This comment was from NickMostly on the post When Angry Commenters find Common Ground
I think patriarchy was a useful term that has since become dilute to the point of being nearly meaningless. But if we narrow its scope a bit to describe a society organized around the principle of men (specifically white, land-holding men) holding power to the near exclusion of all others, I do think it apropos.
Over time that power imbalance has shrunk (due in no small part to the efforts of early feminists), and comparatively the privileges men have today are but shadows of what they once were. While some privileges remain, most that do appear to be largely due to lingering effects (e.g. there’s no law preventing women from becoming CEOs, but antiquated attitudes keep some women out of the job).
At the outset feminism did (and still does, theoretically) have as its goal a more egalitarian society. The idea that “Women Are People Too” is more than mere platitude. But women are people too, and this is one problem with feminism as a movement. It has its rifts, its factions, and its extremists. And while in the main feminists try to pursue a more egalitarian society, they do so having been socialized in the society they are attempting to change. Meanwhile the more radical elements are pursuing an altogether different agenda, one that is explicitly about inverting the balance of power rather than equalizing it.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that women are at both extremes – at one policing the gender norms in society, and at the other trying to transform those norms to their advantage. After all, they’re just people.
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photo: joeshlabonik / flickr
I skipped past the arguments and just wanted to say well said 🙂
Saw the comment and thought this article was more recent, so then I started replying to the other comments. Whoops. lol.
Anyway, it is a very awesome original article/comment. 🙂
So we come to the meat of the article / comment which is a defence of feminism against the charge that it is not about equality. The assertions made are (1) feminism used to have a goal of equality – and does now. (2) radicals don’t want equality but are a minority Well that isn’t an argument at all. That’s a statement of your belief. You don’t present any evidence for either assertion. I guess it is good that you’re at least recognising that the movement has radicals in it. MRAs and other critics have provided actual evidence for the… Read more »
If you want to use this Catholic church analogy then use it right: if you said “Catholics are pedophiles” that would be wrong, because CATHOLICS are not pedophiles, but there was a pedophile problem within the Catholic church that the authorities within the church allowed to happen. It was disgusting. But that doesn’t mean Catholics are any which way. It means the Vatican and the higher clerics are disgusting (in general) for letting it happen. So because there are asshole feminists doesn’t mean feminism is assholism. YES the majority of feminists are equity feminists, and NO that doesn’t make the… Read more »
You don’t like the analogy. Why? I didn’t say “Catholics are pedophiles”. OK forget the analogy. Well no I’d really like to know where you think it fails. I thought it would help you. I thought it was a pretty good analogy and I thought it actually was being fair to you. You always hate the way people say feminists are all assholes. OK so I am not saying that. I am saying the movement is bad but I am recognising that many people in it are not bad. Maybe most are good. All this criticism of feminism is not… Read more »
You’re being fine to me, as usual. I got grumpy about you saying “blah blah blah”. Yeah, and it makes sense to me that you’re saying it’s an institutional problem. I’d say the same with the Catholic church. But that doesn’t define Catholicism. I’m not sure we’re far off in our ideas of the analogies, I’m just looking at it differently. I don’t know. I’m not sure how to say what I want/need to say any differently that I already have. I believe feminism was working toward equality, and now there are some who are working toward women being in… Read more »
As a matter of interest and not as a criticism, what do you mean by “root”? Do you mean the history or something else?
I mean the basic intent.
Equality.
So I am going to reply to the second half separately as it was the half that wasn’t insulting men with terms like “patriarchy” and “male privilege”. Well it starts with another insult which is the, “Women Are People Too” barb. You can say that about a disadvantaged minority group and it makes sense but you can’t say that about an advantaged majority group like women. At that point it’s just an insult. It’s saying to men, “Not only are you screwed by society but in addition, just to kick you while you are down, we’re going to laugh at… Read more »
Forgive me if my reply is a bit court; my previous attempt was lost to the auto-refresh. I always think I’ll write a short response that turns into something longer and then I’m distracted by the phone or something else and come back to a tablua rasa. When I said the phrase “women are people too” was more than a mere platitude, it was to convey two things simultaneously. First, the word platitude might be considered something of a pejorative. It is in this sense that I meant to connote that the phrase has been used too often to be… Read more »
With the auto-refresh the text of the comment ought to be saved by the browser and it just gets moved to the bottom of the screen as if you were making a reply to the article itself instead of a comment. If that happens you can move it back to the comment you are replying to simply by clicking on the Reply button again. However it seems some browsers don’t save input text still. Firefox does for example. It’s an awesome feature for a lot of different sites.
