I’m not sure if this counts as a book report, but it is inspired bt an academic article so… close enough? ~

The patriarchy is not one single system under which all male superiority and female subordination occurs equally. In different cultures and different time periods, social norms are applied differently and women have responded differently. Usually these responses offer some kind of benefit to women, but in our society there is no benefit! (By ‘our’ society I mean the western liberal society many of us live in. There are surely many similarities between my analysis of western culture and the bargains made by women in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, but I don’t have the authority to speak definitively on that.)

Deniz Kandiyoti distinguishes two models of patriarchal power systems based on individual responsibilities and women’s responses.

The first is the Sub-Saharan model. (I believe Kandiyoti is writing about a more ‘traditional’ village-type system. Keep in mind this article was published in the 80s and based on even older research.) Women essentially trade monogamy and a nuclear-style family in exchange for more freedom. If the man isn’t around to care for the kids or financially support the family, then he isn’t her priority. Wives might abandon their husbands, refuse to care for the household ie not cooking and cleaning, negotiate her time and pay if she works on his farming plots, or not work on his plots at all if she has a craft or commodity to sell in the marketplace. Women do not have the same freedoms as men— hence this being a form of patriarchy, but she responds to her situations in such a way that she receives some benefit. Women still have some freedoms, like the freedom to pursue her own business pursuits and the freedom from slaving under her husband at home.

The second model is the Classic patriarchy, which is more familiar to our society. Think 50’s doting housewife and working husband. In this model, women experience power cyclically. She is married off and lives with her husband, probably near or with his family. She is constantly fighting for his attention, his affections, and his approval because these forms of validation have been given to his mother for his entire life. The young wife is powerless, but she responds by bargaining. She trades her time, energy, youth, body in exchange for her husband’s financial support and the hope she can usurp the mother-in-law as the most powerful woman in the family. So the wife cooks, cleans, bears children, and lets her husband fuck her with the hope that she will one day have influence in the household. Typical bangmaid.

The problem with the second model (well… one of the problems) is that women still adhere to this exchange despite being able to financially support themselves. We can get a quality education, we can have high-paying jobs, we can own property. Why are we still giving our time and energy and bodies to men who do not give a fuck about us unless they are fucking us, and even then they only care about the hole they are currently fucking and the holes they wish they were fucking?

I have been noticing more and more that men at my work expect me to talk to them about their days, listen to them, and spend time with them just because we are in the same general vicinity. No, I will not give you my phone number. No, I will not go to the beach with you. No, I am not free after work. Why, by the way, do you think I would go anywhere with you (a stranger) after work (9pm)? I don’t even know your name. Do they ever ask anything about me and my life? Of course not.

Part of FDS is recognizing what men are offering us in exchange for our time and access to our bodies— both of which are valuable. If a HVM wants something from you, he will offer something at least as equally valuable in exchange. If he wants to date you, he will pursue you: finding out what you like, relating to you in some way, making you laugh. He will not feel entitled to your time or body because he recognizes that you are valuable. If he does succeed in getting a date with you, he will express his gratitude by planning the date, paying, being respectful throughout, texting you after to verbally express that he had a good time and hopes to see you again. If a man does not offer some benefit to you or add value to your life, then he is not worth your time.

​

~This post is getting a bit long, so I’ll cut it off. I hope some of you found it insightful. We all have a duty to seek out relationships which benefit us and support women who do the same! If people like this kind of thing, there are plenty of other readings I can breakdown or summarize (including some chapters of Pornland by Gail Dines for fans of the pod?). If anyone wants a pdf let me know and I’ll try to post it.

Deniz Kandiyoti, Bargaining with Patriarchy (Gender & Society, vol. 2, no. 3, Sept. 1988), 274–290.