Patriarchy

OxygenWaster02 · 2022-08-10T23:19:01+00:00

Heres the way I think of it, male dominance didn't emerge from the desire of men to disenfranchise women for their unilateral benefit. Instead, gender roles themselves emerged to fit the needs of a class society. The needs of class society, in turn, had given rise to both male disposability and women's subordination

An archived paper I stumbled across on the web a couple months ago does a pretty good job of summarizing it: http://isj.org.uk/theories-of-patriarchy/

a-man-from-earth · 2022-08-11T00:11:33+00:00

Just because the people in power are majority men does not mean that men in general have the power, or that those in power rule in a way that benefits men in general.

a-man-from-earth · 2022-08-11T00:08:57+00:00

Brandwein · 2022-08-11T05:34:51+00:00

"men dictate how society is run" is seen as such because the person being the spokesperson, going up to the crowd and making the speeches, is most of the time a man.

It doesn't attribute at all what goes on behind the scenes. People look at the person put on the pedastal as "the hero" "the king" "the president", but don't look at the people who drove and motivated the man to order the executive decisions. He takes the fall when something goes wrong too, the women behind him don't most of the time. You see the gremium of the 1% standing at the front, but don't see the 80% women standing at the base urging them to do things through complex social dynamics, whereas 99% of men stand below those women in the mud having no say at all and being invisible.

In my view society is always in an equilibrium through complex factors that actually achieve near equality in power already, we are just blind to many of these factors due to bias.

If you want to continue saying "patriarchy" then it needs to be defined as a neutrum where men take the fall for women just as often if not more, than they dominate them.

frackingfaxer · 2022-08-11T00:54:48+00:00

If patriarchy is defined as men running the world for the benefit of men as a whole and at the expense of women, then the existence of systemic discrimination against men would in fact disprove patriarchy. At most, one could say that a small group of men at the upper echelons of society made the rules for their benefit and at the expense of the vast majority of men.

EricAllonde · 2022-08-10T23:52:05+00:00

Simple:

Women comprise more than 53% of eligible voters. No party can be elected without women's support. That sounds to me like women are the ones dictating how society is run.

If we really lived in a patriarchy, someone could start "The Anti-Patriarchy Party" with a promise to smash it, and they'd take power at the next election.

It's all such nonsense.

Blauwpetje · 2022-08-11T06:46:49+00:00

Facts.

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/2020-update-for-every-100-girls-part-i/

vegano-aureo · 2022-08-11T09:24:34+00:00

Patriarchy was real but it doesn't mean that it is a society by Men for Men like feminist want you to believe. The feminist definition is a sexist conspiracy theory.

Patriarchy is a Greek word and it means rule of the father not man. It is a social structure for pre industrial society where the society was divided into households that where hierarchical and lead by a father who had a lot of privileges but also duties. Especially the duties aren't recognised today.

Patriarchy was a social structure designed to preserve wealth and pass it down patrilinealy. That is the reason for monogamous marriage and especially insistance on female fidelity. In a society without paternity tests female promiscuity threatened the very core of that society.

So the patriarch had control of the other members of the household. Meaning that irrespective of you being born male or female your father decided what you work and who you are allowed to marry. If you actually read about the private lives of people from for example letters that are hundreds of years old you will also see that although the father had the ultimate say they listened to their wives and children because people love each other and want the best for there family. But theoretically the patriarch could force you to obey him.

Preindustrial society had a massive problem with poverty and if the household would have been divided equally among the siblings than nobody would have had enough property to survive. So in most cases one or two brothers inherited all and all the others where left with nothing. That means most men never became a patriarch. They where mostly forced to work on somebody elses farm as a farm hand. They were subject to the patriarch just like the maids in that household and could be thrown out at any moment. Some tried their luck as a an artisan or construction worker in the city but many failed and became beggers eventually starving or freezing in the winter. Also there was the option to join the military or the church. But these men where forbidden from marriage because they couldn't sustain a family.

