Posts tagged patriarchy

inbetweenlove:

before i marry any man, i will ask him: but how will you attempt to undo patriarchy? 

whilst patriarchy is an external social construct, for the most part it is ultimately perpetuated in the home and internalized as the first point of socialization for children. the home becomes the same place in which they first discover masculinity, femininity and all things gendered, inclusive of love. see, i have met many men who proclaim they are feminists but disappointedly turn out to be raging misogynists, so unaware of their complicity in the subordination of women they refuse to change their privilege in home life, behind close doors received from an inherited and comfortable chauvinism.

if we are to battle sexism in the public sphere i am a strong believer that it has to start and come from the home. so yes, i will ask the man i am to marry how he will attempt to undo patriarchy because i want my home to be a reflection of the freedom i envision for the world. and he will answer in a way that reassures me that love is not gendered, and that he is human first and foremost. 

prettyyoungtext:

Screw that. I put together a sheet of my own from various other sources to distribute to my classmates tomorrow. I would have liked to include a lot more information, but printing stuff costs money (specifically, my limited funds). With some careful formatting and double-sided printing, the text will fit onto one sheet of paper. I copy/pasted this from Word, so the format and bullet-points may look wonky, but you’re welcome to copy/paste/print this for your own means. Here we go:

What’s wrong with suggesting that women take precautions to prevent being raped?

 

It’s wrong because it puts the onus on women not to get themselves raped, rather than on men not to do the raping; in short, it blames the victim. (Finally Feminism 101)

A lot has been said about how to prevent rape. Women should learn self-defense. Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark. Women shouldn’t have long hair and women shouldn’t wear short skirts. Women shouldn’t leave drinks unattended. Hell, they shouldn’t dare to get drunk at all. Instead of that bullshit, how about:

If a woman is drunk, don’t rape her.

If a woman is walking alone at night, don’t rape her.

If a woman is drugged and unconscious, don’t rape her.

If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don’t rape her.

If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 am, don’t rape her.

If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you’re still hung up on, don’t rape her.

If a woman is asleep in her bed, don’t rape her.

If a woman is asleep in your bed, don’t rape her.

If a woman is doing her laundry, don’t rape her.

If a woman is in a coma, don’t rape her.

If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don’t rape her.

If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don’t rape her.

If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don’t rape her.

If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don’t rape her.

If your step-daughter is watching TV, don’t rape her.

If you break into a house and find a woman there, don’t rape her.

If your friend thinks it’s okay to rape someone, tell him it’s not, and that he’s not your friend.

If your “friend” tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.

If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there’s an unconscious woman upstairs and it’s your turn, don’t rape her, call the police and tell the guy he’s a rapist.

Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it’s not okay to rape someone.

Don’t tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.

Don’t imply that she could have avoided it if she’d only done/not done x.

Don’t imply that it’s in any way her fault.

Don’t let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he “got some” with the drunk girl.

Don’t perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself. (Men Can Stop Rape)

In case you aren’t sure how to avoid raping, here are a few questions you may want to ask yourself:

©       How do you define consent? Have you ever talked about consent with your partner(s) or friends?

©       Do you think it is the other person’s responsibility to say something if they aren’t into what you’re doing? How might someone express that what is happening is not OK? Do you think it is possible to misinterpret silence for consent? Do you think silence is consent?

©       Do you check in as things progress or do you assume the original consent means everything is OK? If someone consents to one thing, do you assume everything else is OK or do you ask before taking things to a different level? Do you think consent can be withdrawn after it’s been given?

©       Do you pursue someone sexually even after they have said they just want to be friends? Do you assume that if someone is affectionate they are probably sexually interested in you? Are you clear about your own intentions?

©       Have you ever tried to talk someone into doing something they showed hesitancy about?

©       If someone is promiscuous, do you think it’s less important to get consent?

©       Do you ever try to get yourself into situations that give you an excuse for touching someone you think would say no if you asked? (i.e., Dancing, getting drunk around them, falling asleep next to them.)

©       Do you ever feel obligated to have sex? Do you ever feel obligated to initiate sex? Do you ever try and make bargains? (i.e., “If you let me______, I’ll do ______for you?”)

©       Do you feel like being in a relationship with someone means that they have an obligation to have sex with you? What if they want to abstain from sex? Do you whine or threaten if you’re not having the amount of sex or kind of sex that you want?

©       Do you think it’s OK to initiate something sexual with someone who’s sleeping? What if the person is your partner?

©       Have you been sexual with people when you were drunk or when they were drunk? Do you seek consent the same way when you are drunk as when you’re sober?

©       Do you initiate conversations about safe sex and birth control applicably? Do you think saying something as vague as “I’ve been tested recently” is enough?

©       Do you think if a person has a body that can get pregnant, it’s up to that person to provide birth control? Do you complain or refuse safe sex or the type of birth control your partner wants to use because it reduces your pleasure?

©       Do you think only men abuse? Do you think that in a relationship between people of the same gender, only the one who is more “manly” abuses?

 

You may want to keep in mind that rapists are often not strangers.

©       73% of sexual assaults were perpetrated by a non-stranger.

©       38% of rapists are a friend or acquaintance.

©       28% are an intimate.

©       7% are a relative.

Rapists are rarely hiding in the bushes. More than 50% of all rape/sexual assault incidents were reported by victims to have occurred within 1 mile of their home or at their home.

©       4 in 10 take place at the victim’s home.

