The Patriarchy Is Dead

^ What she said.

Zoombie said:

...what part isn't feminist?

Click to expand...

This.

And overall, this discussion reminds me of debates I get into with my husband on a regular basis. He says that since women are going to college more now, they'll be kicking men's butts in the future. He thinks men will be taking care of the kids and staying home, having to be eye candy etc., while women have the demanding and lucrative careers and be considered attractive based on how rich they are.

I point to my cousin, who has married a non-college educated man as an example. She has a bachelor's degree in graphic design. He's a mechanic. He still makes more money than she does when he has work (he tends to quit or lose jobs periodically). And when he's not working, he sits around and plays video games and smokes pot in his man cave all day and does not cook, clean or take the kids to their appointments. She still does all that. He gives her hell if she puts on weight because she's working too hard to get to the gym.

Not saying all non-college-educated men with college-educated wives are like this. Not by a long shot. But it's an example of how being less educated does not automatically make you the less powerful one in the relationship and how old habits of patriarchy die hard.

Another example is in academia. In my field (biology) approximately half the people getting doctorates are women. But women still get far fewer than half of the tenure-track academic positions. Contrary to common belief, there is not a generic shortage of scientists. There is fierce competition for biology positions in most disciplines and at all levels.

And fewer than half the women who do get tenure-track teaching or research positions at universities are married with kids, while well over half of the males who get these positions are.

Being the one who has a biological clock and gets pregnant still has a huge effect. Until people of both genders are encouraged and allowed to have more flexible schedules, and until child care is provided by employers, the disparity in income and status will likely remain.

Taking time off one's outside career to take care of small children is not something we should value less, but it certainly is penalized when it comes to getting back into the career track later on. The person who does this is in a more vulnerable economic position, even if she/he is highly educated.

Another issue is that for many people, even people with college degrees, mechanization, computers and outsourcing (and changes in labor law) means that there are fewer secure jobs with benefits that pay well enough to support a family, sock money away for college, retirement and a rainy day (aka middle class jobs). People of both genders are struggling, even when they have work.

^ What she said, too. And she above.

If you look at most university departments, other than the "pink collar" ones, the tenure track professorships are overwhelmingly dominated by men, even in professions in which there are more women than men in the field (for example, accounting). The only exception to this is the English department, which tends to be 50/50 and is also the liberal bastion of most any university.

There's definitely still a huge problem here.

My major problem with the article is that "patriarchy" affects so many different things, and yet she's using it as an eye-catch title for an article that only deals with two or three of those things. Legislated equal pay does not make the patriarchy dead. Women supporting their families because their husbands are out of work does not make the patriarchy dead. What makes the patriarchy dead is the death of the attitudes and cultural/social practices that support it. I just have to look around me for ten minutes to see the patriarchy everywhere.

Just took a look at the follow-up, and it doesn't change my opinion. Sorry, Ms. Rosin (if she were here). The headline provided for her article isn't the only thing simplifying her argument, but if she expects to sell her book(s) by handwavingly declaring various things to be so -- such as her airy comments about women's zillions of problems but how we're still just being blind to our own inner conflicts, etc. -- but making us go to the book for all the reasoning and data that actually gives substance to her statements, she hasn't hooked me. The opposite, in fact. Not only am I not hooked, I'm made suspicious of the quality of her work.

My stance on feminism is this: The sexes need to be equal and together. Female, male, trans, etc., we all need to embrace each other and be partners in life and society. Personal liberty depends on people being able to pursue destinies based on their desires and abilities, not destinies that are imposed upon them by societal prejudices about sex or age or skin color or formal education or family structure or wealth, etc. So for me feminism is about getting past gender, making it merely an identifying feature of a person, not the defining feature in the eyes of others.

