How to respond to the "we're not blaming men, we're blaming patriarchy" line

fengpi · 2017-11-28T03:14:55+00:00

Just say: "patriarchy" is your dishonest euphemism for "all men."

And if they dispute that, point out that users of the term obsessively play-up the connections between "patriarchy" and maleness all the time and think that reducing the number of men within an organization makes it "less patriarchal," etc.

Or simply quote the very radical feminists out there who are honest enough to openly say that "patriarchy" is another word for "men".

EricAllonde · 2017-11-28T03:43:38+00:00

Feminists could have chosen to use a more precise term, such as "traditional gender roles". But they didn't. They deliberately chose to use a male term to represent the thing that is equivalent to Satan in their religion.

In fact they were so determined to use an existing male term, they picked a word ("patriarchy") which has a completely different meaning and have been trying to redefine it with a new, feminist meaning ever since.

They really, really didn't want to use a dry, precise & accurate term like "traditional gender roles", even though that term does not carry all the baggage of a redefinition of "patriarchy" and would not attract the same accusations of misandry. Politically and strategically, choosing to attempt to redefine "patriarchy" was a very bad, very dumb move.

So why did they do it? I think the "patriarchy" proponents just really wanted a way to verbally express their misandry and blaming of men for all their unhappiness. My theory is that different groups of feminists were pushing for the adoption of each term. But the man-hating group was by far the largest & loudest, so they won the debate and "patriarchy" became the new term for feminist Satan.

rocelot7 · 2017-11-28T03:36:54+00:00

We can't call them policemen any more, that's sexist, they're police officers now. They're not firemen, that's sexist, they're firefighters. Not chairmen, chairperson.

But patriarchy? No that's fine.

Or

So let me get this straight? You live in one of the wealthiest nations in the world, you're part of the most educated group in human history, you're healthier than most, if not all, other groups, you live longer, your less likely to experience poverty, go to jail, and/or suffer from any and all violent crime. Yet you live under a patriarchy? Tell me again how oppressed you are.

Ted8367 · 2017-11-28T03:21:15+00:00

You could try asking them to what extent do men contribute to the patriarchy. And then, to what extent do women contribute to the patriarchy. Their answers will probably be some attempt to deflect or obfuscate. If so, ask the same question again, maybe in other words, "for clarification". Continue as far as you can tolerate it.

5th_Law_of_Robotics · 2017-11-28T13:23:24+00:00

Ask them if someone who ties all the world's problems back to an international Zionist conspiracy is limiting their hatred only to that conspiracy, or if maybe they just don't like Jews.

roxythefantastic2 · 2017-11-29T15:13:15+00:00

Okay, hear me out for a second?

From what I've seen on other threads in this subreddit, you guys seem to be open to respectful debate, so I don't think I'm intruding, but if I am, please let me know.

I'm a 25-year-old woman, and I think men and women should be treated fairly. If I were on a feminist forum, I'd just call that being "feminist", but since I've been lurking here for a few days, I understand that the word doesn't imply the same thing to some of you, and I think you have some good reasons for that.

The patriarchy thing: I was raised religious, and I think that's the best example I can think of, of what a true patriarchy looks like. In my former religion, only men were allowed to be leaders, men are automatically the heads of their household, and women should always defer to their judgment. One of the leaders of my former religion even said that women are not equipped to be the heads of their household because their brains are smaller than male brains. At another time, one of those religious leaders said that women who are actually smarter than their husbands should downplay it so that their husband doesn't feel insecure in his headship. Women outnumber men in that religion, and are the driving force behind it, and yet, they aren't allowed leadership positions, and they have to cover their heads if they pray in the presence of a baptised male, even if that male is their ten-year-old son.

So having experienced an actual patriarchy, I'm a bit slow to label any but the most extreme cases of male-led societies as such.

That said, I do think our societies began as patriarchies. I'm using our laws as an example. In the olden days, it was forbidden for women to own property. That can only happen in a patriarchy.

I think the feminist movement did a lot to help women, and I think it began in a time when we were living in, or not so far from, a true patriarchy. Over time, however, I think we've, as a society, started to move towards equality. I don't necessarily mean all our practices currently reflect equality. What I mean is that the dominant culture values equality for races, genders, sexual orientations etc.

Here's my view on the idea that we're currently living in a patriarchy: I think our societies started out that way, so that's what the foundation of our society is. When we realised that this wasn't the best way to live, we changed our values and started taking steps to correct the patriarchal structure of our society. Women can now own property. Women are allowed to drive and to hold positions of leadership. I think that as a society, when we find evidence that some of our values aren't in line with equality, we tend to try to change them.

