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.

rosabud I know the difference between an inference and an implication. What you inferred, I didn't imply.

I am not quite sure what the topic is here. Women have two ways to make a lot of money - their career and marrying someone rich. That is one reason we now exceed men financially in many age groups as we have two routes to wealth and men have none (what Hakim calls our sexual capital). We used only to have the marriage/inheritance route in the 1800s.

You cannot deny there are both routes. Some of us may not feel comfortable using the looks route but it is there as a choice for women who don't look too bad. Things are changing a bit - my ex husband will be worth £1m purely because of his favourable marriage to me. That still remains fairly unusual but is a very good sign in feminist terms.

Love men,love women,love everyone.
Do men have too much power in society,probably yes.
Greed isnt an answer to anything.

Xenia I understood that particularly in the US, wealth was now specifically gravitating to the female side by the nature of longevity... the surviving partner usually being female... [you might, I suppose, add that married men tend to live longer, and married women shorter lives than their single counterparts]

All of our young sons are the next patriarchy are they not?

Are you holding them back?

There is a third way-and that is not want to make heaps of money-you then get the time to do all the things that you really want to do. (assuming that you earn a comfortable amount)

Yes our young sons will be part of the class of men that make up the patriarchy.

The idea of marching topless down the Mall is a good one imo.

Actually, anyone who has breastfed in public has done their own version on a mini scale. The reason public breastfeeding needed to be reclaimed was the overassociation of breasts with sex that required correction. You still run into people who think of breastfeeding as a sexual relationship between a mother and her baby, and people who can't separate breasts from sex enough to allow a woman the right to breastfeed in public.

I am not marching topless anywhere!
I breastfed anywhere and everywhere without the slightest problem.
I can't see that my DSs will be part of the patriarchy- they are very much equalists.
It seems to miss the point that actually only a very few men are part of the patriarchy. Way back someone asked me if my grandmother owned her own house, as if not doing so showed that she was held back. It showed a deep unawareness of history. Her father didn't own a house, neither did her husband or any of her family and friends- they were not in the level of society that owned houses.

The patriarchy is how men as a class dominate women as a class. All men are part of the political class of men. All men benefit from the patriarchy - although some more than others. The patriarchy is not about a very few men.

I didn't realise you were an expert on how all men benefitted from the patriarchy - when you have not stood in all men's shoes.

enimmead - think of any group of men and women - the men benefit in ways from society that the women dont. For example homeless - women on the streets are at a much higher risk of rape and sexual exploitation than men. Although they both face the same severe disadvantages in other areas.

Enimmead can you see how white people as a class benefitted from racism, regardless of your own skin colour?

It's the "as a class thing" which does not take into account the individual. I don't see black, working class men benefitting from the patriarchy very much - unless you compare them to black, working class women. I think some people on here have benefitted very well from society as it is compared to that group.

enimmead wrote - "an expert on how all men benefitted from the patriarchy - when you have not stood in all men's shoes."

I don't think we have to have stood in all men's shoes to recognise that men benefit from patriarchy. For example, a 12 year old goat herder in the middle of nowhere who, because he is "the man of the family" gets to decide which old men his sisters must marry. He has more control over his life than the women around him. He benefits from patriarchy, even though he has less financial and racial privilege than a white woman who runs a multi-national corporation from her huge mansion in Belgravia.

And I do think some people focus on the "men as a class" thing without recognising that there are a whole range of men - ranging from your alpha male all dominant, charismatic, chauvinistic, right down to your friendly, wouldn't say boo to a goose, couldn't even speak to a woman let alone treat her badly and in a sexist way.

But some people lump men together as a collective species who seem to be wholly responsible for the patriarchal system. Have you seen how some women treat other women as well? Are they to be included in the patriarchy?

Who has more control over their life? A white, educated, female university graduate or a black, uneducated NEET male?

Enimmead, classes can intersect. So Obama, say, has male privilege, wealth privilege but not colour privilege. Is he more privileged than Mitt Romney? No. Is he more privileged than Hillary Clinton, who has colour privilege but not male privilege? Hard to say.

None of this makes Obama a "baddie" for being male any more than in makes Clinton a "baddie" for being white. Privilege just is.

Turning to your other point, certainly women also
act in accordance with a patriarchal society (for example, i believe both
Men and women would be statistically more likely to vote for a male politician, all other things being equal) and I don't think a single feminist would argue that they do not.

enimmead wrote - "your friendly, wouldn't say boo to a goose, couldn't even speak to a woman let alone treat her badly and in a sexist way."

but he still benefits from being a man living in a patriarchal society.

Fortunately, it's not compulsory for every man to be horrid to all the women and girls in his life, but if he does choose to abuse or discriminate against women, patriarchal society treats him better than a non-patriarchal society would. Patriarchy gives privilege to males in comparison to females, whether or not a particular man chooses to exercise it.

IF we lived in a matriarchal society, I expect men would not benefit from matriarchy, women would. We don't live in a matriarchy, so that is hypothetical.

By the way, I don't know of any feminists who want to replace patriarchy with matriarchy. I think feminists want to end discrimination against women and girls, not replace it with discrimination against men and boys (as many anti-feminists would have us believe).

enimmead wrote - "Who has more control over their life? A white, educated, female university graduate or a black, uneducated NEET male?"

Who has more control over their life?
A white, educated, female university graduate or a white, educated, male university graduate?

A black, uneducated NEET female or a black, uneducated NEET male?

Men have disadvantages too.
They are expected to be the breadwinner till they are old,very old in some countries.
They die younger.
They have less leisure time by quite some way on the whole.

I think I am glad to be a woman tbh.

My DSs are not going to dominate women- neither did my father or grandfather.
I can't speak for 12 year old goat herders in the middle of nowhere , but their own lives are extremely hard and I doubt whether they have many choices in life.
I agree that in the third world women have it hard, but no one has yet told me what they are doing personally to help, but there is no excuse for a western woman to be dominated. At the very first sign they should run a mile- sadly they don't.
One of my earliest thoughts as a child was to be really pleased that I was a girl - it seemed much the best option to me, and still does.

"A white, educated, female university graduate or a white, educated, male university graduate? "

Good question - male graduate - get a job, find a partner, be expected to provide for partner if partner has baby and becomes SAHM, work hard and ahve a career, not be expected to work part time with mum working as well, be treated as different if wants to do that, dies earlier

Female gradaute - get job, work hard on career ladder, find partner, have baby, work part time or become SAHM, career progress alters as work part time, needs DP to help provide income,

Who has more freedom and more choices?

I also bet that the 12 yr old goatherd is likely to have a doughty old grandmother who keeps him well and truly in his place!