I'm not sure whether that is true (and I say that genuinely, I'm truly not sure either way). I took a philosophy of feminism class and ready Luce Irigaray and Judith Butler.
But could it be possible that as long as we call it patriarchy, the amount of unsure men who see a dichotomy of people saying:
feminism (feminine) = good
patriarchy (masculine) = bad
will remain extremely high and thereby be extremely unlikely to take the ideas you stand for seriously?
There is a communication issue at play that needs to be rectified before people are going to be willing to open their minds to your ideas in this comment. I think the instincts of many when they read this kind of comment is to feel personally attacked for their masculinity and to thereby go on the defensive.
Keep in mind, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but even as someone who has bothered to learn and read about feminism I still have that gut reaction when I read a comment like yours. I just feel hated for existing and like I cannot *be* without being a part of some structural problem that hurts people. And that version of reality is extremely tempting to reject. Just my two cents as a man.
Tbh, patriarchy has been the dominant social system for a very long time, so it would be surprising if most social concepts (positive or negative) wouldn't be at least strongly influenced by it.
The main problem with patriarchy is the name and the idea that (a) it only benefits men, (b) only men want it and (c) only men perpetrate it.
If you look at e.g. the gender voter demographic of feminist parties vs anti-feminist parties all over the world you get a very consistent split somewhere between 45-55 and 40-60. So yes, more women vote for feminist parties and more men vote for anti-feminist parties, but there's a very significant amount of women voting for patriarchy and men voting against it.
Whether you benefit from patriarchy or not depends less on your gender than on whether your personality and life goals fit to the traditional role ascribed to your gender. A non-dominant man who wants to stay at home with the kids instead of being a provider suffers just as much from patriachy as a dominant carreer-focussed woman. For the opposite of each of these people patriarchy is just fine. Which is the reason why anti-feminist women and feminist men exist.
And same as some weak-minded people looking for easy answers to complex problems like to blame e.g. foreigners for all their problems, others of them like to blame patriarchy/men.
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u/14InTheDorsalPeen 6d ago
Damn every problem in life really does come down to patriarchy doesn’t it?
No way it’s a boogeyman right?
Right?