Overpopulation was a real threat. So they limited marriages and doomed most men and women to a life of inceldom and femceldom. There was a tremendous animosity between the sisters who found a husband and those who didn't and the same between brothers. Many of the unmarried people still fell in love and the best way to stop that was heavy slut shaming and bastard shaming because women where in direct control of reproduction.

The society was not to privilege men. It's aim was to consolidate intergenerational wealth and pass it down patrilinealy. It was to separate the haves from the havenots and most men where in the second category.

It also shows why men were and still are objectified as providers "success objects". As a man your social standing is determined by what you have and what you can do. Men are in toxic feminity an opportunity to acquire unearned upwards mobility. Your standing in society was largely determined by the standing of your husband. People still think like that. If a woman marries a rich guy she joins the elite if a guy married a rich woman he drags her down.

One aspect that is one of the main reasons for the demonization of men is the fact that many men that were left behind turned to crime. It was quite successful way to make living considering that there was no police. The first forms of police appeared as proto Police in the metropolitan cities of imperial Rome than disappeared. Then Police forces where formed slowly around the time of French Revolution and only in big cities. So the world was full of bandits and men had to be primed to fight them on their own. Even normal men turned bandits in the winter because of poverty or pirates like in the Caribbean colonies. Working on a farm for the rest of the year.

So men had to be ready to fight other men to the death on the drop of a hat. That is why the Hero story is the main story of the patriarchal culture. Protect the innocent women from the evil men. That is the reason why today Men still kill each other like crazy. 80% of murderers being male and killing 80% only other men. That is also the reason why so many times a man will help a woman kill another man and only very rarely a woman will help a man kill another woman. If you listen to what these men say it is things like " when she told me about him I knew he deserved to die and the world would be better without him". They don't even know these guys. Listen to men talk about men. Most people including men think the problem of the world is all the evil men out there.

I first realized this bias in my self playing the elder Scrolls oblivion as a teen. Half of humanoid enemies in the game are female. After killing the female bandits I felt bad. I wanted to have a feature to talk them out of being a criminal. I had no such feelings to male enemies ever and it really made me think. I realized how dehumanised Men actually are in our culture and that I had already killed thousands of male characters without a second thought and watched thousands be murdered by the hero in action scenes. Female characters aren't dehumanised and demonized in the same way. Most men even love this arrangement because they think they just have to be one of the good guys and they profit but they don't realize that the evil men category is dangling over their heads too. They can easily be perceived as one of "those" men and be dehumanised in a heartbeat. I realized why the teachers always took the side of the girls in arguments between a girl and a boy. I understood why my teachers some times where incredibly harsh and unempathetic towards us. I saw them looking at me like I was everything that was wrong with the world. If they would have listened they would have seen that my behaviour and my opinion is understandable but they were to busy saving the girl and being one of the good men.

When I got to know that men are discriminated against in court and by police and women are incredibly privileged in that regard I was not surprised in the least. I recognized the underlying ideology in myself too.

People even want more humane prisons for female criminals appealing to the humanity of these women and the fact they don't advocate for the same for men shows they don't recognize the humanity in male offenders.

So many things about our modern culture make sense when you learn about the circumstances of the lives people used to live hundreds of years ago. It is only sad, that we are not an introspectiv species that actually reflects on their own culture objectively and honestly trying to re-evaluate it. We just continue with unconscious bias for centuries and it takes decades of extreme effort to change things.

There were also matriarchal societies and there still are a few out there. Feminists romanticise it incredibly. I am very interested in these societies and would even be interested in the sexism against women in matriarchies but every thing you read or watch about it is portraying it as a paradise. I never encountered a critical and thorough analysis of these societies which is a major interest for me. But our society is not ready.

Subversive · 2022-08-11T11:03:12+00:00

Debunk it with hard evidence. Respond with the same social indicators that are used to demonstrate disadvantage in other marginalised groups:

Life expectancy
Educational achievement
Workplace injuries & death
Suicide rates
Disparities in the legal system
Substance abuse rates

M_Salvatar · 2022-08-11T07:38:27+00:00

The men who make those decisions, do for the benefit of their wives and kids, not for the benefit of other men. So it isn't patriarchy, it's shadow matriarchy.

hangfrog · 2022-08-11T11:48:01+00:00

I define patriarchy as a system of male-dominance.