To that end, I don't think people should depend on getting others to recognize their rights before they exercise them and defend them. I don't think women should worry about breaking patriarchy. I think we are better off rendering it redundant by bypassing it and taking what is ours by right of being human beings. Eventually, the law comes along, government and education come along, most of society comes along. The hardcore bigots never will, so forget them. I've always considered the most effective way to win hearts and change minds is by setting the example, being the change we want to see. So when people say, in conversation, how the patriarchy has to be broken, I tend to believe it will be broken by women moving forward without regard for it.

But this is a work in progress. The patriarchy has not been broken yet. Rape culture is evidence of this. Periodic waves of anti-woman legislation in states and the federal gov't. are evidence of this. I really would like to know how Ms. Rosin can look at Daryl Issa's Senate committee meeting inviting an all-male panel of clergymen that he called to testify against making insurers cover contraception but refusing to let Sandra Fluke testify about the real effects of denial of contraception on women's lives, and at how Ms. Fluke was attacked and pilloried -- and especially at the way she was attacked and pilloried -- and tell me with a straight face that patriarchy is not an issue for women.

I'd like to know how she can reconcile her claim that "the patriarchy" has been broken with the fact that twenty states have laws forcing women to undergo unnecessary ultrasounds before they are allowed to have otherwise legal abortions, and that several of those states either have passed or are currently fighting efforts to pass measures which require women to undergo ultrasound methods using a transvaginal wand, essentially forcible penetration with an object (for which there is a word). Link.

"The Patriarchy" is not just dismissive attitudes in the workplace or failure to deliver equal pay or useful maternity leave. It's a top-down imposition of control and oppression by men in positions of power against women, and the cultural attitude that doesn't get why women object to this.

I don't understand why Ms. Rosin doesn't seem to think this reality, in which she, her colleagues and her students all live and work, is important enough to mention except in the briefest passing while trivialzing another of her critics, Kat Stoeffel writing for NYmag.com, whom she links. I'll link her piece, too, for thoroughness: http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/09/39-things-well-miss-about-patriarchy.html

At this point, Hanna Rosin is just pissing me off. If she wants to criticize her students and/or women in the media and/or her general social circle for being shallow in their notions of patriarchy and feminism, fine. That's probably an important discussion that needs to be had. But in a world where millions of women's rights are in jeopardy and where millions more have no rights at all, if she's going to seriously tell me inequality is a non-issue and all I have to do is grow up and get over myself, she can shove it. That is not a feminist argument.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

My major problem with the article is that "patriarchy" affects so many different things, and yet she's using it as an eye-catch title for an article that only deals with two or three of those things. Legislated equal pay does not make the patriarchy dead. Women supporting their families because their husbands are out of work does not make the patriarchy dead. What makes the patriarchy dead is the death of the attitudes and cultural/social practices that support it. I just have to look around me for ten minutes to see the patriarchy everywhere.

Click to expand...

This. I saw signs of the patriarchy today in the Save Mart store when I noticed that the condoms were all in a locked cabinet on the display aisle that obviously requires someone to fetch a store clerk to unlock it. This was not always the case, and the other store in our neighborhood does not do this. I think I'll be doing my shopping at the Raley's from now on (and no, I don't need condoms myself, but the thought that they think it's okay to toss extra roadblocks in front of sexually active people (especially younger people) who want to protect themselves just makes me so ... mad!)

Also, the end of the patriarchy (should it ever come) does not mean the end of men. Some of us kind of like males, for all the faults of patriarchy, and don't equate patriarchy with maleness.

Re pay equality, though, one interesting and encouraging study I read about a while back suggests that when men and women become more financially equal in a society, males become less focused on beauty and youth in potential partners, and women become less focused on wealth.

My own anecdotal experience (in spite of the example with my cousin) is that I know a number of couples where the man is the one who stayed home and provided most of the childcare, and I know other couples where both parents work hard to care for their kids and earn money. This was pretty much unheard of when I was a kid.

Roxx, it is possible that condoms are under lock and key because they are more likely than other products to be stolen?

Mura, a thousand tons of word to your post. No one should be able to say there's no such thing as patriarchy after last spring's horrific tide of anti-woman legislation.