#ALL MEN BENEFIT FROM THE PATRIARCHY

[frankfortkentucky]

“Are You A Feminist?”

At 4 years old, I was taught that when a boy bullies a girl, that means he liked her. I thought “Oh, so that means I should bully [my little pre-school crush], because if boys bully girls to tell them they like them, it goes both ways!” So I raced around the playground with him at recess, I poked him in class to tell him jokes, and laughed when he tripped while helping him up and he did all the same to me. In my mind, this was bullying, but as you can probably tell, it was no where near it. But still, whenever he whined about losing the race, I got in trouble because “I wasn’t playing fair;” whenever he laughed to loud, I got in trouble because “I was distracting him;” whenever I took a second to long to help him up, I got in trouble because “I had pushed him.” But whenever I whined, or laughed to loud, or was on the cold linoleum floor for to long, he was never in trouble, it was still always my fault for not being fast enough, “it’s okay, you’re just a girl.” For not ignoring [crush], “he’s just trying to get a rise out of you.” For being unlady-like and absentminded, “you have to pay more attention.” My teacher was a woman.

At age 6, right before starting kindergarten, I was told my dad was not my “real dad” and how all my brothers, but one, came from different fathers. My mother had several conversations with me throughout that year explaining in detail how three separate times, 3 guys lied and manipulated her into a relationships with them. Throughout this she told my about the abuse and sexual assault towards herself and us kids in every house. Once my full-brother had gotten to 6 I asked, “Will you tell him to? I can help if you want” but she surprised me by responding, “Of course not, he’s much to young go know all that!” “But that’s how old I was when you told me?” and her response to that is something I wish I could rip out of every throat that’s ever said it to me since. The fact that the first time I heard it was from my mother will always haunt me. “But it’s different because you’re a girl” To this day she hasn’t told my 3 younger brothers anything and they are all well over 6 years old. My 2 older brothers only know because their dad has split custody, but they know nothing except that their dad provided the sperm for them. I will have to live with this knowledge for the rest of my life, and have had to since I was learning to tie my own shoe laces, but my grown brothers will be “protected” from that information and will likely never know about the abuse my mother had to go through.

Growing up with five brothers wasn’t easy. I don’t like any stereotypical “boyish” things and neither do half my brothers, but while they were asked interesting, thoughtful questions about what they did like, whether or not it was just “boyish” things (it was always just football or video games), I was always dismissed as just liking makeup and fashion and barbies. I didn’t like any of those things growing up. I liked looking at what ancient sculptures used to look like, and how land animals evolved from sea creatures, and how other languages came together into the one I speak, but of course no one wanted to hear me talk about those things. My brothers flourished in school and everywhere else; I was labeled as dumb and a loner. Soon I was forced to “like” stereotypical “girly” things so I could have normal childhood friendships, but my brothers, even though also not conforming to gender norms at all, were not forced to being anything bug themselves. They were celebrated for being different, I was berated for not being “normal.”

From 7 to 8 years old, my mother refused to buy me glasses, and wouldn’t tell me why, even though she knew I really needed them. Around that time she also started refusing to let me wear my hair up in a ponytail or pigtails. She made me start wearing long sleeves in summer. She refused to buy me new shorts after I grew out of my old ones. She started teaching me how to make a grown man “go to sleep” with kicks to the groin, thumbs and pepper spray to the eyes, and sharp objects to the throat.

Throughout my life I have experienced many, MANY horrible things. I decided to tell some passive sexist things I’ve had to go through that has fucked me up emotionally and mentally and will continue to, just like my physical assaults have and will as well. All men benefit from the patriarchy, even if just to be celebrated for being decent human beings because the bar is set so low, or to not get the blame as a child, or to be “protected” from knowing women's struggles, or to be loved and appreciated as a child, or to not have to be trained how to not get raped at 7. Even if it’s “not all men,” all men still reap the benefits whether they know it or not. EVERY woman is a victim to the patriarchy and sexism, even if she hasn’t been physically SA’d.

[mariemariemaria]

Does anybody else feel the waves of history crashing over them constantly and like they can't escape the generational trauma that permeates and poisons every interaction they have or do I just need to chill and have a drink lol

[angelsaxis]

i cant think about the current state of feminism in online spaces without wanting to tear my hair out what the fuck do you people mean you sincerely believe misandry is a structure of oppression that men suffer under. WHAT.

