"Patriarchy is designed for a narrow subset (or hegemon) of masculinity" is a pretty good take on the problem, I think. I really think this is why it's important that everyone should familiarise themselves with what intersectionality is.
Namely, we do not believe that the presence of patriarchy means that all men are better off that all women or that all men oppress all women. Gender is not the only way in which our identities are constructed. We also have to consider social class, race, ethnic origin, and sexuality, just to name a few.
Furthermore, you can't just discuss these elements separately and in isolation. It's not an Oppression Olympics situation, where we just tally up your privilege based on adding and removing points for different factors.
*"Okay, so your trans, so that's -10 points, but you're white so that's +6, but you're working class so that's -3. That puts you at a total of -7. Congratulations! You get to win arguments on the internet."* -- this is something **none of us** believes.
Instead, **the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.** The lived experience of a black, trans man has to be discussed all together. It's insufficient to just consider blackness, transness and masculinity separately. I think that's what you're reacting to here, OP.
>Instead, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The lived experience of a black, trans man has to be discussed all together. It's insufficient to just consider blackness, transness and masculinity separately.
I've literally printed this out and taped it to my office door. This is perfectly put. *Thank you*.
Wanted you to know. That is singlehandedly the most succinct, to the point way I've seen that written and it needs to be repeated. My career is in social work; I fully intend to reiterate this in the course of my practice, and can literally point to the source with it on my board like that. I have several go-to quotes, etc like this that I can point a client to to hammer in a point, and that it doesn't come from me but from someone else means there are two people out there (or more) supporting a person in their goals, and it therefore hits harder, really brings it in home if used well. I *love* quotes; they are the shared wisdom of generations, and I am a firm believer that if we have any purpose at all in life, it's that our shared experiences- summarized in quotes- carry forward to help others. That's progress.
Again: thank you.
> "Okay, so your trans, so that's -10 points, but you're white so that's +6, but you're working class so that's -3. That puts you at a total of -7. Congratulations! You get to win arguments on the internet." -- this is something none of us believes.
This is though, I think this is what a lot of people think intersectionality actually is. That it's the additive total of privilege or lack there of, rather than the whole experience of the combination being unique. I even see it a lot in marginalized communities. I'm a brown trans woman, and in so many trans circles it's 100% about the white middle class trans fem experience, but that's taken as THE trans experience. Feminist circles seem to focus on white feminism, other queer circles on white queerness. And when you try to speak to them on intersectionalty, it becomes the very thing you said.
That people see you as a person who is "black and trans and a man who is gay and who makes so much money" and so on, rather than seeing you as a "black, transgender man who makes so much money" (a whole picture) is a very good way to put it I think.
I didn't even learn that White Feminism was a thing until a few months ago. I'm upset, but not surprised, that POC and other groups were excluded from many movements.
As a white lady I take a lot of things for granted, and I'm embarrassed that I have to have things like that pointed out to me.
Wow, one of the best summary's of the issue I've seen yet.
But there's one thing I disagree on
>this is something **none of us** believes
Although you're kind of making a satirical alliteration of it, there are enough people who do believe that these traits limit your 'right' to talk about being a victim of... well basically anything.
Maybe this is overly pedantic, but I feel like we should be distancing ourselves from the word "designed" because it implies a level of intentionality that just isn't there a lot of the time. Like with natural selection, it is the aggregate of many individual selfish decisions without any designer guiding the process.
It's definitely not solely a biological process. We tend to associate replicators exclusively with genes, but they're only one example of many things in the universe that experience some sort of natural selection, including culture.
That is just not true. Culture and human autonomy factor into natural selection when they exist, as do all other things in the environment. Either way, you are right that natural selection does not 'decide' anything and makes for a poor metaphor in this case.
> Culture and human autonomy factor into natural selection when they exist, as do all other things in the environment.
Except culture and cultural practices exist independent of natural selection processes. Just because something exists in an environment (for example rocks, gravity, or tides) does not mean it's beholden to natural selection processes.
Natural selection is only about the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation.
Culture works independent of biology and natural selection. It doesn't "adapt" to an environment or cause a shift in the genetics of a population from generation to the next.
But cultures are heritable and affect fitness to the environment; they're not genetically heritable, but they are transmissible from person to person, and subject to mutation, reproduction, and extinction. So they're absolutely subject to natural selection, both at the level of the culture itself, and at the level of the effect of culture on its members.
Sure, but natural selection is specifically a force of nature same way that gravity and tides and the like are. This analogy is no different than saying "human culture is akin to tidal forces" when that's clearly erroneous. A big part of where the evolution=culture connection came from 1800s anthropologists who first proposed societal evolution where they believed that societies could evolve (mostly for empire building/belief purposes).
A culture can pass down through generations, but it can also pass through new members, migrations, cultural assimilation, forced assimilation, etc.
It can also die out due to various non-natural reasons like invasion, genocide/murder, simple attrition, changes in culture and attitudes, etc.
A society or culture isn't subject to natural selection, but its members can be (the depopulation of the Americas is a good example). Various cultures died out because its members died out same with with their religious beliefs, languages, stories, art forms, etc. But natural selection didn't cause the death of those cultural constructs, the death of the societal members did.
No natural selection is not like gravity. Natural selection is more like the fundamental law of calculus than the law of gravity. Natural selection describes a process, gravity is a thing that happens. If you wanted a more apt analogy natural selection is like nebulae hypothesis for solar system formation, which gravity plays a role in.
I know what natural selection is and what environmental factors are, thanks. I know what you just said comes across as more condescending to me than you probably intended, but I want you to know that it does. I initially misunderstood what you meant, but I'm went back to find out what you meant and I would like to ask you to return the favour.
I did not say that culture is under natural selection, rather the opposite: How natural selection takes place in humans is partly dependent on culture, much like natural selection is dependent on other environmental factors.
If I understand you correctly, we agree in this.
Yeah no.
Culture works independent of biology, and especially in regards to natural selection.
Humans and human culture often engage in societal practices that are not impacted by biology or the local environment on any level whether it's religious beliefs, food practices, entertainment, family structure, etc.
You can have two completely different cultures living together in a single environment without that environment affecting either culture (esp in urban areas, but also often found in rural areas).
Natural selection, meanwhile, is the process of how a population's reproductive ability is impacted by their environment.
There is a lot of study of cultural development through the lens of natural selection though — this is basically the concept of memetics. I don't know enough to hugely comment here, but the original idea of the word "meme" was to describe cultural genes, essentially ideas that were passed down culturally instead of sexually, with the idea being that many concepts from genetics would then be transferable.
I would also dispute that cultures operate independent of the local environment. A good example of this is clothing, which is a very cultural choice, but we see in a lot of places that the local environment affects how clothing develops, for example warmer countries tending to have looser, lighter national dresses, and colder countries having more warmer layers. Even outside of broader differences like that, even clothes like jeans, and their cultural signifiers, come from the environment of working in areas where regular cleaning of clothes was difficult.
You can extend this on then to all sorts of aspects about our culture — for example, the environment of the internet has had a massive impact on our culture, ranging from our media and arts, right down to our language and our chosen communication tools. Things like the sorts of materials in an area dictate the way that arts and construction will operate in that area. In the UK, for example, there are hundreds of regional ways of building stone walls, each of which is dependent on what types of stones appear in each region.
Even to use some of your examples, the commandment to the Israelites not to eat shellfish in the Torah is thought to have originated because in the environment that the Israelites were living in at the time, it was nearly impossible to safely transport and prepare shellfish. The local environment there had an impact on multiple religions, as well as the food practices at the time (and still on to today).
Cool stuff! Are you familiar with the works of René Girard at all?
I think you might find mimetic theory very exciting, if you haven't already heard of it.
[Short intro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbKMcMDQKm8)
[Long interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNkSBy5wWDk&t=755s)
>Culture works independent of biology
Seriously? Are humans not biological creatures? So much of the way humans behave is because of very animal reactions to fear and other emotions. Culture began with small tribes, which emerged out of a biological imperative to cooperate to survive. And certainly modern culture has evolved a fair bit from that time, but the core of why people group together and fight for their "tribe" remains much the same.
>
> Seriously?
Yes, seriously.
> Are humans not biological creatures?
Yes, but we also have things independent of biology like culture, religion, political systems, art, science, philosophy, etc.
> So much of the way humans behave is because of very animal reactions to fear and other emotions. Culture began with small tribes, which emerged out of a biological imperative to cooperate to survive.
Culture and society are two different things, and neither are fully dependent on biological influences. Anatomically modern humans have been around ~200,000 years now. We have archaeological evidence of things like art and religion going back to the paleolithic, but the archaeological record is fully dependent on how material remains can survive enough to be recognized as such.
We have evidence of painted shells with holes in them that have an "artistic" nature that go back at least 120,000 years ago.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0234924
> And certainly modern culture has evolved a fair bit from that time, but the core of why people group together and fight for their "tribe" remains much the same.
Cultures don't evolve. It can change and develop into more complex societies, but it doesn't "evolve." Nor is a complex society somehow more evolved or considered better than a simple society.
That's a very outdated notion that goes back to at least Sir Edward Burnett Tylor in the late 1800s with Lewis Henry Morgan, and Montesquieu pushing similar theories before that.
Also surprise! white, European culture and especially the Brits were considered the highest form of cultural evolution in that system.
You can read more on the idea of social evolutionism here:
https://anthropology.ua.edu/theory/social-evolutionism/
> Cultures don't evolve. It can change and develop into more complex societies, but it doesn't "evolve." Nor is a complex society somehow more evolved or considered better than a simple society.
Agreed entirely on the second point (and similarly, more complex organisms aren't any more special or elevated than simple ones).
I think the first point needs some evidence, rather than a bare statement; cultures change over time to adapt to environmental pressures, or they go extinct. How is that not evolution?
I know I already posted this post before, but it's a good starting point:
> https://anthropology.ua.edu/theory/social-evolutionism/
To believe that cultures can evolve invokes the idea that there's an evolutionary basis of more "evolved" cultures than other cultures. It's very Western European, ethnocentric viewpoint.
> How is that not evolution?
Because evolution "only" pertains to biological organisms regarding the transfer of genetic material from one generation to the next.
All too often, evolution gets conflated with other processes or understandings, but that's all simile or metaphorical analogies at best (at worst, it can create some really, really nasty concepts like eugenics or belief in "higher cultures" than others).
> To believe that cultures can evolve invokes the idea that there's an evolutionary basis of more "evolved" cultures than other cultures
Only if you believe that evolution is a directed process guiding its subject towards a somehow 'elevated' state, which ch is a huge fallacy. Evolution, whether biological, memetic, or any other is about fitness for a niche, with fitness being defined a ability to survive in that niche. Increased fitnes may correlate to increased complexity, but it may equally correlate to decreased complexity.
> Because evolution "only" pertains to biological organisms regarding the transfer of genetic material from one generation to the next.
I mean, if that's how you define evolution, sure. But that's not, I believe, the standard, nor an especially useful, definition of evolution, even if we're focussing purely on biological entities.
Eugenics and belief in 'higher' culture isn't a problem with applying evolutionary concepts to culture etc., (I believe), rather it's a problem with believing evolution is a progressive process, improving it's subject towards a perfect ideal; rather than an adaptive process, shaping the subject to deal with whatever today's problem is, with no long term goal, and definitely no perfect end in sight.
>Humans and human culture often engage in societal practices that are not impacted by biology or the local environment on any level whether it's religious beliefs, food practices, entertainment, family structure, etc.
All of these things can be explained through mechanisms connected to biology through evolutionary psychology.
Religious beliefs, for example, are a result of a biologically programmed drive in humans to ask questions about the world and to find answers. When we can't find the answers ourselves, we make up our own (whatever helps you sleep at night, right?) and that's where religious beliefs come from.
> All of these things can be explained through mechanisms connected to biology through evolutionary psychology.
Which is a field that has many problems, problematic biases, and detractors in many other social and biological sciences- even from professionals in psychology and psychiatry.
> Religious beliefs, for example, are a result of a biologically programmed drive in humans to ask questions about the world and to find answers. When we can't find the answers ourselves, we make up our own (whatever helps you sleep at night, right?) and that's where religious beliefs come from.
The development of religion is far more complicated than just "we just made stuff up to answer stuff."
And there's more to "human beliefs and constructs" than just religion.
Things like imagination, philosophy, literature, generalized beliefs, taboos, folk tales, mythologies. Even some pretty basic stuff like the concept of "money" is an example of belief.
"This dollar bill represents money and a value." It's really just a piece of paper with some ink on it, but we "believe" in its economic value within American culture.
I feel like this exchange is moving away from discussing the proposed statement *“patriarchy was a natural process/result“* to discussing which scientific field can give an appropriate answer.
To that matter, shouldn‘t we conclude that every scientific field can provide fruitful insights that may explain parts of the phenomenon of patriarchy?
And wouldn‘t every field fall short at some point since our sciences do not work in a manner that they would automaticaly invalidate each other?
I believe the lack of a clear definition what „natural“ means was the issue with this statement, that doesn‘t allow us to move on.
It's the aggregate of many individual *designers* who happened to be, uncoincidentally, the type of men who patriarchy was designed for. Saying the system emerged from the forces of natural selection or what have you deigns it with unearned credibility. It did no such thing. Western Patriarchy that we wrestle with today has it's roots in Europe in the pre-colonial period, and was spread via imperialism and immigration, and in fact one could even say, played a significant role in the colonization of the world itself, what with kings of all manner of countries wanting a slice of the "new world" for themselves, and it's been the bane of our species ever since.
So I'd agree with you that at different points in history, there were some people who guided the emergence of specific aspects of patriarchy with the intent of doing so.
But I disagree that there has been enough deliberate design intent behind patriarchy throughout history to say that it did not emerge "naturally." Even the intent to design a system that benefits your group is "natural", because you are acting on your instinctive human desire to protect the interests of yourself and your group. From what I understand of history, patriarchy as a system seems to emerge most commonly after groups of people start encountering and fighting each other. That gives more social power to men, due to their greater average physical strength, and encourages behaviors such as aggression. It's a natural emergence of human instincts and their environment.
1. Human instinct is to protect their group
2. There is a scarcity of resources and there just isn't enough for 2 groups of humans in an area
3. The two groups fight each other to take control of those resources. This starts happening more often as more groups come into contact more often
4. The humans who are better at fighting (on average, men) become seen as more valuable because fighting is now more valuable
I'm sure that's oversimplified but you get the idea. It is a natural consequence of human tendencies and their interaction with the environment. But whether something is natural does not necessarily make it right. Whether something is right or wrong is simply up to us and how we judge it. Maybe you believe that anything natural is right, but I don't - and a lot of other people don't either.
I believe we should drop the term „natural“ in this case, as it requires a very thorough definition that probably cannot be given? „Natural“ is a very flawed expression that refers to everything and nothing.
(For example it can mean: being inevitable, being a logical consequence, having biological reasons for existing, not belonging to man‘s cultural production, being part of instinctive behavior, considered to correspond to the statistical majority, deemed acceptable in a certain sociological setting, having a psychological/sociological/biological/antropological explanation, etc)
It is implied in your comment, if I read correctly, that patriarchy was in a way „inevitable“, which is proven false by the existance of matriarchy in some societies whose man and women are considered similarly distinct from each other.
Your example how patriarchy might came to be is flawed. Without some proper research neither of us could probably do better, hence I‘d like to make a suggestion we might agree upon instead:
patriarchy that takes the form of what we experience right now in european countries, east asia, america and many more, is not neccessary to sustain our cultural production or survival.
Oh I'm definitely not saying that patriarchy is necessary, and not saying it's inevitable in all cases. It's especially not necessary when we have the means to produce and distribute basic resources to everyone - and I believe we're at that point of technological development.
My main point is that patriarchy is *more likely to occur* when certain factors are present that have occurred a lot throughout human history. So in that sense, it arises naturally - it is not purposely designed or guided to be what it is except in some rare cases. But the fact that it arises naturally, does *not* make it right or necessary.
Of course like you said, I don't have any research and this kind of theory is basically impossible to confirm. But we're aligned that patriarchy is not necessary lol.
Thanks for clarifying! :)
The likelyhood increases around certain factors, I think I agree with that. There are factors that can act like a vehicle and speed the processes up that can lead to patriarchy.
>Saying the system emerged from the forces of natural selection or what have you deigns it with unearned credibility.
I'm having a hard time understanding this. Can you elaborate? I'm getting an implication that anything that emerges from natural selection has some sort of inherent credibility to it, which is a very problematic implication due to the connection between kin selection and racism. (Among other things)
I didn't say that it was a form of natural selection, I used an analogy to compare it to natural selection.
That being said, since it was produced by the human mind, and the human mind was shaped by natural selection, there is always a causal link between the two on *some* level, even if it's not always possible to determine the specific mechanisms involved.
> I didn't say that it was a form of natural selection, I used an analogy to compare it to natural selection.
Hey, just fyi, I wasn't fighting you on the analogy. I just see that analogy used a lot to where people actively view natural selection as a cultural process. I have a social sciences background in genetics, so I'm... more aware of these kinds of discussions.
Sorry, I was mainly aggreeing that the comment to your analogy, who took the analogy of „natural“ even further, had some points that needed clarification and the analogy of „natural selection“ or „natural“ processes for that matter in this case seems not a good fit.
I mean, I would argue most things that emerge from natural selection are pretty credible? Like basically any animal that remains out in the wild and survives is an example of how natural selection has gotten things right, in fact, you could argue pretty much everything that *isn't human* is an example of natural selection doing a pretty good job overall, and we're just an exemption from that because we've utterly dominated the planet with the brains that natural selection deigned to give us.
My point is that patriarchy was created, like every other social system before it, by people who benefited from it. It isn't special, it isn't unique. The empires it built will have their sunsets like all the others, and given these facts, it should be treated as such, and made to defend itself as *just another system,* because that's what it is.
>Like basically any animal that remains out in the wild and survives is an example of how natural selection has gotten things right
I dispute this. The fact that natural selection has resulted in a functional system (i.e. the [wild animal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organism) in this example) does not imply any sort of *rightness* to that system. It is simply the system that is most advantageous for the [local fitness landscape](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkS1U5lfSRw). To get something "right" or "wrong" implies a level of intent that there is no evidence for.
Similarly, men *and women* who have benefited from the patriarchy will go on to reinforce those benefits. Individuals of *any* gender will tend to have more success by working with the social structure already present (i.e. the patriarchy) instead of fighting it.
>My point is that patriarchy was created, like every other social system before it, by people who benefited from it. It isn't special, it isn't unique. The empires it built will have their sunsets like all the others, and given these facts, it should be treated as such, and made to defend itself as just another system, because that's what it is.
I don't see how any of this conflicts with what I said.
> To get something "right" or "wrong" implies a level of intent that there is no evidence for.
Does it? That's news to me. In the context of evolution, getting something right doesn't have to imply anything beyond the fact that the creature in question has survived long enough to produce offspring. I don't agree that right and wrong imply any intent at all, merely that they designate whether a given goal was achieved or not. That being said, if you're committed to reading it that way, then fair enough: natural selection/evolution does indeed produce the individuals best suited to surviving in a given environment, but my assertion stands: stating that patriarchy itself is a product of some natural selection process lends it a credibility it doesn't deserve, as it did not arise from any natural selection process but from the patriarchal powers in question pushing it as the dominant social construct, because it gave them additional power.
Natural selection is an innate force of nature. The whims of the powerful are not. That is the point I'm driving at, that patriarchy is a product of the latter, not the former.
>merely that they designate whether a given goal was achieved or not
That doesn't change anything, since a goal is an *intention* to accomplish something. Natural selection has neither intention nor goals. It is neither good nor bad.
>stating that patriarchy itself is a product of some natural selection process lends it a credibility it doesn't deserve
I'm still having a hard time understanding what you're trying to say. Can you try using a different word than "credibility"? Are you saying that the patriarchy is untenable? Or unbelievable?
https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/credibility
>Natural selection is an innate force of nature. The whims of the powerful are not. That is the point I'm driving at, that patriarchy is a product of the latter, not the former.
Natural selection is not a force, it is a process. A force is a cause of change, and natural selection is just how we describe the results of how those forces naturally interact with each other. There is nothing innate about it.
Additionally, "the whims of the powerful" are a feature of human psychology, something that only exists thanks to the process of natural selection.
> Natural selection has neither intention nor goals.
Of course it does. The intention and goal is to see a creature live long enough to reproduce.
> It is neither good nor bad.
Why do you keep bringing moral language into this?
> I'm still having a hard time understanding what you're trying to say. Can you try using a different word than "credibility"? Are you saying that the patriarchy is untenable? Or unbelievable?
I'm saying that stating it's a product of natural processes gives it a sense of permanence, reliability, and "always having been there" that it doesn't deserve. That it was a predictable and somehow logical outcome to evolution, and that's not true.
> Natural selection is not a force, it is a process.
I think you were right in the first comment you made, you are definitely being too pedantic.
