Patriarchy is a conspiracy theory.

TheGutterPup · 2013-02-14T03:22:21+00:00

Yea, right. You must be working for the Reptiles.

The-New-Flesh · 2013-02-14T06:56:52+00:00

From what I've read and discussed, patriarchy is defined in a misleading way, applied as a linguistically manipulative tool and appealed to as a nearly invisible, yet ever present, looming, yet unverifiable explanation for all social ills. There are a few different definitions of the term, the OED defines a patriarchy as "a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it". I'de argue that the most common definition is something of the form; "A society in which men hold power and women do not", which fits a bit more with your assertion. However, the problems with these definitions are still quite manifest.

The first problem stems from definition's use of the fallacy of composition, which occurs when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole. If we employ this definition of patriarchy, then, I believe we can say, categorically, that a patriarchy has never existed. Why? Well, because there has never been a society in which all or most men have held power. The intention may be to state that a patriarchy is a society in which most of the positions of power have been occupied by men, but that is not how the term is defined. The term is fallacious inasmuch as we believe that it is descriptive of the real world, and as soon as you accept a false premise, it can be leveraged to get you to accept anything (just ask Bertrand Russell).

Secondly, the restriction of the term power that often accompanies discussions of patriarchies is unnecessarily restrictive, often misleading and narrows the scope of discussion as to largely exclude society. Power under the social context, is understood to be "the ability to get others to do what they would not otherwise do". It is not restricted to those in high offices in government, military or business. If it were, then people such as Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr. would not have been powerful figures. To narrow our definition of power as to only include those in these types of high offices, is, necessarily, to exclude the vast majority of society from our focus, as the vast majority of society do not occupy these positions. The fallacy of composition prohibits us from equating the composition of the narrow subgroup of society we define as "the powerful" to the composition of society as a whole. Unless, of course, if we can identify and explain a mechanism which confers properties from this subgroup unto its whole.

Thirdly, this definition's co-option of the terms men, power and society from their generally understood definitions, causes its users to reason poorly by way of confusing the general meanings of these terms with their "patriarchal" meanings (which are not the same).

Fourthly, if we clean up our definition of patriarchy to mean "a society in which the majority of members in high offices in government, business or military are male", we largely relegate the term to a verifiable (in some cases, confirmed) but uninformative one. The majority of the members in high offices in government, business and the military are also right-handed. Does this mean we live in a right-handocracy?

CosmicKeys · 2013-02-14T06:38:52+00:00

Completely agree. It's got everything. The secret behind-the-schenes operators, the circular explanations, the unfalsifiability.

Deansdale · 2013-02-14T13:01:03+00:00

It's also a conspiracy theory in how it came to existence according to feminists. There was the holy matriarchy, and one day about 10-12 thousand years ago all the men on the entire planet sneaked out at night to have a secret meeting. They have agreed that from then on they will oppress and hate women. They have also agreed on the methods: they will oppress women by doing all the hard and dangerous work themselves on the fields, in the mines, etc., while the women were staying home in comfort and security.

And not one man raised his voice against such a conspiracy.

And this whole system gets passed down from generation to generation without any info or details getting out, anything leaked to women.

And billions of men are active participants despite nobody ever telling them anything about this conspiracy: not their fathers, not their teachers. They only learn about it from feminists, if that.

And billions of men are active and willing participants in this patriarchy from which they get no advantage or "privilege" whatsoever. On the contrary: they have to work more, their life expectancy is shorter, their chances of living in the streets or getting into prison are way higher, and so on.

rightsbot · 2013-02-14T02:40:18+00:00

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captainmagictrousers · 2013-02-14T13:16:35+00:00

I think we are doing ourselves a disservice by thinking like this. Almost no one, not even the worst feminazi, defines patriarchy like that. I personally have some big disagreements with patriarchy theory but we have to stay level headed and not get silly if we want to be taken seriously.

StarFscker · 2013-02-14T10:59:10+00:00

this just occurred to you?

rapiertwit · 2013-02-14T13:51:50+00:00

Same thing occurred to me.

Having once fallen down the rabbit hole of political conspiracy theory and drug myself out of it, it was an interesting revelation.

MyHoop-D · 2013-02-14T23:32:53+00:00

I do not agree.

"It is not much different than believing in the illuminati or the new world order, or any of the other stuff floating around." It's completely different. Conspiracy theories like the ones involving the Illuminati or the New World Order rely on circumstantial, coincidential, or completely unrelated evidence. Patriarchy relies on only two forms of evidence: historic, and empirical. While Patriarchy as a system may not be as prevalent or overt as it was even a few decades ago (i'm looking at you, 1950's), to compare it to something as baseless as a conspiracy theory is not only unfair, but irresponsible.

"It's a way to say that those who are in power, are secretly trying to control everything you do, and to oppress you using all kinds of invisible manipulative strings." This is not what makes conspiracy theories untrue or undeserving of respect/consideration. The notion that the people in power are doing something sinister to keep themselves in power is an idea as old as civilization itself, and isn't exclusive to conspiracy theories.

"I think putting patriarchy theory into that category of conspiracy theory is to our advantage." Of fucking course you do. Of course it's advantageous to hand-wave your opponent's grievances as superstition like you're trying to do. What are you even trying to say with that statement that wasn't already said in the title of your post?

