#patriarchy

[dontcryurprfect]

Don't blame masculinity. Mothers do this too. Stepmothers do this. Don't be blinded by gender bullshit when it's HATE doing all the talking.

I know, I know, we're talking about Tucker Carlson, but the point still stands.

You really think only men or masculine ppl do this shit? Because let me tell you, lots of people would be saved and more mature if that were the case.

And don't say "men started it" because no man made my stepmother do this to me or to any of her own daughters or my sister and brother.

Women are people. People can be cruel.

Women can be just as cruel.

Generational toxic masculinity.

[redditreceipts]

https://www.reddit.com/r/actuallesbians/s/Eu621vLGxs

literally "my dick isn't male genitalia it's a female dick" 💀

What this guy sounds like:

[dangerousartisanwerewolf]

Throwback to English class when we had the “Bear or man” discussion and the boys were shocked because literally every single girl said they’d choose the bear. They still didn’t understand when we said “how would we know your good, that you’d save us??”

[nodynasty4us]

From the October 31, 2024 article:

“In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want. And no one will ever know,” Roberts says in the ad as a woman on screen meets up with her husband after casting her ballot for Harris.

The voter winks at a fellow female voter as her husband asks if she made the “right choice.”

Republicans have responded to the video with outrage, with some claiming that a wife lying about her vote is as bad as an affair.

“If I found out Emma was going to the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair,” Fox News host Jesse Watters said on air Wednesday in a clip highlighted by Mediaite.

Other GOP members including Charlie Kirk said the thought was “nauseating.”

[squishy-min-mochi]

It’s important to recognise that Barbie (2023) criticises both the patriarchy AND the matriarchy. Yes, the Ken’s are just accessories to the Barbies. Yes, they don’t have any say in the government they live under. That’s the point, you’re supposed to feel awful, you’re supposed to want the Kens to have their own agency, you’re supposed to want equality. The Barbie movie explicitly states that the way Barbie treats Ken is wrong, so much so that once he finds a safe space for his masculinity and individual identity he’s so excited to share it with the other Kens.

But they go overboard and replace a matriarchy with a patriarchy and now the same issue exists but in reverse. That’s the POINT!! THATS THE POINT!!! Barbie is not anti-men it’s pro equality PLEASE understand this

13th Aug 2023 UPDATE:

Heeeeey howdy!!

Due to the IMMENSE comments and discussion on this post (thanks ya’ll!!) I’ve decided to update my post with my recent opinions and hopefully clearer explanations!!

First, my original post only considers a very small and very vague analysis of the film!!

Since making this I've read all your comments and learned quite a bit about the matriarchy as it appears in human civilisation. Originally, I was pitting the patriarchy and the matriarchy against each other as though the results of their implementation were equal in the film.

They were not!! Below is the definition of matriarchy I’ll be working off of.

Matriarchy Simple Definition;

Matriarchy is a social system in which women hold the primary power positions in roles of authority. In a broader sense it can also extend to moral authority, social privilege and control of property.

There's a lot to talk about in the Barbie film that would fit better in an essay, so I'll try and condense it into this;

To me, Barbie (2023) is a film about the female experience and the shared connection between women that persists through childhood and adulthood, support and harassment, suffering and joy, mother and daughter.

It uses Barbie as its figurehead because of the immense societal and political impact the doll has had on women, both good and bad (as explained in the film).

The male experience as seen in Barbie (2023) is not the sole focus of the film- rather, it's an accessory (as the Kens are) to Barbie's story, and a necessary aspect of exploration to truly highlight the importance of individualism and healthy personal exploration.

I want to make clear that I in no way think the treatment of the Kens was just as bad as the treatment of the Barbies. I also still agree that the matriarchy fostered by the Barbies wasn’t good for the Kens.

Additionally, I’m aware that this take on Barbie (2023) works strictly within the assumed heteronormative boundaries of gender. There is a lot of nuance in the Barbie film and I don’t think everything can be covered or explained in on Tumblr post— but I hope this clarification helps!!

I hope you're all coming to your own conclusions and analysis of the film in a way that makes sense to you. And for those of you engaging in online conversations and discourse about it, I hope you're keeping yourself and others happy and safe!!!