That isn't the accepted definition of "patriarchy", which is authority through male lineage.

"Patriarchy theory" is different again, and as far as I understand it, boils down to undervaluing traditionally feminine behaviours through inherant bias in our political and economic systems. It does not necessarily therefore benefit all men. Under this definition it actually impacts the majority of men (those who do not conform to solely masculine behaviours) negatively in the form of social pressure to be as traditionally masculine as possible. Pointing out that not all men benefit is actually part of the theory.

MooreanShiftingUrArg · 2022-08-12T16:22:17+00:00

Why should we accept such a weak definition? If I were to add on the condition "... AND the ruling men act to increase systemic advantages for men and systemic disadvantage for women." would I be less correct?

Which one of us is right? If we talk purely from connotations of the word patriarchy, then my definition is closer to the mark. Or do you think we shouldn't define words as close to their perceived meaning?

Stabby_Feminist · 2022-08-11T03:22:49+00:00

I think it’s like anything. There’s some truth to it. But as people glom onto the idea, it loses its main message and gets ridiculous

Azihayya · 2022-08-11T04:15:54+00:00

Patriarchy does still exist institutionally where there are roles of power that are male-dominated; government is closing that gap, and to a lesser degree police, judges and military, for example--but institutions aren't the only form that patriarchy can manifest, as it can also be manifested socially, which is what I think you'll primarily see discussed these days. For example, men previously benefited from being the heirs to civil society, where as women generally served behind their partner and their partner's interests. The men held occupations in society, as craftsman, specialists, officials, etc, and women were domicile--they could spread rumors, and some women strayed from this role. Then there was a push in war time to include women in production, as industrialization allowed women to increasingly enter the workforce since it began--but only to the extent that they became essentially excess laborers, and you saw this especially in America where women were encouraged into that domestic role (essentially whenever labor needs were filled, women dropped back from the workforce to serve a domestic role). In European countries so many men died that this effect was very pronounced--women now served a much bigger social role than ever before. But in America we didn't have so many casualities--nevertheless, women's rights were moving along and wouldn't be stopped.

You'd hear men in those days lament women in the work force, saying that they should be in the kitchen--I mean that was the most popular phrase. It's become synonymous with misogyny, it's like the poster phrase for misogyny. At some point we all came to accept that it was misogyny--most of us, at least. But all along, as we were moving from silent films to color films, and as the jazz and rock music movements were moving along, our society was dominated by men--and only occasionally would you see women really striving to leave a mark here and there. Female actresses were, of course, in demand--but often their role would be of the classically accepted woman--"one of the good ones", that embodied the characteristics of what society, largely male, thought that a woman should be, whereas the image of men was as we know it the hegemonic male: he was confident, a leader, powerful and demanding. He utilized violence to the effect of seeking retribution.

Now, what I'm getting to here is that these are the media representations that have guided our perceptions for more than a century. Most of the men who are raised today have adopted their notions of what it means to be a man from these sources of media that capture the nostalgia that we embrace when we consider our own masculinity--oftentimes our favorite poets, philosophers, artists and writers have waxed upon the subject of love from the perspective of a hegemonic man. So, we see for example, the way in which Pablo Picasso treats the subject of women, objectifies then in a way, has them pose nude for him as the subject of his art--and seeing these as the representations of high art we seek to replicate them in how we imagine ourselves.

As women have fought to become equals and to retain a place at the table with men--despite their capacity to become pregnant, man's greatest qualm about a woman's ability--they have adapted beautifully to a new world that has largely been inspired by them; and this comes with changes in the way that men relate to women. Formerly from a perspective of viewing women as a quarry of prey, which they can selectively seduce, stalk or otherwise trap, women have distanced themselves from men viewing them understandably as dangerous.

