"What is the patriarchy?"
This feminist wants to remind you that the patriarchy harms men too.
This is going to be something a little different. An introduction of sorts, a collaboration, a continuation. Today we will leave behind medieval matriarchs to ensure common language and collective consciousness are able to rise together.
To ensure my content is accessible, I’m going to be launching a voice version of all posts moving forward. Listen, read, or listen and read to your hearts content. I also wanted to share some of the folks that have been incredibly influential on my own personal growth journey. As an instructional designer by trade, I was drawn to the way Mannie and Richie utilized intentional learning practices to ensure inclusivity into the conversation around patriarchy and feminism when they were guests on the Man Enough podcast.
“It’s helpful to describe what the thing is before using any of the buzz words.” So important and something I did not do within this space. In efforts to rectify that:
Everyday patriarchy
I was recently spending time with an old friend, finally at a place in our friendship where we could speak with candor and kindness. It was refreshing, mending, and insightful. This friend and I had a relationship that was founded on shared numbing: intense over-working coupled with partying. This was the first time ever being in each other’s company in a healed state, able to bear witness to the other fully. (Healed being relative, as it’s a perpetual effort.) My dear friend was vulnerable with me, truly, for the first time in our friendship. He shared what he was healing through, some of the heavy Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) he was finally able to confront leading him to recognize continued patterns of harm (both self and seeking) within his life. He also called me in and made space for me to own some personal negative behaviors I had brought into our relationship; my distance, lack of response, and grind-culture-perpetuation. It was a cathartic conversation, though a heavy one.
We got on the topic of purpose and passion, and I divulged my wishes for this space and my dream of realizing two medieval matriarchs in biographical form through a trauma informed and feminist paradigm. Now, this is a friend that has always been a centrist leaning libertarian, so I knew bringing up feminism might be a topic that felt thick to wade through, but on we went, trudging forward. He leaned back on the love-seat and asked what drew me to the topic. After a lengthy word-vomiting session on my part, regaling him with a colorful account of the powerful Jacquetta of Luxembourg’s life, he asked the question that shaped the rest of the weekend: “what is the patriarchy?”
His experience with the word and concept had been shaped by women telling him of his privilege, blaming him and men like him for what is wrong with the world. He felt like he was being blamed for things outside of his control and that he was being told he had privilege while his first hand experience was that of immense childhood trauma that led to over a decade of severe mental health crises, chronic health issues, and toying with addiction. That didn’t feel like privilege to him, and understandably so.
If he would have said this to me in 2020, I quite honestly would have been triggered by the density of that question coming from a white man. I’m grateful that my career path coupled with therapy allowed me to hear my friend asking a vulnerable question and not a conflict-fueled one, as past-me would have mistook it as such.
Most often when having a clinical discussion of patriarchy, I’ll grab hooks’ The Will to Change and read directly:
“I often use the phrase ‘imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy’ to describe the interlocking political systems that are the foundation of our nation’s politics. Of these systems the one that we all learn the most about growing up is the system of patriarchy, even if we never know the word, because patriarchal gender roles are assigned to us as children and we are given continual guidance about the ways we can best fulfill these roles. Patriarchy is a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence.”
But I wanted to approach this differently. This was someone genuinely asking to grow their consciousness. So I dove in: “has there ever been a time when you behaved contrary to how you felt because you were worried your natural behavior would be judged?” He paused for some time and then jokingly replied that he actually liked Nickelback. My goodness did I laugh. It was a perfect understanding of the internalization of the patriarchy in extremely simplistic terms. How many of us know almost every word to more than a few of their songs, yet for so long it was hip to hate them? They were a meme, and you were ridiculous if you liked them, especially in the alternative scene my friend and I had found ourselves in during our mid twenties.
I pressed on. “Did you make a joke because being honest would require a vulnerability that might feel uncomfortable?” and then he admitted that he had sabotaged his last two meaningful relationships through anger and cheating. Women that he had loved and cared for, betrayed by momentary feelings and impulses that felt beyond his control. His anger, at himself, at the world-at-large, was in the driver’s seat of his behavior. He was learning to recognize that everyone else had their own struggles, but he was still holding on to some anger at the loneliness he had self-inflicted and the perceived slights of his friends lack of presence, including myself. (He had a point, my neurodivergence has always hindered my ability to maintain relationships well. It’s something I’ve been working on.)
As a woman existing within a patriarchy, this used to trigger me about men. Their inability to perceive their own privileges coupled with a societal acceptance of their worst possible behaviors. Now, I understand that the patriarchy limits boys access to human emotions through misogyny and homophobia. Nothing is worse than being perceived feminine or gay: the patriarchs hate both. This inability to perceive themselves as the oppressors isn’t men’s fault, it’s a symptom of the patriarchy: keeping men disassociated enough to actively oppress themselves in order to uplift the collective man through the dominator model. This isn’t to excuse men of their atrocious behavior, it is to acknowledge that we are all in this together, a collective burden. (Also, I can now reflect that as a white woman I too was perpetuating harm through behaviors a white supremacist capitalistic patriarchal society had taught me.)
