SMASH THE PATRIARCHY

The fucking insidiousness of the patriarchal viewpoint and its freedom-denying, life-destroying control over people's bodies and minds has me riled up. Or maybe I just hate sexist assholes I read about on the internet. Bit of both.

Anyway how can I smash me some patriarchy in my daily life? Should I hang out with more sexist assholes for the purpose of smashing them?

Depends what you mean by "smash"

I mean I am a weenis so I don't actually want to physically smash anything or anybody, I think that's not a great idea.

volunteer for Planned Parenthood, or at a shelter.

That sounds like an awesome idea! I am going to look into this.

oh rad there's a smash the patriarchy thread

OK if it ends up that I will be staying in this area for grad school I will look into volunteering at Safe Passage in Northampton MA. And smash some patriarchy.

xp there is now!

Also ideally going to grad school for computer science will put me in a position to work on smashing the computing patriarchy. Mandatory gender reeducation for every e-peen wielding neckbearded reddit user who walks into my classroom. (In my dream world.)

this is corny, but i would say try to hold yourself to high standards in how you treat women in your life, in large and small ways. on a less systemic and more small-scale tip.

Small-scale patriarchy-smashing tips are also very important. Especially since I think attitudes probably change as much or more through peer pressure than through large-scale activism.

Important patriarchy-smashing tip for English speakers: use singular "they"!

Heard someone recently use "they" recently to refer to someone whose gender presentation was apparently uncontroversial. Weirded me out a bit, but it's an awesome choice in its way.

I'm probably not going to start calling people who publicly identify and present as male or female "they" in general anytime soon, but the fact that some people think "he" is an acceptable default for an anonymous subject in 2012 is fucking ridiculous.

And we shouldn't have to resort to circumlocutions to fix that problem. #singularthey2012

I hear language is a virus.

the Truth is a virus, you mean

i think a big part of small scale patriarchy smashing is calling out sexist bullshit when you see it

which is often scary imo when you're outnumbered?

I don't get out much so I don't run into a lot of sexist bullshit in real life currently, and I'm not bored enough nor quite angry enough to go find some terrible internet forums to call people out for being sexist on.

well when i say "sexist bullshit" i don't just mean the dude horndogging per se but also like noting subtler 'louder dudes dominating discussion w/females present' or like--since research shows men repeating women's previously-stated ideas tends to result in the men getting the credit after the fact, if you wanna voice agreement with something a woman said, make sure u point out she said it first.

ugh also plz plz plz remind me to stfu itt cause i can get kinda marc loi sometimes i think?

More awesome tips! Yes. Gonna file these away for when my life gets more interesting again someday.

lol i think it's okay hoos

volunteer for Planned Parenthood, or at a shelter.

great advice. and/or donate money to the same. for years, through a company program that encouraged charitable giving, i had $25 taken out of every (weekly) paycheck and given to a local women's shelter. it was a "cheap" kind of support, in that i hardly noticed the deduction, but it added up to well over $1000 bucks a year. more companies should offer this kind of thing, imo.

yes! also like, planned parenthood called me ~just to thank me for being a member~ the other day, absolutely no ask included or even implied, which kind of blew my mind

might want to look into being an abortion clinic escort if the option is available in your area.

volunteer to have your wages reduced by 20% to redue the gender pay gap

i actually know a guy who donates 20% of what he makes to NOW for that reason

'grad school'

this is corny, but i would say try to hold yourself to high standards in how you treat women in your life, in large and small ways. on a less systemic and more small-scale tip.

― horseshoe, Thursday, March 22, 2012 4:35 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yourself, and your friends. well, what hoos said basically.

i am really glad that this thread wasn't a joke!

http://www.radicalrags.com/images/t-shirts/smash_patriarchy_design.gif

also silb obv this is for you

http://www.radicalrags.com/t-shirts/political-t-shirts/feminist-t-shirts/end_patriarchy_t-shirt.html

Choose style, color, size, & then click "add to cart", & then smash patriarchy.

(x-post)

lolol <3

Wow, we have a Smash the Patriarchy thread. That's all kinds of awesome.

The whole thing about holding yourself and your friends accountable is A++ IMO. Be the change you want to see in society, that kind of thing, blah blah blah.

