Mary Harrington - How Andrew Tate smashed the patriarchy

[ArabellaScott]

Always an interesting read.

'“patriarchal” social codes are often not codes that entrench male supremacy so much as modulate untrammelled male aggression and sexuality in the interests of women and children'

...

'feminist scholar Juliet Flower McCannell: “what we have in the place of the patriarchy is the Regime of the Brother.” That is: an order where men and women interact as siblings, governed only by a dog-eat-dog rubric of individual competition and advantage.'

...

'Andrew Tate occasions so much fascination and revulsion because he epitomises masculinity under the Regime of the Brother: in other words, a manhood that has smashed the patriarchy. Our challenge now is to find our way out the other side of this destruction of all norms, toward a new realism about those features of our equally dignified but irreducibly sexed human nature that we need to accommodate. Unless we can manage this, it won’t matter how loudly we all condemn Andrew Tate. We’ll still be living in his world.'

reactionaryfeminist.substack.com/p/how-andrew-tate-smashed-the-patriarchy

This looks like an interesting article. Thanks. Will come back and comment when I've read it.

It is really interesting! I've not really done it justice by just hacking bits out of it!

Thank you also for showing me that Mary Harrington has a substack! Off to read a lot now.

This was such a fascinating read, thanks for sharing it. I have heard some of MH's "reactionary feminism" before and it does resonate with me. Her description of a set of accommodations makes sense to me too. Tate is repulsive precisely in the ways mh describes. I think the "strong girl" imagery plays into this dynamic too - the way girls now are shown to be able to punch out men etc. Because why do we need "accommodations" when we are just as strong as males?

So much to think about here.

I think the general idea of breaking down hierarchies/flattening power structures is what's happening there - some messages have been suppressed or avoided as they don't fit a very simplistic idea of 'equality'.

The point about a 'brotherhood' is good, too.

And yes, Isay, I really enjoy MH's writings. Don't always agree by any means, but I find her angles really refreshing and she's good at zooming out and coming at things from another POV than the dominant orthodoxy.

Interesting but have only skim read so far and didn’t like the line at the top saying this is what happens when we stop honouring men for self restraint. Do men really need to be “honoured” to make them behave well to women? Sadly, perhaps some (most?) do but on first read it seems as if she is painting patriarchy as overall a benign force because it keeps men’s true nature in check.

This distinction between the paternal patriarchy and the sibling relationship: I buy thar they are two different modes of interacting. What I'm not so sure about is that men used to do the paternal one. Did men restrain themselves? They had wives who were there to bear them heirs and they had mistresses and prostitutes who were there to see to their needs. And how many of those women were tossed aside because they weren't the type of women who one needed to bother with and how many bastards went unacknowledged, and how many of those women endured poverty and humiliation as they tried to provide for those children? And how many of the wives were abused too? If she divorced the children went to the husband etc etc.

Not that all men were awful of course, but women were at the mercy of these good, paternalistic men, precisely because they had so little power - you don't kick a person when they are down. Think of the Dashwoods in Sense and Sensibility. They are genteel women with no money, entirely dependent upon the whims of a brother to fund them. And he doesn't fund them very generously (okay, that's partly down to his wife). But the point is they aren't empowered to go out and earn their own money.

And these examples are just the wealthier women!

I'm not 100% on disagreement with her point. I do think society is unhealthily individualistic and the relationship with that and feminism is complex, but I can't romanticise the past the way I feel she is.

"Do men really need to be “honoured” to make them behave well to women?"

To an extent, yes. In that I think humans are often selfish and we need to acknowledge and reward those of us who exhibit the behaviour we want to see more of. Let's engage with the good men out there, and not reward the Andrew Tates of this world!

Do men really need to be “honoured” to make them behave well to women?