[wewontbesleeping]

it's so fun having a feminist post get popular on tumblr bc you get two different and very distinct types of misogynistic responses: the first is the "you are not a real feminist if you do not center men in your feminism. the patriarchy affects men just as much as it does women. to the boys with soft tummies who are reading this: you are valued. you are loved. you are perfect just the way you are. hating women is a valid coping mechanism." and the second is just calling you a cunt and telling you to die. love both of them, though. <3

[anerrantmaid]

Yea im sure the patriarchy has nothing to do with cis heteronormativity and men who have literally gotten assaulted and or killed because they’re queer are/were definitely not getting hurt by the patriarchy

[lesbianmothmantruther]

Lmao why the fuck are people calling some trans women "man hating feminist" essentially. Sorry did I travel to a time line where this accusation hasn't been presented to every single feminist ever and see as bad thing to do.

Some of yall are not feminist at best and anti feminist worst.

[largishcat]

i cant believe we’re having gender discourse this fucking stupid in post roe america. misandry isn’t real. trans women are real and they are not men. misogyny is real. gendered oppression is real. most men are nice people who don’t want to hurt anyone. enough of them still do, and they all benefit from the goddamn patriarchy just like all white people benefit from white supremacy even if they don’t want to because that’s what privilege means. it’s deeply sexist to insist everyone do a little #notallmen song and dance before talking about sexism at all. there are women being arrested for having miscarriages

[transandrobroism]

i am not being needlessly alarmist when i say that popular feminism has become extremely radfem-esque and that the normalisation of negative stereotypes towards men needs to be resisted. like. i clearly remember when feminists were derided as "man-hating feminazis" and the main counter-argument to that went something like "we don't hate men, feminism is for everyone, patriarchy harms men too and our goal is to dismantle that oppressive system, this will benefit everyone including men, men can and should be feminists because feminism is a movement for gender equality"

in fact the major rebuttal to men forming "men's rights" movements was always that the issues these groups identified were the negative impacts of the patriarchy on men. they didn't need a separate group because feminism was for everyone and feminist thought and theorising already accounted for the ways patriarchy harms men. which is true! many of the societal issues faced by men stem from white supremacist patriarchy and restrictive gender roles and traditionally feminism has given thought and time to those issues. feminism is for everyone and it is concerned with men's struggles under patriarchy alongside women's.

but somewhere in the last few decades that attitude fell by the wayside and now popular online feminism is this radfem-flavored "all men are bad forever" thing. now mocking, belittling, or hating men is #feminist #praxis. it's feminist to make jokes about #killallmen. it's feminist to view masculinity as inherently bad and dangerous. it's feminist to talk about the men in your life like they're animals who need to be house trained, or emotionally stunted children who need to be babied and distracted.

it's this idea of flipping patriarchy on its head and saying that actually women are the Superior Gender, women deserve to run the world and make all the decisions, and actually it's men who are the Inferior Gender who can't be trusted or left unsupervised.

these attitudes will always have the most severe negative impact on marginalised men. i don't know how we got here but it's past time we circled back around to "feminism is for everyone".

[augustameretrix]

yknow those ostensibly feminist arguments about women "turning into men" or "acting like men" or "adopting masculine values" instead of embracing their femininity and upholding their feminine values as if the former is behavior is well within the confines of patriarchy while the latter isn't

my question is what ARE those feminine values? where did they come from? because unless they're let's say something essential to women they must have a history, they must've come from somewhere at some point. and where and when is that if not the very same institutionalized patriarchy which needs men AND women to act upon and in turns needs men AND women to perpetrate it? doesnt this make them as much as masculine values a product of patriarchy and so equally patriarchal? if not in and of themselves then certainly as the two distinct and complementary sets of "masculine values" and "feminine values"

if we say that going to work vs staying at home are the patriarchal paradigm then staying at home certainly inst inherently less patriarchal and more feminist than going at work. of course each of those behavior is patriarchal insomuch as it is part of the paradigm, so women doing one or the other is kinda irrelevant as long as the goddamn paradigm continues to exist.

so why do some feminists complain that women act the way the patriarchy typically wants their men to act ("mannish"/"unladylike") and that they should instead act the way the patriarchy typically wants their women to act? like hello do we hear ourselves?

[grumpydevilfellow]

Whether you like it or not. Stating misandry isn't real and mocking not all men is counterproductive to social justice in general and also lowkey racist because yall don't even consider where POC men stand in the patriarchy in their country. As a Black man in the US I am very low on the patriarchy and receive little to no privilege. But whenever these conversations pop up it's like I and my struggles don't fucking exist because suddenly opression Olympics and women have it worse always.

Which isn't always true because white women have literally used their privilege to have cops murder black men! Is that not a combination of racism and misandry mixed together where actual harm is done to the victim?

But yall will get real silent after I mention that part because you know I'm fucking right and it throws your backwards ass generalization out the window.

i wish there was a way to say "alot of feminist/lgbt spaces are weird about gay men/trans men/masculinity in general in a way that feels very unproductive/counter-productive" without implying that i think women are actively oppressing men or that misandry real because those are two very different conversations actually.

[a-polite-melody]

People do understand that the privilege from male privilege doesn’t come from identifying as a man, right?