But because our society began as a patriarchy, we shouldn't be surprised to find vestiges of that system in place. For example, women are now allowed to be in leadership positions, right? But we're still woefully underrepresented, and there are a number of reasons for that, but I don't think it would be logical to dismiss the possibility that the foundation of our society as a patriarchy is at least partially responsible for that.

And you're right - It's not like the olden days when all men really were oppressing all women by not allowing them to own property, and by saying that men are allowed to rape their wives, because a wife is the property of her husband. But honestly, even though I keep calling those days the "olden" days, they're not so far behind. It's only recently that the law was passed that said men could be prosecuted for raping their wives. Some places still don't have that law in place. In my country, a man is allowed to rape his wife with impunity unless very specific situations are in place e.g. they're separated, or she has a protection order against him from the court. Donald Trump's lawyer, in response to an allegation that Donald raped his wife Ivana, reportedly said "a man can't rape his wife".

So... we don't live in a true patriarchy anymore, but we did begin that way, and we will occasionally see vestiges of that system. Some of those dying remnants will be egregious, like the absence of laws against marital rape, and some of them will be subtle and not malicious. We're moving in the right direction where that's concerned.

I think the danger is in overcorrecting by taking legitimate rights away from men, or in refusing to identify vestiges of the patriarchal structure when we see them, and just as dangerous, in crying "patriarchy" over inconsequential things and things that really have nothing to do with our societal origins as a patriarchy at all.

So maybe that's your response? Not a blanket response, but one that takes into account reasonable signs that we were once a patriarchy in the literal meaning of the term, but which also takes into account our progress.

Thanks for reading the whole thing. It was a bit long.

splodgenessabounds · 2017-11-28T06:43:31+00:00

Other than observing that Patriarchy (as feminists use the term) is a weasel word that can be applied to anything they see as "oppressing women", and that it's all but unfalsifiable, I'll just leave this comment here written by someone called Karen Straughan:

Patriarchy, however, is not an inherently oppressive idea. It is simply a way that the base-unit of society--the family--was organized. And it's been the way that societies, large and small, have been organized pretty much since the dawn of time, and for good reason. Families were led by a male head of household, major decisions lay under the aegis of those family leaders, and lines of descent passed through males. That is, quite simply, all patriarchy is. And up until very recently on the continuum of human history, it was the most beneficial system for both men and women. And contrary to what feminists would have you believe, in the west patriarchy is mostly a dead system.

Feminists often point to capital P Patriarchy as the culprit behind all sexism, all oppression of women (though they're finally admitting that "patriarchy harms men too", which is something of a victory for common sense, however small), and the "Othering" of women by men. The way they approach the stark reality of most of human history is from the standpoint that men somehow consciously or willfully constructed and directed femininity for their own benefit, and that women just kind of had to go along with it because they were physically weaker. They presume that masculinity developed under the influence of men alone in such a way that it became attached to characteristics of agency, like strength, action, and virility.

They believe men imposed this system on women, essentially Othering women as a class, and turning even the simple partnership of marriage into a contract of servitude and oppression of women for the benefit of men. What they fail to realize is that patriarchy imposed other characteristics on men than those of agency--disposability, utility, self-sacrifice and resource acquisition--and for the vast majority of our evolutionary past, women were the main beneficiaries and enforcers of these patriarchal gender norms.

MelkorHimself · 2017-11-28T23:04:20+00:00

Karen Straughan gave an excellent overview of feminist language in TRP.

2017-11-28T12:16:21+00:00

Tell them that 'Patri-' comes from Father, and Father denotes a man. So yes, you are blaming men.

You could also say that 'Patriarchy' is so deliberately confusingly generic, that the institution that you end up accusing is virtually the whole male population.

Sasha_ · 2017-11-28T09:56:18+00:00

Patriarchy is basically feminism's version of the doctrine of 'original sin'. As such it is purely faith-based and impervious to empirical evidence. This flaw has led some feminists to propose replacing it with 'kyriarchy' - which adds race, wealth etc. into the mix.

I would simply ask how the idea of patriarchy accounts for male disposability.

Egalai · 2017-11-28T13:02:57+00:00

Just ask them to define patriarchy and watch them flip their brain inside out as they start blaming men for everything

mrwhibbley · 2017-11-28T17:30:19+00:00

It is not patriarchy, it's society. Women make up over 50% of the population. It is unrealistic to assume that they have no influence whatsoever on societal norms beliefs and values. To put 100% of the blame on man is to assume that women had no input, or share no responsibility for their actions or decisions. If this were true then women are in fact week creatures that do require a man to oversee them. If it is not true, then women should start taking responsibility for themselves. It is also unrealistic to assume that men have no value in society. We are the construction workers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, scientist, and engineers, that run this country.