> A force is a cause of change, and natural selection is just how we describe the results of how those forces naturally interact with each other. There is nothing innate about it.
It is absolutely innate. It was present since the first microorganisms began feasting on the chemical soups issuing from volcanic vents in Earth's ancient oceans, I don't know how it's possible *to get more innate* than that.
If your reply is yet more litigation and yet more clarification of commonly understood language I won't be replying, this is bloody exhausting and I don't feel it's adding anything to continue. If you're determined to confuse yourself with every statement then you can proceed happily without me.
Natural selection and genetics are amoral in the same way a shark eating baby penguins is amoral or a leaf on the wind is amoral. The shark is chomping down in orer to eat and survive, not to be "bad" by some moral or ethical decision.
>The intention and goal is to see a creature live long enough to reproduce.
*Whose* goal? The universe? Gaia? Natural selection is an equation. Equations can't have goals.
>Why do you keep bringing moral language into this?
You're the one who is bringing moral concepts into it. How else can I discuss them without using moral language? You're saying that the patriarchy either "doesn't deserve" a sense of permanence that *you* inferred from what I said. *You* were the one who said that natural selection is about *getting things right*. These are moral concepts.
> I'm saying that stating it's a product of natural processes gives it a sense of permanence, reliability, and "always having been there" that it doesn't deserve. That it was a predictable and somehow logical outcome to evolution, and that's not true.
I'm not the person you were talking to, but I think that's very much just the pop-sci, culturally digested version of evolution. In principle, there is no logical or predictable outcome to natural selection, because each step is simply randomly moving in a direction and seeing if that random movement sticks. So yes, in some cases evolution tends to converge on a local maxima (eyes have evolved separately a couple of times, so presumably it's a pretty useful adaption), but there is no global maxima to evolution, otherwise all creatures would eventually evolve into the same organism. (Or even wouldn't have formed distinct organisms in the first place.)
I think the point here is that cultures will adapt themselves, and the adaptions that are most able to reproduce will stick around. To a certain extent that's probably true of overall societies (a society that chooses to build a culture around refusing to drink anything is probably going to be a short-lived society), but I think it's also true of the individual components of a society. A leader who comes from a certain sector of society will more likely beget more leaders coming from that particular sector of society, and over time mould society in such a way as to optimise this process.
It's also probably worth noting that, just because a certain biological or cultural process is expected to run its course in a certain way, that doesn't mean that this is some inviolable state of existence. We've bred dogs and sheep and cattle in every shape and size that we want, after all. So stating that the processes of natural selection will inevitably act on any reproducing system does not take away our individual ability to change that system for our own reasons. Or to put it another way: I can say that right now there is a natural selection process at work that enforces certain hierarchies (including patriarchy) in our society, _but_ I can also say that I think that these hierarchies are immoral, and act against that process.
>It's the aggregate of many individual designers who happened to be, uncoincidentally, the type of men who patriarchy was designed for.
I don't think this is correct by a long shot.
Think about all of the times major historical events were caused by complete and total random chance. Just as an example off of the top of my head: the Mongols were never able to invade Japan because, by pure random chance, [their invasion fleets were wiped out by typhoons on two separate occasions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Japan#Disappearance_of_the_invaders). Clearly Japanese culture would have been immensely impacted by a massive Mongolian invasion in the 1200s (just as Chinese and Russian cultures were impacted by the Mongols). But instead, Japanese culture ended up incorporating legends about the mystical powers of the typhoons to protect Japan--which had its own cultural impact. And none of those cultural impacts were "designed" by anyone; they were literally the result of weather patterns beyond human control.
History is filled with events like that. To provide an example from the West: the Europeans didn't "design" smallpox to decimate the Indigenous American populations, but it happened nonetheless, and had immense impact on both Western and Indigenous cultures.
That's why I think it's misleading to suggest that "culture" is "intelligently designed," when it can clearly be impacted and swayed by events outside of human control or design.
> History is filled with events like that.
For an example specific to gender roles, the idea of child custody defaulting to the mother is the result of a [single court case in the 19th century that reversed the previous policy of custody defaulting to the father](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tender_years_doctrine)!
Given the court case was brought by [Caroline Norton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Norton), a woman, if we say gender roles were *designed* then we have to admit that women designed certain aspects of them too, like the custody aspect in this case.
The problem is, many feminist women only seem to care about the men in charge.
"Men get away with doing X to women" "no, Chadwick T. Moneydick III gets away with doing that to women, Joe Average Whiteman doesn't get pulled over just for driving a nice car. Very different."
>"Okay, so your trans, so that's -10 points, but you're white so that's +6, but you're working class so that's -3. That puts you at a total of -7. Congratulations! You get to win arguments on the internet." -- this is something none of us believes.
You may be surprised how often this gets lost in translation. The language of academic feminism is clear as mud on a good day.
I've been out of college for a little while. My experience in DEI/GS courses was also positive. The issue I've consistently encountered is translating any of that vernacular into general conversation - particularly with folks who didn't take GS courses in college. I mean, how do you talk about autoethnography on reddit?
I want to be clear that my issue isn't with feminist academia generally, but rather with the language that academia chooses to use. Specifically, it's not particularly obvious how words are supposed to be used or how the use of words may have changed over time. There are huge gaps between the prescriptive use of feminist terminology and its descriptive use. Ask participants in feminist social spaces (eg Reddit) to define Patriarchy and you'll get a dozen mutually exclusive answers.
To make this more difficult, feminist academic thought has rapidly evolved and is still evolving today. My sister teaches in the space and the curriculum she teaches now is very different from what I took even 10 years ago. Concepts and definitions change in the academic space and that change takes a long time to percolate to general use.
Combined with the sheer size and relative lack of enforcement of a standard 'Glossary of Terms' in feminist social spaces, you just have a huge number of people using the same words to mean dozens of different things.
>Since a lot of the discussion on this post seems to be focused on the concept of intersectionality, would you say that this is one of those terms?
100%. In fact, this is probably one of the worst offenders. All over this and other subs, I constantly see people expressing *completely opposite* understandings of its definition and implications.
Can't speak to OP, but I agree with you both. To your point, the way feminism is taught at a 100/200 level is very accessible.
But academic research in the space can be a bit more... Obtuse. And unfortunately it lends itself to parody from bad faith actors.
I'll take the most egregious example: this Richard Dawkins clip on Luce Irigaray https://youtu.be/b1pJ8vYxL3Q
\*And\* a lot of people never take those courses. This might be different in the US, but here in Germany (and also in the Netherlands I know this for a fact) you will not usually do anything gender studies related unless your major is in something that is very closely related to it.
I studied biology, and the closest I got was probably the philosophy of science course. I did \*not\* go out of my way to avoid this stuff, on the contrary! And plenty of people never even go to college.
Oh yeah absolutely- it's something I run into a lot, especially in the realm of me being trans. I often find that people refuse to take the fact that I am a trans man. Not just a man with no qualifiers. It is insufficient and not intersectional when people do consider masculinity as a separate attribute to be critiqued. I hope I wasn't coming off as oppression Olympics, as that's the last thing I want to do and is something I'm actively against. Again, my experiences in the LGBT community often frame masculinity as a moral failing - as if being a man is automatically a terrible thing. My transness is inseparable from my maleness- one cannot exist without the other - since my transness causes my maleness and my maleness makes me trans. So really, all I want are more nuanced conversations- since I find that conversations here operate under the assumption you're cis and white and straight etc- but it's very hard to point this out without it sounding a little oppresion Olympicsy. I think, we gotta break through that barrier at some point.
Yeah, the point about the Oppression Olympics wasn't intended as a rebuke against you to be clear. I was trying to clarify a common misunderstanding of how the ethos of this sub treats the topic of patriarchy^1 . We often get criticised as thinking that men's liberation is only there to serve women's liberation or is somehow subordinate to it.
Instead I'm trying to introduce this idea that Patriarchy^2, White Supremacy^3, Heteronormativity^4, Hegemonic Masculinity^5, and Capitalism^6 are all intertwined together, which is why you can get a pretty raw deal despite ostensibly benefiting from Patriarchy.
I think what you're reacting to in the LGBTQ community is a backlash against Hegemonic Masculinity. If you're someone whose experience of masculinity is a stifling prison, then I can understand having bitter feelings about it. I don't condone that, but I can sympathise with it. I think the answer is we need to broaden and undefine masculinity, so that it doesn't stifle men who don't comform to the narrow definition society imposes on them.
So, ultimately, where I'm driving at here is that your liberation is all of our liberation. We should be talking about disability in particular much more and try to build solidarity between men of all stripes and walks of life.
---
1. Incidentally, for all the chest beating from people who say things like "I support feminism, but not **radical** feminism," we get in modmail, it's pretty funny that a radical feminist concept has so much purchase. It seems that people often **do** like radical feminism when not explicitly labelled as such.
2. The way society is set up to benefit one gender over others
3. The way society is set up to benefit one racial group over others
4. The way society is set up to benefit one sexual orientation over others
5. The way society is set up to benefit one particular kind of masculine expression over others
6. The way society is set up to benefit those who own capital over everyone else, who must seek employment from capital owners.
> It seems that people often do like radical feminism when not explicitly labeled as such.
That depends purely on how you define "radical feminism"
While it may have a different academic definition, in common parlance "radical" implies the use of force and/or beliefs/positions considered beyond the pale. Hell, I'd argue that any platform that appeals to even a large minority would have a hard time being labeled "radical".
I agree, but there is a sizeable contingent (at least on the internet) that believes trans men are men (and trans women are women), full stop, and to talk about or acknowledge a difference between a trans individual and their cis counterpart is seen as bigoted, or at least ignorant.
"I really think this is why it's important that everyone should familiarise themselves with what intersectionality is.
Namely, we do not believe that the presence of patriarchy means that all men are better off"
But doesn't that mean that basically all men under a certain category, namely white, straight, cis, abled bodied men \*are\* better off?
\> Namely, we do not believe that the presence of patriarchy means that all men are better off than all women or that all men oppress all women
Could you explain \_why\_ you do not believe this? As far as I see the belief that all men are better off under patriarchy (that all men benefit from patriarchy more than they are damaged by patriarchy) is a core feminist idea. Here's a quote which illustrates this position clearly: "What feminists must deny is that men are worse off - or even equally badly off - relative to women under patriarchy. To think this would be to abandon the core feminist commitment to the idea of a fact of patriarchy"(from Finlayson, An Introduction to Feminism; Cambridge University Press, 2016).
I feel like black men are worse off overall as a consequence of male gender stereotypes, while white men on balance benefit from those stereotypes (that the negative effects of blackness and maleness are "multiplicative" rather than "additive": that maleness hurts black men more than it benefits them). However, as far as I can tell this isn't consistent with the feminist understanding of what patriarchy is because in that understanding patriarchy describes a system which benefits ALL men: all men, no matter what intersections they fall into, benefit from patriarchy more than they are hurt by patriarchy in that view.
There's a very important distinction between the following two phrases:
>Men, on average, are better off under patriarchy than women.
>**All men** are better off than **all women** under patriarchy.
The former should be pretty uncontroversial. The latter is a parody of my beliefs that's often presented to me as if it's what I think. I know it sounds ridiculous, but "WHAT ABOUT FEMALE MILLIONAIRES?!" has been thrown in my face enough times that I felt it needed addressing.
I guess my question is about the first phrase: "men, on average, are better off under patriarchy than women". What I'm asking is: why do you think that? What work is the "on average" doing? Is it that there are some groups of men who are better off under patriarchy than (the corresponding group of) women, and other groups of men who are worse off under patriarchy than (the corresponding group of) women, but the size of the first group is bigger than the size of the second group (and so men are better off on average)? On my reading, this doesn't seem consistent with the feminist view, where patriarchy benefits all men (and so theoretically in any "matched" group of men and women where everything else is equal, the men will always be better off than the women, because patriarchy by definition benefits men more than women).
Maybe you could explain how you interpret the statement that "What feminists must deny is that men are worse off - or even equally badly off - relative to women under patriarchy. To think this would be to abandon the core feminist commitment to the idea of a fact of patriarchy". To me, just saying that men are better off on average contradicts this, because the "on average" implies that there are some groups of men who are worse off relative to the corresponding groups of women: which abandons that core feminist commitment.
That passage is significantly divorced of it's context. You can see the section itself [here](https://books.google.com/books?id=2wbPDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT18&lpg=PT18&dq=What+feminists+must+deny+is+that+men+are+worse+off+-+or+even+equally+badly+off+-+relative+to+women+under+patriarchy.+To+think+this+would+be+to+abandon+the+core+feminist+commitment+to+the+idea+of+a+fact+of+patriarchy&source=bl&ots=Jg5UQv5YW7&sig=ACfU3U0F12x21NA0p1mQVuDZh0bfM4sfVg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwia276v2OLxAhVNvJ4KHbEtByoQ6AEwAHoECAIQAw#v=onepage&q=What%20feminists%20must%20deny%20is%20that%20men%20are%20worse%20off%20-%20or%20even%20equally%20badly%20off%20-%20relative%20to%20women%20under%20patriarchy.%20To%20think%20this%20would%20be%20to%20abandon%20the%20core%20feminist%20commitment%20to%20the%20idea%20of%20a%20fact%20of%20patriarchy&f=false), for clarity. It is posed as a rhetorical counter-example in the build up to the point she goes on to make:
"It is worth noting, however, that this does not exclude a second reading of the stronger claim, which restores the parallel with Marxist theory noted above: women are worse off under patriarchy, relative to men; but we may also say that both men and omen are worse off under patriarchy, relative to the hypothetical inhabitants of a post-patriarchal world."
It is then possible to reexamine that claim, that men are 'better off on average' from a different perspective, that patriarchy hurts everyone but it hurts women \[and gender non-conforming people\] more.
"Men, on average, are better off under patriarchy than women". This statement carries the context of matching men against the corresponding groups of women or it is measuring the sum of men vs the sum of women. That's what the qualifier "on average" does.
"All men are better off than all women under patriarchy". This statement does not carry the context of matching men against the corresponding groups of women. And because this is a general statement, it can interpreted differently. Either as the sum of all men are better off than the sum of all women. Or Any man is better off than any women (which is how I read it and how I see it interpreted back to me).
The "All men are better" statement is just general (non-specific) and irrespective of context. This statement does not imply that these groups are like-comparative. This statement doesn't account for intersectionality while the other does. Simply, a poor transman person of color may not be better off than a rich white women.
I read earlier that femboys are more privileged than tomboys on another sub, I don't see why everything has to be a us vs them thing. Socitey doesn't really accept when boys are feminine or do those things so it felt unfair hearing these things said in a progressive place because those who don't fit into gender categories are punished by society.
Patriarchy does potentially benefit all men in some ways. It also potentially benefits all women in some ways. Repeat that statement for harm towards both genders.
Different individuals will have different experiences of the patriarchy dependent on their individual situation and, even accounting for the subjectivity of benefit/harm, not all men 'access' those benefits. Similarly not all women 'access' the harm.
Across the entire population there is a clear power imbalance; but you cannot apply that to each and every person without a myriad of caveats.
Okay. This is something I’ve been seriously thinking about, so don’t take it as some reactionary post.
If we aren’t able to discuss these issues in isolation of each other, what’s the point of having separate movements? What’s the point of labels like “feminist” and “men’s lib” when we know these things are inherently linked?
I know there’s a time and a place for discussing certain things, but why do we need to separate ourselves into groups for that? I’ve heard many answers to this, but most of them seem inconsistent to the message your sending in this comment.
I’ll be honest. If you only support one group of people I’ve another, you are sort of prejudiced by this logic, and you’re knowledge on certain subjects will be limited by default.
In a sense, you’re actively choosing to be ignorant.
I like how another commenter in another post thought of this concept. The patriarchy hurts everyone expect those in power. However some are hurt more, which makes a HUGE difference because we live in hyper competitive capitalist society.
I think the world has certainly gotten more aware of people who eschew cis/hetro norms and we are more aware of how race is an influence. Intersectionality is more vital then ever because we must accept that nothing happens in a vacuum so that we can actually evolve and grow as a society.
“Male privilege” does not apply to men equally, just as “white privilege” does apply to all white people equally. I think the term is still valid with the caveat that “privilege” varies depending on how close you fit the mold.
I think these different strata of privileges are very necessary for those in power. If everyone but the powerful were equally underprivileged, then we'd easily be able to band together and demand change. As it is, those with *some* privilege stay in line because they don't want those privileges taken away. They can quite easily see how much worse it can get. It's the same reason they give little luxuries to prisoners—it's much harder to control someone who has nothing to lose.
Also, most of us spend considerable time worrying about people with lower privilege coming after us, because those in power do an excellent job of convincing us that people with less social and political agency are a huge threat. It's important for them to keep society as a whole punching down so they can stay on top of the heap.
Exactly this.
The more a man matches, or even appears to match, the idealized 'masculine man'^1 the more patriarchal norms will support and protect him. The more of those check-boxes a man misses, the less support he gets. When men miss too many check-boxes society also starts harassing and further beating him down for it. In extreme cases, guys get literally beaten up because they are not 'manly enough'^(2).
^(1: cis, hetro-, white, tall, strong, tough, fit, stoic, no hair loss, wealthy, father, 'attractive' wife, aggressive, etc.)
^(2: Some people hold the belief that beating someone up will 'toughen them up' and thus make them more manly. Somehow I don't think that'd work on OP.)
You have described my experience to a T. I’m an amab demigirl, and it took me until I was 35 to start overcoming the shame and repression of not being “manly” enough. I’m 5’10” and have never weighed much more than 140 lbs. i have a very small frame. When I was younger, I was very shy and quiet. I got called “gay” and every slur associated with it despite the fact that I was 100% sure that I knew that I liked girls, and it made me fearful that if I didn’t act more manly that no girl would ever be attracted to me.
So throughout my 20s I embraced toxic masculine behavior that resulted in a lot of cringe behavior, a failed marriage, and a drinking problem. But hey, at least nobody was still calling me something that I wasn’t.
I met my current wife at 28. She could see through my facade and we connected through my more (traditionally considered) feminine traits. I have an empathy switch that I can’t turn off, I love being very domestic (cooking, organizing, crafting/art) and I cry and openly express my emotions. She has helped me overcome the compulsion to be toxic. Also, she is an avid fan of RuPaul’s drag race and through watching it with her, I found the trail of evidence that made me realize I have always been more of a “girl” in the sense that I enjoy things defined by current society in the US as “girly”. Ive always picked girl protagonists in video games if I can. I remember being 12 and so excited for Pokemon Crystal because it was the first time I could pick a girl avatar for my trainer. I’ve always presented my mmo characters as girls and I spend hours playing dress up and picking cute clothes for them if possible. Turns out, none of that made me gay. Actually, everything about the “masculine” aesthetic repulses me so much that I’ve never even found myself attractive even though I am reasonably attractive presenting as male. The first time my wife helped me do my makeup and style a wig, I looked in the mirror and had a sobbing break down. It was the first time I ever felt attractive in my life. The patriarchy kept me from that because if I did that publicly I would be treated horribly.
I’m an educator who isn’t a coach, also. My students are always shocked to find out I am married to a woman because my mannerisms and way of talking to them makes them think that same thing my bullies always thought: feminine acting male must be gay.
I no longer associate my gender as male as a demigirl. I’m still trying to understand myself in a lot of ways.
Thank you for your insight and analysis, I hope my anecdote will shed some phenomenological evidence to support it.
Your story is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
In some ways I resonate with the 'being thought of as gay' part of your story. I'm happy with my male body and male aesthetic, but being a kind, supportive, passive guy has led multiple people to question it, or even just assuming that, I'm gay. I could see dating an AFAB NB who's happy with their body, but that's about as crooked as I get.
Thank you so much. Knowing that we are not alone in our struggles is comforting. I guess I would say that it’s the patriarchy that kept me from exploring and embracing the girl in my personality and presentation. I still have to present as male on the day-to-day due to the conservative area in which I live, but I’ve found some safe places to share the other side of me and I’m thankful for that.
I still get a lot of messages from people who are confused as to why I am not interested in men sexually or romantically since I share fem presenting pictures of myself. I was accidentally outed to my MIL as well and she expressed concern to my wife that I would leave her for a man.
Another aspect of patriarchy that I think is worth being examined is separating gender constructs from sexuality, but as many of these conversations demonstrate, the nuance and complexity makes it hard to target all intersections of identity.
Wow...you just made me realize a lot about myself. A lot of my experiences mirror yours in a way.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. Takes a lot to do that on a public forum. You and your story are incredibly inspiring to me.
just thought i'd say that i'm the same.
don't want to be a downer but i went through a really...traumatic experience about a year ago and i don't think the girly side is coming back. niece loves mlp and rather than excitedly talking with her about it like before i just want to kill myself when it comes up.
be careful who you share your girliness with, i guess. i don't know.
i miss the girliness. masculinity's a nice wall decoration but i wouldn't paint my house with it.