Men, though, have fought against these changes, refused to adapt their thoughts and their concepts of life and love, and calcitrated notions of gender essentialism, often converting to conservatism in an effort to retain their notions of control over women, rather than to self-reflect, reexamine life and find a way to adapt. Now, you might think, "well, I'm capable of that--I do that, but I'm still getting punished"--and you might be right; but what's really important is that men overall, men in general, begin to change. As of now the most abortive mistake of the men's rights movements is that we are hyper focused on shifting blame to anyone else but men, desperate to see men as victims, particularly of women and particularly of feminism, even though it is blatantly obvious that the biggest hurdle to overcoming men's issues is in fact men ourselves.

Consider for example circumcision, or perspectives on male rape, or mandatory male military service, or even male incarceration rates--who do you think is the most outspoken antagonists for these ideas? Who do you think is in power who are mostly not realizing these ideas? It's fuckin' men, guys.

Stop being so dense about it. Men really do embrace social patriarchalism. Conservative men are not out there batting for feminism, or for men's rights. They're out there batting for hegemonic masculinity, Christian nationalism, for fascism.

Cunari · 2022-08-10T22:36:47+00:00

I’d argue that in male hierarchies winner takes all whereas in female hierarchies the power is more evenly distributed. So that although there are powerful men on top as a whole group women have more power.

Men have only gotten on top by taking power from other men

craite · 2022-08-11T11:37:38+00:00

A patriarchy in which men experience systemic discrimination although the people in power are men means that these men are either unable or unwilling to prevent this discrimination. But then it's questionable how dominant men really are in this "patriarchy". At best in a very negligible, limited way. This definition isn't really compatible with the feminist narrative in which men enjoy clear privileges. I would question whether this should be labeled as a patriarchy because it does not meet the necessary criteria to be one.

mimmimmim · 2022-08-11T12:27:21+00:00

Basically, men dictate how society is run, generally. Under this definition, pointing out that men suffer systemic discrimination does not disprove patriarchy, as the people in power that allow this discrimination to happen are (generally) men. How would you debunk this argument?

I wouldn't. This functions as a definition, and other than ambiguity as to what exactly "men" making decisions means, I could be willing to grant it describes countries that exist today, if you mean the individuals in charge are men, as opposed to men as a group.

The problem with this is that it doesn't well describe or encapsulate the things people attribute to patriarchy. For example, if I picked the most traditionalist and conservative women out of the entire US, and filled the government with them, that society would no longer be patriarchal. No matter how much those women enforced traditional gender roles on everyone else, it would never be patriarchy.

Meanwhile, if I did the reverse, and took the most progressive and liberal men and filled the halls of power with them, no matter how pro-choice they all were, or how much they explicitly favored women over men in legislation, we would still have to consider this system patriarchal.

As a descriptivist I think these instances contradict how the term is actually overwhelmingly used, and therefore this definition cannot itself be accurate to the term. You can hold that definition if you want, but you'll forever be having a very different discussion than everyone else.

Edit:

To think of it another way, it is like if I said I defined creationism as "any time new life is brought forth". Sure, this accurately describes our world, in that new animals are born every second, but it fails to reconcile with what creationism actually is used to mean, so it isn't like I could go around telling other people creationism is true and have them understand.

politicsthrowaway230 · 2022-08-11T21:07:12+00:00

>men dictate how society is run

The people with political power are largely men, which is different. Men collectively do not do such a thing. Talking like this you end up using the word "men" to describe several disjoint groups with vastly different levels of power, and who have no desire to protect each-other's interests. (which is why the whole "then why did men make it that way?" is a complete non-sequitur, not the same class of men) Ultimately to make this a useful statement you'd need at least a few adjectives tacked on.

Title	Patriarchy
Author	bloodfuel
Upvotes	29
Comments	47
Date	August 10, 2022 9:33 PM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/wl9h7c/patriarchy/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/patriarchy.1126848 https://theredarchive.com/post/1126848

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