And I know this is a bit "master's tools, master's house" but there are ways that, if you acknowledge Male Privilege, you can use your very Privilege to smash itself. Use it to confront men who ~will not listen to women~ and use it to acknowledge and promote the contributions of women. (And not in a paternalistic way, but in a supportive kind of way.)

for sure

scott crow has written a lot about using his white privilege to get supplies for often ignored refugees in the context of post-katrina new orleans and i'd been thinking about how one could apply that line of thought in a feminist context, u laid it out nicely

Yeah, coz that brings up the whole "do not fall into Male Saviour Complex" like that whole "do not fall into White Saviour Complex" article / meme that has been doing the rounds.

Also, never ever use the word "empower." I've grown so suspicious of that word. You don't "empower" other people, and if you think you can, you need to stand back and get out of the way because power isn't something you get to hand out. But this is another kettle of worms and another linguistic pet peeve for another day.

Well, power is always relational, so you can't just "give" it to someone as if it was a quantity or something. But you can, through your own actions, create situation where the power of the normally dominant party (be it others, or yourself) is lessened so the ones who usually are less dominant have a better chance of exerting their power.

And like everyone's said in this thread, a lot of ways of fighting gender imbalance involve ordinary everyday situations and being aware of the inequal power relations in them. Like, I've often noticed (and gender research proves this) that in situations where a group of men and women talk together, men tend to dominate the discussion (even if they are fewer than the women) through the sheer volume of their voice, by speaking on top of others, by downplaying what women say, and by other verbal and nonverbal means. (Also, because they're aware of this domination, many women are less keen to speak in situations like this.) And I've noticed I'm often guilty of this myself. So in situations like this, I try not to hog the conversation all to myself, to let others speak as well, and if someone else tries to dominate the talk, to say to them that they should let others speak as well.

"create situations"

man I got called out for using "patriarchy" last year, people who prefer "kyriarchy" are v. v. into it

using 'kyriarchy' is a cop-out iirc

I can't even spell Kierarchy? Kyraiarchy? Fuck it, Patriarchy may be technically less accurate but at least my spellcheck recognises it enough for me to be able to get it down.

it's kyri as in kyrie eleison!

I know its derivation, but my spellcheck still doesn't think it's a real world. Sigh.

it was invented after spellcheck was tbh

kyrie minogue

i still don't even know what kyriarchy means and i am not googling to look it up. i like not knowing! it's rare you get to read a word all the time and not know what it means. don't tell me!

SSSSHHHHHH, the kyriarchy is coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE

The kyriarchy is dead people.

The kyriarchy has a penis! It was just tucking it away.

Oh god I've spoiled everything forever.

or against being a total dorkbag

Aaaaaah!!! Their kids' names are Jazz, Kio, and Storm. They sound like a line of inexpensive Korean cars.

(totally looks like a boy in the face imho)

i don't know about boy or girl, but to me that kid looks very worried about something. Maybe it's the hours-long earnest discussions of gender identity the adults around it are constantly engaged in.

Jesse otm. Total car names.

Also, yeah, the baby looks concerned.

could also be captain planet's sidekicks

One reason people always seem to need to know what sex babies are is because that's the only WAY TO TALK ABOUT THEM. You can barely say any more than "Your baby is v v cute btw" without knowing it! Language is probably pushing people part of the way, here, and then marketing schemes push them the rest.

Or X-Men. Which one of them actually is!

Which pronouns did Rav-4 and Elantra's parents use, I wonder.

Finnish pronouns are all gender-neutral, right? I think I read that somewhere on ILX.

Yeah, they are. And people still want to know the gender of the baby in here too. So language is no excuse.

trying to take this conversation seriously but it's heading too close to a particular ILX meme. you know the one.

Feel free to enlighten us.

well, thanks for the permission.

Someone already made that joke.

http://i41.tinypic.com/t9i6vs.jpg

Tired of the predictability of tits in Game of Tits

I demand more dick on tv

well then Spartacus is the show for you

wait, is she supposed to be "an ally" of the patriarchy? xp

haha that makes less sense out of context--it was part of a series of jokes that girl was sending around fb, captioned photos of activist guys we know that were "dear patriarchy, xyz, love, a male ally," "male ally" being activist-speak for anti-sexist dude.

then she did one for herself, so for symmetry's sake it was "a female ally" even though that doesn't really make sense

Well, the text itself kinda makes sense, from the sort of activist point of view that if you're not bothering to fight the problem, you're part of the problem, i.e. "a female ally" - but she doesn't look like one.

sure she does. she got a ironical police hat on.