I don't know. But I often think of Louise Perry's point about how the sexual revolution devalued sex and one of the many consequences of that is the low quality of males looking for partners. When sex was a hard to get 'commodity' (for want of a better word) men had to step up in order to be eligible. They had to be decent, kind, gentlemanly, solvent etc etc. As we've now got to a point where sex is considered to be something completely casual, any man can get it without achieving anything. Chris Williamson on his podcast makes the point that men can now feel they are achieving at life without having to leave their bedrooms, because video games and pornography create the illusion that they are successful and can 'get the girl' without doing anything at all.

Maybe a slightly oblique connection, but something similar there in the idea that if we want certain kinds of behaviours from males we have to valorise it in some way. And I guess that's true of females too.

I can't romanticise the past the way I feel she is.

But 'the past' isn't all one lump of time that ended in 1980. I think that there's truth in some of your descriptions, but I'm not convinced that the dynamics between men and women were always so polarised and power-driven as you describe. Of course, in periods where women didn't have the right to divorce or create their own wealth, this was a massive inequality that made them reliant upon men. But I don't think MH is arguing for a rollback of those rights.

Yes, Citron, that was also what was bothering me: that she seemed to be portraying patriarchy as a benign force whereas, as you say, men don’t behave that well under patriarchy either even if it might be marginally preferable to the Andrew Tate bros before hos model.

I think she has a point. Always think the patriarch ‘ring fences’ male behaviour. Without it, without the disciplined ‘father’s grip’ keeping males in check, I believe women are in very grave danger.

Did men restrain themselves?

No, of course not always. I think her point is that there was at least an expectation that they ought to, whereas that has been removed.

Gratification, at all times, is now the only aim.

Sure, look how well it's working out for women in Afghanistan.

I think this particular column from Mary is a nice thought exercise for what we might want to get young men NOW thinking about in order to be better grown ups, but it fails quite comprehensively on the historical analysis front. Not to mention how well it plays to ye olde misogynist tropes about women existing to extract resources from men - according to Mary, that's the only way to get them to respect you!

it fails quite comprehensively on the historical analysis front

Does it? How are the stats different across various different time periods? Do we eve have those stats?

Not to mention how well it plays to ye olde misogynist tropes about women existing to extract resources from men - according to Mary, that's the only way to get them to respect you!

What do you mean? Could you quote something relevant from the article and explain how it plays to this trope, please?

It seems to me that what the writer does here is i) provide a description of chivalry / chivalrous behaviour ii) inaccurately claim that it is synonymous with patriarchy (when in fact patriarchy is about placing restrictions on women in order to better exploit the female sex’s reproductive capacity for the benefit of males)) iii) inaccurately claim that feminism wants to eradicate chivalrous behaviour and iv) then deploy what boils down to a classic misogynists’ “well you asked for it, ladies” gotcha, all dressed up in a rather long winded and obfuscatory writing style.

I don’t know anything about this person and wondered whether the writer might be a pen name of Jordan Peterson as it struck me as the sort of thing he would produce.

But the idea that pimps didn’t exist back in the days of social niceties such as walking on the outside of the pavement is simply ludicrous.

What has changed isn’t that pimps used to not exist but now they do exist, but rather that there wasn’t previously the opportunity for men who openly promote and celebrate violence against women to attract countless devotees in the form of children, but now there is that opportunity. That development has been enabled by the social media / tech companies which are entirely dominated by men, and certainly not dominated (or even influenced by) feminists.

The problem which she is claiming to discuss is one created entirely by toxic masculinity, not by feminism. However if she were to write an article making that point, she would receive an avalanche of rape and death threats. But write an article arguing that pimps and rapists are caused by feminism, and it’ll do her online career no harm at all.

I’ve reread my post and decided it could also be fairly described as rather long winded.

tldr version: the article is cobblers.

I must have missed the bit where she argued that feminism was responsible for pimps and rapists! Goodness me.

I agree that AT is representative of the Fratriarchy that has come to the fore after the demise of Patriarchy, and that women had certain protections in the old system but only if they fit a certain ideal of womanhood. We all know how quickly adulation turns to vicious contempt when we tell a cat caller to go away. There are numerous accounts of respected philosophers and religious leaders spewing hatred towards women, during the great old time of Patriarchy.