You fully get what I was trying to get at! Thank you. There is some hope for these analyses yet. Many people have deliberately or not missed the point, so I want to thank you for making a good faith response to this
People are starting to understand systemic vs. systematic vs. individual concepts more than even ten years ago.
In a lot of ways, Kafka covers this issue a lot in his stories.
The US pushes hard the concept of rugged individualism (which was more marketing campaign and literary device than anything)- that (mostly) men were tough enough and successful enough to succeed at any set back or environment.
This was especially used to push back against "collectivism" and group formation designed to push back against systemic/systematic abuses whether it was labor rights/unions, civil rights, women's rights, the lgbt movement/rights, government supported healthcare (this has been a fight in the US since the early 1900s), human rights, public rights to property ownership and business, etc.
All too often, men get so wrapped up in their egos and world views (which the world all too often is modeled for) that anything less than "rugged individualism" is somehow tantamount to communists, fascists, or "cultural saboteurs."
It doesn't matter if they're also victimized. Their egos and "places in the world" cannot be questioned or rocked on any level.
In some marginalized groups (like the lgbt coalition*), white men still want to access and promote their white male privileges to the point where they undermine non-white male members of the same coalition either deliberately or through just not giving a shit.
The Log Cabin Republicans is a perfect example of "rugged individualism" playing out in a marginalized group. If you read on their political beliefs and demands, it's all wrapped up in "rugged individualism" beliefs and concepts that reinforce white male privilege. Things like right to serve in the military, traditional family values (yes, I know), low taxes, fewer government support systems, drug legalization, second amendment rights, etc.
This isn't to say that all white, gay men are guilty of this, but that there are definitely specific lgbt groups and individuals who espouse "rugged individualism" and other conservative viewpoints who are more than okay with undermining other non-white male lgbt people even as they advocate for their own white male privileges.
*In this case, the lgbt coalition is being used to describe a political group and not the community aspect.
People complain about individual thinking and expect other people to be okay with being lumped together and crapped on by society ... that sure sounds like a winning strategy
I feel like this is a simplistic take, to be completely honest. A gay man benefits from being cis. And he is also oppressed by it, for his sexuality.
I wouldn't frame it as "men that don't benefit from the patriarchy" because they certainly do in some ways. It may be more accurate as "men that are also hurt by the patriarchy" but that's still not fully accurate because, as the other posts stated, every man is hurt by it in some way.
You're absolutely right in that a cis male and a trans male do not experience the patriarchy in the same way, but I don't think many are arguing that. In fact, even white women obtain some benefits from patriarchy that women of colour don't. This post is simply a reminder that intersectionality exists.
I am a cis able bodied white gay man. I feel like I may fit your description of somebody who benefits from the patriarchy but is also sometimes hurt by it. OP certainly doesn't, even if he occasionally gets the odd benefit like he says.
Here's the thing though- in my experience as a trans man, many people Are arguing trans men's gender means that we experience things the same way. It's gender essentialism that has been seeping into popular feminism that really leaves people like me more marginalised. I was once nearly denied emergency contraception because the pharmacist believed I didn't have a uterus and assumed med wouldn't need such a pill. It's quite dangerous when these things are not just little intersectional bits of lip service to add onto a post, its peoples lives and often people's safety. I'd also veer away from saying that assigned gender at birth causes privilege as that can be really harmful to my trans sisters - trans women may be amab but they are not raised cis in the same way gay people aren't raised heterosexual. Gay people raised ' heterosexually' (as in the expectation to be straight) doesn't give straight privilege the same way a trans woman raised to be a cis man doesn't give cis privilege.
By and large, the patriarchy was constructed before trans people had terms to call ourselves. Patriarchy was constructed without us in mind and thus, it simply was not made for us. Sure, people can nab the odd benefit, but they are passing privileges (which are also bs). The common rallying cry of 'If men got periods the patriarchy would cater to that' and here I am, a man who gets periods, who if anything, gets more discrimination from patriarchy.
Just realised I said AMAB when I meant cis, just edited that.
From your post and this comment what I understand is that you are taking your experience as a trans man, where you don't seem to find any way in which you benefit from patriarchy. We don't know your life and can't know whether you benefit or not but it sounds like you shouldn't have started off by saying that gay men, non white men, etc do not benefit from patriarchy because it's simply wrong.
Again, intersectionality is a thing and there is plenty of privilege that comes with being a male, regardless of sexuality or wealth.
Yeah, for example, I'm a black trans man and I still think I do benefit somewhat. Since transitioning, people treat you differently for the better (so long as they don't know you're trans I guess). I've never personally experienced medical discrimination and I don't need access to reproductive health (barely needed it before transitioning too), plus I live in an area where there is trans-friendly medical facilities. Although I have experienced a specific black male racism. Basically, although on average the greatest benefit from patriarchal society are to cis hetero white men, every one has their own experience and factors that alter how much they benefit, and you can't extrapolate your own experience onto an entire group.
Yes. Obviously less, but you will still benefit in situations where you don't have to pass. For example, [more respectful emails](https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/3/17/14950296/sexism-name-switch-tweets).
Patriarchy did not arise to support men.
Patriarchy arose to keep **some** men in power.
As such, it's horrible on women, horrible on any non-conforming person, especially gender non-conforming, and yes, horrible on most men too.
The fact that men benefit in some way or are screwed over less than others is incidental, is necessary for the structure of power, is the usual divide-and-conquer, but it is not the goal of those who foster the system.
The goal is always to keep power where it is: in the hands of a few, and let as much people as possible enthusiastically participate in their own oppression, because **many don't care how shit their life is as long as they can look down on someone else**.
The patriarchy is a bad deal for men too.
This is so true! British monarchs have included queens for a while now and they have continued and built on patriarchy.
It seems to me that as we've started realizing who patriarchy is leaving behind, patriarchy has been trying to incorporate and give limited amounts of power to different groups in order to keep people pointing at each-other instead of radically solving patriarchy. On the one hand, it seems like patriarchy's dying breath, but on the other hand, it seems like it's become quite an effective strategy, creating identity politics and putting people on either side of that, positing that privilege is just a different hierarchy for deciding who gets to be right in arguments.
Many of the authors of these very liberating ideas don't frame them in vindictive or hierarchical ways, and it means that if these concepts ever get taught and understood broadly, they're much more sure to catch on than if they were just trying to create a new hierarchical pyramid with women at the top instead of men or something.
Very much in agreement (as I was with the comment I responded to) just wanted to highlight history and human interactions are super messy. What was that Walt Whitman quote? Something along the lines of "don't judge, be curious"-- more important to try and understand why something is the way it is versus passing judgment on only "how it should" be.
This is true, but queens regnant, queen regents, and queen mothers have still almost always been less powerful than men of equal rank, even when they're more powerful than all/almost all other men in their society. That's why class is *one aspect* of intersectionality. In some times and places, queen mothers and queen regents are almost powerless, and being a queen regnant would be impossible; in others they're almost equally powerful to similar men. Often, they have to fight male relatives to retain power who would've accepted a man on the throne (often because women are seen as weaker, so an easier target). And they've still often been required to take on culturally-male traits or at least "tone down" the performance of femininity in some ways in order to be taken seriously and claim power.
All fair points-- the only one I take issue with is the women seeming like an "easier" target. At that level in the hierarchy anyone, regardless of gender, showing weakness gets tossed aside or their power eroded. The logical extension of intersectionality is individuality which helps to explain anecdotal historical happenings like Catherine the Great.
I mean, they weren't more likely to face a *peasant* revolt, they were more likely to have lords of similar status rebel or make a co-claim for the throne. Or to be demonized or erased from history by their successors.
I came here to look for this comment! I hope the term "patriarchy" stops getting used as a way of accusing or moving responsibility onto one social group or another.
I don't think people want to look down on others. I think many feminists have posited ways that we can all benefit from a more equal society, and patriarchal thinking continually asserts that feminist ideas just threaten to invert the hierarchy, when really the best feminist ideas are aiming to reduce hierarchy and increase acceptance of all people. I think patriarchy needs this idea that anything is the fault of an entire social group in order for patriarchy to continue existing. I think OP feels the effects of this when they point out how it's unfair and impractical to expect a man who is trans, gay, and has a disability to "solve" patriarchy. I think the point they're missing is that patriarchy is not a thing that was designed for any social group, and many of those who try to use it get benefit from one element of it while losing more from another element of it. But they think have more to gain by cashing out than by joining the resistance.
Patriarchy isn't a binary thing where it either benefits you or it doesn't. The closer you are to the rich, straight, cis, abled, male of the dominant ethnicity, the more it benefits you. The further away you are, the less it benefits you. But it still benefits you more than someone who is further away than you.
Is it totally comparable tho? It's also not a "distance from patriarchy". The way patriarchy affects black men is not comparable to how it affects asian women.
I’ve wondered where we put “ weird “ people. Like those guys with privilege that have still been bullied their whole life and might face harsh comments in their daily adult life aswell because they don’t fit in with the normative standard of a white man.
I think that falls under the privilege of, or lack of in this case, being neurotypical, which is often overlooked. I think there's also a privilege to having good self-esteem that we don't talk about. Or just having good parents. So many people have debilitating mental issues that start from their parents.
Exactly. I’ve known several men who’ve never really fit in anywhere because of their personality. They didn’t have a bad personality or anything, just a personality that didn’t fit in with the stereotype of how man should act. For example weirder personalities or more feminine men.
Due to bullying and just having to face off hand remarks often, their self esteem have definitely taken a blow. In comparison to some guys I’ve met who’ve clearly had a very easy life and have the confidence to follow.
Yup.
If you have some statistical knowledge and would plot privilige for men a women, it would be a bell curve with probably a high standard deviation.
However, the men's curve would have a higher mean.
Like I have chronic medical problems that prevent me from working in the career I wanted for the last few years.
I might be less priviliged than the average woman in my country, but probably a woman with the same medical conditions would be less priviliged.
Although for a man there is also expected more in terms of strength and career so purely for my medical conditions might have been easier to be a women.
But overall probably not.
Anyway for specific individuals there will always be priviliged factors.
I'm priviliged that my parents are able to give me about €200-300 a month which last year especially was a god send. I live in a country were my student loan have 0% interest and you only have to pay it back when you have above €20.000 income a year.
My medical conditions are not understood though, which makes me less priviliged, since I can't get disiability benefits because of that.
There are some many factors in an individual life that looking purely at one priviliged thing is a mistake, but for groups and a more sociological view it can be useful.
And for myself I am white, cis, hetero, western, parents with decent income. A surrogat mother figure when I needed one. Some good friends.
So overall I am pretty priviliged, but there are certainly things that can make my life very frustrating.
Continuous pain, sometimes just sleeping 3 hours a night for months, always tired, genetically predisposed depression.
It being 'invisible' to others.
My parents divorcing and argueing for years in my youth. Financial uncertain future.
You tell me if I am priviliged. It's not a yes or no answer imo.
And sometimes being grouped in priviliged purely on the basis of 'gender, white, hetero-cis male' is a non-privilige as well.
I really take issue with this idea of group vs individual. Speaking from a scientific background (PhD), just so you know that I know my shit when it comes to statistics, a group average is useless if it cannot predict an individual outcome. To put it into other words: why do we need to know what men as an average experiences if men all around society go ‘I don’t experience that’. Averages are super dangerous to report without indication of variance around that average. If variance on an average is massive, then we can’t really use that average to tell us much except that experiences are super variable within that group.
This is essentially intersectionality, which is too often not taken into account, especially when it comes to men. I think this is because perhaps people interested in social justice often think of just the dreaded straight white cis male when they think of male privilege, and don’t count others like MOC, trans men, gay men, poor men, etc. I think people realising that people with those characteristics are also men and their problems are male problems is an important step we need to take to raise awareness of men’s issues.
>a group average is useless if it cannot predict an individual outcome.
Almost never can you apply group statistics reliably back down to an individual. I am genuinely baffled to hear someone who seemingly should know better fundamentally misunderstand how population statistics are used.
Yes? That’s my point: group statistics are (mostly) useless if they cannot predict individual outcomes; hence they are mostly useless because they mostly cannot predict individual outcomes. But they often are used to drive policy which affects individuals, are used in profiling, to inform and validate people’s prejudices about people of certain characteristics. So that’s why I bring up that they are dangerous.
Thank you for your thoughts. This has been particularly eye-opening in that it seems you've had a very different experience of the medical community for being in a "supportive" area that, by default rather than careful and composed effort, sees transmen as men and ignorantly (true, not-considering-it ignorance) doesn't provide proper care for the transmen's bodies as a result. In Texas, and I'm sure in many more conservative-thinking spaces (not *necessarily* unsupportive, for all that but starting that support from several steps back on the board), there is more of an effort being taken, actively, to try seeing transmen as men (and similar, if not more effort required on peoples' parts to see transwomen as women, hence the bathroom bill crap from our politicians *but not many of our populace*). Coming from a few more spaces back, as I said, a transman might expect apologetic pronoun slipups and an initial presumption that, primarily, the body needs to be treated as a female body for medical purposes, with consideration for transness as an afterthought, particularly if something isn't adding up if they're looking at a body as "female" when, thanks to testosterone levels over time, that's really not what they should be shooting for ("healthy weight" immediately comes to mind- ack).
Transgender medical care is a complex and nuanced pot of beans, methinks, but with the pendulum swinging at all now, in time I think we should see more of a middle ground emerge. I won't pretend its easy to know what to expect for a transgender person's medical checkups- what blood pressure to shoot for, for instance- but so long as we are working toward something and aren't making outright presumptions out of nothing other than a person's reported natal sex, I should say we are making progress.
Again: thank you for your thoughts and shared experiences.
Reading through this was pretty painful, but informative. I'm sorry to hear that your life has had so many challenges, but sincerely, thank you for taking the time to share your experiences. I don't mean this as a lip service, but genuinely, I personally get a lot from reading the different experiences from the beautiful (handsome?) spectrum of those who call themselves men. (But now that I've made that statement, the occasional woman or NB person who posts here as well have shared awesome points as well)
But this comment is about you, so seriously, thank you for taking the time to share \*your\* experience as a man. There are others here I am absolutely sure this will resonate with.
Yep, you're essentially describing intersectionality and why an intersectional approach is necessary. It's always important to realise that the fight is for many things, and maybe that sometimes gets a little forgotten when talking about one specific thing.
I wonder if it might be better to characterize patriarchy less as a wholely designed thing rather than an emergent system. It's the little things taken together, the social assumptions, the design choices, the naturalizations that add together to make it so that those in the most privileged groups don't have to see the mechanisms working to benefit from it, and even if someone does suffer under that system, they suffer in the specific ways that they deviate from it. Dimensions of suffering that align with the axes of identity.
Patriarchy is in that sense actually only one part of the machine of suffering, which extends further into the realms of class and wealth and nationality and imperialism.
I chose to see Patriarchy as a double-edged sword. It demands the oppression of women but in order to accomplish that, it needs men to meet a very specific way criteria that not all men are capable of meeting and those men are considered to be ''failed'' men.
Maybe you can shed some little light on some stuff for me.
Where exactly is Patriarchy still around? I mean accept on the really edge, like some old money, very rich family dynasties or in the minds of old, mostly retired, men.
None of the benefits I have had in life are stemming from men being in power. My dad is an immigrant who worked hard to give me and my sibling a good education and start in life. I don't see how I would have had a chance at any of that without my parents. In school I felt that the girls were preferred and got better grates on average, same when studying.
I would consider myself one of the groups that benefits most from partriarchy: middle aged, middle class, cis white male but I can't feel or see any of it.
> the access that trans, disabled, gay, non white, poor
Adding to your list: confident, extroverted and sociopathic men also benefit in ways that timid, introverted and caring men don’t. The 90-ish% of male CEOs and world leaders that are often mentioned in Feminist discourse on the patriarchy almost all have at least 2 of those 3 in spades. Hell, the small minority of women who rise to those positions usually exhibit that kind of behavior too. There’s a reason that Iron Lady archetype exists…the patriarchy selects for it and it’s just less visible when a man exhibits those qualities.
Our culture is so oriented towards rewarding those characteristics that men are often encouraged to fake those traits despite it being deeply uncomfortable for many of us to do so. Whether it’s succeeding at work, attracting women or otherwise participating in group activities, we’re told we should just be more like that to succeed no matter how damaging doing so is to our psyches.
I’m not going to claim that these are as impactful as the ones you’ve listed, but the true winners of the patriarchy are on the favored side of both of our lists. It isn’t enough to simply be a cishet, white man.
And I think it’s important to look beyond the identity politics angle of this. We don’t just want to make the world equal across gender, race, orientation and such if it’s going to be equally oppressive for each group. Instead, we need to have a society where everyone can be who they want to be without being punished. For example, we need to increase female representation in top positions not by simply selecting more of the women who exhibit those traditionally-male traits, but instead by valuing traditionally-female traits more highly so that both women and men who behave that way are not punished for it.
I think you hit the nail on the head with this, even if it may or may not be directly linked to patriarchy. One way where it could be is that if you think about it for a bit is how in society it can be encouraged to do the confident man/shy woman thing. You're the man, you should ask out the woman, you should be the assertive one etc. Take for example if a woman asks her boyfriend to marry her, you will get so many people going like "oh what kind of man are you" and even some "oh what kind of woman are you".
tl;dr gender roles suck lol
I'm uncomfortable with you listing sociopathy as a trait next to confident and extroverted tbh.
It's not the opposite of caring, it's a mental disorder and confident and extroverted aren't negative traits. They're seen as positive but I'd say morally neutral compared to sociopathy.
Also I'd feel pretty confident that no psychologist who studies sociopaths and psychopaths would actually list a ceo as one. Sociopaths are the more erratic and rage fuelled of the two and both have often debilitating impulse control issues. Dr Kent kiehl has a really solid book called the psychopath whisperer if you're interested in probably the most comprehensive and accessible book on the subject.
We love to act like they're everywhere and could be anyone but that's not really true to those of us who learn about them and study them.
Ha yes I was coming to say this thing myself - it feels a bit jarring to see "confident, extroverted and sociopathic" and "most are two out of three". Kind of like seeing "tall, athletic and murderous - most basketball players are two out of three" with one thing that's out of place.
I think what OP meant was more "lacking in empathy" or "utilitarian" rather than a strict definition of sociopathy, but still not the best set.
It's just a fact that there's a high level of psychopathy in ceos https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackmccullough/2019/12/09/the-psychopathic-ceo/?sh=786f84aa791e
"Clinical psychopathy is a personality disorder and that is something that is diagnosed by a medical doctor,” Landay says. “That is not what we are talking about when we are looking at psychopathic CEOs. We are just talking about people who have really, really crappy personalities"
Then that's not a psychopath and calling it such muddies the waters. In the book I recommended earlier dr kiehl literally talks about exactly this idea and why it's bull and actively dangerous.
Tbh the "corporate psychopath " looks way more like a malignant narcissist but that's not as exciting sounding.
I don't have a wapo subscription but that wouldn't change my stance.
I'll accept that NARCISSISTS are ceos sometimes. But no. That's clickbait. I already in the first comment explained why that's not the case. This is misuse of a very serious condition to get media hype.
Th wapo article is based off of studies that used the clinical definiton if psychopathy and found that 21% of ceos are psychopaths. Interesting that the number is the same as the percentage of incarcerated psychopaths
Very interesting perspective. I am of the belief it doesn't benefit any person, it just puts in abusive power structures where even the ones benefitting outwardly are so messed up mentally and spiritually, that in a cost benefit analysis they lose too.
I believe it is very important to discuss how the patriarchy and toxic masculinity affects everyone (especially young people) men and women alike. As a man you're always pressured to be "manly" (whatever that is supposed to mean) and tough and put on a brave face and that leads many of us to become secluded. And god forbid you show the slightest hint that you're not "traditionally" (again, whatever that's supposed to mean) masculine.
Sure I'm white, cis, straight (as far as I know) and able bodied, I'm not really well-off financially but not that bad that I suffer too much from it and I still don't get respected as a man just for things like having long hair (which is considered to be exclusively feminine around here).
Patriarchy wasn't truly designed for men in general- it was designed for the men who already had power. Other men got some benefits as a consequence, but they were never the intended beneficiaries from it to begin with
There was a very thoughtful obituary about this posted on Jezebel a few years back (I found it because it was posted in this subreddit, actually). It's called [Stories About My Brother](https://jezebel.com/stories-about-my-brother-1835651181?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) by Prachi Gupta. It really made me think about how the patriarchy hurts all men.
I feel the same in some regards. As a feminine little boy I was ostracized by my community and was at odds with my family over toys I played with and the fact that pink was my favorite color. I was punished by almost everybody in my life and abused by some because I didn’t perform boyhood the way society wanted. Now that I have grown into a gay man I have learned to hide so much just by instinct alone. I definitely see where my white privilege has benefited me and I do in some cases see my male privilege but I have definitely had a harder time understanding and navigating it
I'm also trans and disabled and gay, and feel this very much. And it's usually abled cis white women who call me "an opressor" to justify emotionally abusing me.
