this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2025
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A) They have every right to complain about their treatment. In fact, that is what we are doing by complaining about the Patriarchy. You should complain too.
Again, the patriarchy hurts men. They are victims of the lasting damage caused by outdated gender norms that originated from men in power and are perpetuated by men who are still in power. Not all men. Not even all men in power. Specifically, men in power who perpetuate the problem.
B) Individual women can play just as big a role as individual men in perpetuating the gender norms that favor patriarchal heirarchy. By pointing out that men are victims of patriarchy, we are specifically pointing out that most of them do not have an individual hand in its creation. If you are not in power, you are not the Patriarchy, and thus you are not the origin of the problem, though you can be perpetuating the problem, regardless of your gender.
C) We all have a burden to undo the lasting damage caused by our society's historical failures. We all have a moral responsibility to improve ourselves as individuals and as a society, regardless of our gender.
D) refer back to (B)
E) refer back to (C)
F) refer back to (A)
Again, the Patriarchy is not a description of men, or a homogenization of a group. It is a description of a social heirarchy. "The Patriarchy" =/= "all men". I don't know how much more clear I can make that.
Individual men are no more responsible for the Patriarchy than individual citizens are responsible for the oppressive behaviors of their governments, unless they support, perpetuate, or refuse to acknowledge it.
There are many, many more men still in power than women. Your last point is laughable.
Again. As I said. Those individual women in power can be responsible too. I absolutely agree with that. They can be responsible for perpetuating the Patriarchy. God knows plenty of literal Queens have done so throughout history.
But if you seriously believe that women as a group hold as much power as men as a group, then this conversation is a waste of time.
And if you seriously believe that men in power throughout history haven't left a mark on today's society, or that it's insulting to men to even talk about that history by giving it a name, then I refer you back to (C). You absolutely have a moral burden to be better than the humans who came before you, and choosing to be offended by that is just burying your head in the sand.
What I'm reading from your writing is that both men and women in power have and continue to contribute to gender norms, which confine and hurt both men and women. If so, why use gendered language at all? There is much research and theory in sociology and specifically feminist studies about the impact of gendered language. I'm sure you broadly agree that "man up" is hurtful gendered language because it implies men should conform to a specific set of subjective behaviour. Why can you not see that a gendered male term for a toxic and harmful system is if not explicitly harmful, certainly implicitly so? Why not use a gender neutral germ like "structural gender roles" or something else which doesn't imply blame? Surely this is not the first time a man has told you he feels offended by your use of this word. Why do you not listen and accept the hurt you cause by your continued use of it instead of just using something less offensive?
Unless, of course, you do intend to imply blame. That men are more to blame. That more men hold power, therefore we should use a gendered word to ensure we are clear who is more to blame.
Men had a lot more power and influence than women, and men continue to have a lot more power and influence. That isn't applying blame. That is indisputable fact. Men as a group are more responsible for gender inequality than women, because men hold more power than women. Again, indisputable fact.
Men hold most of the highest offices of the most powerful nations in the world, and most of those nations still have severe gender disparities that they are not addressing, or addressing terribly slowly. Again, indisputable fact.
The only way to help people see that women do not have an equal amount of power and influence in the modern day is to talk about it. Gender-neutral terms are not always helpful towards that end, because it is not a gender-neutral topic.
The patriarchy isn't harmful gendered language the way "man up" is. Nobody is harmed by the term patriarchy. It is not a weapon used to put men down, it is a term used to describe an unequal power balance between groups of people.
Why, exactly, are you offended by a term that doesn't describe you?
Martin Luther King Jr. described "white moderates" as a major barrier to civil rights. Was he wrong to refer to them by the color of their skin? Did he harm white progressives by doing so?
Should he have used race-neutral terms? Should he have just said "moderates," as if that would hold any of the same power or meaning? Should white progressives have been offended by his description of white moderates?
Are women truly wrong to refer to the vast majority of the people who hold power over them as "men", when it is indisputable fact?
Some men. A minority of men. You're doing the thing right now. "Men" isn't a homogenous group, yet you're clearly placing them into one. Women aren't a minority group. How would you react if a woman wrote a post here about being raped, and I started discussing matriarchy, and how women, as a group, tend to act. Surely that would be a terrible thing for me to do, yet here you are, doing just that.
You make it clear that this is about attributing blame. You've dedicated multiple paragraphs to blaming men as a group. That's why you won't give up the gendered language. This isn't about helping men at all. It's about blaming them, even though you acknowledge most of them are not responsible. You must see how that foments anger from men, and how you are perpetuating negative stereotypes and animosity by continuing to use such toxic gendered language.
I think it's fine to claim that the majority of positions of power are held by men. I think it's wrong to say that "men" are responsible for bad things. If you're specific about the bad men (or even better, bad people), no problem. If you broadly refer to men when describing toxic behaviour, you're blaming people who don't deserve it. Just like one shouldn't blame "women" or the "matriarchy" for things either. Surely you agree with that?
The patriarchy is "some men." The term is literally describing what you want. The subset of men who are in power.
You are not the patriarchy. You should be fighting the patriarchy.
How would I react if you described the matriarchy? What matriarchy? What world do you live in that there is a social heirarchy dominated by women in power?
Please answer the question about white moderates. Was it wrong to refer to them as white? Was that "toxic"?