QUESTIONS FOR TEH MENZ

http://pennyred.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/quiz-about-growing-up-male.html

(I'm putting this here as opposed on the "women and feminist theory" thread because it's specifically about men, and I'm guessing that in looking to find out men's views on masculinity, there is a hope that men can confront sexism and ~the patriarchy~ from the inside out? I dunno. I think they're interesting questions.)

those are some v personal questions!

Well, it's for a survey, I don't expect anyone to post the answers on ILX. But I don't think they're any more personal than the kind of questions that are routinely discussed ~of women~ when people are discussing or problematising "the female experience" - so I think it's actually quite good to approach masculinity on the same kind of deconstructing level.

To get *men* thinking about this stuff is kind of urgent and key to smashing the patriarchy.

pennyred! <3

I have an openly admitted kinda love/hate relationship with LOLrie Penny but I think anyone anywhere near Left on the British political spectrum does. (As opposed to the Right, who just have a hate/hate relationship.)

But I do think they're questions worth asking.

You're right, I just wouldn't answer most of them myself because I don't like to have my life's details mined like that.

will answer the survey, interesting questions

i mean:

Tell me what being a boy meant to you as you grew up (if relevant).

It meant being cool and tough. Also meant observing and following a bunch of codes, some quite subtle.

What do you know about being a man now that you did not know then?

That it's all make-believe.

What does masculinity mean to you?

It's a way of conceptualizing my responsibilities.

Do you feel pressure to act manly? From whom, and what does that mean?

Sure. From society in general and the individuals who make that up. Social expectations are often gendered. Be strong, be brave, be cool, TCB, protect the weak, etc.

Are you a feminist? What can feminism do for men, and what can men do for feminism?

Yes. Feminism can help men not be assholes, and men can assist feminism by not being assholes.

lots of them, considering they're to be necessarily answered in some detail

the questions are kind of like questions that might get asked in counseling but with counseling there would be back and forth. Was going to try answer them but I find open ended questions like this kind of difficult. definitely questions worth asking (could imagine working well in group type sessions)

Some of them are almost absurdly open-ended. I mean...

Do you feel pressure to act manly? From whom, and what does that mean?

What does it mean? Uh, you got an hour...

I have a love/love relationship with Laurie, but that is partly because I can't take her seriously as a Standard Bearer of the Left, so the stuff she says that's right on is right on, and the stuff that's a little naive, well she's 23, whattya expect?

yeah but that might be a good thing in that some people who answer might have a lot they want to say!

xp

Do people really look to her as a "standard bearer of the left" in the UK? That seems a little much--I only know of her through activist friends & twitter, just thought she was an activist with a big audience.

Well we don't have a lot of left left.

How old are you, where did you grow up and go to school, and what do you do now?

44, California, office work

Tell me what being a boy meant to you as you grew up (if relevant).

I was just arrived and wasn't sure.

What do you know about being a man now that you did not know then?

Pubic hair

What does masculinity mean to you?

Propensity toward violence/physical competition

Do you feel pressure to act manly? From whom, and what does that mean?

Sure. More from women than men. Don't care.

Are you a feminist? What can feminism do for men, and what can men do for feminism?

I am egalitarian. I'm sure that feminism can liberate society generally from certain outdated social modes that hinder future progress. They can be less dickish.

How did you feel about your sexuality in your teenage years?

Horny as fuck. Also, inexperienced, confused.

What about your early sexual experiences - what were they like? The good, the bad and the ugly.

Mutual pleasure was a wonder. Humiliation was a torment. Being used or using other people was a foretaste of hell.

How did you feel about women as a young man? Did you have close female friends?

I think after the age of 10, most of my closest friends were female.

Have you ever been sexist? In what way? Has the way you treat women changed?

Absolutely. I think there are still some fundamental differences between the sexes and I interact with women differently than I do with men across the board. I treat women less like cats than I did as a kid.

Why do you think some men degrade and are violent to women sexually?

Typical mammalian social dominance.

What's your relationship to porn? Do you think it has affected the way you behave sexually?