You want a reply to that?
What does “patriarchy” mean? It is a term invented by feminists to blame all men of the world for everything bad in the world. As such it’s only real equivalent would be something like the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. It’s pure nonsense invention of a ridiculous and prejudicial idea — namely that a birth group / minority group is actually running everything secretly and for their own good. The feminists decided to use the same word that originally had a specific meaning in anthropology, namely the idea of a society where fathers rule. Anyone in their right mind… Read more »
The word “patriarchy” goes back further than feminism. Like, the 1500s. Perhaps it’s appearance on our modern vernacular can be attributed to feminists, but it has real meaning. Second, Nick doesn’t say that patriarchy is alive and thriving today. In fact, he says pointedly that things are very different today: Over time that power imbalance has shrunk (due in no small part to the efforts of early feminists), and comparatively the privileges men have today are but shadows of what they once were. And you’re extrapolating this CEOs thing he says ad absurdum, David. He says antiquated attitudes can keep… Read more »
Since it seems to be impossible for anyone to give an example of male privilege maybe any feminist could answer a more general question about this so-called concept of privilege. Basically my hypothesis is that the entire word is just made up by feminists to attack men, and has no other use. If you disagree and think it has some real use then please answer this question. How can you figure out if a given birth group has “privilege” or not?
Please see my post. I also like Joanna’s answer.
Thank you.
This definition troubles me because it seems to contradict what feminists have often said here at GMP (rather less anywhere else) that women have privilege too. I’m going to tell you what privilege is: It is the bias given toward a person, in a given situation, based upon a characteristic That definition says it is not possible for men and women to both have privilege. Either that or you are saying a phrase like “male privilege” is meaningless unless a specific context is given. Like “men have privilege when it comes to writing their name in the snow”. But I… Read more »
Yes, it’s true, the term “male privilege” is only ever true in a specific context. It IS meaningless without context, you are so right. And yes, “male privilege” would not be able to exist at the same time as female privilege if they wer ein the same context and situation at the same time. That is the binary nature of gender privilege: if you’re being given privilege based upon your sex, I cannot, in that exact same situation be using female privilege in that specific way. I could, however, have gender privilege in a different way in the same situation.… Read more »
Great answer Joanna.
Didn’t the radfems invent the term?
Yeah, no. The vast majority of these types of terms were ‘invented’ by various social scientists throughout the ages. I’m willing to bet that the term ‘privilege’ was first used in this way with reference to African-American civil rights, though I’m not completely sure on that. At the minute, anthropologists are the ones usually defining terms like ‘patriarchy,’ ‘matrilineal,’ etc…and it’s sociologists who are defining ‘privilege’ in this context. So basically, it’s academics developed most of these terms.
My experience of seeing the term privilege used simply has no point in common with what you are saying. I almost never see “male privilege” used with a context. In fact the whole point seems to be that there is no context but rather it is saying something about men as a whole. For example it’s called “the male privilege checklist” not “a list of situations where men have privilege”. As you say with “check your privilege” (which is actually a new slogan to me) the insult is apparent and I have never heard of that slogan being used with… Read more »
I don’t think there is any such thing as a male waitress…
There are so many studies on tipping and {gender, ethnicity, drawing smiley faces, touching customers, various combinations thereof} that can be found with a Google Scholar search at your nearest research library.
I’m sure I can Google any number of bad “studies” but perhaps you think there is a good one? Or are you saying if I find a bad one and use it to say — see, it doesn’t happen, that would satisfy you? The main issue is that men tend to do those jobs more often at restaurants that are more upscale and demand their staff hold a very large tray of food high in the air with one hand. If you factor out the cost of the meal I highly doubt that men would be tipped more. But I… Read more »
And you’d lose that bet.
Well apparently it would always remain hypothetical.