That’s not the thing that confers the privilege. Patriarchy grants that privilege to men based on how nearly they conform to what patriarchy says a man is and should be. That’s where the privilege comes from, not just identifying as a man.

Which is why it doesn’t imply trans men aren’t men to say they aren’t given male privilege.

All it implies (or really just says) is that trans men are not men that the patriarchy recognizes and rewards in the vast majority of cases; in other words we aren’t systemically granted male privilege. Where there are certain places you can find conditional benefit as a trans man if you are entirely stealth and try to conform to patriarchal standards, that is a precarious position to be in and one that can end in death if (or when) they’re outed as trans.

But like. The way people talk about men on here it really feels like people think that male privilege is a thing which is tied 1:1 with having the identity of man. Which only works if you dismiss the real lived experiences of trans men.

[telepathicfeline]

This site really ought to be called the “anti-feminism” site at this point for the amount of caping for men you all do.

[fun-k-boards]

Anybody who unironically believes that trans mascs benefit from the patriarchy in any god damn way are fucking morons, you need to actually talk to trans mascs instead of just going 'oh well this non trans masc is speaking over trans mascs so they must be correct because trans mascs are evil!'. I don't even care anymore you're all fucking annoying.

We are, AT BEST, just seen as perverted and confused women under the patriarchy. We are ALWAYS inferior to cis men and cis women under the patriarchy. Trans mascs rights are an afterthought when it comes to people fighting the patriarchy.

Don't you EVER even TRY to pretend otherwise. Listen to us for the love of god. Stop turning to everybody BUT trans mascs to hear about our experiences and oppression.

[girlfishes]

Radblr hot take here but I believe that men are capable of changing to be better. To say that they are incapable of being good is saying that they aren’t fully responsible for what they do because they aren’t capable of being better.

No. They can be better. And they are morally worse and more corrupt for it. Men can choose to fight the patriarchy and treat their female counterparts with respect and dignity. But they choose not to, because they can reap the same or more societal benefits by being misogynistic.

Baby boys aren’t born misogynistic. Sure, they may be born with whatever male hormonal differences do, but that isn’t even 1% of the reason why they grow up to be misogynists.

As they grow up they learn that misogyny is rewarded. As they grow up they are exposed to porn which they choose to use as a sexual role model. As they grow up they watch their parents model a hierarchal power dynamic. They see all of this, and they like it. They choose it for themselves.

I think that men can change for the better. People here hear this and say “you can’t teach them” or “coddling them won’t do shit” and I agree. What women need to do is stop rewarding and enabling their behavior.

We need to free women from human trafficking and exploitation, and we also need to convince women who make porn of their own free will to stop. We need to punish the men who make it. We need to help women out of their abusive marriages, and we also need to convince women who are in relationships with even slightly misogynistic men to end them. We need to have zero tolerance for casual misogyny. We need to start shunning men who are misogynists. We need to hold accountable women who are enabling the men in their lives to hurt other women. Shun men who watch porn. Shun men who say slurs. Stop having their children.

And for the men sympathetic to our cause, we need to convince them to use their privilege as men to further feminist goals. We need them to vote for women’s rights. We need them to intervene during “locker room” misogynistic talk when women aren’t around. We need them to break up the male solidarity around misogyny in a way only they can do.

But we can’t do this as individuals. Strength comes in numbers. Women do face societal consequences for standing up to misogyny. Other women need to defend her and provide for her needs. And in order to do this we need to educate ourselves. Make money. Be independent of men. Become doctors, lawyers, teachers. We need to do everything we can to support women in places where they cannot do these things.

If we can do all of this, men will change. Maybe not the men who are already set in their ways. But those growing up will see that misogyny does not reward them in life. They will not see porn. They will not see their mothers submitting to their fathers and they will not see women submitting to men. And they will choose to treat women as human beings. Because they can.

Radical feminism is not a doomerist movement. I have a future in mind. I hope you do too.

[thatweirdtranny]

let me explain why trans men don’t benefit from the patriarchy:

the moment we’re discovered to be trans we lose any and all benefits we would’ve gained, and if you can lose those benefits that easily you never had concrete access to the patriarchy in the first place

[tboy-trash]

tbh i see no a priori problem in trans men feeling "close to womanhood" or however they might put it as long as it's due to being a gender minority. some cis gay men feel the same way, because women and sexual and gender minorities all experience some degree of gendered oppression. the trouble is when some fuckwit says this closeness or even claim to womanhood comes by virtue of their cAGAB, which is of course some weird self-misgender (whereas i don't think feeling kinship with all women due to our gendered oppression is) that is usually weaponized to deny trans men benefit from patriarchy at all, and also to implicitly state that trans women do not have this same claim to womanhood because of their assignment (aka, transmisogyny 101)