Who is part of the patriarchy?

[EatsBrainsAndLeaves]

When we use the term patriarchy, do you think that the men you know are part of the patriarchy? And if no, then who is part of the patriarchy?

Hab how do we knwo exactly what it would be like without patriarchy? But it would be a societyw here women are no more liked to be sexually abused or raped than men, where there wouldnt be sexist remarks, where there would be no porn as we know it or prostitution - basically where whta your life was like was down to what you were like as an individual, rather than the fact that you are a woman.

Mme, I have told my friend to follow you because yoiu are influential and she is starting her own jewellery line.

Mme, I have told my friend to follow you because yoiu are influential and she is starting her own jewellery line.

Eats, I'm sorry but your posts just don't make sense. What happened to the woman who encouraged other women to explore feminism ? If there's something you'd like to discuss then by all means go ahead but your posting style seems a bit random over the last few weeks and it's really difficult to see if you want an honest discussion or just a forum to vent.

MmeL, see if you can find recent Africa debate on world service on iplayer. Really interesting discussion of women in power in Africa.

Portofino Mon 01-Oct-12 20:27:07
The Patriarchy only really serves Alpha Males. White MC/UC white males.

As I said to LRD I was specifically thinking of some of the horrendous female oppression in Central/Southern Africa - and the neo-tribal oppression of women specifically under a Wahabi interpretation of Islam, or the even more radical Shariah practiced by the Taliban. These are specifically not white, upper class, Western men.

Patriarchy? or not?

Blame
Ohh, I like being 'influential'. Tell her to give me a shove and I will follow back.

Kim
From what I heard, it is a combination of religion and tradition. One group was v interesting - they were raising money to buy water tanks and formed a women's collective. They made necklaces and sold them to tourists and from the money raised bought water tanks. They saw their standing in the village, their power, increased because of this.

Abuse against homosexuals is rife -- look at the horror of Uganda. But not just there. One of our group met a man who was openly gay - he kept a wad of cash on him to protect himself from rape when arrested. It didn't always work :(

Thanks, Habs. Will look that up.

Found it if anyone else is interested.

Interesting the difference between the educated power women, and the normal women in the provinces.

We met a wonderful woman in Nairobi - Rosemary Muganda - who was so strong and charismatic. She was Deputy Country Director of PATH, Kenya.

I also met a young Nigerian born woman who had nothing in common with the poor women of Kibera slum.

I think that there was a much stronger divide between rich and poor than in UK.

Belated congrats on the book Mme Lindor! :) That's just so cool!

I'm still saturating myself in bell hooks, and there are so many examples on this thread that illustrate her view of the interlinking nature of privilege and oppression - that purely regarding everything as a function of or even offshoot of patriarchy is inadequate. Not just inadequate, but actually contributes to the ongoing oppression of some women, where their experience can not be defined as solely due to their sex or gender.

and I've posted something really verbose on the Violence Against Women thread which is kind of linked to this, and must be off to bed soon!

That's not at all what I asked, Eats. I asked what the next step would be if we accepted your premise that all men support the patriarchy. What would you do then?

You then work to dismantle it

How?

And is it necessary to accept your premise in order to work towards dismantling the patriarchy?

Waves mmeL pom poms, which look curiously like yummy red foiled spherical chocolates.

Thank you MmeL, I might take you up on that, or at the very least buy the book

So we are to dismantle something that we know nothing of the inner workings of, Uh. How?

Revolutionary idea. How many revolutions have there been in history? Peasants Revolt.....class struggle,the French Revolution started when the women of Paris marched for bread. Russian Revolution, started when women marched for bread...again class struggle.

I can name more but it might get boring! The point is women are central to all revolutionary change, they are often the instigators. Even in the past when men striked, the women supported them in this. But all major shifts in society have happened thus far through class struggle.

Mini women are a political class. And in most class struggles Marxists talk about, yes women participated and often led, but gained much less benefits from it than men.

Hab - Kind of hard to work dismantling something if you dont think it exists? There are lots of ways to fight it. Happy to discuss more later, but got to run.

I never said it didn't exist. I'd appreciate it if you would not misrepresent my comments. And my question was a hypothetical one - if you could convince everyone that your interpretation of the patriarchy was the right one, what steps would you take next?

habbibu Tue 02-Oct-12 12:18:17
I'd appreciate it if you would not misrepresent my comments.

BAU for EBAL, then?

BAU?

Business as usual

Revolution!

I'm free this Friday. Can we have it then?

The thing about revolutions is that they tend to be caused by some kind of popular belief that the old system is wrong. In Britain you'd need maybe 10-20 million people to agree the present system is wrong. There are a million people on Mumsnet. How many are Rad Fems who want to re-boot society? This is a thread in the Feminism area and how many people agree with EBAL?

I don't know. I think there are many many women, who wouldn't necessarily self-identify as radical feminists, who do think that the current system is wrong. I guess, though, that revolution is just one of the ways to effect change, and you can disagree with a system without thinking that revolution is necessarily the best method of dealing with it.

EBAL is talking nonsense though. She seems to be willfully misunderstanding what the patriarchy is from a feminist perspective. And as she tells us she self-identifies as a RadFem, we can only guess at why that might be.