©       2 in 10 take place at the home of a friend, neighbor, or relative.

©       1 in 12 takes place in a parking garage.

©       The average age of a rapist is 31 years old.

©       52% are white.

©       22% of imprisoned rapists report that they are married.

©       In 1 in 3 sexual assaults, the perpetrator was intoxicated — 30% with alcohol, 4% with drugs.

©       In 2001, 11% of rapes involved the use of a weapon.

©       84% of victims reported the use of physical force only.

Rapists rarely serve time in jail for their crimes. 60% of rapes/sexual assaults are not reported to the police, according to a statistical average of the past 5 years. Those rapists, of course, never spend a day in prison. Factoring in unreported rapes, only about 6% of rapists ever serve a day in jail. (Rape Abuse & Incest National Network)

krona:

I am slightly perturbed by statements such as “Just because I’m a feminist doesn’t mean I can’t {wear a miniskirt and make-up/shave all my body-hair off/love doing ‘girly’ things}”. Again, it presents itself as an incredibly liberal phrase at first, and I want to make clear very quickly that it is not the statement itself I take issue with but the thought (this is possibly where it gets confusing) behind it. Of course you can be a feminist and wear a miniskirt etc! Of course it’s about the choice, your choice!

But what choice do we have? Go back a hundred or two hundred years (or a lot less in most places) and the overwhelming honest response from womankind (at least in most western society) to stepping outside of their assigned cooking/cleaning/mothering roles would be a negative one. Even if they were to agree with the notion of a choice in the matter, they would choose to remain in those positions that we would judge as subservient and exploitative. It’s easy for us to look back, and down, on them.. but a lot harder to look at, and in, ourselves for the exact same opposition to change. We are in a different time, with different challenges. A number of extremely brave people have moved the battle (forward, some might say) - but to declare it over would be to undo their work.

In a privilege dynamic, it is always easy to conform to whatever standards are expected from you, whatever side of the lines you reside in, regardless of whether you mentally disagree. Simply playing your part reinforces those standards society-wide and in your own mind, increases the pressure on others to accept the status-quo, used as an excuse to force the same indoctrination on the next generation, and becomes a subsidy of the counter-attack against anyone who dares defy it. Resisting oppression is revolutionary. Conforming with oppression is not. Not even if you like it, especially not if you like it. On the one hand, none are free until all are, and on the other: do you really like it?

An example. You shave your body-hair off. Why? “Not for a man, I’m a feminist. I just don’t like it.” Yet where has this very common idea come from? It is a very recent idea too.. Consider the mountains and mountains of both blatant and subtle contemporary propaganda telling you practically every single day that body hair is obscene for a woman and desirable for a man. Now consider the possibility that the patriarchy has taken feminism, viciously tore a chunk out of it, and is now selling it back to us as a brand of sexism ‘now with added superiority to those pitiful women who serve men for men and not serve men for themselves! Because your own desires, as a woman, can’t be sexist.. can they?’

None of us are capable of making objective and completely individual decisions. Not me, not you. To declare yourself immune from the collective consciousness of the society which moulded you from birth is arrogance and insanity. We are brought up by an incredibly sexist/racist/etc society, and to not initially accept this upbringing in us and others robs us of our only chance of opposing it.

Fighting our conditioning is a constant and eternal process. Just because you identify yourself as ‘a feminist’ does not mean that you cannot act in ways which reinforce gender oppression. You will never be free except when you are consciously struggling; thinking that you are magically free of sexist influence is a trojan horse of defeat, albeit tempting - especially for those of us who have been struggling the hardest/longest/most painfully. 

These are pretty big and incomplete/flawed ideas so I would be incredibly appreciative of any feedback whatsoever, whomever you are, and I apologise in advance the the inevitable miscommunication.

-Eris :)

 ”To declare yourself immune from the collective consciousness of the society which moulded you from birth is arrogance and insanity.”

I love it <3 Perfectly said.  How is it empowering to hate you body so much that you even get it surgically altered?

shakepaper:

Though I appreciate the things that the second wave of feminism did, it should be noted that the second wave of feminism was very essentialist and did not take the intersections of oppression into account. So, if your definition of feminism only extends to women going into the workforce, and having equal representation in patriarchal institutions, then I do not consider you an ally because your narrow notions of feminism continue to oppress me and other folks who are queer, transgendered, poc, poor, disabled etc… Furthermore, let it be known that I find reformism boring, ineffective and complicit in the oppression of our sisters and comrades. We do not have to comply to with the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy so that we too could be included in these systems of domination. If we want to make change, then we have to tear it down. Because, within these systems, though some “women” may be given privileges that were once accorded only to men, other women will continue to be oppressed. For example, if a woman becomes a CEO in the Western world, there will most likely be women who are being exploited in their factories. If women are now “valued” because they can go out into the workplace, then it still perpetuates a devaluation of women who cannot work. If women are free because they can vote, then it legitimizes a system in which divisions between “citizens” and “non-citizens” are made, and people without status continue to have no rights. So, until you realize that the nature of this idealized form of liberation is very western and essentialist (and most importantly, very privileged), then I consider you dangerous and a threat to the struggle. Equality for “women” to you, really means, equality for some women.

Liberation should occur in all its forms and for all peoples.

* It should also be noted that the term “woman” itself needs to be interrogated and taken not as an identity that is biologically determined, but as an identity that is socially constructed and strategically used to enforce normative gendered behaviours and desires. 

 Fuck Yes