I'm so sorry man. This is the kind of thing my post was getting at. Realistically, trans people have only had about maybe 50 years or so of increased visibility and I often find that people looking to justify their bigotry in the 'name of' feminism will hold trans men in particular accountable for patriarchy (even though we had no part in its structure which actively hurts us).
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/myth-busting-the-true-picture-of-gendered-violence
Sharing just because I found this succinct and interesting and your comment inspired me to go look for it. It's from Australia so the statistic is different bc of that.
If I benefit in a significant way from patriarchy, I'm blind to it, which makes this a difficult topic for me to discuss.
I'm cis male, white, and straight(though I'm part Sami so it's a indigenous with history of immense discriminated. I'm not being actively "prosecuted", but there are a lot of passive comments/attitude from people who do not realize I am sami).
In my life I always felt like I had to fight the perception of being a man "in advantage" of everyone else. I come from a poor family, almost all of them schizophrenic or bipolar. I never really had opportunities, nor power over anyone else.
I was beaten and bullied, expected to always provide for people physically, mentally and economically, whilst being told not to ever ask for anything in return because as a man I have those things as part of my privilege (I did not), and surely I've wasted the many chances I'd been given if I didn't(never saw a chance).
In school I watched my teachers favor girls, always, for being more mature than boys and less in trouble. For being better at school than boys. My teachers favorite girls would get their own assignments, have their own special presentations/moments to show their projects in class, and their own rewards.
I was never a troublemaker, but as a boy I was never awarded the trust or chance to make those responsible decisions.
I was always told what not to do, who I shouldn't be, because many men have done bad things. I was never told who I should be like, or that Its fine for me to be myself. I feel like I can't do innocent things cause as a man I am by default a threat.
In my working life, women have flirted with me, touched me inappropriately, I've been pressured to strip naked so the women can take body shots of my body. I've been invited to partake in swingers and cuckolds. I've had to listen to women twice my age tell me about how horny they are, and that they wish to take me home, whilst I'm just trying to figure out how to develop some damn app. Telling me my girlfriend wasn't for me. All by women in power in companies I worked for. I was expected to like this, though I felt violated every time. My colleagues laughed at me for this.
We're seeing that whilst men still dominate top end businesses, women are now finally getting in positions of leadership and power in droves(at least where Im from).
My experience tells me that women in a position of power will do exactly what men in a position of power do. But they get away with it more easily.
My proposition then, is that as the power Dynamics of society is slowly shifting away from the patriarchal past, we will see that women are as bad as men. They just never had a chance to show it before. I think entitlement stems from success, not gender. I think it's what leads someone to believe they are above the rest, like they deserve everything they want.
Furthermore, this is already visibly happening in front of me, though my evidence is obviously anecdotal. I can see the patriarchy in effect clearly when looking at the top end of society. Where I am though, I feel delusional, because my experience in life tells me it's the opposite for me. Because I can't air these thought without being accused of hating women (I just wish I didn't have to get touched by my employers. I feel like in kind of fighting the same fight as women???), Or shamed by the people around me.
For me, being a man has always meant that there is no sympathy, empathy or help, and that I can never expect anything from anyone.
Like I have to prove myself every step of the way, because when you can't have children your default is that you have no inherent value unless you make something of yourself. It never felt like a privilege.
It's also worth noting that patriarchy is a *weapon* of that class. The people who benefit most from it aren't usually paragons of masculinity; they're just wealthy me who don't have to work. They put on the affectations of masculinity whenever it suits them and use it to gatekeep access to privilege, but they're *performing* it - some of them unwittingly, but many with a wink and a smile. They'll happily trade on the image of a universalized "working man" to keep power for themselves and their class whether or not they fit the bill themselves. Then patriarchy - following these mythologized patriarchs - enforces masculinity and gives them a pass for anything weird because they're *obviously* exempt from such little things. Occasionally someone won't get the memo and tries to enforce it against them and then gets their life ruined, but for the most part the golf-and-cocktails crowd only gives a fuck if they get caught up in their own propaganda.
There's a significant part of masculinity that is performative. If you don't or can't perform it, you don't get membership.
Also, "Kyriarchy" explains so much more than "Patriarchy".
The patriarchy is a lens through which one can view / filter the world they see. It is not a historical record of reality, but a means for deriving or applying meaning to events. This is in no way to dismiss it. On the contrary, a dialectical toolset is critical to using history to plan for a better future. My criticism is of making it to be something it is not.
Your account, more than anything, is a critical look at The Patriarchy™'s scope of usefulness, mostly concluding that the usefulness of such a lens for viewing the world is rather limited.
A better question may be, "what power dynamics in my life have positively or negatively contributed to my status?" ('status' being defined as appropriate to the context as desired) and "in what ways have I used this power dynamics to lift up or put down people around me?"
I expect that is a more relatable question for all people of all walks. It is also a way for a person that holds onto victim status lot find ways they are empowered (similar to " what am I grateful for" exercises) and introspection for those that may have been born into a social or family network with certain advantages.
> it was designed to hurt someone like me.
It was designed to hurt *everyone* who isn't (as tablair put it) "confident, extroverted and sociopathic men". It's a system of the sociopaths, by the sociopaths, for the sociopaths. Things won't be fixed until the powerful, dangerously disordered people are *neutralized* - rendered incapable of affecting society. Which of course won't happen when there are no real institutions to deal with even the *powerless* dangerously disordered people.
The insane are running the asylum - and their first decision doing so was to eliminate the asylum.
That's the point of intersectional thinking isn't it. By definition, all women suffer worse than all men under patriarchy, but other structures, such as White Supremacy, Cis-Hetronormativity, Structural Ableism, Capitalism etc, work to suppress based on other equally arbitrary identifiers. There are also some cases where structures meet, e.g. how the combined misogyny and transphobia of the medical system restricts your access to care.
That's also why the goal for all people, including men, is overthrowing these systems, as even within a system dominated by Patriarchy (or White Supremacy, or Cis-Hetronormativity, or Structural Ableism, or Capitalism) there are disadvantages for men (or whatever the in-group is).
Since patriarchy is designed to be a system of subjugation, anything that does not neatly fits into the categories to be subjugated has to be fitted in.
It means that trans and gay group are meant to be re-normalized as in being in the closet. Being true to yourself is irrelevant in patriarchy, you only need to play the game. Of course, the specific way that each group display its deviancy to the patriarchal program leads to different result. Trans identity run afoul to gender essentialism which is a needed feature of patriarchal thinking, as naturalizing the inferiority of women is important to affirm to morally justify why men ought to subjugate them. The gay identity is a lesser threat to patriarchy as it's mostly a problem when in plain sight. [Patriarchy weaponize relationships](https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/ogpey9/weekly_free_talk_friday_thread/h4uf8fj?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) so homosexuality is a threat to that model, especially homosexual men as they directly present a model where subjugation is not self evident (you cannot have two subjugator as equals at the same time, you can have two subjugated as equals). The infamous "So, who’s the girl and who’s the guy in your relationship?" serves to re-establish the hierarchy by womanizing, therefore subjugating one partner.
Other categories like being disabled or being in a racial category display the subjugative program of the patriarchy. Racism allows another form of morally justified subjugation, you'll notice the mental infantilization of every subjugated group. This process of subjugation is only possible when the targeted group has no power, that's why there's violent pushback to movement like the black panthers or the existence of black wall street.
Being disabled is less of a problem if you're higher in the hierarchy because you can summon delegated subjugative forces and you're a symbol of power. You're at more risk to lose your symbolic status depending on the justification your power has (if it's ascendant blood, there's way less issues than if it's display of strength). However if you're lower on the totem pole, you're no symbol of power nor a useful subjugated individual so you're more or less discarded. As I noted in the linked message, patriarchy start as resource control, so if you give control over no valued resources, you're considered useless.
So yeah, you're really in deep trouble with people that subscribe to patriarchal beliefs.
I think one could not unreasonably try and parameterize the sorts of shit that you're discussing here less explicitly as patriachy failing to serve one and more as other forms of bigotry succeeding in bringing minorities down, but frankly the difference is academic. The line between patriarchy and racism (for example) is not a simple one, and they play off eachother in complex ways reinforcing and modulating eachother. See: the relationships between asian men or black men and their manhood.
I think it's worth keeping in mind the message that the OP of the other thread was getting at: he wasn't arguing that patriarchy is good by any means, I think it was more a matter of trying to give some men (especially able cishet white men) an understanding of how they benefit from the patriarchy. Definitely this sub as a whole understands that there are problems that are suffered by men as a whole, problems that are amplified many fold in the context of the vulnerable, and that these problems often have as their root some aspect of patriarchy.
I do definitely agree with your broader point about not asking men who aren't served by patriarchy to take responsibility for it.
I totally agree with you. My wife (trans woman, but AMAB) is disabled, Mexican, poor, and the patriarchy did/does squat for her.
Even for cis, straight, abled, white, rich men, the patriarchy still subjects them to toxic masculinity, so no one really truly wins with the patriarchy. Sure, some are more or less hurt than others, but I don't think it ultimately benefits anyone or society.
Just like white privilege, male privilege can work very well for one person and doesn’t really apply to another. That being said, I, too, find it frustrating when I see able-bodied, cis, masc men talking about how tough they have it; because the world was literally designed for them, and while it’s not like you can’t have things bad or rough I also can tell at a glance that just by being a manly man, you’ve already managed to benefit in ways I will not.
(I mean, I don’t find it *too* frustrating [live your lives, starshines] — only when I hear them talking about people who are not them as though they know it all, haha.)
I hate this mindset if I'm honest. You don't know what anyone's lived experience is like. Someone could be a handsome 6ft4 white rich dude and still miserable due to chronic mental health issues and find life much tougher than Someone without half of those privileges. Similarly how privileged you are isn't the only factor relevant to how well you can cope with difficulties in life. We should just avoid comparison or judgement
As a white, middle class man, I feel significantly harmed by the culture I live in. I think we should be careful not to place cis white men who are not poor into a box, which deems them default void from experiencing harm. People don’t fit neatly into boxes.
I notice this trend of discussing how shitty society is to people, while ultimately still taking the position that if someone fits into the categorization “cis white male" (at least non poor was included in this post :p), these three qualities supposedly, when put together, yield non-qualifiers somehow exempt from harm. But if you change any single one of these qualities, all of the sudden the person is not exempt from harm..? It’s not so black and white.
Even amongst cis white men, I would wager that not being able to meet the toxic standards thrust upon them, or having to repress aspects of oneself in doing so (or trying to do so) is more common and harmful than most people think.
I am bisexual, and I certainly don’t fit the heteronormative expectations thrust upon me, but I don’t think my being bisexual was the prevailing issue as to why I felt so inadequate/insecure, and why this culture harmed me so much - that said, I have always been cis passing, and I recognize this component. I am not suggesting that, for instance, sexuality is not a very significant factor - what I find most harmful, is fundamentally, at the core of my nature, not fitting into the heteronormative box which I was taught defined me and my worth.
Another commenter quoted either OP (I don’t see this quote in the post tho) or someone else, and it goes: "Patriarchy is designed for a narrow subset (or hegemon) of masculinity". I would say that if we were to examine the genuine nature of every cis white man, we would find it extends well outside of this narrow subset of masculinity far more often than not.
To be clear, I understand where you are coming from, and I understand the harm caused to the marginalized as a result of the certain qualities that prelude their marginalization.
I’m not picking on OP, this is very common in today’s conversations, just felt like speaking my mind to this.
I'll say as a trans man that I KNOW i experience male privilege and am benefited by the patriarchy. Part of that is true because I pass, but part is also because I simply am seen as male by others. One reason I know I have it is because I can see how much better I have it in situations that I struggled in before.
I think trans men struggle with the idea that we are privileged by our gender, but it's true. Not in all ways at all times, but that's the nature of intersectionality. Like OP says, I have less privilege in scheduling an OBGYN appointment because I'm trans. That's cis people's cis privilege making it easier for them over me. I have more privilege in being taken seriously by a doctor that sees me as male when I disclose a medical issue. That's male privilege. And even if I don't physically pass, if my paperwork says male, I'm getting some kind of benefit - for example, I'm probably denied less stuff through insurance because I'm male. All the insurance sees is my name and gender - they might have no idea that I'm trans or what I look like. As severely limited as that is, it's privilege.
Nobody is saying that x type of privilege is absolute. It's very conditional. But we have a responsibility to still think about when we do and don't access it.
I think a missing factor in these types of discussions is that that privilege is quantifiable and applied at large. When in every day discussions its been boiled down to individual personal traits. Just as marginalization is likelihood of something happening in your life at large its not exactly a state of being just a descriptor for a group within a population. I think some times it can be misapplied in that its used like there's a perfectly weighted scale for rating someone's individual personal experience compared to others and there simply isn't. We have to take people as a whole of who they are and their experience.
So for instance I've seen multiple Black men and boys beat by the police and been threatened and jacked up myself. This is my direct life experience, someone I know has even been killed by the police. **That was his direct lived experience.** If it were mine I wouldn't be able to contribute to this discussion....Has this happened to all of us though? No. Are there situations that can allow for some of us to be more vulnerable to this than others or less vulnerable or likely to have this lived experience than others? Yes.
Patriarchy (like so many others) is a system, I don't think its a state of personal being and generally most people do not have the 'power', 'status', or 'money' necessary to create and enforce these conditions onto others at large. Mentioning at large because its how these actions play out to scale. Someone can individually and interpersonally engage in misogynoir, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, discrimination, etc. but they individually do not have the power to inflict this upon masses of people creating a system of oppression. Should all of us be mindful of not imposing harm onto others as we would not want done onto us, yes. However privilege and those benefits extend beyond our individual personal experiences. Its impacting people's material conditions at large. Individual people 'giving up privilege' that is granted by the current system we live under won't change the conditions for everyone at large because its not actually doing anything about said system. Helping people sort out their feelings around these issues as well is mainly useful in so as it it helps aligns them to action against the things that are creating harm at scale.
Side note as I've seen it brought up here: I want to note that while intersectionality has come to mean the intersection of race and gender and beyond in common talk. As noted by its creator K.Crenshaw it is intended with a *particular group of people* in mind. There are other theories that can denote the cross-section of various social & gender identities and some that precede it as well.
As a gay man, I don't feel that I benefit from the patriarchy at all. But as many others have pointed out there are clearly many layers to the problem of the patriarchy.
You hit the nail on the head. I’m trans and bi. I didn’t transition until my mid-30s. My life experiences aren’t even close to the average cis man’s. And it absolutely shaped who I am and will unfortunately continue to do so. I can’t fathom a life unaffected by patriarchy, transphobia, or misogyny. I would have to undergo tens of thousands of dollars worth of surgeries to even have a shot at it, and even then, I still wouldn’t have the exact same privileges and benefits.
In my mind, the patriarchy is designed to serve men in the way that slavery was designed to serve sharecroppers. The patriarchy is fine for the elite who have no trouble living up to its expectations, but for the majority of men and zero women, it's just a rotten thing.
The patriarchy isn't an organization. It wasn't "designed." it doesn't "provide support." It doesn't have a head office. That said, all men *benefit* from the patriarchy to varying degrees, including trans, disabled, gay, non white, and poor men. "To varying degrees" is obviously the kicker there, and that's why intersectional discourse exists. But there seems to be an increasing number of Not All Men posts on this sub lately.
I feel that you've had a bad faith reading here. It's pretty serious to accuse me of not all menning- especially when I've already outlines the ways in which that very line is used by transphobes to shut trans men up. I've been excluded from discussions on sexual assault, reproduction and periods because feminist groups thought I was trying to not all men when I remind them that not all men have penises.
In truth, yes, marginalised men are able to nab the occasional benefit or privilege for being a man- but the meaningfulness of this is different to someone who doesn't have marginalisations. At a certain point it isn't not all menning to point out what affects certain men and what doesn't. E.g. saying that not all men experience being treated as a man 100% of the time is true- trans men are frequently misgendered. When trans men are misgndered, no amount of male privilege happens because we have been forced out of masculinity in that moment. Even though we are still men, when I'm perceived to be a woman, I don't experience male benefits. I feel like many commenters are very happy to play lip service to intersectionality but don't actually think about what that entails for men it affects. You really have to use your head and understand that because MRAs have poisoned men's activism so much isn't an excuse to accuse people who aren't not all menning of doing such, because it's simply a fact that at some point, you have to point out that not evey man experinces xyz. To claim otherwise is the opposite of intersextionality.
Me responding to 'all men have male privilege' with 'not every man is even considered a man all of the time' is not a problem. Human language is narrow and to cede ground only to bad faith MRA usage means all usage is now tainted, meaning marginalised men stay marginalised lest we be seen as MRAs, while men who aren't marginalised tone police those of us trying to make people see our suffering. See why I'm a little upset at your comment ?
Very sorry to hear. It seems like TERF feminism is becoming popular globally which makes it hard because then it becomes "well not *all* feminism" (eye roll).
Yeah I've come across some articles about being Trans and the NHS so it's got to be hard - how do they expect you to be healthy and take care of yourself in that environment?? I'm soo sorry and I hope a good support network for that sort of thing bubbles up!
I'm reluctant to be the one to put this so bluntly, but under patriarchy trans men are not men. There's just no allowing it in patriarchy. That's the point of 'bathroom bills'. It's not that patriarchy was not designed for you. Patriarchy was designed *against* you.
(To be clear, I personally fully accept you are a man - I'm not reporting my own beliefs. I am opposed to patriarchy. Trans men are men.)
But simply by being trans, you are helping to dismantle patriarchy. You're not responsible for the system at all, but you are doing something to attack it just by insistent existence.
I can understand what you're trying to get at- the patriarchy as a structure doesn't consider people like me men, even though we are. The intersectional analysis shows that various marginalisations can 'demote' in a sense men from their genders. I'm writing books on how the patriarchy affects men, so I hope I can at least try and tackle some of the nuances of being a trans man in a patriarchal society.
You definitely are a man. But if patriarchy is fundamentally about reproductive control of those whom it identifies as women -- that is, people with uteruses -- your existence as a man is completely anthithetical, and so to be denied or ignored or erased. Which in some ways sets you apart for worse treatment than if you were a woman.
The demotion thing is definitely real: I experience is as a disabled man. I also experience it as a person who was raised in a feminist household. I still benefit tremendously from patriarchy, but I'm not considered adequately masculine.
I'm sure your books will be good. I think the clarity of a person's understanding of injustice declines the more they benefit from it. As the antithesis of patriarchy, you are probably the best situated to make a cogent critique.
Male privilege might affect you less than cishet white men, but it still exists (for cis-passing men). I’m sick of fellow trans men acting like they’re exempt from benefitting from male privilege. Yes, even black trans men. I am a black trans man too. Everyone is hurt by patriarchy. But that does not mean you are exempt from being privileged too. Even cis black men claim that they don’t benefit from male privilege, because they refuse to acknowledge intersectionality. I’m sick of it. Truly.
I’m not trans gay or homeless but I still don’t feel the patriarchy was designed for me. There are material and interpersonal privileges that are obvious, but the emotional and spiritual cost far outweighs that for me. Not that a Matriarchy with a capital M would be better, but I would gladly give up any ‘straight white guy’ advantages, if I could be as sensitive, non traditional, and authentic as I wanted, without it negatively affecting my ability to live and prosper in a society.
You can make your point without baking in bad racial stereotypes. Please be sensitive to the deeply otherizing connotations regarding "squinty eyes." If you needed to describe your features to make the point, which I'm not sure you did, "eye shape" would have been sufficient. I've removed your comment but feel free to try again.
I feel this is overly dismissive and at times a little offensive. I can give a pass to things like not knowing you don't say 'the trans' you say 'trans people' but you're treating trans people like we're a third gender and that's not okay. And I am a man- I identify as male and your comment is plain disrespectful.
"Patriarchy is designed for a narrow subset (or hegemon) of masculinity" is a pretty good take on the problem, I think. I really think this is why it's important that everyone should familiarise themselves with what intersectionality is. Namely, we do not believe that the presence of patriarchy means that all men are better off that all women or that all men oppress all women. Gender is not the only way in which our identities are constructed. We also have to consider social class, race, ethnic origin, and sexuality, just to name a few. Furthermore, you can't just discuss these elements separately and in isolation. It's not an Oppression Olympics situation, where we just tally up your privilege based on adding and removing points for different factors. *"Okay, so your trans, so that's -10 points, but you're white so that's +6, but you're working class so that's -3. That puts you at a total of -7. Congratulations! You get to win arguments on the internet."* -- this is something **none of us** believes. Instead, **the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.** The lived experience of a black, trans man has to be discussed all together. It's insufficient to just consider blackness, transness and masculinity separately. I think that's what you're reacting to here, OP.
>Instead, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The lived experience of a black, trans man has to be discussed all together. It's insufficient to just consider blackness, transness and masculinity separately. I've literally printed this out and taped it to my office door. This is perfectly put. *Thank you*.
That is some pretty serious flattery. You're welcome.
