So for the past little while. I've been posting on /r/FeminismUncensored

Mostly asking questions and correcting half truths and falsehoods promoted by misandrists.

But I have been trying to get answers from feminists about their understandings of society. In this post I'll talk about "patriarchy"

So I'd ask quite frequently what people meant by the term.

And the most common answer I'd get in response is that patriarchy is a society where men hold the power and women are excluded from it. And that men actively oppress women.

But this does not make sense.

As anybody who has volunteered in a soup kitchen would tell you. Men as a whole do not wield power. As a man from a disadvantaged background myself, I certainly do not hold any kind of power. And every example of "privilege" I have ever seen from feminists is not something that applied to me or most other men I know. Yet apparently it still makes sense to denigrate innocent young men and inundate them with messages on how horrible they are for being born with a penis.

And so I would press the users there. What makes our current society a "patriarchy"?

One user answered with "The men at the top are selfish assholes who are only looking out for their own benefit. Their motivated by misogyny, capitalist greed, gender essentialism, and all kinds of religious nonsense."

But that doesn't define a patriarchy. Those men are not in power because they are men. They are in power because they are wealthy. And they're certainly not making policies to benefit other men. That's why male victims of rape are forced to pay child support to their rapists.

What they described. Is a plutocracy.

And so I continued to press them as to why the main relevant factor being focused on in the wealthy elite was their gender.

And they couldn't give an answer. They would just give repeated examples of the shitty ways women have been treated in the past. To which I refuted with examples of men being treated in similarly shitty ways.

Women don't have reproductive rights?

Neither do the rape victims paying child support to their rapist.

Women had to stay home and couldn't vote.

Men had to fight in the wars and also couldn't vote.

At every level the issue is a combination of outdated gender roles that were formed out of a need to survive and reproduce efficiently. and plutocracy. which is mostly male. But that's because seeking out leadership positions (which were historically dangerous) is part of the male gender role. Not because the male hivemind has decided to oppress the women we love.

So why is it that they still insist that the gender of the ruling elite is relevant?

My theory is that they don't understand human bias.

Men are seen in a less positive light than women. And there's evidence for this in numerous areas.

There's the prison sentencing disparity.

There's the women are wonderful effect.

There's Gamma bias.

Just the other day I found this.

Research literature suggests that clinical judgments of men's versus women's behavior and symptoms typically rate the men as more pathological and dangerous. To determine whether this view would extend to assessments of psychologically aggressive actions, two separate versions of a survey listing potentially psychologically abusive behaviors perpetrated by either a wife toward her husband or the identical actions perpetrated by a husband toward his wife were sent to a nationwide sampling of practicing psychologists. Results indicated that psychologists, irrespective of demographics, rated the husband's behavior as more likely to be psychologically abusive and more severe in nature than the wife's use of the same actions.

There's clear cut evidence across the board that people are biased to see men as perpetrators. And women as victims. And this IMHO is why feminists continue to define plutocracy in gendered terms.