[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.