Feel weird about 'porn' as a category. In its etymological definition of 'graphic representations of young girls' I'm not indifferen. In its Nabokovian conservative sense of conventional ways to make money off giving dudes boners, I try to remain thrifty but occasionally I'm game. I like things that stir my blood, though and I won't deny it.

When do you feel most 'masculine' and why? What things that you do make you feel masculine?

Peeing off a deck.

Do you ever worry about being misunderstood or misinterpreted because of your gender? When and why?

Fuck'em, I'm too old. I may be a middle-aged man, but in my head I'm still a sexually ambivalent fuckwad.

In what ways is it harder to be a young man than a young woman?

Boobs. (musn't look/touch)

Do you think it's harder to be a young man now than it was 20 years ago?

I think it's harder to be a youth now, in some ways, but I have hope generally.

Do men experience sexism? In what way? Can you give examples from your own life?

I'm sure there are gender based expectations that are visited on men (you take out the garbage or whatever) that are irrational and even unfair. My life as a narcissist has largely made them invisible so, whatever.

How does race affect your experience of gender?

Super complicated but I believe less in race than certain cultural traditions - some of which I find more or less loathesome on the question of gender expectations than others but, again, it's a very mixed bag. (/misanthropy)

Do you think there is a 'crisis in masculinity?' Has this got worse with the recession and the loss of traditional employment?

Great way to sell newspapers/get page hits.

What are the biggest problems men face today?

Scrotal gravity syndrome? Qua men? Fuck if I know... Dying earlier and leaving your kids to a widow, ear hair...

Are you a father? How is the experience of fatherhood changing?

No. Wouldn't really know.

How does your job (or lack of a job, if you are sick or out of work) affect how you experience your own gender?

It doesn't.

Do you think men and women experience sexual desire differently?

Yes, but I'm in no position to know this for certain being stuck in my own body, after all. I'm prone to agree with my grandfather, though; women are slower to heat up but they burn hotter - though that's a major generalization.

What do you think about the suggestion that men are encouraged and trained not to see women as human beings?

It's faintly ludicrous. Many ppl are raised and trained to see any alterity as inferior or at least fair game. I certainly know plenty of women who see men as tolerably well-trained animals.

If there was one thing that you wish women understood about men, what would it be? (or more than one thing!)

Rage is a weird drug.

And finally -

What have I left off this survey that I should have asked? Is there anything else you want to talk about?

Money/class/violence/power as reproductive/survival strategies

i would like to report that i have submitted a response to this (now vanished) survey, and that it ran more than five 12-pt pages

you're welcome

yeah i have some resolutely left friends who have been talking about how we need to DESTROY PENNY lately, and i find it kind of awkward. she's really just one of however many vaguely embarrassing leftist guardian bloggers, let's direct our energies elsewhere, ya? as a leftist continental philosophy guy i feel all of our energies should be directed towards destroying zizek.

http://www.faithmouse.com/slavoj_zizek_pancakes.jpg


--yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer)

Oh my god

http://100percentmen.tumblr.com/

posters in this revive so far

need a token female poster huh

We've already got our token Irish

^ good token sample of the double standards on ilx imo

This looks like a fun thread to post this.

Eton College have just fired a teacher because he presented this online lecture to the students, then refused to take it down from his public Youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTHgMxQEoPI

Claire Fox (of course) is boosting this campaign / petition from some of the overpriviledged debating society pricks demanding his reinstatement

This letter/petition from Eton pupils to their headmaster, challenging the sacking of one of their teachers for a filmed lecture containing ideas that were deemed intolerable, is a masterclass in rigorous critical thinking. The pupils have my full support. https://t.co/re3RaxVMnM

— Claire Fox (@Fox_Claire) November 28, 2020

So far so culture wars bollocks, but seems interesting for a couple of reasons.

* The video is not just dodgy shit, but even within the first ten seconds has completely misrepresented what the term "patriarchy" means - the man who produced this is very far indeed from being one of the country's great intellects, let's put it like that.
* He was only fired for insisting on keeping it up on a public Youtube channel, so you really have to assume that this stuff is considered perfectly fine within the classroom

Neither are really a great surprise, but still it's good to have my prejudices about these awful people confirmed.

smashing Eton would be a start

we the undersigned are having our academic freedom sorely curtailed by being deprived of the right to judge for ourselves the well supported theory that boyz rool and girlz drool.