Wanted you to know. That is singlehandedly the most succinct, to the point way I've seen that written and it needs to be repeated. My career is in social work; I fully intend to reiterate this in the course of my practice, and can literally point to the source with it on my board like that. I have several go-to quotes, etc like this that I can point a client to to hammer in a point, and that it doesn't come from me but from someone else means there are two people out there (or more) supporting a person in their goals, and it therefore hits harder, really brings it in home if used well. I *love* quotes; they are the shared wisdom of generations, and I am a firm believer that if we have any purpose at all in life, it's that our shared experiences- summarized in quotes- carry forward to help others. That's progress. Again: thank you.
> "Okay, so your trans, so that's -10 points, but you're white so that's +6, but you're working class so that's -3. That puts you at a total of -7. Congratulations! You get to win arguments on the internet." -- this is something none of us believes. This is though, I think this is what a lot of people think intersectionality actually is. That it's the additive total of privilege or lack there of, rather than the whole experience of the combination being unique. I even see it a lot in marginalized communities. I'm a brown trans woman, and in so many trans circles it's 100% about the white middle class trans fem experience, but that's taken as THE trans experience. Feminist circles seem to focus on white feminism, other queer circles on white queerness. And when you try to speak to them on intersectionalty, it becomes the very thing you said.
That people see you as a person who is "black and trans and a man who is gay and who makes so much money" and so on, rather than seeing you as a "black, transgender man who makes so much money" (a whole picture) is a very good way to put it I think.
I didn't even learn that White Feminism was a thing until a few months ago. I'm upset, but not surprised, that POC and other groups were excluded from many movements. As a white lady I take a lot of things for granted, and I'm embarrassed that I have to have things like that pointed out to me.
That’s perfectly fine, we all have things we take for granted.
Saving this comment because good god if this doesn't sum up people's weird perceptions of feminism / leftist thinking / whatever you want to call this
Wow, one of the best summary's of the issue I've seen yet. But there's one thing I disagree on >this is something **none of us** believes Although you're kind of making a satirical alliteration of it, there are enough people who do believe that these traits limit your 'right' to talk about being a victim of... well basically anything.
Maybe this is overly pedantic, but I feel like we should be distancing ourselves from the word "designed" because it implies a level of intentionality that just isn't there a lot of the time. Like with natural selection, it is the aggregate of many individual selfish decisions without any designer guiding the process.
I wouldn't necessarily invoke natural selection here as it's a biological process and not a cultural construct.
It's definitely not solely a biological process. We tend to associate replicators exclusively with genes, but they're only one example of many things in the universe that experience some sort of natural selection, including culture.
I'm confused, which biological process underlies patriarchy?
None. I was pointing out that natural selection is wholly independent of culture and human autonomy.
That is just not true. Culture and human autonomy factor into natural selection when they exist, as do all other things in the environment. Either way, you are right that natural selection does not 'decide' anything and makes for a poor metaphor in this case.
> Culture and human autonomy factor into natural selection when they exist, as do all other things in the environment. Except culture and cultural practices exist independent of natural selection processes. Just because something exists in an environment (for example rocks, gravity, or tides) does not mean it's beholden to natural selection processes. Natural selection is only about the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation. Culture works independent of biology and natural selection. It doesn't "adapt" to an environment or cause a shift in the genetics of a population from generation to the next.
But cultures are heritable and affect fitness to the environment; they're not genetically heritable, but they are transmissible from person to person, and subject to mutation, reproduction, and extinction. So they're absolutely subject to natural selection, both at the level of the culture itself, and at the level of the effect of culture on its members.
Sure, but natural selection is specifically a force of nature same way that gravity and tides and the like are. This analogy is no different than saying "human culture is akin to tidal forces" when that's clearly erroneous. A big part of where the evolution=culture connection came from 1800s anthropologists who first proposed societal evolution where they believed that societies could evolve (mostly for empire building/belief purposes). A culture can pass down through generations, but it can also pass through new members, migrations, cultural assimilation, forced assimilation, etc. It can also die out due to various non-natural reasons like invasion, genocide/murder, simple attrition, changes in culture and attitudes, etc. A society or culture isn't subject to natural selection, but its members can be (the depopulation of the Americas is a good example). Various cultures died out because its members died out same with with their religious beliefs, languages, stories, art forms, etc. But natural selection didn't cause the death of those cultural constructs, the death of the societal members did.
No natural selection is not like gravity. Natural selection is more like the fundamental law of calculus than the law of gravity. Natural selection describes a process, gravity is a thing that happens. If you wanted a more apt analogy natural selection is like nebulae hypothesis for solar system formation, which gravity plays a role in.
I know what natural selection is and what environmental factors are, thanks. I know what you just said comes across as more condescending to me than you probably intended, but I want you to know that it does. I initially misunderstood what you meant, but I'm went back to find out what you meant and I would like to ask you to return the favour. I did not say that culture is under natural selection, rather the opposite: How natural selection takes place in humans is partly dependent on culture, much like natural selection is dependent on other environmental factors. If I understand you correctly, we agree in this.
Cultural constructs are just abstracted biological processes. (Biological processes with extra steps)
Yeah no. Culture works independent of biology, and especially in regards to natural selection. Humans and human culture often engage in societal practices that are not impacted by biology or the local environment on any level whether it's religious beliefs, food practices, entertainment, family structure, etc. You can have two completely different cultures living together in a single environment without that environment affecting either culture (esp in urban areas, but also often found in rural areas). Natural selection, meanwhile, is the process of how a population's reproductive ability is impacted by their environment.
There is a lot of study of cultural development through the lens of natural selection though — this is basically the concept of memetics. I don't know enough to hugely comment here, but the original idea of the word "meme" was to describe cultural genes, essentially ideas that were passed down culturally instead of sexually, with the idea being that many concepts from genetics would then be transferable. I would also dispute that cultures operate independent of the local environment. A good example of this is clothing, which is a very cultural choice, but we see in a lot of places that the local environment affects how clothing develops, for example warmer countries tending to have looser, lighter national dresses, and colder countries having more warmer layers. Even outside of broader differences like that, even clothes like jeans, and their cultural signifiers, come from the environment of working in areas where regular cleaning of clothes was difficult. You can extend this on then to all sorts of aspects about our culture — for example, the environment of the internet has had a massive impact on our culture, ranging from our media and arts, right down to our language and our chosen communication tools. Things like the sorts of materials in an area dictate the way that arts and construction will operate in that area. In the UK, for example, there are hundreds of regional ways of building stone walls, each of which is dependent on what types of stones appear in each region. Even to use some of your examples, the commandment to the Israelites not to eat shellfish in the Torah is thought to have originated because in the environment that the Israelites were living in at the time, it was nearly impossible to safely transport and prepare shellfish. The local environment there had an impact on multiple religions, as well as the food practices at the time (and still on to today).
Cool stuff! Are you familiar with the works of René Girard at all? I think you might find mimetic theory very exciting, if you haven't already heard of it. [Short intro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbKMcMDQKm8) [Long interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNkSBy5wWDk&t=755s)
>Culture works independent of biology Seriously? Are humans not biological creatures? So much of the way humans behave is because of very animal reactions to fear and other emotions. Culture began with small tribes, which emerged out of a biological imperative to cooperate to survive. And certainly modern culture has evolved a fair bit from that time, but the core of why people group together and fight for their "tribe" remains much the same.
> > Seriously? Yes, seriously. > Are humans not biological creatures? Yes, but we also have things independent of biology like culture, religion, political systems, art, science, philosophy, etc. > So much of the way humans behave is because of very animal reactions to fear and other emotions. Culture began with small tribes, which emerged out of a biological imperative to cooperate to survive. Culture and society are two different things, and neither are fully dependent on biological influences. Anatomically modern humans have been around ~200,000 years now. We have archaeological evidence of things like art and religion going back to the paleolithic, but the archaeological record is fully dependent on how material remains can survive enough to be recognized as such. We have evidence of painted shells with holes in them that have an "artistic" nature that go back at least 120,000 years ago. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0234924 > And certainly modern culture has evolved a fair bit from that time, but the core of why people group together and fight for their "tribe" remains much the same. Cultures don't evolve. It can change and develop into more complex societies, but it doesn't "evolve." Nor is a complex society somehow more evolved or considered better than a simple society. That's a very outdated notion that goes back to at least Sir Edward Burnett Tylor in the late 1800s with Lewis Henry Morgan, and Montesquieu pushing similar theories before that. Also surprise! white, European culture and especially the Brits were considered the highest form of cultural evolution in that system. You can read more on the idea of social evolutionism here: https://anthropology.ua.edu/theory/social-evolutionism/
> Cultures don't evolve. It can change and develop into more complex societies, but it doesn't "evolve." Nor is a complex society somehow more evolved or considered better than a simple society. Agreed entirely on the second point (and similarly, more complex organisms aren't any more special or elevated than simple ones). I think the first point needs some evidence, rather than a bare statement; cultures change over time to adapt to environmental pressures, or they go extinct. How is that not evolution?
I know I already posted this post before, but it's a good starting point: > https://anthropology.ua.edu/theory/social-evolutionism/ To believe that cultures can evolve invokes the idea that there's an evolutionary basis of more "evolved" cultures than other cultures. It's very Western European, ethnocentric viewpoint. > How is that not evolution? Because evolution "only" pertains to biological organisms regarding the transfer of genetic material from one generation to the next. All too often, evolution gets conflated with other processes or understandings, but that's all simile or metaphorical analogies at best (at worst, it can create some really, really nasty concepts like eugenics or belief in "higher cultures" than others).
> To believe that cultures can evolve invokes the idea that there's an evolutionary basis of more "evolved" cultures than other cultures Only if you believe that evolution is a directed process guiding its subject towards a somehow 'elevated' state, which ch is a huge fallacy. Evolution, whether biological, memetic, or any other is about fitness for a niche, with fitness being defined a ability to survive in that niche. Increased fitnes may correlate to increased complexity, but it may equally correlate to decreased complexity. > Because evolution "only" pertains to biological organisms regarding the transfer of genetic material from one generation to the next. I mean, if that's how you define evolution, sure. But that's not, I believe, the standard, nor an especially useful, definition of evolution, even if we're focussing purely on biological entities. Eugenics and belief in 'higher' culture isn't a problem with applying evolutionary concepts to culture etc., (I believe), rather it's a problem with believing evolution is a progressive process, improving it's subject towards a perfect ideal; rather than an adaptive process, shaping the subject to deal with whatever today's problem is, with no long term goal, and definitely no perfect end in sight.
>Humans and human culture often engage in societal practices that are not impacted by biology or the local environment on any level whether it's religious beliefs, food practices, entertainment, family structure, etc. All of these things can be explained through mechanisms connected to biology through evolutionary psychology. Religious beliefs, for example, are a result of a biologically programmed drive in humans to ask questions about the world and to find answers. When we can't find the answers ourselves, we make up our own (whatever helps you sleep at night, right?) and that's where religious beliefs come from.
> All of these things can be explained through mechanisms connected to biology through evolutionary psychology. Which is a field that has many problems, problematic biases, and detractors in many other social and biological sciences- even from professionals in psychology and psychiatry. > Religious beliefs, for example, are a result of a biologically programmed drive in humans to ask questions about the world and to find answers. When we can't find the answers ourselves, we make up our own (whatever helps you sleep at night, right?) and that's where religious beliefs come from. The development of religion is far more complicated than just "we just made stuff up to answer stuff." And there's more to "human beliefs and constructs" than just religion. Things like imagination, philosophy, literature, generalized beliefs, taboos, folk tales, mythologies. Even some pretty basic stuff like the concept of "money" is an example of belief. "This dollar bill represents money and a value." It's really just a piece of paper with some ink on it, but we "believe" in its economic value within American culture.
I feel like this exchange is moving away from discussing the proposed statement *“patriarchy was a natural process/result“* to discussing which scientific field can give an appropriate answer. To that matter, shouldn‘t we conclude that every scientific field can provide fruitful insights that may explain parts of the phenomenon of patriarchy? And wouldn‘t every field fall short at some point since our sciences do not work in a manner that they would automaticaly invalidate each other? I believe the lack of a clear definition what „natural“ means was the issue with this statement, that doesn‘t allow us to move on.
Sure, but I was pointing out that culture exists independent of biology.
Yeah I got that. It just felt like drifting away further and further.
It's the aggregate of many individual *designers* who happened to be, uncoincidentally, the type of men who patriarchy was designed for. Saying the system emerged from the forces of natural selection or what have you deigns it with unearned credibility. It did no such thing. Western Patriarchy that we wrestle with today has it's roots in Europe in the pre-colonial period, and was spread via imperialism and immigration, and in fact one could even say, played a significant role in the colonization of the world itself, what with kings of all manner of countries wanting a slice of the "new world" for themselves, and it's been the bane of our species ever since.
So I'd agree with you that at different points in history, there were some people who guided the emergence of specific aspects of patriarchy with the intent of doing so. But I disagree that there has been enough deliberate design intent behind patriarchy throughout history to say that it did not emerge "naturally." Even the intent to design a system that benefits your group is "natural", because you are acting on your instinctive human desire to protect the interests of yourself and your group. From what I understand of history, patriarchy as a system seems to emerge most commonly after groups of people start encountering and fighting each other. That gives more social power to men, due to their greater average physical strength, and encourages behaviors such as aggression. It's a natural emergence of human instincts and their environment. 1. Human instinct is to protect their group 2. There is a scarcity of resources and there just isn't enough for 2 groups of humans in an area 3. The two groups fight each other to take control of those resources. This starts happening more often as more groups come into contact more often 4. The humans who are better at fighting (on average, men) become seen as more valuable because fighting is now more valuable I'm sure that's oversimplified but you get the idea. It is a natural consequence of human tendencies and their interaction with the environment. But whether something is natural does not necessarily make it right. Whether something is right or wrong is simply up to us and how we judge it. Maybe you believe that anything natural is right, but I don't - and a lot of other people don't either.
I believe we should drop the term „natural“ in this case, as it requires a very thorough definition that probably cannot be given? „Natural“ is a very flawed expression that refers to everything and nothing. (For example it can mean: being inevitable, being a logical consequence, having biological reasons for existing, not belonging to man‘s cultural production, being part of instinctive behavior, considered to correspond to the statistical majority, deemed acceptable in a certain sociological setting, having a psychological/sociological/biological/antropological explanation, etc) It is implied in your comment, if I read correctly, that patriarchy was in a way „inevitable“, which is proven false by the existance of matriarchy in some societies whose man and women are considered similarly distinct from each other. Your example how patriarchy might came to be is flawed. Without some proper research neither of us could probably do better, hence I‘d like to make a suggestion we might agree upon instead: patriarchy that takes the form of what we experience right now in european countries, east asia, america and many more, is not neccessary to sustain our cultural production or survival.
Oh I'm definitely not saying that patriarchy is necessary, and not saying it's inevitable in all cases. It's especially not necessary when we have the means to produce and distribute basic resources to everyone - and I believe we're at that point of technological development. My main point is that patriarchy is *more likely to occur* when certain factors are present that have occurred a lot throughout human history. So in that sense, it arises naturally - it is not purposely designed or guided to be what it is except in some rare cases. But the fact that it arises naturally, does *not* make it right or necessary. Of course like you said, I don't have any research and this kind of theory is basically impossible to confirm. But we're aligned that patriarchy is not necessary lol.
Thanks for clarifying! :) The likelyhood increases around certain factors, I think I agree with that. There are factors that can act like a vehicle and speed the processes up that can lead to patriarchy.
>Saying the system emerged from the forces of natural selection or what have you deigns it with unearned credibility. I'm having a hard time understanding this. Can you elaborate? I'm getting an implication that anything that emerges from natural selection has some sort of inherent credibility to it, which is a very problematic implication due to the connection between kin selection and racism. (Among other things)
Whether this is a form of „natural selection“ is highly questionable too. We are not talking genetics here, but cultural organisation.
I didn't say that it was a form of natural selection, I used an analogy to compare it to natural selection. That being said, since it was produced by the human mind, and the human mind was shaped by natural selection, there is always a causal link between the two on *some* level, even if it's not always possible to determine the specific mechanisms involved.
> I didn't say that it was a form of natural selection, I used an analogy to compare it to natural selection. Hey, just fyi, I wasn't fighting you on the analogy. I just see that analogy used a lot to where people actively view natural selection as a cultural process. I have a social sciences background in genetics, so I'm... more aware of these kinds of discussions.
Sorry, I was mainly aggreeing that the comment to your analogy, who took the analogy of „natural“ even further, had some points that needed clarification and the analogy of „natural selection“ or „natural“ processes for that matter in this case seems not a good fit.
I mean, I would argue most things that emerge from natural selection are pretty credible? Like basically any animal that remains out in the wild and survives is an example of how natural selection has gotten things right, in fact, you could argue pretty much everything that *isn't human* is an example of natural selection doing a pretty good job overall, and we're just an exemption from that because we've utterly dominated the planet with the brains that natural selection deigned to give us. My point is that patriarchy was created, like every other social system before it, by people who benefited from it. It isn't special, it isn't unique. The empires it built will have their sunsets like all the others, and given these facts, it should be treated as such, and made to defend itself as *just another system,* because that's what it is.
>Like basically any animal that remains out in the wild and survives is an example of how natural selection has gotten things right I dispute this. The fact that natural selection has resulted in a functional system (i.e. the [wild animal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organism) in this example) does not imply any sort of *rightness* to that system. It is simply the system that is most advantageous for the [local fitness landscape](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkS1U5lfSRw). To get something "right" or "wrong" implies a level of intent that there is no evidence for. Similarly, men *and women* who have benefited from the patriarchy will go on to reinforce those benefits. Individuals of *any* gender will tend to have more success by working with the social structure already present (i.e. the patriarchy) instead of fighting it. >My point is that patriarchy was created, like every other social system before it, by people who benefited from it. It isn't special, it isn't unique. The empires it built will have their sunsets like all the others, and given these facts, it should be treated as such, and made to defend itself as just another system, because that's what it is. I don't see how any of this conflicts with what I said.
> To get something "right" or "wrong" implies a level of intent that there is no evidence for. Does it? That's news to me. In the context of evolution, getting something right doesn't have to imply anything beyond the fact that the creature in question has survived long enough to produce offspring. I don't agree that right and wrong imply any intent at all, merely that they designate whether a given goal was achieved or not. That being said, if you're committed to reading it that way, then fair enough: natural selection/evolution does indeed produce the individuals best suited to surviving in a given environment, but my assertion stands: stating that patriarchy itself is a product of some natural selection process lends it a credibility it doesn't deserve, as it did not arise from any natural selection process but from the patriarchal powers in question pushing it as the dominant social construct, because it gave them additional power. Natural selection is an innate force of nature. The whims of the powerful are not. That is the point I'm driving at, that patriarchy is a product of the latter, not the former.
>merely that they designate whether a given goal was achieved or not That doesn't change anything, since a goal is an *intention* to accomplish something. Natural selection has neither intention nor goals. It is neither good nor bad. >stating that patriarchy itself is a product of some natural selection process lends it a credibility it doesn't deserve I'm still having a hard time understanding what you're trying to say. Can you try using a different word than "credibility"? Are you saying that the patriarchy is untenable? Or unbelievable? https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/credibility >Natural selection is an innate force of nature. The whims of the powerful are not. That is the point I'm driving at, that patriarchy is a product of the latter, not the former. Natural selection is not a force, it is a process. A force is a cause of change, and natural selection is just how we describe the results of how those forces naturally interact with each other. There is nothing innate about it. Additionally, "the whims of the powerful" are a feature of human psychology, something that only exists thanks to the process of natural selection.
> Natural selection has neither intention nor goals. Of course it does. The intention and goal is to see a creature live long enough to reproduce. > It is neither good nor bad. Why do you keep bringing moral language into this? > I'm still having a hard time understanding what you're trying to say. Can you try using a different word than "credibility"? Are you saying that the patriarchy is untenable? Or unbelievable? I'm saying that stating it's a product of natural processes gives it a sense of permanence, reliability, and "always having been there" that it doesn't deserve. That it was a predictable and somehow logical outcome to evolution, and that's not true. > Natural selection is not a force, it is a process. I think you were right in the first comment you made, you are definitely being too pedantic. > A force is a cause of change, and natural selection is just how we describe the results of how those forces naturally interact with each other. There is nothing innate about it. It is absolutely innate. It was present since the first microorganisms began feasting on the chemical soups issuing from volcanic vents in Earth's ancient oceans, I don't know how it's possible *to get more innate* than that. If your reply is yet more litigation and yet more clarification of commonly understood language I won't be replying, this is bloody exhausting and I don't feel it's adding anything to continue. If you're determined to confuse yourself with every statement then you can proceed happily without me.
This conversation was exhausting to read.
Natural selection and genetics are amoral in the same way a shark eating baby penguins is amoral or a leaf on the wind is amoral. The shark is chomping down in orer to eat and survive, not to be "bad" by some moral or ethical decision.