Juan_Golt · 2017-11-28T17:46:52+00:00

The problem is that patriarchy is nebulously defined and basically means "everything bad". It's like a conspiracy theory. It's believers find it true by default unless disproved. Yet when disproved it merely moves to just outside the area of proof. They feel no motivation to prove that patriarchy exists, or even narrowly define what it means. It is their method to push any area of ambiguity into their favor.

The wage gap discussion shows you this in action. No matter how many times/ways it's disproved, it simply moves up a level.

ThrowawayGhostGuy1 · 2017-11-28T22:19:10+00:00

If they responded to logic, they wouldn’t be feminists. You’re out of luck. The best you can do is make them look ridiculous in front of regular people by tripping up over their own words. Even then, you’re taking a risk.

TigPlaze · 2017-11-29T21:30:54+00:00

"Patriarchy" is named after men. What they're saying is equivalent to , "We're not blaming men, we're just blaming men."

moose-rider32 · 2017-11-30T13:27:32+00:00

Have the person define patriarchy (use questions to drill all the details you need) and then hold them to their definition.

This is actually a very good debate tactic with topics that can be vague (like patriarchy). I find either people will use such a soft definition that their stance is agreeable or such a ridiculous definition that you've basically made them clarify their insanity

ExpendableOne · 2017-11-30T16:38:01+00:00

Patriarchy is a fallacy. It presumes that all men are in a position of power/authority, as individuals and as a collective, and that all men are self-serving or serving the interests of other men. None of which is actually even remotely true. It's the delusion misandric people use when they want to blame all men or justify their hatred of all men.

LongDistRider · 2017-11-28T03:04:10+00:00

Children have been blaming their parents, especially their Daddy, for everything under the sun far longer than feminism or MeToo was even a glimmer in their creators' eyes.

Stop blaming others. Do better yourself.

a-man-from-earth · 2017-11-28T04:18:43+00:00

"Define patriarchy"...

aussietoads · 2017-11-28T06:50:24+00:00

Respond with " I'm glad to hear that, because feminism IS patriarchy "

PIG_CUNT · 2017-11-28T08:55:30+00:00

Ask what proof they have that we live in a society that gives men advantages or privileges over women. They will cite the disparities between men and women in average pay per capita (wage gap myth) or number of female CEO’s or engineers, etc.

Point out that disparity does not prove discrimination. If they think it does then by that logic society is matriarchal because there is a huge disparity between men and women in terms of homelessness, unemployment, lack of education, incarceration, prison and jail sentence lengths, child custody, etc. And many jobs are overwhelmingly staffed by females, such as preschool and kindergarten teachers. If disparity means discrimination then men are oppressed and discriminated against in those jobs too.

OR... The sexes behave differently and make different choices. Which is exactly what all the thousands of studies show over the past few decades. Men and women behave differently, which is obvious to anyone who has ever met a man and a woman.

cheshiredudeenema · 2017-11-28T13:27:08+00:00

This is an incredibly well-reasoned piece by Helen Pluckrose that examines what a patriarchy is, what it looked like in medieval England, and why it no longer exists in most of the world. So when people blame things on "the patriarchy", they are misusing the word and they tend to mean societal expectations, usually pertaining to gender. Women obviously contribute to this as well and as Helen explains, they were also influential in the establishment and policing of social norms, even under patriarchy. When people use "patriarchy" nowadays, they seek to blame the establishment and maintenance of societal expectations on men, even though this is clearly false. This absolves women of all agency and responsibility, which should run counter to feminist principles but is sadly something which they embrace heavily these days.

azazelcrowley · 2017-11-28T19:18:13+00:00

Ask them specifically what they mean by it.

If they give the example of legislature being predominantly male, seize on that, point out that many are predominantly feminist too, and then ask them:

"So it would seem that I think the problems are caused by what the people in power believe, and you think the problems are caused by what's between their legs?" or similar.

This can be used for most of their "Men are mostly the ones in power" arguments. There is a feminist regime, and also there is a "Patriarchy." which of those is the thing causing the problem?

The feminist claims it is the thing between their legs that determines their behavior, and we say it is their beliefs. Because of this, there is no reason to suspect replacing men with women in these positions will actually change anything.

Point out that males who go against feminism are in many situations replaced, regardless of whether they are "In power" or not.