Men are being harmed by the patriarchy just as much as women, thus, positioning feminism as a them vs. us conversation only serves to further alienate the already much alienated. Boys raised into men within a patriarchy are stripped of accessing acceptable joy and vulnerability, being given the options to access their masculinity through gender performance and anger/control. If we don’t actively seek to provide positive role models for boys and men to follow in regards to healthy masculinity, then they will continue to be inundated with the hateful rhetoric of harmed (and harmful) men. This isn’t to excuse away harm, but to better understand the perpetuation of it. Trauma begets trauma and everyone living within a patriarchy is traumatized.
My friend and I walked away from our conversation with a deeper understanding of the other, but also that our traumatized selves were actively traumatizing others in micro (and macro) ways.
Intersectional feminism is healing, let us bare witness to the harm boys and men also experience within a patriarchy to realize a better future for all.
As
so perfectly surmised in a past Substack post, women have been guardrails for men’s behavior for far to long. It is not women’s responsibility to fix boys and men, but we can offer a safe space for true vulnerability and male joy to occur. “Women can share in this healing process. We can guide, instruct, observe, share information and skills, but we cannot do for boys and men what they must do for themselves. Our love helps, but it alone does not save boys or men. Ultimately boys and men save themselves when they learn the art of loving.” Isn’t it ironic that the patriarchy has led men to become the very damsels in distress they were taught needed rescuing?
Further Reading/Watching/Listening
Patriarchy Blues: Reflections on Manhood, by
This entire book is incredible and important. Often found on the ban-lists, Joseph’s book is an interrogation of the harmful practices of upholding white supremacist capitalistic patriarchy.
With the rise of trans-exclusionary feminism, I think it’s important to call folks in and remind them that excluding trans people from their activism is a form of uplifting patriarchal ideals and gender norms. The chapter titled The Blood of Forty-Four is a need-to-read.
An excerpt from the chapter titled The Epidemic of Rape Culture:
“Rape culture is everywhere. It exists at work, on television, on the way to the store, in our homes, in music, online, and in our romantic relationships. Paternalistic beliefs that women are inferior to men have become so ingrained in our society that objectifying women through sexual harassment and abuse are often more normalized than combating these issues.
There are many reasons why rape culture persists, and the media is a large one. It has not only normalized sexual harassment and abuse, but also desensitized our culture to the impact and implications of rape culture, thus creating an obstacle in preventing it. I can recall many films in which a young woman is reprimanded by her parents or some other adult figure for being what was thought of as scantily clad. In almost every instance, the young woman is told that her clothing will invite wrong assumptions about her and could ultimately lead to her inviting unwanted, and potentially deadly, behavior. Rather than the writers of those moments opting to create scenes that demonstrate the importance of talking to young men about how not to engage with a young woman in an abusive way, they place the blame, guilt, and responsibility at the feet of the would-be victims. This is also known as victim blaming.”
Support
’s work here, and here.The Feminist in Cellblock Y, documentary
Richie and Mannie from the above Man Enough clips, alongside their fellow incarcerated people, challenge patriarchal ideals and the perpetuation of violent acts.
Description from the documentary on YouTube:
"The Feminist on Cellblock Y," a documentary produced by filmmaker Contessa Gayles, follows the now 25-year-old Reseda and his fellow prison mates as they participate in an inmate rehabilitation program centered around feminist literature.
It's said in the documentary, "a lot of them come out even worse than they were before," referring to the inmates.
In order to counter that particular manifestation, these men spend their days learning about the patriarchy, discovering the power of vulnerability, and personally combating toxic masculinity. Additionally, the program encourages the men to confront all of the areas where these toxic ideals of masculinity have prevailed in their lives.
"We cannot challenge our harmful behavior without challenging patriarchy," Reseda says in the film.
The Man Enough Podcast
Jamey, Liz, Justin (and sometimes Andy!) reflect with insightful guests on the challenges of a patriarchal society. Each episode is a learning session and an access point to conversations around healthy masculinity and confronting white supremist patriarchy.
Both Liz and Justin’s books are also phenomenal on the topic of healthy masculinity.
Docu-Reels
Because I’m embracing the things that bring me joy and spark my passions, I’ve been creating little docu-reels around the topics I discuss here within my Substack. All support is appreciated, and please share any ideas or thoughts you’d like me to explore when it comes to medieval matriarchs and the patriarchy. If you’re interested in a collaboration, please let me know.
I like to think of Patriarchy affecting women as internalized misogyny.
I like to think of Patriarchy affecting men as internalized misandry.
Why? Because when sexist men teach women to be sexist, they hate themselves, they tear each other down and so on.
But when sexist men teach men to hate themselves, they hate women, yes, but they also hate themselves. Men also learn to tear each down and such. Just in different ways.
Women with internalized misogyny slut shame each other so that men see the other women as “having less value” than them. Men with internalized misandry may not slut shame each other to de-value other men but they do compete for things like how many women they’ve had sex with, saying things like, “oh he’s not good in bed, he’s a virgin loser that lives with his mom”, etc.
If women slut shame other women, men virgin shame other men.
Incredibly valuable work here, thank you! The defining of patriarchy is so important, but I think even more so your model of having difficult conversations with a friend, and examining what would have been triggering at one point and how to work with that. Trauma is SO interconnected with all of this; I’m really glad to see more conversations happening that acknowledge that.
(I watched a ton of YouTube videos from therapist Patrick Teahan over the last year, and appreciate the many ways in which he shows how childhood trauma affects almost all of our adult relationships, from intimate partners to workplace dynamics.)