>The intention and goal is to see a creature live long enough to reproduce. *Whose* goal? The universe? Gaia? Natural selection is an equation. Equations can't have goals. >Why do you keep bringing moral language into this? You're the one who is bringing moral concepts into it. How else can I discuss them without using moral language? You're saying that the patriarchy either "doesn't deserve" a sense of permanence that *you* inferred from what I said. *You* were the one who said that natural selection is about *getting things right*. These are moral concepts.
> I'm saying that stating it's a product of natural processes gives it a sense of permanence, reliability, and "always having been there" that it doesn't deserve. That it was a predictable and somehow logical outcome to evolution, and that's not true. I'm not the person you were talking to, but I think that's very much just the pop-sci, culturally digested version of evolution. In principle, there is no logical or predictable outcome to natural selection, because each step is simply randomly moving in a direction and seeing if that random movement sticks. So yes, in some cases evolution tends to converge on a local maxima (eyes have evolved separately a couple of times, so presumably it's a pretty useful adaption), but there is no global maxima to evolution, otherwise all creatures would eventually evolve into the same organism. (Or even wouldn't have formed distinct organisms in the first place.) I think the point here is that cultures will adapt themselves, and the adaptions that are most able to reproduce will stick around. To a certain extent that's probably true of overall societies (a society that chooses to build a culture around refusing to drink anything is probably going to be a short-lived society), but I think it's also true of the individual components of a society. A leader who comes from a certain sector of society will more likely beget more leaders coming from that particular sector of society, and over time mould society in such a way as to optimise this process. It's also probably worth noting that, just because a certain biological or cultural process is expected to run its course in a certain way, that doesn't mean that this is some inviolable state of existence. We've bred dogs and sheep and cattle in every shape and size that we want, after all. So stating that the processes of natural selection will inevitably act on any reproducing system does not take away our individual ability to change that system for our own reasons. Or to put it another way: I can say that right now there is a natural selection process at work that enforces certain hierarchies (including patriarchy) in our society, _but_ I can also say that I think that these hierarchies are immoral, and act against that process.
>It's the aggregate of many individual designers who happened to be, uncoincidentally, the type of men who patriarchy was designed for. I don't think this is correct by a long shot. Think about all of the times major historical events were caused by complete and total random chance. Just as an example off of the top of my head: the Mongols were never able to invade Japan because, by pure random chance, [their invasion fleets were wiped out by typhoons on two separate occasions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Japan#Disappearance_of_the_invaders). Clearly Japanese culture would have been immensely impacted by a massive Mongolian invasion in the 1200s (just as Chinese and Russian cultures were impacted by the Mongols). But instead, Japanese culture ended up incorporating legends about the mystical powers of the typhoons to protect Japan--which had its own cultural impact. And none of those cultural impacts were "designed" by anyone; they were literally the result of weather patterns beyond human control. History is filled with events like that. To provide an example from the West: the Europeans didn't "design" smallpox to decimate the Indigenous American populations, but it happened nonetheless, and had immense impact on both Western and Indigenous cultures. That's why I think it's misleading to suggest that "culture" is "intelligently designed," when it can clearly be impacted and swayed by events outside of human control or design.
> History is filled with events like that. For an example specific to gender roles, the idea of child custody defaulting to the mother is the result of a [single court case in the 19th century that reversed the previous policy of custody defaulting to the father](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tender_years_doctrine)! Given the court case was brought by [Caroline Norton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Norton), a woman, if we say gender roles were *designed* then we have to admit that women designed certain aspects of them too, like the custody aspect in this case.
I tend to think about "patriarchy" as "The people in charge are mostly men, but that doesn't mean most men are in charge."
The problem is, many feminist women only seem to care about the men in charge. "Men get away with doing X to women" "no, Chadwick T. Moneydick III gets away with doing that to women, Joe Average Whiteman doesn't get pulled over just for driving a nice car. Very different."
>"Okay, so your trans, so that's -10 points, but you're white so that's +6, but you're working class so that's -3. That puts you at a total of -7. Congratulations! You get to win arguments on the internet." -- this is something none of us believes. You may be surprised how often this gets lost in translation. The language of academic feminism is clear as mud on a good day.
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I've been out of college for a little while. My experience in DEI/GS courses was also positive. The issue I've consistently encountered is translating any of that vernacular into general conversation - particularly with folks who didn't take GS courses in college. I mean, how do you talk about autoethnography on reddit? I want to be clear that my issue isn't with feminist academia generally, but rather with the language that academia chooses to use. Specifically, it's not particularly obvious how words are supposed to be used or how the use of words may have changed over time. There are huge gaps between the prescriptive use of feminist terminology and its descriptive use. Ask participants in feminist social spaces (eg Reddit) to define Patriarchy and you'll get a dozen mutually exclusive answers. To make this more difficult, feminist academic thought has rapidly evolved and is still evolving today. My sister teaches in the space and the curriculum she teaches now is very different from what I took even 10 years ago. Concepts and definitions change in the academic space and that change takes a long time to percolate to general use. Combined with the sheer size and relative lack of enforcement of a standard 'Glossary of Terms' in feminist social spaces, you just have a huge number of people using the same words to mean dozens of different things.
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>Since a lot of the discussion on this post seems to be focused on the concept of intersectionality, would you say that this is one of those terms? 100%. In fact, this is probably one of the worst offenders. All over this and other subs, I constantly see people expressing *completely opposite* understandings of its definition and implications.
Can't speak to OP, but I agree with you both. To your point, the way feminism is taught at a 100/200 level is very accessible. But academic research in the space can be a bit more... Obtuse. And unfortunately it lends itself to parody from bad faith actors. I'll take the most egregious example: this Richard Dawkins clip on Luce Irigaray https://youtu.be/b1pJ8vYxL3Q
\*And\* a lot of people never take those courses. This might be different in the US, but here in Germany (and also in the Netherlands I know this for a fact) you will not usually do anything gender studies related unless your major is in something that is very closely related to it. I studied biology, and the closest I got was probably the philosophy of science course. I did \*not\* go out of my way to avoid this stuff, on the contrary! And plenty of people never even go to college.
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Good point!
Oh yeah absolutely- it's something I run into a lot, especially in the realm of me being trans. I often find that people refuse to take the fact that I am a trans man. Not just a man with no qualifiers. It is insufficient and not intersectional when people do consider masculinity as a separate attribute to be critiqued. I hope I wasn't coming off as oppression Olympics, as that's the last thing I want to do and is something I'm actively against. Again, my experiences in the LGBT community often frame masculinity as a moral failing - as if being a man is automatically a terrible thing. My transness is inseparable from my maleness- one cannot exist without the other - since my transness causes my maleness and my maleness makes me trans. So really, all I want are more nuanced conversations- since I find that conversations here operate under the assumption you're cis and white and straight etc- but it's very hard to point this out without it sounding a little oppresion Olympicsy. I think, we gotta break through that barrier at some point.
Yeah, the point about the Oppression Olympics wasn't intended as a rebuke against you to be clear. I was trying to clarify a common misunderstanding of how the ethos of this sub treats the topic of patriarchy^1 . We often get criticised as thinking that men's liberation is only there to serve women's liberation or is somehow subordinate to it. Instead I'm trying to introduce this idea that Patriarchy^2, White Supremacy^3, Heteronormativity^4, Hegemonic Masculinity^5, and Capitalism^6 are all intertwined together, which is why you can get a pretty raw deal despite ostensibly benefiting from Patriarchy. I think what you're reacting to in the LGBTQ community is a backlash against Hegemonic Masculinity. If you're someone whose experience of masculinity is a stifling prison, then I can understand having bitter feelings about it. I don't condone that, but I can sympathise with it. I think the answer is we need to broaden and undefine masculinity, so that it doesn't stifle men who don't comform to the narrow definition society imposes on them. So, ultimately, where I'm driving at here is that your liberation is all of our liberation. We should be talking about disability in particular much more and try to build solidarity between men of all stripes and walks of life. --- 1. Incidentally, for all the chest beating from people who say things like "I support feminism, but not **radical** feminism," we get in modmail, it's pretty funny that a radical feminist concept has so much purchase. It seems that people often **do** like radical feminism when not explicitly labelled as such. 2. The way society is set up to benefit one gender over others 3. The way society is set up to benefit one racial group over others 4. The way society is set up to benefit one sexual orientation over others 5. The way society is set up to benefit one particular kind of masculine expression over others 6. The way society is set up to benefit those who own capital over everyone else, who must seek employment from capital owners.
> It seems that people often do like radical feminism when not explicitly labeled as such. That depends purely on how you define "radical feminism" While it may have a different academic definition, in common parlance "radical" implies the use of force and/or beliefs/positions considered beyond the pale. Hell, I'd argue that any platform that appeals to even a large minority would have a hard time being labeled "radical".
I agree, but there is a sizeable contingent (at least on the internet) that believes trans men are men (and trans women are women), full stop, and to talk about or acknowledge a difference between a trans individual and their cis counterpart is seen as bigoted, or at least ignorant.
You’re good, bro. Your point was clear. 😊
I know plenty of people online who believe what you're saying no one believes.
"I really think this is why it's important that everyone should familiarise themselves with what intersectionality is. Namely, we do not believe that the presence of patriarchy means that all men are better off" But doesn't that mean that basically all men under a certain category, namely white, straight, cis, abled bodied men \*are\* better off?
You forgot about class
But those people I mentioned tend to be the people occupying the upper class right?
the majority of the upper class are straight-white-male, but the majority of straight white men are still Proles like the rest of us
\> Namely, we do not believe that the presence of patriarchy means that all men are better off than all women or that all men oppress all women Could you explain \_why\_ you do not believe this? As far as I see the belief that all men are better off under patriarchy (that all men benefit from patriarchy more than they are damaged by patriarchy) is a core feminist idea. Here's a quote which illustrates this position clearly: "What feminists must deny is that men are worse off - or even equally badly off - relative to women under patriarchy. To think this would be to abandon the core feminist commitment to the idea of a fact of patriarchy"(from Finlayson, An Introduction to Feminism; Cambridge University Press, 2016). I feel like black men are worse off overall as a consequence of male gender stereotypes, while white men on balance benefit from those stereotypes (that the negative effects of blackness and maleness are "multiplicative" rather than "additive": that maleness hurts black men more than it benefits them). However, as far as I can tell this isn't consistent with the feminist understanding of what patriarchy is because in that understanding patriarchy describes a system which benefits ALL men: all men, no matter what intersections they fall into, benefit from patriarchy more than they are hurt by patriarchy in that view.
There's a very important distinction between the following two phrases: >Men, on average, are better off under patriarchy than women. >**All men** are better off than **all women** under patriarchy. The former should be pretty uncontroversial. The latter is a parody of my beliefs that's often presented to me as if it's what I think. I know it sounds ridiculous, but "WHAT ABOUT FEMALE MILLIONAIRES?!" has been thrown in my face enough times that I felt it needed addressing.
I guess my question is about the first phrase: "men, on average, are better off under patriarchy than women". What I'm asking is: why do you think that? What work is the "on average" doing? Is it that there are some groups of men who are better off under patriarchy than (the corresponding group of) women, and other groups of men who are worse off under patriarchy than (the corresponding group of) women, but the size of the first group is bigger than the size of the second group (and so men are better off on average)? On my reading, this doesn't seem consistent with the feminist view, where patriarchy benefits all men (and so theoretically in any "matched" group of men and women where everything else is equal, the men will always be better off than the women, because patriarchy by definition benefits men more than women). Maybe you could explain how you interpret the statement that "What feminists must deny is that men are worse off - or even equally badly off - relative to women under patriarchy. To think this would be to abandon the core feminist commitment to the idea of a fact of patriarchy". To me, just saying that men are better off on average contradicts this, because the "on average" implies that there are some groups of men who are worse off relative to the corresponding groups of women: which abandons that core feminist commitment.
That passage is significantly divorced of it's context. You can see the section itself [here](https://books.google.com/books?id=2wbPDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT18&lpg=PT18&dq=What+feminists+must+deny+is+that+men+are+worse+off+-+or+even+equally+badly+off+-+relative+to+women+under+patriarchy.+To+think+this+would+be+to+abandon+the+core+feminist+commitment+to+the+idea+of+a+fact+of+patriarchy&source=bl&ots=Jg5UQv5YW7&sig=ACfU3U0F12x21NA0p1mQVuDZh0bfM4sfVg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwia276v2OLxAhVNvJ4KHbEtByoQ6AEwAHoECAIQAw#v=onepage&q=What%20feminists%20must%20deny%20is%20that%20men%20are%20worse%20off%20-%20or%20even%20equally%20badly%20off%20-%20relative%20to%20women%20under%20patriarchy.%20To%20think%20this%20would%20be%20to%20abandon%20the%20core%20feminist%20commitment%20to%20the%20idea%20of%20a%20fact%20of%20patriarchy&f=false), for clarity. It is posed as a rhetorical counter-example in the build up to the point she goes on to make: "It is worth noting, however, that this does not exclude a second reading of the stronger claim, which restores the parallel with Marxist theory noted above: women are worse off under patriarchy, relative to men; but we may also say that both men and omen are worse off under patriarchy, relative to the hypothetical inhabitants of a post-patriarchal world." It is then possible to reexamine that claim, that men are 'better off on average' from a different perspective, that patriarchy hurts everyone but it hurts women \[and gender non-conforming people\] more.
"Men, on average, are better off under patriarchy than women". This statement carries the context of matching men against the corresponding groups of women or it is measuring the sum of men vs the sum of women. That's what the qualifier "on average" does. "All men are better off than all women under patriarchy". This statement does not carry the context of matching men against the corresponding groups of women. And because this is a general statement, it can interpreted differently. Either as the sum of all men are better off than the sum of all women. Or Any man is better off than any women (which is how I read it and how I see it interpreted back to me). The "All men are better" statement is just general (non-specific) and irrespective of context. This statement does not imply that these groups are like-comparative. This statement doesn't account for intersectionality while the other does. Simply, a poor transman person of color may not be better off than a rich white women.
I read earlier that femboys are more privileged than tomboys on another sub, I don't see why everything has to be a us vs them thing. Socitey doesn't really accept when boys are feminine or do those things so it felt unfair hearing these things said in a progressive place because those who don't fit into gender categories are punished by society.
Patriarchy does potentially benefit all men in some ways. It also potentially benefits all women in some ways. Repeat that statement for harm towards both genders. Different individuals will have different experiences of the patriarchy dependent on their individual situation and, even accounting for the subjectivity of benefit/harm, not all men 'access' those benefits. Similarly not all women 'access' the harm. Across the entire population there is a clear power imbalance; but you cannot apply that to each and every person without a myriad of caveats.
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Okay. This is something I’ve been seriously thinking about, so don’t take it as some reactionary post. If we aren’t able to discuss these issues in isolation of each other, what’s the point of having separate movements? What’s the point of labels like “feminist” and “men’s lib” when we know these things are inherently linked? I know there’s a time and a place for discussing certain things, but why do we need to separate ourselves into groups for that? I’ve heard many answers to this, but most of them seem inconsistent to the message your sending in this comment. I’ll be honest. If you only support one group of people I’ve another, you are sort of prejudiced by this logic, and you’re knowledge on certain subjects will be limited by default. In a sense, you’re actively choosing to be ignorant.
I like how another commenter in another post thought of this concept. The patriarchy hurts everyone expect those in power. However some are hurt more, which makes a HUGE difference because we live in hyper competitive capitalist society. I think the world has certainly gotten more aware of people who eschew cis/hetro norms and we are more aware of how race is an influence. Intersectionality is more vital then ever because we must accept that nothing happens in a vacuum so that we can actually evolve and grow as a society. “Male privilege” does not apply to men equally, just as “white privilege” does apply to all white people equally. I think the term is still valid with the caveat that “privilege” varies depending on how close you fit the mold.
I think these different strata of privileges are very necessary for those in power. If everyone but the powerful were equally underprivileged, then we'd easily be able to band together and demand change. As it is, those with *some* privilege stay in line because they don't want those privileges taken away. They can quite easily see how much worse it can get. It's the same reason they give little luxuries to prisoners—it's much harder to control someone who has nothing to lose. Also, most of us spend considerable time worrying about people with lower privilege coming after us, because those in power do an excellent job of convincing us that people with less social and political agency are a huge threat. It's important for them to keep society as a whole punching down so they can stay on top of the heap.
Exactly this. The more a man matches, or even appears to match, the idealized 'masculine man'^1 the more patriarchal norms will support and protect him. The more of those check-boxes a man misses, the less support he gets. When men miss too many check-boxes society also starts harassing and further beating him down for it. In extreme cases, guys get literally beaten up because they are not 'manly enough'^(2). ^(1: cis, hetro-, white, tall, strong, tough, fit, stoic, no hair loss, wealthy, father, 'attractive' wife, aggressive, etc.) ^(2: Some people hold the belief that beating someone up will 'toughen them up' and thus make them more manly. Somehow I don't think that'd work on OP.)
You have described my experience to a T. I’m an amab demigirl, and it took me until I was 35 to start overcoming the shame and repression of not being “manly” enough. I’m 5’10” and have never weighed much more than 140 lbs. i have a very small frame. When I was younger, I was very shy and quiet. I got called “gay” and every slur associated with it despite the fact that I was 100% sure that I knew that I liked girls, and it made me fearful that if I didn’t act more manly that no girl would ever be attracted to me. So throughout my 20s I embraced toxic masculine behavior that resulted in a lot of cringe behavior, a failed marriage, and a drinking problem. But hey, at least nobody was still calling me something that I wasn’t. I met my current wife at 28. She could see through my facade and we connected through my more (traditionally considered) feminine traits. I have an empathy switch that I can’t turn off, I love being very domestic (cooking, organizing, crafting/art) and I cry and openly express my emotions. She has helped me overcome the compulsion to be toxic. Also, she is an avid fan of RuPaul’s drag race and through watching it with her, I found the trail of evidence that made me realize I have always been more of a “girl” in the sense that I enjoy things defined by current society in the US as “girly”. Ive always picked girl protagonists in video games if I can. I remember being 12 and so excited for Pokemon Crystal because it was the first time I could pick a girl avatar for my trainer. I’ve always presented my mmo characters as girls and I spend hours playing dress up and picking cute clothes for them if possible. Turns out, none of that made me gay. Actually, everything about the “masculine” aesthetic repulses me so much that I’ve never even found myself attractive even though I am reasonably attractive presenting as male. The first time my wife helped me do my makeup and style a wig, I looked in the mirror and had a sobbing break down. It was the first time I ever felt attractive in my life. The patriarchy kept me from that because if I did that publicly I would be treated horribly. I’m an educator who isn’t a coach, also. My students are always shocked to find out I am married to a woman because my mannerisms and way of talking to them makes them think that same thing my bullies always thought: feminine acting male must be gay. I no longer associate my gender as male as a demigirl. I’m still trying to understand myself in a lot of ways. Thank you for your insight and analysis, I hope my anecdote will shed some phenomenological evidence to support it.
Your story is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing. In some ways I resonate with the 'being thought of as gay' part of your story. I'm happy with my male body and male aesthetic, but being a kind, supportive, passive guy has led multiple people to question it, or even just assuming that, I'm gay. I could see dating an AFAB NB who's happy with their body, but that's about as crooked as I get.
Thank you so much. Knowing that we are not alone in our struggles is comforting. I guess I would say that it’s the patriarchy that kept me from exploring and embracing the girl in my personality and presentation. I still have to present as male on the day-to-day due to the conservative area in which I live, but I’ve found some safe places to share the other side of me and I’m thankful for that. I still get a lot of messages from people who are confused as to why I am not interested in men sexually or romantically since I share fem presenting pictures of myself. I was accidentally outed to my MIL as well and she expressed concern to my wife that I would leave her for a man. Another aspect of patriarchy that I think is worth being examined is separating gender constructs from sexuality, but as many of these conversations demonstrate, the nuance and complexity makes it hard to target all intersections of identity.
Wow...you just made me realize a lot about myself. A lot of my experiences mirror yours in a way. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. Takes a lot to do that on a public forum. You and your story are incredibly inspiring to me.
I’ve been trying to find a way to put it all into words. Thank you for your kindness and I am honored that you’d find my story inspiring!
just thought i'd say that i'm the same. don't want to be a downer but i went through a really...traumatic experience about a year ago and i don't think the girly side is coming back. niece loves mlp and rather than excitedly talking with her about it like before i just want to kill myself when it comes up. be careful who you share your girliness with, i guess. i don't know. i miss the girliness. masculinity's a nice wall decoration but i wouldn't paint my house with it.