Right well my sister’s a waitress, and she’s worked at quite a few upscale restaurants, actually. Also, her husband is a chef and he’s worked at a variety of restaurants, both upscale and cheap. Oddly enough we were just having a conversation about this. Turns out, in their experience, it’s really just coffee shops and cheap diners where you get like, no male servers. Upscale places usually have a good mix of men and women. Also, as for the reference to holding large trays of food, it’s really balance that plays a huge part. Well, balance and strength, of course….but… Read more »
First, it IS true about waiters vs waitresses, and it has been addressed a billion times, and you can look it up if you want. Or I will tomorrow when I’m less exhausted and grumpy at you. Second, radfems did NOT invent that term, privilege is an old term, it is an academic term, and in academia, it is not an insult. Internet radfems turned in into an insult and you know — I KNOW you know, David — that I understand what it triggers when people say it. That does NOT mean that you should stop trying to understand… Read more »
oops, typed “perjorative” and obviously i mean “pejorative” which is obviously just totally different. i’m clearly tired!
Here’s an example from the comment threads: There is NO QUESTION that patriarchy oppresses men as well as women. But what you’re describing here are privileges, not privilege. The idea that the tide of power has turned and women have more power than men, in the aggregate, is laughably counter-factual. https://goodmenproject.com/men-and-feminism/i-have-female-privilege/comment-page-4/#comment-100336 So in that case Rebecca Cohen (Gynostar author) is making it clear that to her “privilege” does NOT mean what you say it means but does mean a context-less overall state of being male which expressly excludes women also being privileged. So this sort of statement is common even… Read more »
Just as ‘egalitarian’ is a better word than ‘feminist’ when you want to talk about promoting equality…
So “repressive gender roles” is more meaningful and less biased than “patriarchy” when discussing societal pressures and expectations. It’s simply more descriptive and more accurate than the radical-feminist terminology.
I totally agree that “egalitarian” is a better word, which is why no longer refer to myself as a “feminist” and instead choose to identify as a “fierce egalitarian.” Supposedly they have the same meaning, but “feminist” has been corrupted by the internet feminists and rad-fems whose goals aren’t gender equity. And yet I find the term “feminist” useful when describing those who describe themselves as such. Most of the feminists I know personally are for gender equality, don’t like the ways some have used feminism as a bludgeon against men, and are upset at a family law system that… Read more »
If you’re not a feminist then you probably ought to say so first because you use feminist buzz words which will just guarantee you offend people first thing.
Did you miss the nuance of what I wrote there or did I not describe my beliefs well? Just because I don’t use the label to describe myself doesn’t mean I don’t find common cause with those who do choose to use the word and are interested in gender equity. But the label doesn’t actually matter to me; I only use it when someone asks if I’m a feminist. What matters more to me is what I mean when I use any label, and that can only come by explaining my position on things, including things like what privileges (if… Read more »
That sounds like a reasonable trade to me.
Nick, I think that was very well-sad. And I’m with Lisa that that’s a fair trade!
Fine. That sounds like a challenge that would be good for me. Starting now. But the offer isn’t symmetrical. Saying negative things about a political movement isn’t the same as saying negative things about a birth group. Now is it? I am a communist. You know what? Sometimes people in the US say unpleasant things about communism. It doesn’t matter to me because either (1) I do endorse the ideas they are criticising and I can debate / refute their criticism or (2) I don’t endorse the ideas they are criticising so I don’t take it personally. If someone says… Read more »
So, apropos of ancient terminology (perhaps Ozy is reading here) comes a quite timely post fromNSWATM. In particular this quote: And the weirdest part is that as I write this I feel a kind of… instinctive revulsion. On an intellectual level, I know that a poor woman is exactly as desirable as a poor man, and yet I cannot help but think that the waitress swept away by a dashing entrepreneur is a romantic heroine, and a waiter swept away by a dashing entrepreneur is kind of a loser. This shit is buried down deep. Here is someone who identifies… Read more »
Love that site.
And we all have thoughts like what Ozy’s saying here, but we can reason through them. Well, some of us can. The narrative of how we were raised, which is unfair to men, really (but also unfair to women) is going to sit within us. It’s how we’re willing to open up and look at the stories we tell ourselves that makes us able to try to do better.
What would you think about this? On an intellectual level, I know that a woman can work for a living like a man, and yet I cannot help but think that the family man is helping to build up society, and a woman doing that is selfishly taking a man’s job while she waits to get married. There’s an instinctive revulsion at that behaviour. This shit is buried down deep. It seems like a fundamental failure of feminism that feminists demanded women could enter men’s traditional sphere, and demanded it as a legal right, but not only failed to give… Read more »
Bleh. Only 1st paragraph meant to be quoted.
You think that is a masculist blog?
It’s a feminist blog. Even uses the word “patriarchy” right there.
If I recall correctly, the first post they had, first commenter was an MRA and they attacked him.
