm 5 days per week - even if it is dull, boring, trivial, whatever- if the species is to continue?

The options from ages 0-5 are:

• nanny (probably a woman)
• nursery (probably majority staffed by women)
• childminder (probably a woman)

- unpaid relative or friend (perhaps more men in this category but probably still majority women) - one parent as a SAHP (could be either)

• parents working shifts to fully cover childcare but not seeing each other much (shared care)
• some combination of flexible working by one or both parents and the above (shared and external care)

Women are second class citizens under the patriarchy and treated and spoke of as such.

I think that some people ought to change the people they mix with! I have never been treated as a second class citizen.

I personally don't equate low pay with unappreciated.

Neither do I-I think that they are the most appreciated.
When choosing a career interest comes first-money comes bottom. You need enough to be comfortable and know you can pay bills-other than that it is much more important for it to be engrossing and allow you the life style you want-flexibility is nice.

Apparently it made me shave my armpits

My dp is a sahd, I don't know how he does it!

Men who say their wife is a saint and no way could they look after 3 under 5s all day without help? Not sure. Heard lots of people say it over the yeras, usually utter sexist pigs who just can't be bothered will all the hard work and boredom and have found some born again Stepford Wife who is using her talens in applying domestos to the loos before she rushes off to stop the toddler killing the baby.

I expect that if I actually knew any men like this I might be irritated.
People don't have to have a partner. Generally I find they are like me- love him, have him as their best friend, work as a unit. There isn't any competition. DH does most of the ironing-if the floor needs washing he washes it-if he needs a button sewing on he sews it on.
If I didn't like being at home looking after DCs we would have arranged things differently. As it is we had children because we wanted them and I can't think of any career that is more satisfying than looking after them myself. Other women prefer paid employment-I wouldn't expect us all to be the same.
I suspect that a lot of women don't want top jobs because they don't want life to be work, work, work. I wouldn't even have DCs with a DH with a top job-what would be the point in earning pots of money if we didn't see him?