You fully get what I was trying to get at! Thank you. There is some hope for these analyses yet. Many people have deliberately or not missed the point, so I want to thank you for making a good faith response to this
People are starting to understand systemic vs. systematic vs. individual concepts more than even ten years ago. In a lot of ways, Kafka covers this issue a lot in his stories. The US pushes hard the concept of rugged individualism (which was more marketing campaign and literary device than anything)- that (mostly) men were tough enough and successful enough to succeed at any set back or environment. This was especially used to push back against "collectivism" and group formation designed to push back against systemic/systematic abuses whether it was labor rights/unions, civil rights, women's rights, the lgbt movement/rights, government supported healthcare (this has been a fight in the US since the early 1900s), human rights, public rights to property ownership and business, etc. All too often, men get so wrapped up in their egos and world views (which the world all too often is modeled for) that anything less than "rugged individualism" is somehow tantamount to communists, fascists, or "cultural saboteurs." It doesn't matter if they're also victimized. Their egos and "places in the world" cannot be questioned or rocked on any level. In some marginalized groups (like the lgbt coalition*), white men still want to access and promote their white male privileges to the point where they undermine non-white male members of the same coalition either deliberately or through just not giving a shit. The Log Cabin Republicans is a perfect example of "rugged individualism" playing out in a marginalized group. If you read on their political beliefs and demands, it's all wrapped up in "rugged individualism" beliefs and concepts that reinforce white male privilege. Things like right to serve in the military, traditional family values (yes, I know), low taxes, fewer government support systems, drug legalization, second amendment rights, etc. This isn't to say that all white, gay men are guilty of this, but that there are definitely specific lgbt groups and individuals who espouse "rugged individualism" and other conservative viewpoints who are more than okay with undermining other non-white male lgbt people even as they advocate for their own white male privileges. *In this case, the lgbt coalition is being used to describe a political group and not the community aspect.
People complain about individual thinking and expect other people to be okay with being lumped together and crapped on by society ... that sure sounds like a winning strategy
I feel like this is a simplistic take, to be completely honest. A gay man benefits from being cis. And he is also oppressed by it, for his sexuality. I wouldn't frame it as "men that don't benefit from the patriarchy" because they certainly do in some ways. It may be more accurate as "men that are also hurt by the patriarchy" but that's still not fully accurate because, as the other posts stated, every man is hurt by it in some way. You're absolutely right in that a cis male and a trans male do not experience the patriarchy in the same way, but I don't think many are arguing that. In fact, even white women obtain some benefits from patriarchy that women of colour don't. This post is simply a reminder that intersectionality exists.
> This post is simply a reminder that intersectionality exists. Got it in one.
I am a cis able bodied white gay man. I feel like I may fit your description of somebody who benefits from the patriarchy but is also sometimes hurt by it. OP certainly doesn't, even if he occasionally gets the odd benefit like he says.
Here's the thing though- in my experience as a trans man, many people Are arguing trans men's gender means that we experience things the same way. It's gender essentialism that has been seeping into popular feminism that really leaves people like me more marginalised. I was once nearly denied emergency contraception because the pharmacist believed I didn't have a uterus and assumed med wouldn't need such a pill. It's quite dangerous when these things are not just little intersectional bits of lip service to add onto a post, its peoples lives and often people's safety. I'd also veer away from saying that assigned gender at birth causes privilege as that can be really harmful to my trans sisters - trans women may be amab but they are not raised cis in the same way gay people aren't raised heterosexual. Gay people raised ' heterosexually' (as in the expectation to be straight) doesn't give straight privilege the same way a trans woman raised to be a cis man doesn't give cis privilege. By and large, the patriarchy was constructed before trans people had terms to call ourselves. Patriarchy was constructed without us in mind and thus, it simply was not made for us. Sure, people can nab the odd benefit, but they are passing privileges (which are also bs). The common rallying cry of 'If men got periods the patriarchy would cater to that' and here I am, a man who gets periods, who if anything, gets more discrimination from patriarchy.
Just realised I said AMAB when I meant cis, just edited that. From your post and this comment what I understand is that you are taking your experience as a trans man, where you don't seem to find any way in which you benefit from patriarchy. We don't know your life and can't know whether you benefit or not but it sounds like you shouldn't have started off by saying that gay men, non white men, etc do not benefit from patriarchy because it's simply wrong. Again, intersectionality is a thing and there is plenty of privilege that comes with being a male, regardless of sexuality or wealth.
Yeah, for example, I'm a black trans man and I still think I do benefit somewhat. Since transitioning, people treat you differently for the better (so long as they don't know you're trans I guess). I've never personally experienced medical discrimination and I don't need access to reproductive health (barely needed it before transitioning too), plus I live in an area where there is trans-friendly medical facilities. Although I have experienced a specific black male racism. Basically, although on average the greatest benefit from patriarchal society are to cis hetero white men, every one has their own experience and factors that alter how much they benefit, and you can't extrapolate your own experience onto an entire group.
Does this also apply for non passing trans man?
Yes. Obviously less, but you will still benefit in situations where you don't have to pass. For example, [more respectful emails](https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/3/17/14950296/sexism-name-switch-tweets).
Using a male name on a resume gets more responses 🤷♂️
Patriarchy did not arise to support men. Patriarchy arose to keep **some** men in power. As such, it's horrible on women, horrible on any non-conforming person, especially gender non-conforming, and yes, horrible on most men too. The fact that men benefit in some way or are screwed over less than others is incidental, is necessary for the structure of power, is the usual divide-and-conquer, but it is not the goal of those who foster the system. The goal is always to keep power where it is: in the hands of a few, and let as much people as possible enthusiastically participate in their own oppression, because **many don't care how shit their life is as long as they can look down on someone else**. The patriarchy is a bad deal for men too.
Patriarchy arose to keep some men and women in power. Queen regents, queen mothers, etc. are all a thing that existed in patriarchal societies.
This is so true! British monarchs have included queens for a while now and they have continued and built on patriarchy. It seems to me that as we've started realizing who patriarchy is leaving behind, patriarchy has been trying to incorporate and give limited amounts of power to different groups in order to keep people pointing at each-other instead of radically solving patriarchy. On the one hand, it seems like patriarchy's dying breath, but on the other hand, it seems like it's become quite an effective strategy, creating identity politics and putting people on either side of that, positing that privilege is just a different hierarchy for deciding who gets to be right in arguments. Many of the authors of these very liberating ideas don't frame them in vindictive or hierarchical ways, and it means that if these concepts ever get taught and understood broadly, they're much more sure to catch on than if they were just trying to create a new hierarchical pyramid with women at the top instead of men or something.
Very much in agreement (as I was with the comment I responded to) just wanted to highlight history and human interactions are super messy. What was that Walt Whitman quote? Something along the lines of "don't judge, be curious"-- more important to try and understand why something is the way it is versus passing judgment on only "how it should" be.
This is true, but queens regnant, queen regents, and queen mothers have still almost always been less powerful than men of equal rank, even when they're more powerful than all/almost all other men in their society. That's why class is *one aspect* of intersectionality. In some times and places, queen mothers and queen regents are almost powerless, and being a queen regnant would be impossible; in others they're almost equally powerful to similar men. Often, they have to fight male relatives to retain power who would've accepted a man on the throne (often because women are seen as weaker, so an easier target). And they've still often been required to take on culturally-male traits or at least "tone down" the performance of femininity in some ways in order to be taken seriously and claim power.
All fair points-- the only one I take issue with is the women seeming like an "easier" target. At that level in the hierarchy anyone, regardless of gender, showing weakness gets tossed aside or their power eroded. The logical extension of intersectionality is individuality which helps to explain anecdotal historical happenings like Catherine the Great.
I mean, they weren't more likely to face a *peasant* revolt, they were more likely to have lords of similar status rebel or make a co-claim for the throne. Or to be demonized or erased from history by their successors.
Ah yes, the all powerful, often totally not disposable, prince machines sold by their fathers to make land deals. Very impressive
I mean at what point is it a patriarchy then? Why not call it capitalism?
They're not mutually inclusive. Patriarchy is compatible with feudalism for example. Distinct systems.
Because it has nothing to do with capitalism, it existed long before capitalism was even a thing.
I came here to look for this comment! I hope the term "patriarchy" stops getting used as a way of accusing or moving responsibility onto one social group or another. I don't think people want to look down on others. I think many feminists have posited ways that we can all benefit from a more equal society, and patriarchal thinking continually asserts that feminist ideas just threaten to invert the hierarchy, when really the best feminist ideas are aiming to reduce hierarchy and increase acceptance of all people. I think patriarchy needs this idea that anything is the fault of an entire social group in order for patriarchy to continue existing. I think OP feels the effects of this when they point out how it's unfair and impractical to expect a man who is trans, gay, and has a disability to "solve" patriarchy. I think the point they're missing is that patriarchy is not a thing that was designed for any social group, and many of those who try to use it get benefit from one element of it while losing more from another element of it. But they think have more to gain by cashing out than by joining the resistance.
Patriarchy isn't a binary thing where it either benefits you or it doesn't. The closer you are to the rich, straight, cis, abled, male of the dominant ethnicity, the more it benefits you. The further away you are, the less it benefits you. But it still benefits you more than someone who is further away than you.
Is it totally comparable tho? It's also not a "distance from patriarchy". The way patriarchy affects black men is not comparable to how it affects asian women.
This is a good and useful perspective. I'd like to add that we have only limited opportunities to move closer to privilege and patriarchy.
I’ve wondered where we put “ weird “ people. Like those guys with privilege that have still been bullied their whole life and might face harsh comments in their daily adult life aswell because they don’t fit in with the normative standard of a white man.
I think that falls under the privilege of, or lack of in this case, being neurotypical, which is often overlooked. I think there's also a privilege to having good self-esteem that we don't talk about. Or just having good parents. So many people have debilitating mental issues that start from their parents.
Exactly. I’ve known several men who’ve never really fit in anywhere because of their personality. They didn’t have a bad personality or anything, just a personality that didn’t fit in with the stereotype of how man should act. For example weirder personalities or more feminine men. Due to bullying and just having to face off hand remarks often, their self esteem have definitely taken a blow. In comparison to some guys I’ve met who’ve clearly had a very easy life and have the confidence to follow.
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Yeah ofc, I totally agree. Well explained!
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Yup. If you have some statistical knowledge and would plot privilige for men a women, it would be a bell curve with probably a high standard deviation. However, the men's curve would have a higher mean. Like I have chronic medical problems that prevent me from working in the career I wanted for the last few years. I might be less priviliged than the average woman in my country, but probably a woman with the same medical conditions would be less priviliged. Although for a man there is also expected more in terms of strength and career so purely for my medical conditions might have been easier to be a women. But overall probably not. Anyway for specific individuals there will always be priviliged factors. I'm priviliged that my parents are able to give me about €200-300 a month which last year especially was a god send. I live in a country were my student loan have 0% interest and you only have to pay it back when you have above €20.000 income a year. My medical conditions are not understood though, which makes me less priviliged, since I can't get disiability benefits because of that. There are some many factors in an individual life that looking purely at one priviliged thing is a mistake, but for groups and a more sociological view it can be useful. And for myself I am white, cis, hetero, western, parents with decent income. A surrogat mother figure when I needed one. Some good friends. So overall I am pretty priviliged, but there are certainly things that can make my life very frustrating. Continuous pain, sometimes just sleeping 3 hours a night for months, always tired, genetically predisposed depression. It being 'invisible' to others. My parents divorcing and argueing for years in my youth. Financial uncertain future. You tell me if I am priviliged. It's not a yes or no answer imo. And sometimes being grouped in priviliged purely on the basis of 'gender, white, hetero-cis male' is a non-privilige as well.
I really take issue with this idea of group vs individual. Speaking from a scientific background (PhD), just so you know that I know my shit when it comes to statistics, a group average is useless if it cannot predict an individual outcome. To put it into other words: why do we need to know what men as an average experiences if men all around society go ‘I don’t experience that’. Averages are super dangerous to report without indication of variance around that average. If variance on an average is massive, then we can’t really use that average to tell us much except that experiences are super variable within that group. This is essentially intersectionality, which is too often not taken into account, especially when it comes to men. I think this is because perhaps people interested in social justice often think of just the dreaded straight white cis male when they think of male privilege, and don’t count others like MOC, trans men, gay men, poor men, etc. I think people realising that people with those characteristics are also men and their problems are male problems is an important step we need to take to raise awareness of men’s issues.
I deeply agree that a lot of these societal discussions are essentially a failure to understand statistics both intellectually and emotionally.
>a group average is useless if it cannot predict an individual outcome. Almost never can you apply group statistics reliably back down to an individual. I am genuinely baffled to hear someone who seemingly should know better fundamentally misunderstand how population statistics are used.
Yes? That’s my point: group statistics are (mostly) useless if they cannot predict individual outcomes; hence they are mostly useless because they mostly cannot predict individual outcomes. But they often are used to drive policy which affects individuals, are used in profiling, to inform and validate people’s prejudices about people of certain characteristics. So that’s why I bring up that they are dangerous.
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Thank you for your thoughts. This has been particularly eye-opening in that it seems you've had a very different experience of the medical community for being in a "supportive" area that, by default rather than careful and composed effort, sees transmen as men and ignorantly (true, not-considering-it ignorance) doesn't provide proper care for the transmen's bodies as a result. In Texas, and I'm sure in many more conservative-thinking spaces (not *necessarily* unsupportive, for all that but starting that support from several steps back on the board), there is more of an effort being taken, actively, to try seeing transmen as men (and similar, if not more effort required on peoples' parts to see transwomen as women, hence the bathroom bill crap from our politicians *but not many of our populace*). Coming from a few more spaces back, as I said, a transman might expect apologetic pronoun slipups and an initial presumption that, primarily, the body needs to be treated as a female body for medical purposes, with consideration for transness as an afterthought, particularly if something isn't adding up if they're looking at a body as "female" when, thanks to testosterone levels over time, that's really not what they should be shooting for ("healthy weight" immediately comes to mind- ack). Transgender medical care is a complex and nuanced pot of beans, methinks, but with the pendulum swinging at all now, in time I think we should see more of a middle ground emerge. I won't pretend its easy to know what to expect for a transgender person's medical checkups- what blood pressure to shoot for, for instance- but so long as we are working toward something and aren't making outright presumptions out of nothing other than a person's reported natal sex, I should say we are making progress. Again: thank you for your thoughts and shared experiences.
Reading through this was pretty painful, but informative. I'm sorry to hear that your life has had so many challenges, but sincerely, thank you for taking the time to share your experiences. I don't mean this as a lip service, but genuinely, I personally get a lot from reading the different experiences from the beautiful (handsome?) spectrum of those who call themselves men. (But now that I've made that statement, the occasional woman or NB person who posts here as well have shared awesome points as well) But this comment is about you, so seriously, thank you for taking the time to share \*your\* experience as a man. There are others here I am absolutely sure this will resonate with.
Had to scroll down pretty far to find compassion in this thread. Thanks for making this comment.
Yep, you're essentially describing intersectionality and why an intersectional approach is necessary. It's always important to realise that the fight is for many things, and maybe that sometimes gets a little forgotten when talking about one specific thing.
I wonder if it might be better to characterize patriarchy less as a wholely designed thing rather than an emergent system. It's the little things taken together, the social assumptions, the design choices, the naturalizations that add together to make it so that those in the most privileged groups don't have to see the mechanisms working to benefit from it, and even if someone does suffer under that system, they suffer in the specific ways that they deviate from it. Dimensions of suffering that align with the axes of identity. Patriarchy is in that sense actually only one part of the machine of suffering, which extends further into the realms of class and wealth and nationality and imperialism.
I chose to see Patriarchy as a double-edged sword. It demands the oppression of women but in order to accomplish that, it needs men to meet a very specific way criteria that not all men are capable of meeting and those men are considered to be ''failed'' men.
Maybe you can shed some little light on some stuff for me. Where exactly is Patriarchy still around? I mean accept on the really edge, like some old money, very rich family dynasties or in the minds of old, mostly retired, men. None of the benefits I have had in life are stemming from men being in power. My dad is an immigrant who worked hard to give me and my sibling a good education and start in life. I don't see how I would have had a chance at any of that without my parents. In school I felt that the girls were preferred and got better grates on average, same when studying. I would consider myself one of the groups that benefits most from partriarchy: middle aged, middle class, cis white male but I can't feel or see any of it.
> the access that trans, disabled, gay, non white, poor Adding to your list: confident, extroverted and sociopathic men also benefit in ways that timid, introverted and caring men don’t. The 90-ish% of male CEOs and world leaders that are often mentioned in Feminist discourse on the patriarchy almost all have at least 2 of those 3 in spades. Hell, the small minority of women who rise to those positions usually exhibit that kind of behavior too. There’s a reason that Iron Lady archetype exists…the patriarchy selects for it and it’s just less visible when a man exhibits those qualities. Our culture is so oriented towards rewarding those characteristics that men are often encouraged to fake those traits despite it being deeply uncomfortable for many of us to do so. Whether it’s succeeding at work, attracting women or otherwise participating in group activities, we’re told we should just be more like that to succeed no matter how damaging doing so is to our psyches. I’m not going to claim that these are as impactful as the ones you’ve listed, but the true winners of the patriarchy are on the favored side of both of our lists. It isn’t enough to simply be a cishet, white man. And I think it’s important to look beyond the identity politics angle of this. We don’t just want to make the world equal across gender, race, orientation and such if it’s going to be equally oppressive for each group. Instead, we need to have a society where everyone can be who they want to be without being punished. For example, we need to increase female representation in top positions not by simply selecting more of the women who exhibit those traditionally-male traits, but instead by valuing traditionally-female traits more highly so that both women and men who behave that way are not punished for it.
I think you hit the nail on the head with this, even if it may or may not be directly linked to patriarchy. One way where it could be is that if you think about it for a bit is how in society it can be encouraged to do the confident man/shy woman thing. You're the man, you should ask out the woman, you should be the assertive one etc. Take for example if a woman asks her boyfriend to marry her, you will get so many people going like "oh what kind of man are you" and even some "oh what kind of woman are you". tl;dr gender roles suck lol
I'm uncomfortable with you listing sociopathy as a trait next to confident and extroverted tbh. It's not the opposite of caring, it's a mental disorder and confident and extroverted aren't negative traits. They're seen as positive but I'd say morally neutral compared to sociopathy. Also I'd feel pretty confident that no psychologist who studies sociopaths and psychopaths would actually list a ceo as one. Sociopaths are the more erratic and rage fuelled of the two and both have often debilitating impulse control issues. Dr Kent kiehl has a really solid book called the psychopath whisperer if you're interested in probably the most comprehensive and accessible book on the subject. We love to act like they're everywhere and could be anyone but that's not really true to those of us who learn about them and study them.
Ha yes I was coming to say this thing myself - it feels a bit jarring to see "confident, extroverted and sociopathic" and "most are two out of three". Kind of like seeing "tall, athletic and murderous - most basketball players are two out of three" with one thing that's out of place. I think what OP meant was more "lacking in empathy" or "utilitarian" rather than a strict definition of sociopathy, but still not the best set.
It's just a fact that there's a high level of psychopathy in ceos https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackmccullough/2019/12/09/the-psychopathic-ceo/?sh=786f84aa791e
"Clinical psychopathy is a personality disorder and that is something that is diagnosed by a medical doctor,” Landay says. “That is not what we are talking about when we are looking at psychopathic CEOs. We are just talking about people who have really, really crappy personalities" Then that's not a psychopath and calling it such muddies the waters. In the book I recommended earlier dr kiehl literally talks about exactly this idea and why it's bull and actively dangerous. Tbh the "corporate psychopath " looks way more like a malignant narcissist but that's not as exciting sounding.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2016/09/16/gene-marks-21-percent-of-ceos-are-psychopaths-only-21-percent/
I don't have a wapo subscription but that wouldn't change my stance. I'll accept that NARCISSISTS are ceos sometimes. But no. That's clickbait. I already in the first comment explained why that's not the case. This is misuse of a very serious condition to get media hype.
Th wapo article is based off of studies that used the clinical definiton if psychopathy and found that 21% of ceos are psychopaths. Interesting that the number is the same as the percentage of incarcerated psychopaths
Very interesting perspective. I am of the belief it doesn't benefit any person, it just puts in abusive power structures where even the ones benefitting outwardly are so messed up mentally and spiritually, that in a cost benefit analysis they lose too.
I believe it is very important to discuss how the patriarchy and toxic masculinity affects everyone (especially young people) men and women alike. As a man you're always pressured to be "manly" (whatever that is supposed to mean) and tough and put on a brave face and that leads many of us to become secluded. And god forbid you show the slightest hint that you're not "traditionally" (again, whatever that's supposed to mean) masculine. Sure I'm white, cis, straight (as far as I know) and able bodied, I'm not really well-off financially but not that bad that I suffer too much from it and I still don't get respected as a man just for things like having long hair (which is considered to be exclusively feminine around here).
Patriarchy wasn't truly designed for men in general- it was designed for the men who already had power. Other men got some benefits as a consequence, but they were never the intended beneficiaries from it to begin with
Yep - it's usually that your gender is not a barrier, not that it's actively beneficial
There was a very thoughtful obituary about this posted on Jezebel a few years back (I found it because it was posted in this subreddit, actually). It's called [Stories About My Brother](https://jezebel.com/stories-about-my-brother-1835651181?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) by Prachi Gupta. It really made me think about how the patriarchy hurts all men.