IronJohnMRA · 2017-11-29T01:57:03+00:00

The problem is they are going to claim that it's a process, not a group. They see it as some sort of inherent moral failing humans have like tribalism. If we try and get them to admit it's people we will waste too much time and effort trying to get them to narrow it down to particular individuals. Naturally they can switch who they pick. It will always be someone faceless group they can't quite identify. Overall, it's a shell game we can't win. Instead, I'd stick to cause and effect relationships. Like pointing to incentives from economics to disprove the wage gap. This has worked well in the past, I think it will serve us well in the future. We can shattered their delusions one by one, until everyone see's it for the nonsense it is and they have nothing left.

Cardplay3r · 2017-11-29T07:40:22+00:00

Just point out to all the times feminists fight to keep/gain unfair advantagea women have over men. The reasin given for those is always patriarchy thinking it needs to protect women - so point out how they actually love the "patriarchy" when it suits them

KDulius · 2017-11-29T12:26:00+00:00

Have you seen the line Karen takes in The Red Pill.

It's basically "sure, you don't hate men; you just name everything bad after them, and everything good after women"

High-Fruit-Trinity · 2017-11-30T06:27:33+00:00

Patriarchy is made up by a woman's victim mentality. Men do have most powerful positions, but most men are on women's side.
Why are you talking to feminists?

secondclassguy · 2017-11-30T07:25:14+00:00

Talk about blame, who promotes our lusty society, who buys all the makeup, dresses up to entice, the magazines? Who is porn industry mostly made up of, with every fetish you can imagine, yet it's always men who are the evil perverts. Will we ever at least share the blame

LedZeppelin1602 · 2017-11-30T17:46:25+00:00

Patriarchy is men. It's men in power. What I laugh at is they want to smash the patriarchy but don't offer a replacement system of governance.

They'd claim equal numbers of men and women but you'd know they would actually install a matriarchy. And ironically a matriarchy would probably grant less privilege to women than he patraircjy does as women don't bend over backward to please women as men do

Razorbladekandyfan · 2017-11-30T22:57:11+00:00

Do this: send them the fundraiser for the male shelter by CAFE and tell them that this shelter is not being built by repeating the words "patriarchy hurts men too".

secondclassguy · 2017-11-28T06:20:52+00:00

will they ever blame themselves for anything?

ThePigmanAgain · 2017-11-28T09:33:32+00:00

"There is no patriarchy. Blaming the patriarchy is like blaming unicorns. Stop blaming the unicorns."

Blutarg · 2017-11-29T18:08:31+00:00

But we don't live in a patriarchy.

fuyukihana · 2017-11-30T19:49:54+00:00

Well, what they're saying here is that they're blaming the existence of a system in which it is normal for most of the leadership positions to be held by men, not the men themselves, for the oppression that has resulted from that system. It's sort of saying "it's not your fault that things were implemented in accordance with your benefit, you were in charge". The goal in their mind is to get you to see that the system can exist which harms them without the inherent belief that men want to hurt them, or that men are bad, or that men don't understand enough about them to lead in a way that fully supports them. Rather they simply believe that it's a natural product of women not having 50% of the positions in Senate that should the genders disagree on a matter, the Senate would vote in accordance with men's views on the matter. I don't think this is very easy to disagree with unless you simply do not believe that this is what they are saying, at which point you concede that you're believing your own party line's views on what someone else believes, even after they've told you what they believe. But from a pure argument standpoint, no judge would say that a jury made up of mostly women and one man would not have a gender bias. The judge would not be expected to argue that women hate men and don't care about them for the bias to exist and be concerning.

Unconfidence · 2017-11-30T09:17:58+00:00

Accept that it's the truth? Patriarchy is a power structure and most folks in any given structure are not in power. Just because patriarchy has caused problems doesn't mean all men are to blame for this.

It seems like whenever feminists actually say something folks here might agree with you all go out of your way to try to make sure you mischaracterize the point, to the point where the top voted reply on this thread is literally arguing that you should just apply a completely different definition of patriarchy than the one intended by the speaker.

Y'all need to drop the sophistry if you're going to accuse folks of being intellectually dishonest.

2017-11-29T02:25:38+00:00

Go and watch Milo Yiannopoulos on YouTube and you'll have every arguement you'll ever need to defeat the feminazi reich.

Title	How to respond to the "we're not blaming men, we're blaming patriarchy" line
Author	SnugglesMcFluffkin
Upvotes	75
Comments	140
Date	November 28, 2017 3:00 AM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/7g0xgr/how_to_respond_to_the_were_not_blaming_men_were/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/how-to-respond-to-the-were-not-blaming-men-were.910311 https://theredarchive.com/post/910311

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