Patriarchy - is it about male to male oppression?

[TrappedByThisDesk]

I have heard the word 'patriarchy' used to denote all forms of oppression and inequality in society.
Not just male subjugation of females, but also males subjugation / oppression of other males, based on power differentials and linked to 'macho' culture.

But surely this is an over-reach, an over-use of the word?
It is implicit in the word that it is about males vs females, as shown by contrasting it with the word 'matriarchy'.

If you are talking about men oppressing other men, you need a different word. Something to do with men's tendency towards establishing hierarches amongst themselves and bullying of any 'lesser' man.

Patriarchy is not a catch-all word describing all forms of oppression and inequality. It has a specific meaning that should not be lost.

It just means that men are in control. That would mean men are in control of all women and some/many other men.

It comes from Greek for father ruling, when a father was head of the family and ruled over his sons and his daughters.

I think it's perfectly acceptable to say that patriarchy harms men too without losing the fact that women's oppression comes from patriarchal society. Language evolves.

Women, stop talking about women's rights and patriarchy. Let's talk about men instead. No thanks.

I'm watching a tribunal. About a woman's rights. I suspect many women are right now. This does not go down well in some circles. Too bad.

The word 'patriarchy' literally translates as 'rule of the father', which does imply it's age-related as well as sex-related. So, old men holding the positions of power whilst young men as well as women do not.

The world is patriarchal because it’s a man’s world god was a man yes I don’t believe in god but he was a man, men started this mess don’t feel sorry for them.

I think it’s important to recognise that patriarchy isn’t really great for most men either unless you are happy to entrench misogynist views amongst men

being female I can care about both women’s and men’s issues even if my focus on the female side of things

So if patriarchy is a thing that oppresses men as well as women, what is the word for a world where women are oppressed by men, without reference to the oppressed men?
Do we need a word that focusses solely on relations between men and women?

Mysogyny, not a brilliant fit but I think the best we've got.

You've made up a niche definition of patriarchy so you can get angry that the real definition exists. It is not an either/or situation. You can care about women's rights and care about men's issues.

You act as if humans don't have the cognitive ability to differentiate between the two different types of patriarchal influences.

We aren't that dumb. At least most of us aren't.

Patriarchy theoretically doesn't need to be linked to classism (the oppression of other men as well as women through social stratification). But social and political academics (most famously, I think, Engles, but also plenty of others), the rise of patriarchy has always been entwined with forms of classism. Other forms of oppression, like racism, have also been entwined with patriarchy, though not as universally.

So while it's an over reach if you're looking at things hypothetically, in the real world patriarchy is very much linked to oppression of men as well as women.

Feminist theory has generally focused on the oppression of women by patriarchy but pointed out the way patriarchy also oppresses men in order to show that everyone benefits from its destruction.

Patriarchy's a hierarchical power system. You aren't looking wide enough, OP.

This system favours the male at every level. At the same time, it imposes rules/standards on men - the penalty for persistent failure is exclusion - and requires respect/obedience according to status.

Being a system that encompasses 8.3 billion people, it's obviously complicated. It undergoes evolution in fits and starts, in different ways at various places and times. If you were in the UK during the 1980s-90s, you might remember 'Pink Power', which successfully repositioned gay men within the system. Where they had been excluded from most membership benefits of patriarchy, they became mostly included. Issues such as skin colour, ethnicity, religion, age & disability come into play as well.

There are socially formalised hierarchies like the Indian caste system, Islamic nations and Christian churches. The factor making patriarchy a relevant term is that, at every level in any system, women fare worse than men. The entire patriarchy is a pyramid of patriarchies. And, no, there's no management committee. Some men achieved that thousands of years ago; now it's so embedded into human culture that it takes a mental effort to question it.

In short, it's a man's world ...
You could always look this up if you were interested? There's a Wikipedia page.

I meant to add that misogyny forms the basis of much male (patriarchal) bonding. This is why it's an uphill battle to get men to buy into anti-misogyny. It's not that they don't see the harm in other men hassling women or in rapey jokes & comments: they're protecting their membership (masculinity).

I think men in the UK are, very slowly, realising that confident masculinity doesn't need to be proved with a steady stream of misogyny, fights and other tests of dominance. All that shit harms them as well as us. Still, I'm not betting my savings on it just yet.

I think sexism covers male to female oppression, but Patriarchy in my mind describes a system, where like other posters have said, rule of "the Father" applies, and I would add, where violence is an accepted method to apply it. In terms of who this operates on, i would agree that it is damaging to men, but in a different way that it is damaging to women, but is damaging nonetheless. It is possibly the most socially destructive system humans have developed, and it serves to entrench male power over everything and everyone in a strict hierarchy policed overtly and covertly, to keep people in line.

The trouble with the words 'misogyny' and 'sexism' in this context is that they apply more to social interactions; they don't describe the entire social system. They are not in the same category of words such as anarchy, plutocracy, democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, etc.

Good Lord I am not angry. I am just musing over words and language.
That was quite some projection.

I'm just riffing on this; I've never tried to draw a direct comparison before.

Democracy is enacted through an electoral system. It's maintained by a combination of public franchise, cultural approval and judicial control. The cultural buy-in depends on elements such as access to information, freedom to exchange political ideas, and trust in a fair voting system. If we feel any of these are compromised we get angry.

The elements supporting public participation in patriarchy would include things like a belief that men are superior to women; woman's purpose is to provide sex and children to man; dominance is crucial to male identity.

I haven't done this all that well, have I. Further thoughts?

Interesting.
Patriarchy can only survive with wide public acceptance, which must mean from a lot of women as well as most men.
What is in it for the women?

No, you’re right - this is the difference between patriarchy (the overall economic and power situation - bad for all) and misogyny (the specific effect of patriarchy on women is that we are hated/marginalised/blamed/the cause of all ill)

Patriarchy is definitely bad for most men as well, it's great for men at the top of the pile and terrible for those at the bottom. Most of the things men blame 'feminism' for, like male suicide levels or women getting custody of kids more are the fault of patriarchy!

A lot of people like the security of being told what to do and not having to think too hard for themselves. Making decisions for other people comes with large amounts of stress.

More men are motivated, for whatever reasons, to push themselves into those leadership roles than women.

It's in all countries all over the world and quite likely basic human nature. There are only a handful of tiny poulations where women are in charge and none where women are truly equal in power.

I disagree that patriarchy persists due to general approval. Y-chromosome bottlenecks indicate it was established by force - of various kinds, perhaps; we don't know exactly. Once men are in all the dominant positions and women are subjugated, women can 'not accept it' all they like but there's fuck all they can do about it.

It's a fact that men are physically bigger than women, and more physically powerful. It's a fact that pregnancy and babies hamper women's autonomy. And that women can be made pregnant against their will.

At least 7,000 years of power imbalance between the sexes naturally leads to cultural assimilation - the powerful gods are male, monarchs are men, armies of men kill each other for resources including women, the vocabulary of leadership is seen as masculine. This is not acceptance; it's defeat. Nobody voted for it.

Now 77.5% of women have access to contraception (WHO). This development only happened 50-ish years ago. The resources, the power and the gods are already in male hands: men no longer need to rape & kill for supremacy (though they still do it). We're adapted to patriarchy, a little like long-serving prisoners who adapt to institutional life. Doesn't mean we want it or will continue to put up with it. We're beginning to question it.