Yep comments 2-5 attacked him including this gem:
“Welp, you just opened a nice new swimming pool, and already someone’s shit in it.”
“While some privileges remain, most that do appear to be largely due to lingering effects (e.g. there’s no law preventing women from becoming CEOs, but antiquated attitudes keep some women out of the job).” No where in that sentence does it say, all men can become CEOs? And we’ve had a number of emails discussing the concepts of privilege and it does not mean that all men get everything they want all the time. As we’ve discussed, privilege is not a tangible item or reward, it is or can be an experience of being the default. Privilege simply means “default”… Read more »
One other way that I think about privilege. If I were to pick up and move to Taiwan let’s say. I would have a huge adjustment to make. All my modes of moving through a society would be up in the air. Some of that is culture shock yes? But it’s also similar to the feeling of losing privilege. The people aren’t like me, and they are the dominant ones, yes? Their rules, their semiotic signs, their ways of being. I don’t get, as a white westerner, to tell them they need to adjust for me. I have to adjust… Read more »
Well are you willing to listen to what I am saying? Because what I have consistently said is that these words are insults and that they are offensive and the only thing I ever hear back is No, your feelings are irrelevant. Let me tell you what to feel. You say you have had feminists use these words as insults, but that’s not true. I alone get to define the meaning of terms and the meaning of your experience. Could you start by simply saying that you heard me there? “David, I hear what you are saying that you find… Read more »
David. I honestly hear you. I see and hear that you feel these words are insults. I am trying, apparently uselessly, not to tell you that your feelings are wrong. Not at all. Your feelings are your feelings. I sense a great level of frustration in your words and in our emails. I feel relatively helpless to do anything about it and I also feel exceptionally frustrated. I’m trying to offer a frame on this so that there can be a shift in understanding, not so you will immediately say “Oh, I believe this.” but that so you might say,… Read more »
OK now I don’t know if I should reply because you say you won’t. OTOH the same comment applies to Joanna too. What you seem to be saying here is that OK, that word means something else to me, and OK the word is used as an insult by the people I hear it from, but you want to use it to mean something completely different. I don’t understand why you’d do that? Why not just use a more neutral word like “advantage” that doesn’t have any messed up associations? A word with no pejorative association? Why would you say… Read more »
Has it occurred to you that what they are saying, and you’re not hearing, is that they don’t believe it to be an insult? That there is no need to “reclaim” the word because it’s not a pejorative, even though you think it is? The reason not to use the word “advantage” is because it doesn’t mean the same thing as “privilege.” Privilege is a particular type of advantage and it is in that distinction that the understanding is had. On a separate note, is it so hard to be charitable to Joanna and Julie and believe them when they… Read more »
Blah blah blah so I insult people I am uncharitable I have tirades I am boorish etc etc. Not like you who are always polite.
What happened to you “ignoring” me?
David!? WTH!?
Come back to discourse, please.
Do you agree with him that there’s a distinction between the word “advantage” and the word “privilege” in the sense that you’ve been advocating for? And if so what is that distinction because I am not seeing it from what you and Julie have said.
Okay fine. Yes, there’s a distinction. But I’m talking about the word privilege as is used in academia and non Internet feminism. YES we should bring this up with the Internet feminists, but YOU are the one who asked how JULIE and I defined it, so we answered that for you. I could find you ten more feminist writers who would agree with us, but they are aren’t interested in being attacked, due to the fact that the rest of the world gets it. You know I don’t use the word with you. But I use it in real life.… Read more »
Um… so what is the difference between advantage and privilege? According to the understanding of the word you and Julie are expressing I mean.
One of the reasons I use the denotation of words is that it reduces ambiguity. That’s also why I put links to definitions of words that might be contentious, such as “privilege.” There is an “internet feminism” meaning of privilege that might be summed up as “something men have that women don’t” but not only is that not a helpful construction, it’s actually counter-productive to helping others understand one’s point of view (and a good argument can be made that being understood isn’t actually the goal when used this way). When I use the word “privilege” it is in the… Read more »
That is a great post.
I just did, David.
Yep. 🙂
Nick — So awesome, so true, and really gets to the heart of my problems with feminism lately. Though I still call myself a feminist, I’m battling that internally as I wonder if the movement is now causing more harm that the good it does. It used to be so important, and I still think it is, but the movement is really being tarnished by the efforts of a vocal minority of radfems and Internet extremists.
Thanks for this. So thoughtful and articulate.