DavidByron · 2013-02-15T18:19:07+00:00

Correct, but it's more like say, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion than the Illuminati stuff, because it all based on denigrating a birth group (men vs jews). Hate movements typically have a variety of such conspiracy theories to justify their hatred and help spread it. In addition to the Patriarchy conspiracy theory there are:

the Wage gap myth -- a conspiracy theory that says men hate women and conspire to pay them all less money even though it would be bad for their businesses to do so

"Rape culture" -- a conspiracy theory that says men love raping women and have designed and run society to make raping women easy and popular (apparently they haven't hurd rape (of women) is illegal).

And in general a long list of stories and lies about how men as a group are evil and oppress women.

Greyalpha · 2013-02-14T04:41:33+00:00

The thing about the patriarchy idea is that you can't really deny that we haven't lived in a patriarchal society for most of human development, that is to say men were the leaders of government and households. That said I don't think we live in one today, however I would leave that up for debate (pending largely on what you are defining as a patriarchy). I would say however that a lot of the gender roles we have in place today stem from the patriarchal society of our ancestors. The problem I have with the concept of the patriarchy as presented by contemporary feminism is two fold:

1) It makes the implication that gender roles under the patriarchy were both chosen by men, and made solely for the benefit of men.

and

2) It is used to dismiss male issues as lesser in magnitude or unimportant.

That problem with calling the patriarchy a 'conspiracy theory' is that it really isn't. Like many forms of societal structure it could be argued that we still live in such a society (politicians/other leaders are predominately men ect.) I think what is far more important is that we make it clear that the gender roles that we live under today are not necessarily a result of the patriarchy, but rather a throw back to the days of patriarchy.

thereisnosuchthing · 2013-02-14T08:28:50+00:00

It's a way to say that those who are in power, are secretly trying to control everything you do, and to oppress you using all kinds of invisible manipulative strings.

Uh, we are..

People only pretend that's a "conspiracy theory" when it's set in the context of reptilian aliens ruling planet earth or the jews controlling everything. In reality, that's what the small(relative to the greater population, the masses) group of powerful/wealthy men at the top of the social ladder have been "conspiring"(cooperating or competing within a sphere of accepted cooperation against outsiders) to do since the beginning of nation-states.

Small groups of wealthy, powerful individuals or families seeking to gain greater and greater influence, power(control over others and the affairs of others), wealth, and the means to hold that wealth, until eventually we can form the perfect society(not for you).

That's pretty much reality and isn't so much debated. If you think it is otherwise then you're a retard and need to go talk to any freshman year polysci student.

that's how we have achieved and maintain such a high standard of living compared to everyone else - there IS a new world order, we LIVE IN the fucking "new world", and it's totally and fully restructured the world order in every way, economically, financially, militarily - any culture or society which has not been as yet assimilated, or more importantly, poses any kind of threat WHATSOEVER, is ridiculed, threatened, invaded, occupied, or destroyed. All the former great powers of the OLD WORLD ORDER fall beneath it's foot. Look at every arab state(with, most importantly, a culture unlike ours, with their own independent banking system and laws governing finance - importantly the forbidding of charging interest on loans) who has threatened to decouple the sale of their oil from the dollar.

Iraq.(nuclear weapons! terror terrorism!) Libya.(al'qaeda) Syria.(terrorismly democratically elected secular government)

Iran.(nuclear weapons!al'qaeda)

See ya. We already live in the "new world order", making it a nebulous unbelievable conspiracy theory makes you a fucking retard.

and yes. That is what we do. It's what human beings do; and you're being ridiculous.

proofs of it's existence are as hand-wavy as any conspiracy theory (lol)

the only THEORY is the one recently sprung up in the West(or given out to the public here since the advent of Public Relations as a profession), that the powerful and wealthy do not form an elite ruling class or aristocracy that, as always throughout history, seeks in continual mutual benefit to achieve and maintain as great a level of power and control over everything of worth(including human resources and the mechanism used to profit off of every single hour worth of human labor, being the only real wealth - money - given to those who need it as a way to be charged for the privilege of expending your own sweat equity or being charged for the privilege of laboring for the day) - and that anyone who suggests that this happens, has happened, or is happening, is crazy and that could never happen ..cuz 'Murica.

That's the only hand-wavy one there really is - and you're one of those people.

If you don't "believe in" this, then you're pretty much on par with those guys buying guns and listening to Christian Talk Radio and demanding to see Obama's non-muslim card and birth cert. None of this requires big spooky conspiracy-meetings(although those happen, but by virtue of having the power and being established, there's no need for secrecy ..but the organizations acting as intelligence apparatus and armies for them have absurd tiers of secrecy infrastructure, systems of classification and special compartmentalization of said classified information).

Read Smedley Butler, it's been this way since the late 1800s/early 1900s here at least, and it is extremely normal throughout history. You're an idiot.

Title	Patriarchy is a conspiracy theory.
Author	dalsgaard
Upvotes	11
Comments	33
Date	February 14, 2013 2:39 AM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/mensrights/comments/18hl3n/patriarchy-is-a-conspiracy-theory/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/patriarchy-is-a-conspiracy-theory.1606248 https://theredarchive.com/post/1606248

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