That women trade submission, intellect and chastity in return for protection is a supremely unfair transaction because, natural disasters and the Titanic aside, what exactly were they needing protection from? War and violence, created by .. ?

Personally I feel that Fratiarchy and Patriarchy always existed together and feed off each other. In fact, as Peterson points out in his own way, the idea of a Man being the head of his house (I.e patriarchal monogamy) comes from a need for men to share out resources, a brotherly accord, to avoid violence.

That women trade submission, intellect and chastity in return for protection is a supremely unfair transaction because, natural disasters and the Titanic aside, what exactly were they needing protection from? War and violence, created by .. ?

Probably more hunger and destitution?

Having said that, I do agree that technological advances, brought about by men, have greatly aided women.

Lol I read the whole thing and it sounded like something a men's rights activist would write to manipulate gullible people into wanting men in charge. I can't believe any true feminist would go along with it and not see through the BS.

"And many of the informal social norms that come under attack as ‘patriarchy’ - sexual self-restraint, opening doors and walking between a female partner and traffic, ‘women and children first’ in emergencies - boil down to a negotiated contract between the sexes that honours the class of humans that are normatively the strongest and most aggressive, for adopting a protective stance toward those weaker than themselves."

Overlooks the abuse that women and children endured at home from men who behaved that way in public.
Also we're still living in a patriarchal system even though certain rules have changed.

Look around the world - The most feministic countries like The Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, etc. have low crime rates and are some of the happiest places to live. Male dominant countries are hard to live in.

There are more paragraphs in there I couldn't stop rolling my eyes over but I don't have the time, or the patience to read the article again.

Thank you for sharing, hope my honest opinion didn't offend.

Thought this was of interest to fellow Mothers. Poor victims of Andrew Tate. They are relying on donations from the public to fund the case. Link in article
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/apr/12/three-alleged-assault-victims-launch-uk-civil-claim-against-andrew-tate

I really like Mary Harrington's writing. I feel like she isn't ideological and is trying to work out the reality rather than an analysis through a predetermined lense.

Yes we should honour men for self restraint.

That is essentially socialising them that this quality is highly valued in society and given status. Isn't this what we want to contain male violence?

The 'we' is society not women btw.

AT represents a totally individualistic view of humans & male roles within this view. This is being 'honoured' as a way to live, and it allows him to take what he wants with no regard for women. He can beat women up for pleasure if they agree, because everyone is just an atomised individual. There is no longer any expectation he as a man should not engage in degradation of women, as 'consent' is now the only moral obligation.

When consent becomes the only moral obligation in sex and relationships it allows men to treat women however they like as long as they claim women are consenting, and they are 'honoured'for this. By younger men who see this as winning in the current status system.

And of course it wasn't all just lovely in the past, that is Mary's point, she's against the idea of progress, because there is the constant reality of human nature we are always faced with. Feminism cannot overcome the realities of human beings and create a utopia by just saying how it should be.

Realities such as men are stronger and more violent, women are physically and economically vulnerable because of child bearing and rearing haven't gone away. We have to deal with this and the past few decades of: men get sex without commitment, children outside of marriage is the norm, consent is the only moral obligation expected from men, doesn't seem to be really working well for women.

I think having social benefits or rewards if you want to call it that) for restraint (particularly though not only young men) is a good thing. But I don't think the removal of those carrots and sticks are a result of feminism, or liberalisation of society/the 60s whatever. I think that was initially about something else. I think it happened largely because of the internet, especially pornography plus the fact that people are living more socially isolated lives/changes in work patterns (especially traditional working class male jobs like factory working), breakdown in community - so positive social pressures aren't there. And this is harmful to men (truly the constant availability if all the porn you want for example can't be good) and society more generally (lots of women and men have social media addictions/spend too much time on twitter, instagram, tiktok). But because its so addictive its very very hard to face the problem (and self restrain) and much easier to blame external forces.

And I do think its useful to compare now with previous times of social upheaval (such as the industrial revolution) and how people reacted/dealt with it then