[papsosouid]

That doesn't mean there isn't a significant amount of mythology that is widely agreed upon in feminist circles. If you expect insane conspiracy theory nonsense like "patriarchy" to actually be supported by evidence rather than accepted on faith, then you are not welcome in feminist discourse, plain and simple.

[icebraining]

I'm rather confused by your post. I've never seen the patriarchy described as a "conspiracy", or a willful choice by men to control women, but has a social structure - perpetuated by certain social institutions - that ensure that men as a gender (not every individual, of course) maintain oppressive power over women.

Regardless of the existence of the patriarchy as a phenomena - and there are many critics of the theory, from the right and the left -, it makes no sense to dismiss it as a conspiracy theory.

[rmc]

I've never seen the patriarchy described as a "conspiracy"

Anti-feminists would tend to view it as a conspiracy, or no longer existing ("women can vote, so it's all OK now, right?"). Sadly this sort of attitude/meme does exist....

[papsosouid]

>but has a social structure - perpetuated by certain social institutions - that ensure that men as a gender (not every individual, of course) maintain oppressive power over women.

What you described is a conspiracy. Of course feminists don't describe their own conspiracy theories as conspiracy theories, they want them to appear legitimate.

[wonderzombie]

I disagree. This is necessary but not sufficient to describe a conspiracy. Conspiracies imply collusion, or some form of plan.

Patriarchy as it is commonly understood in feminist circles is more nuanced than your straw-man. It's bottom-up, not top-down. You'd have to stretch the definition of "conspiracy" awfully far to cover an emergent property of a set of principles and societal norms.

[king_jester]

Conspiracy usually means a deliberate attempt of a group to do something rather than something that occurs for systemic or institutional reasons.

Ultimately patriarchy as a social force and concept is totally provable has statistical and philosophical evidence that shows it exists. Every basic women's studies or feminist book goes over this to some extent.

[papsosouid]

Institutions do not form spontaneously, and the "systems" you refer to were also created by humans. The notion that men created systems and institutions which oppress women, but it is totally not a conspiracy because they did it by accident is not well represented in feminist academia.

>totally provable has statistical and philosophical evidence that shows it exists.

Except that alternative explanations are dismissed. If the "evidence" supports many possible conclusions, then it is not proof of a single specific conclusion like "patriarchy".

[king_jester]

> Institutions do not form spontaneously, and the "systems" you refer to were also created by humans. The notion that men created systems and institutions which oppress women, but it is totally not a conspiracy because they did it by accident is not well represented in feminist academia.

It seems like you are saying that is there is indeed a real conspiracy of institutions created and/or controlled by men, in which case I totally agree. We have well documented cases, historically and in the present, of institutions and systems that are dominated by men.

> Except that alternative explanations are dismissed. If the "evidence" supports many possible conclusions, then it is not proof of a single specific conclusion like "patriarchy".

I've yet to see convincing alternative explanations. All of the evidence points to existence of patriarchy as a social institution.

[papsosouid]

>It seems like you are saying that is there is indeed a real conspiracy of institutions created and/or controlled by men, in which case I totally agree.

It seems like you are deliberately choosing to respond with non-sequiturs and strawmen because you don't want to have an honest conversation.

>I've yet to see convincing alternative explanations. All of the evidence points to existence of patriarchy as a social institution.

Just as creationists view all evidence as pointing to the existence of god. If you start with a conclusion, and twist everything to suit that end, you can't reasonably expect people who didn't start with the same bias to agree with your conclusions.

[jb17]

Do you really think societal structures that privilege men are a myth? Apart from being quite obvious to anyone who is not extremely biased, there are whole academic branches that study this. I'd say calling that "mythology" puts you into conspiracy theory territory.

[dyno12345]

Simply put, if you say that the patriarchy causes X and not Y and I say that the patriarchy causes Y and not X there is no way to resolve the disagreement.

[hacker789]

> Do you really think societal structures that privilege men are a myth?

Nope. And neither are the societal structures that privilege women.

Western women have always been among the safest, most privileged human beings on the planet. Predictably, and unfortunately, modern western feminists never compare the plight of the average man with the plight of the average woman when determining who wins the Oppression Olympics; instead, they look jealously toward men at the top of society and declare that because women aren't a part of that, they're more oppressed.

And sadly, it gets more ridiculous than that. I've seen people on this forum actually say, with similar words:

Institutionalized misandry cannot exist, because most people at the top of society are men. Women don't have the institutional power to oppress men. Any oppression men face is a result of The Patriarchy.

Ignoring the fact that oppression can come from outside of congress (university policies, for example), those people are defining patriarchy to simply mean "Oppressive policies written by people with penises, even if feminists support those policies".

And that's what makes it dogma.

[wonderzombie]

Ignoring the fact that oppression can come from outside of congress (university policies, for example), those people are defining patriarchy to simply mean "Oppressive policies written by people with penises, even if feminists support those policies".

You are of course entitled to your opinion, but I think you'd be better served by engaging with a more nuanced and complex version of these views. What you describe here is caricature. And in all I think it says more about you than feminism.

A common refrain in feminist circles is that patriarchy hurts everyone. A good example is parental leave as it applies to men. Paternity leave in the US is absurdly bad, suggesting that we as a society do not value the time a father spends with his child. Along those lines, men are typically graded on a patronizingly terrible curve when it comes to childcare. And so on.

Note that these aren't just laws, but societal norms, especially the latter where people praise you for doing basic shit like picking up your kids from work or whatever. If you view patriarchy as an emergent property, then the idea that "laws written by men" are a sufficient description of the concept is just absurd. You could of course take the least coherent out of any group which espouses a belief and engage with that, but that's not an honest way to have a discussion.

So like I said maybe don't engage with the most ridiculous possible presentation of feminism.

[papsosouid]

There have been "whole academic branches" that studied all sorts of nonsense and quackery. That doesn't validate modern feminist mythology any more than it validated phrenology. Rather than resort to weasel words, if you want to take an opposing position than take it. Show me this male created oppression machine.

[rmc]

So, because some ideas are widely accepted in feminists theories (the patriarchy) must mean that there is nothing that feminists disagree about?!

That's like saying that because there is a significant amount of shared ideas in US politics (e.g.: "US Independence was a good thing"), that US politics is now some sort of group think where dissent is not allowed and everyone thinks the same!

[papsosouid]

>must mean that there is nothing that feminists disagree about?!

Nobody made that claim, that is my point. Responding to strawmen is not productive, respond to the actual conversation.