Much love to you all!! < 3

[animentality]

[illusionremember]

Isn't this just a way of invalidating complexity of gender too? Like if you say gender binary is fake but also that a person can only be straight, gay, lesbian, or bi, that's still forcing a binary. If someone doesn't identify as male or female then you cannot, by definition, neatly fit into one of those (binary-defined) orientations in a way that would be acceptable. Thinking about it that way gets back into that whole "your sexuality is defined by the longterm partner you end up with so once you pick a person you stop being bi" bullshit. It's probably also one of the reasons they don't like ace people - they want to use your sexuality to determine what your "real" gender is, and they can't do that via your partner if your orientation is "nah I'm good thanks".

Like, I'm genderfluid, and that doesn't mean that I am sometimes straight sometimes gay/lesbian depending on what gender I am currently aligned with. Someone arguing this is basically saying that any variant of nonbinary who dates someone cisgender or transgender has to determine which side of the gender binary they are on - homo or hetero to their partner or potential partners.

And the thing is, you could call yourself nonbinary lesbian or genderfluid bi, and that's perfectly valid - but the people who argue that you HAVE to because they think other sexualities aren't? Are trying to push you to define your gender along the binary by comparing you to your partner - i.e., if you are a lesbian that means you are female. They're really telling on themselves.

People will be like "you can be every gender at once, your gender can be a metaphor, gender binaries are fake, you can do whatever you want forever, and also you have to pick one (1) of the four acceptable sexualities approved of by the council"

[theotherpacman]

OH AND ANOTHER THING ABOUT THE ATLA REBOOT

the sexism thing??? we all know it's fucking stupid and purely performative to take out sokka's feminism arc, but can we talk about the fact that He Is Still Sexist????? he still thinks that what he does (running the village's defenses, which they've never needed) is vastly more important than what she does (wash the clothes, cook, etc). and yk what?? the live action reboot AGREES with him. it doesn't show or even mention katara doing any work around the village. all we see katara doing is practice waterbending - the only interesting thing that original episode 1 sokka seems to think katara ever does.

the live action show depicts sokka "doing all the work", fulfilling his traditionally masculine role of warrior/protector, and COMPLETELY DISMISSES whatever "women's work" katara does, as if she does nothing. seems pretty clear to me that the showrunners would love to absolve themselves of sexism by not talking about sexism, while in actuality being pretty sexist themselves

and don't even get me started on sokka not wearing the dress/makeup of the kyoshi warriors' uniform

[redditreceipts]

[misogyny4girls]

You wouldn't have fat udders hanging off your chest like you do if they weren't meant to be groped, squeezed, and slapped around after all, would you? Your body is a fucktoy for Men, and there's no reason to try and pretend like it's anything else, especially when you have big hangers like this cow.

[hetrosjistin]

Bringing this back around to my big point about how we -have- to work on making our spaces -actually- inclusive.

Especially to the newbies who are coming in just IGNORANT of shit.

We HAVE to deprogram ourselves of the immediate hostility for 'other tribes' and especially of 'folks who do not immediately understand social etiquette for the group they have just joined.'

By all means, be hostile to folks who DISPLAY hostility out of the gate.

I know everyone is tired of sea lions and other bad faith shit.

But we are -losing- this culture war if we go full in on the puritanical perfectionism, because it will cut out the people that we -need- to bring into shit.

FURTHER

You know how it's wrong to go after someone you hate for things like body image? because there's people you don't hate that might SHARE that body? And you don't want them thinking you hate them too?

This is the same thing.

Men cannot control being men any more than women can control being women. Everyone can control not being a shit stain human being.

Call out misogynists, not men.

Call out rape apologists, not men.

I don't want to come across as #NotAllMen because, 1) I am a guy and even I find that shit annoying and vile, and 2) it's a fucking fine line at times, especially with all the aforementioned bad faith assholes out there.

But we are dealing with the fact that we have KIDS, little kids who have NO idea what the hell they are walking into, wandering through these discussions, finding their way into them and what is a kid who hasn't even been EXPOSED to the idea of rape culture going to think when you are calling all men monsters?

He doesn't have the lexicon to break down the full nuance going on here.

If there is ONE THING the left is supposed to agree on, it's that we do not hold things a person cannot control against them, ever. Only by their ACTIONS and WORDS are they judged.

We have to do better.