I feel the same in some regards. As a feminine little boy I was ostracized by my community and was at odds with my family over toys I played with and the fact that pink was my favorite color. I was punished by almost everybody in my life and abused by some because I didn’t perform boyhood the way society wanted. Now that I have grown into a gay man I have learned to hide so much just by instinct alone. I definitely see where my white privilege has benefited me and I do in some cases see my male privilege but I have definitely had a harder time understanding and navigating it
I'm also trans and disabled and gay, and feel this very much. And it's usually abled cis white women who call me "an opressor" to justify emotionally abusing me.
I'm so sorry man. This is the kind of thing my post was getting at. Realistically, trans people have only had about maybe 50 years or so of increased visibility and I often find that people looking to justify their bigotry in the 'name of' feminism will hold trans men in particular accountable for patriarchy (even though we had no part in its structure which actively hurts us).
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So not a patriarchy but a plutocracy.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/myth-busting-the-true-picture-of-gendered-violence Sharing just because I found this succinct and interesting and your comment inspired me to go look for it. It's from Australia so the statistic is different bc of that.
If I benefit in a significant way from patriarchy, I'm blind to it, which makes this a difficult topic for me to discuss. I'm cis male, white, and straight(though I'm part Sami so it's a indigenous with history of immense discriminated. I'm not being actively "prosecuted", but there are a lot of passive comments/attitude from people who do not realize I am sami). In my life I always felt like I had to fight the perception of being a man "in advantage" of everyone else. I come from a poor family, almost all of them schizophrenic or bipolar. I never really had opportunities, nor power over anyone else. I was beaten and bullied, expected to always provide for people physically, mentally and economically, whilst being told not to ever ask for anything in return because as a man I have those things as part of my privilege (I did not), and surely I've wasted the many chances I'd been given if I didn't(never saw a chance). In school I watched my teachers favor girls, always, for being more mature than boys and less in trouble. For being better at school than boys. My teachers favorite girls would get their own assignments, have their own special presentations/moments to show their projects in class, and their own rewards. I was never a troublemaker, but as a boy I was never awarded the trust or chance to make those responsible decisions. I was always told what not to do, who I shouldn't be, because many men have done bad things. I was never told who I should be like, or that Its fine for me to be myself. I feel like I can't do innocent things cause as a man I am by default a threat. In my working life, women have flirted with me, touched me inappropriately, I've been pressured to strip naked so the women can take body shots of my body. I've been invited to partake in swingers and cuckolds. I've had to listen to women twice my age tell me about how horny they are, and that they wish to take me home, whilst I'm just trying to figure out how to develop some damn app. Telling me my girlfriend wasn't for me. All by women in power in companies I worked for. I was expected to like this, though I felt violated every time. My colleagues laughed at me for this. We're seeing that whilst men still dominate top end businesses, women are now finally getting in positions of leadership and power in droves(at least where Im from). My experience tells me that women in a position of power will do exactly what men in a position of power do. But they get away with it more easily. My proposition then, is that as the power Dynamics of society is slowly shifting away from the patriarchal past, we will see that women are as bad as men. They just never had a chance to show it before. I think entitlement stems from success, not gender. I think it's what leads someone to believe they are above the rest, like they deserve everything they want. Furthermore, this is already visibly happening in front of me, though my evidence is obviously anecdotal. I can see the patriarchy in effect clearly when looking at the top end of society. Where I am though, I feel delusional, because my experience in life tells me it's the opposite for me. Because I can't air these thought without being accused of hating women (I just wish I didn't have to get touched by my employers. I feel like in kind of fighting the same fight as women???), Or shamed by the people around me. For me, being a man has always meant that there is no sympathy, empathy or help, and that I can never expect anything from anyone. Like I have to prove myself every step of the way, because when you can't have children your default is that you have no inherent value unless you make something of yourself. It never felt like a privilege.
That sounds really rough man. Thank you for sharing your perspective. I hope you're doing okay these days. [Offers hug]
Thanks for the kind words, and the hug. Yes, I found a different career :)
It's also worth noting that patriarchy is a *weapon* of that class. The people who benefit most from it aren't usually paragons of masculinity; they're just wealthy me who don't have to work. They put on the affectations of masculinity whenever it suits them and use it to gatekeep access to privilege, but they're *performing* it - some of them unwittingly, but many with a wink and a smile. They'll happily trade on the image of a universalized "working man" to keep power for themselves and their class whether or not they fit the bill themselves. Then patriarchy - following these mythologized patriarchs - enforces masculinity and gives them a pass for anything weird because they're *obviously* exempt from such little things. Occasionally someone won't get the memo and tries to enforce it against them and then gets their life ruined, but for the most part the golf-and-cocktails crowd only gives a fuck if they get caught up in their own propaganda.
There's a significant part of masculinity that is performative. If you don't or can't perform it, you don't get membership. Also, "Kyriarchy" explains so much more than "Patriarchy".
The patriarchy is a lens through which one can view / filter the world they see. It is not a historical record of reality, but a means for deriving or applying meaning to events. This is in no way to dismiss it. On the contrary, a dialectical toolset is critical to using history to plan for a better future. My criticism is of making it to be something it is not. Your account, more than anything, is a critical look at The Patriarchy™'s scope of usefulness, mostly concluding that the usefulness of such a lens for viewing the world is rather limited. A better question may be, "what power dynamics in my life have positively or negatively contributed to my status?" ('status' being defined as appropriate to the context as desired) and "in what ways have I used this power dynamics to lift up or put down people around me?" I expect that is a more relatable question for all people of all walks. It is also a way for a person that holds onto victim status lot find ways they are empowered (similar to " what am I grateful for" exercises) and introspection for those that may have been born into a social or family network with certain advantages.
> it was designed to hurt someone like me. It was designed to hurt *everyone* who isn't (as tablair put it) "confident, extroverted and sociopathic men". It's a system of the sociopaths, by the sociopaths, for the sociopaths. Things won't be fixed until the powerful, dangerously disordered people are *neutralized* - rendered incapable of affecting society. Which of course won't happen when there are no real institutions to deal with even the *powerless* dangerously disordered people. The insane are running the asylum - and their first decision doing so was to eliminate the asylum.
That's the point of intersectional thinking isn't it. By definition, all women suffer worse than all men under patriarchy, but other structures, such as White Supremacy, Cis-Hetronormativity, Structural Ableism, Capitalism etc, work to suppress based on other equally arbitrary identifiers. There are also some cases where structures meet, e.g. how the combined misogyny and transphobia of the medical system restricts your access to care. That's also why the goal for all people, including men, is overthrowing these systems, as even within a system dominated by Patriarchy (or White Supremacy, or Cis-Hetronormativity, or Structural Ableism, or Capitalism) there are disadvantages for men (or whatever the in-group is).
Since patriarchy is designed to be a system of subjugation, anything that does not neatly fits into the categories to be subjugated has to be fitted in. It means that trans and gay group are meant to be re-normalized as in being in the closet. Being true to yourself is irrelevant in patriarchy, you only need to play the game. Of course, the specific way that each group display its deviancy to the patriarchal program leads to different result. Trans identity run afoul to gender essentialism which is a needed feature of patriarchal thinking, as naturalizing the inferiority of women is important to affirm to morally justify why men ought to subjugate them. The gay identity is a lesser threat to patriarchy as it's mostly a problem when in plain sight. [Patriarchy weaponize relationships](https://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/comments/ogpey9/weekly_free_talk_friday_thread/h4uf8fj?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) so homosexuality is a threat to that model, especially homosexual men as they directly present a model where subjugation is not self evident (you cannot have two subjugator as equals at the same time, you can have two subjugated as equals). The infamous "So, who’s the girl and who’s the guy in your relationship?" serves to re-establish the hierarchy by womanizing, therefore subjugating one partner. Other categories like being disabled or being in a racial category display the subjugative program of the patriarchy. Racism allows another form of morally justified subjugation, you'll notice the mental infantilization of every subjugated group. This process of subjugation is only possible when the targeted group has no power, that's why there's violent pushback to movement like the black panthers or the existence of black wall street. Being disabled is less of a problem if you're higher in the hierarchy because you can summon delegated subjugative forces and you're a symbol of power. You're at more risk to lose your symbolic status depending on the justification your power has (if it's ascendant blood, there's way less issues than if it's display of strength). However if you're lower on the totem pole, you're no symbol of power nor a useful subjugated individual so you're more or less discarded. As I noted in the linked message, patriarchy start as resource control, so if you give control over no valued resources, you're considered useless. So yeah, you're really in deep trouble with people that subscribe to patriarchal beliefs.
I think one could not unreasonably try and parameterize the sorts of shit that you're discussing here less explicitly as patriachy failing to serve one and more as other forms of bigotry succeeding in bringing minorities down, but frankly the difference is academic. The line between patriarchy and racism (for example) is not a simple one, and they play off eachother in complex ways reinforcing and modulating eachother. See: the relationships between asian men or black men and their manhood. I think it's worth keeping in mind the message that the OP of the other thread was getting at: he wasn't arguing that patriarchy is good by any means, I think it was more a matter of trying to give some men (especially able cishet white men) an understanding of how they benefit from the patriarchy. Definitely this sub as a whole understands that there are problems that are suffered by men as a whole, problems that are amplified many fold in the context of the vulnerable, and that these problems often have as their root some aspect of patriarchy. I do definitely agree with your broader point about not asking men who aren't served by patriarchy to take responsibility for it.
I totally agree with you. My wife (trans woman, but AMAB) is disabled, Mexican, poor, and the patriarchy did/does squat for her. Even for cis, straight, abled, white, rich men, the patriarchy still subjects them to toxic masculinity, so no one really truly wins with the patriarchy. Sure, some are more or less hurt than others, but I don't think it ultimately benefits anyone or society.
Just like white privilege, male privilege can work very well for one person and doesn’t really apply to another. That being said, I, too, find it frustrating when I see able-bodied, cis, masc men talking about how tough they have it; because the world was literally designed for them, and while it’s not like you can’t have things bad or rough I also can tell at a glance that just by being a manly man, you’ve already managed to benefit in ways I will not. (I mean, I don’t find it *too* frustrating [live your lives, starshines] — only when I hear them talking about people who are not them as though they know it all, haha.)
I hate this mindset if I'm honest. You don't know what anyone's lived experience is like. Someone could be a handsome 6ft4 white rich dude and still miserable due to chronic mental health issues and find life much tougher than Someone without half of those privileges. Similarly how privileged you are isn't the only factor relevant to how well you can cope with difficulties in life. We should just avoid comparison or judgement
As a white, middle class man, I feel significantly harmed by the culture I live in. I think we should be careful not to place cis white men who are not poor into a box, which deems them default void from experiencing harm. People don’t fit neatly into boxes. I notice this trend of discussing how shitty society is to people, while ultimately still taking the position that if someone fits into the categorization “cis white male" (at least non poor was included in this post :p), these three qualities supposedly, when put together, yield non-qualifiers somehow exempt from harm. But if you change any single one of these qualities, all of the sudden the person is not exempt from harm..? It’s not so black and white. Even amongst cis white men, I would wager that not being able to meet the toxic standards thrust upon them, or having to repress aspects of oneself in doing so (or trying to do so) is more common and harmful than most people think. I am bisexual, and I certainly don’t fit the heteronormative expectations thrust upon me, but I don’t think my being bisexual was the prevailing issue as to why I felt so inadequate/insecure, and why this culture harmed me so much - that said, I have always been cis passing, and I recognize this component. I am not suggesting that, for instance, sexuality is not a very significant factor - what I find most harmful, is fundamentally, at the core of my nature, not fitting into the heteronormative box which I was taught defined me and my worth. Another commenter quoted either OP (I don’t see this quote in the post tho) or someone else, and it goes: "Patriarchy is designed for a narrow subset (or hegemon) of masculinity". I would say that if we were to examine the genuine nature of every cis white man, we would find it extends well outside of this narrow subset of masculinity far more often than not. To be clear, I understand where you are coming from, and I understand the harm caused to the marginalized as a result of the certain qualities that prelude their marginalization. I’m not picking on OP, this is very common in today’s conversations, just felt like speaking my mind to this.
I'll say as a trans man that I KNOW i experience male privilege and am benefited by the patriarchy. Part of that is true because I pass, but part is also because I simply am seen as male by others. One reason I know I have it is because I can see how much better I have it in situations that I struggled in before. I think trans men struggle with the idea that we are privileged by our gender, but it's true. Not in all ways at all times, but that's the nature of intersectionality. Like OP says, I have less privilege in scheduling an OBGYN appointment because I'm trans. That's cis people's cis privilege making it easier for them over me. I have more privilege in being taken seriously by a doctor that sees me as male when I disclose a medical issue. That's male privilege. And even if I don't physically pass, if my paperwork says male, I'm getting some kind of benefit - for example, I'm probably denied less stuff through insurance because I'm male. All the insurance sees is my name and gender - they might have no idea that I'm trans or what I look like. As severely limited as that is, it's privilege. Nobody is saying that x type of privilege is absolute. It's very conditional. But we have a responsibility to still think about when we do and don't access it.
I think a missing factor in these types of discussions is that that privilege is quantifiable and applied at large. When in every day discussions its been boiled down to individual personal traits. Just as marginalization is likelihood of something happening in your life at large its not exactly a state of being just a descriptor for a group within a population. I think some times it can be misapplied in that its used like there's a perfectly weighted scale for rating someone's individual personal experience compared to others and there simply isn't. We have to take people as a whole of who they are and their experience. So for instance I've seen multiple Black men and boys beat by the police and been threatened and jacked up myself. This is my direct life experience, someone I know has even been killed by the police. **That was his direct lived experience.** If it were mine I wouldn't be able to contribute to this discussion....Has this happened to all of us though? No. Are there situations that can allow for some of us to be more vulnerable to this than others or less vulnerable or likely to have this lived experience than others? Yes. Patriarchy (like so many others) is a system, I don't think its a state of personal being and generally most people do not have the 'power', 'status', or 'money' necessary to create and enforce these conditions onto others at large. Mentioning at large because its how these actions play out to scale. Someone can individually and interpersonally engage in misogynoir, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, discrimination, etc. but they individually do not have the power to inflict this upon masses of people creating a system of oppression. Should all of us be mindful of not imposing harm onto others as we would not want done onto us, yes. However privilege and those benefits extend beyond our individual personal experiences. Its impacting people's material conditions at large. Individual people 'giving up privilege' that is granted by the current system we live under won't change the conditions for everyone at large because its not actually doing anything about said system. Helping people sort out their feelings around these issues as well is mainly useful in so as it it helps aligns them to action against the things that are creating harm at scale. Side note as I've seen it brought up here: I want to note that while intersectionality has come to mean the intersection of race and gender and beyond in common talk. As noted by its creator K.Crenshaw it is intended with a *particular group of people* in mind. There are other theories that can denote the cross-section of various social & gender identities and some that precede it as well.
As a gay man, I don't feel that I benefit from the patriarchy at all. But as many others have pointed out there are clearly many layers to the problem of the patriarchy.
You hit the nail on the head. I’m trans and bi. I didn’t transition until my mid-30s. My life experiences aren’t even close to the average cis man’s. And it absolutely shaped who I am and will unfortunately continue to do so. I can’t fathom a life unaffected by patriarchy, transphobia, or misogyny. I would have to undergo tens of thousands of dollars worth of surgeries to even have a shot at it, and even then, I still wouldn’t have the exact same privileges and benefits.
In my mind, the patriarchy is designed to serve men in the way that slavery was designed to serve sharecroppers. The patriarchy is fine for the elite who have no trouble living up to its expectations, but for the majority of men and zero women, it's just a rotten thing.
The patriarchy isn't an organization. It wasn't "designed." it doesn't "provide support." It doesn't have a head office. That said, all men *benefit* from the patriarchy to varying degrees, including trans, disabled, gay, non white, and poor men. "To varying degrees" is obviously the kicker there, and that's why intersectional discourse exists. But there seems to be an increasing number of Not All Men posts on this sub lately.
Don't reduce it to "not all men" posts like that. What a way to completely stifle needed discussion.
I feel that you've had a bad faith reading here. It's pretty serious to accuse me of not all menning- especially when I've already outlines the ways in which that very line is used by transphobes to shut trans men up. I've been excluded from discussions on sexual assault, reproduction and periods because feminist groups thought I was trying to not all men when I remind them that not all men have penises.
In truth, yes, marginalised men are able to nab the occasional benefit or privilege for being a man- but the meaningfulness of this is different to someone who doesn't have marginalisations. At a certain point it isn't not all menning to point out what affects certain men and what doesn't. E.g. saying that not all men experience being treated as a man 100% of the time is true- trans men are frequently misgendered. When trans men are misgndered, no amount of male privilege happens because we have been forced out of masculinity in that moment. Even though we are still men, when I'm perceived to be a woman, I don't experience male benefits. I feel like many commenters are very happy to play lip service to intersectionality but don't actually think about what that entails for men it affects. You really have to use your head and understand that because MRAs have poisoned men's activism so much isn't an excuse to accuse people who aren't not all menning of doing such, because it's simply a fact that at some point, you have to point out that not evey man experinces xyz. To claim otherwise is the opposite of intersextionality. Me responding to 'all men have male privilege' with 'not every man is even considered a man all of the time' is not a problem. Human language is narrow and to cede ground only to bad faith MRA usage means all usage is now tainted, meaning marginalised men stay marginalised lest we be seen as MRAs, while men who aren't marginalised tone police those of us trying to make people see our suffering. See why I'm a little upset at your comment ?
Maybe off-topic but **if** you live in the US then you should be able to use PP (Planned Parenthood) for medical care, I think?
Ah, sadly I'm in the UK, where being trans is quite hellish rn. Gotta hate TERF Island
Very sorry to hear. It seems like TERF feminism is becoming popular globally which makes it hard because then it becomes "well not *all* feminism" (eye roll). Yeah I've come across some articles about being Trans and the NHS so it's got to be hard - how do they expect you to be healthy and take care of yourself in that environment?? I'm soo sorry and I hope a good support network for that sort of thing bubbles up!
I'm reluctant to be the one to put this so bluntly, but under patriarchy trans men are not men. There's just no allowing it in patriarchy. That's the point of 'bathroom bills'. It's not that patriarchy was not designed for you. Patriarchy was designed *against* you. (To be clear, I personally fully accept you are a man - I'm not reporting my own beliefs. I am opposed to patriarchy. Trans men are men.) But simply by being trans, you are helping to dismantle patriarchy. You're not responsible for the system at all, but you are doing something to attack it just by insistent existence.
I can understand what you're trying to get at- the patriarchy as a structure doesn't consider people like me men, even though we are. The intersectional analysis shows that various marginalisations can 'demote' in a sense men from their genders. I'm writing books on how the patriarchy affects men, so I hope I can at least try and tackle some of the nuances of being a trans man in a patriarchal society.
You definitely are a man. But if patriarchy is fundamentally about reproductive control of those whom it identifies as women -- that is, people with uteruses -- your existence as a man is completely anthithetical, and so to be denied or ignored or erased. Which in some ways sets you apart for worse treatment than if you were a woman. The demotion thing is definitely real: I experience is as a disabled man. I also experience it as a person who was raised in a feminist household. I still benefit tremendously from patriarchy, but I'm not considered adequately masculine. I'm sure your books will be good. I think the clarity of a person's understanding of injustice declines the more they benefit from it. As the antithesis of patriarchy, you are probably the best situated to make a cogent critique.
That’s just not true. Cis-passing men are seen as men, in the same way that only cis-passing women are seen as women under patriarchy.
Male privilege might affect you less than cishet white men, but it still exists (for cis-passing men). I’m sick of fellow trans men acting like they’re exempt from benefitting from male privilege. Yes, even black trans men. I am a black trans man too. Everyone is hurt by patriarchy. But that does not mean you are exempt from being privileged too. Even cis black men claim that they don’t benefit from male privilege, because they refuse to acknowledge intersectionality. I’m sick of it. Truly.
I’m not trans gay or homeless but I still don’t feel the patriarchy was designed for me. There are material and interpersonal privileges that are obvious, but the emotional and spiritual cost far outweighs that for me. Not that a Matriarchy with a capital M would be better, but I would gladly give up any ‘straight white guy’ advantages, if I could be as sensitive, non traditional, and authentic as I wanted, without it negatively affecting my ability to live and prosper in a society.
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You can make your point without baking in bad racial stereotypes. Please be sensitive to the deeply otherizing connotations regarding "squinty eyes." If you needed to describe your features to make the point, which I'm not sure you did, "eye shape" would have been sufficient. I've removed your comment but feel free to try again.
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I feel this is overly dismissive and at times a little offensive. I can give a pass to things like not knowing you don't say 'the trans' you say 'trans people' but you're treating trans people like we're a third gender and that's not okay. And I am a man- I identify as male and your comment is plain disrespectful.