Often feminists are bashed for simply blaming the patriarchy, or railing at the patriarchy as if it is something that feminists are powerless against and as if it is the root of most of the problems.

Today something snapped and I realised that they are right. There is a patriarchy and it is anti-women.

It is however, also anti-men. It's the patriarchy that puts out media showing that men are inept and women are fickle. It says that women should have the attitude of Beyonce and that men are all losers.

It's the patriarchy that somehow makes it acceptable for white knights to come up to a couple arguing in public and come out with (I'm British, this will sound British) "Excuse me doll, is he bothering you?". I've seen that hundreds of times and each time it's some wanker thinking that no matter what a woman can't be wrong if she's arguing with a man and that another man should intervene (and maybe even get laid). It isn't women that sleaze like that, it's men. It's us men who high five and make lewd comments, even though each single one of us feels it's inappropriate - we do it because it's the way we've been taught to act together. We've also been taught to ostracise those who don't take part.

It's the patriarchy that panders to women. That prattles on about breast cancer awareness, yet it's mens cancer that needs the attention. Why? Because women are (broadly speaking) happy for that to happen, and men want to look like they are sensitive and care.

And it's the patriarchy that listens to fake rape claims. It's dicks that go about spouting off about bashing people's heads in that are accused of rape.

So the next time I see the patriarchy mentioned, I'm going to understand it to mean a male dominated society that promotes both male and female priveledge and weakness. It promotes overstated gender roles.

Where does mensrights fit in for me after all that? Well, not much different at all. I believe that men are discriminated against. Men have unrealistic expectations made of them. Men have untrue stereotypes put around by the media which are accepted as truths... and then further increased untrue strereotypes are put about by the media since the ones they were putting about are no longer seen to be funny/extreme.

And what's the real word for the patriarchy? Society. Because it doesn't matter if feminists got their way with positive discrimination and ended up in control - they'd remove some of the anti-women stuff that still exists, but they'd maintain the anti-male stuff just the same. Additionally we shouldn't feel anything when society is referred to as a patriarchy - we're supposed to feel ashamed as if it's our fault. It's not. It's not a team game, it's not men vs women. I don't give a fuck about thugs, white knights and cuckolded men - I'm not on a team with them, they don't speak for me and I'm not responsible for their pandering and patronising.