Y'all have got to stop virulently hating men. Like, I'm sorry, I fucking hate the patriarchy too, but the patriarchy isn't just men and saying it is just exculpates complicit women. I am the mother of a young boy, and I look at this precious, empathetic 8 year old boy I'm raising and I don't know where online is safe for him. Places like this will say he's evil just for his gender, and other places will say "we'll be your friend if you hate with us," and still others will radicalize him in other ways. Where is he supposed to go? Why are we saying the radicalization is the fault of the kids just trying to find a place to hang?

Like this is seriously getting urgent. You have got to fucking stop conflating the patriarchy and men. 53% percent of white women voted for Trump. Men aren't the problem. White supremacy and Christian patriarchal structures are two examples of patriarchy-reinforcing structures that aren't solely couched in maleness. Men aren't the problem, and pretending they are drives more men into more welcoming extremist spaces and also ignores all the parts of this that are forwarded by people who aren't men.

What I see happening all over is scared, depressed, lonely people looking for someone they're allowed to hate automatically, unquestioningly - someone they're allowed to place all the blame on. Fascism says people of color, non-Christian people, queer people, etc., are the ones they're allowed to hate.

And way too many of yall answer that no, it's leftist to hate men instead. You are doing *the exact same thing they are.*

Fucking knock it off.

The answer is we're not supposed to hate anyone automatically based on their immutable personal characteristics. Hate the specific people who've hurt you. Hate the self-reinforcing systems that let them get away with hurting you. Hate the strangers who prop up those systems. Hate the fascists. Hell knows I hate Donald Trump, but it's not because he's a man, it's because he's a piece of shit.

Hate the pieces of shit, not the gender.

But don't hate men just because they're men. That's unhelpful, stupid, insane, and entirely counterproductive. Fucking. Stop.

[femalethink]

Women do not simply have faces, as men do; they are identified with their faces. Men have a naturalistic relation to their faces. Certainly they care whether they are good-looking or not. They suffer over acne, protruding ears, tiny eyes; they hate getting bald. But there is a much wider latitude in what is aesthetically acceptable in a man's face than what is in a woman's. A man's face is defined as something he basically doesn't need to tamper with; all he has to do is keep it clean. He can avail himself of the options for ornament supplied by nature: a beard, a mustache, longer or shorter hair. But he is not supposed to disguise himself. What he is "really" like is supposed to show. A man lives through his face; it records the progressive stages of his life. And since he doesn't tamper with his face, it is not separate from but is completed by his body—which is judged attractive by the impression it gives of virility and energy. By contrast, a woman's face is potentially separate from her body. She does not treat it naturalistically. A woman's face is the canvas upon which she paints a revised, corrected portrait of herself. One of the rules of this creation is that the face not show what she doesn't want it to show. Her face is an emblem, an icon, a flag. How she arranges her hair, the type of makeup she uses, the quality of her complexion—all these are signs, not of what she is "really" like, but of how she asks to be treated by others, especially men. They establish her status as an "object."

—Susan Sontag, “On Women.”

[feminist-affirmations]

[hadesoftheladies]

men and boys are increasingly anti-intellectual and this is primarily because of male supremacist culture. because men are the ultimate status quo, male supremacy can never be examined as an ideology. they are mentally coddled by privilege in every way. even in school they are not challenged to critique or question male supremacist bias. this reflects in their art, debate and writing. intellectualism encourages humanization of human issues. it requires introspection. ego makes introspection and reflection nearly impossible and society inflates the egos of boys from day 1. this is why most men can be professors or religious scholars and still remain so fucking obtuse about the basic mechanics of human evil in society. their analyses of social evil is infantile, simplistic and delusional. because they censor any damning data against the elite class of men. they will spout thought terminating cliches in order to shield themselves from the reality of male violence and how it flourishes directly due to male culture. so there is no reflection or self examination, no exposure to relevant data, which can only trap them in intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy. anti-feminists are always anti-intellectual because they must take male supremacy, violence and privilege for granted. they then spend the rest of their lives wondering at the dissonance they never seem to quell and call it an unanswerable mystery of the human condition.

[transbimbo-doll]

Ima good girl. I’m always ready to serve and obey

It's a very natural position for you, one that you should get very used to being in. Kneeling is the perfect symbol of a girl's submission to a Man, it shows both physically and mentally that she is below him and ready to serve, like a good girl should.