What is Patriarchy? (For real -_-)

Post Reply New Topic

So the way I see it, it works like this. Society is not homogeneous, on different levels in different regions there is different demographics, and thus different people in power. So, yes, "minorities" can discriminate against the "majority" in circumstances. However, all higher levels trickle down to the lower levels, so even in situations were minorities dominate, they are still minorities. Now, with the patriarchy, it's specifically referring to positions of "hard power", like the wealthy or those in government (soft power would be people who are highly influential on some level, but aren't in a direction position of power). While woman are overall more numerous than men, there are much more men in these positions of hard power, they are the majority on that level. Because people in positions of hard power have more power than the typical person, their level has power over most of society, and they influences things down. The patriarchy is the system where men have dominance over top level power structures, and as a an effect of this, usually (but not always) have control over lower levels like the family as well. The system isn't the actual people, it's all the memes in the culture related to gender. Now, the thing that needs to be understand about the patriarchy is it's not men vs woman, only a small portion of men are in the top levels of power (even if as a result society is structured so more men are in power in lower level structures) and the expectations imposed by the patriarchy hurt men as well, often in different ways than it hurts woman. However, it still probably hurts woman more due to obvious reasons. Now, it's not that the actual men composing the patriarchal leadership are malicious, but through the phenomena of male gaze they may hurt woman simply because they don't understand what woman are going through. It's really a lot more complicated than "men oppress woman".

Amirite?

If you want an example of patriarchy study Iran. Then you will know.

There is actually a surprisingly high amount of woman in government and science in Iran, more than many western countries.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cbMLeeV1ww[/youtube]

But look at their laws regarding women and the family structure. That's where patriarchy is most apparent. What kind of power do the women of Iran have?

Personally, I think "patriarchy" is when men hold most of the political and economic power.

I don't necessarily think this is automatically either a "good" thing or a "bad" thing.

More than the typical westerner thinks. Anyway, can we have less anti-feminists going off on tangents and more people actually discussing the topic?

Totally agree.
That said, I don't think that 'the male gaze' is as big of a deal as the sense of male entitlement that one sometimes encounters from more privileged specimens: 'I find you attractive, therefore I have a right to touch you without your permission.' Sometimes the gaze can be creepily predatory (i.e., I wouldn't go into any isolated space with that guy), but men just looking isn't that big of a deal IF it really is 'just looking,' whether they understand the woman in question or not.

Where 'not understanding' becomes a huge problem is when the men who are in power write laws that totally ignore the needs and experiences of half of the population, as when one pro-life politician recently admitted that he'd never wondered why a woman might want to get an abortion.