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+--- Thread: "I don't have patriarchy in my home." (/showthread.php?tid=705)
"I don't have patriarchy in my home." - Sunny - Feb 12 2025
I was following a very well written feminist on FB who actually addressed male violence statistics and such and truly thought this woman "got it". Turns out she doesn't. At all.
She made an AMA post so I asked how can I as a woman relax and truly rest when misogyny is everywhere and we can't escape it. I mentioned how it's in every tv show I try to watch, in books, in places I join to interact with others with my hobbies, podcasts, everywhere.
This woman I respected, who has a husband and a male child, literally told me she doesn't have that problem bc she doesn't watch tv. She literally said "I don't have patriarchy in my home".
Someone laughed at her and asked "So you have no husband or children?" and she replied that yes she does but it's an EGALITARIAN RELATIONSHIP and he RESPECTS HER and that's when I realized she was just a slightly more educated than normal libfem and I felt so betrayed.When I told her that I wasn't meaning just tv but in ALL media one can consume as well as in conversations with friends, literally everywhere she doubled down and said "I don't use screens to relax". Like okay. Got it. You go to work and come home and stare at the wall with your totally equal in every way husband and then you go to bed. Thanks.
This was over a month ago and every time it pops into my head I get angry all over again. She clearly had no answer and instead of admitting that she said that screens are not necessary to relax and it's my fault for not unplugging. I was dogpiled on by other women saying the same thing. Just don't watch it! Screen time is bad! Resting doesn't involve watching screens!!
I made a comment saying that I am disabled and currently basically trapped in my apartment so I rely on books, magazines, podcasts, movies, tv, etc as well as hobbies that don't involve screens to keep myself busy bc it's all I have in my life but they wouldn't have it. I'm so embarrassed for them all.
RE: "I don't have patriarchy in my home." - drdee - Feb 12 2025
It is so frustrating to me when people use these kinds of conversations for some kind of status-seeking. 'I'm better than you, I have an 'egalitarian relationship' and don't consume popular media' is just an embarrassing take.
This is also why I avoid conversations about 'beauty' practices - 'I do/don't wear makeup, have long hair, shave my legs and arms, wear dresses' - these conversations (at least to me) seem to always get into who's more high-status by avoiding various choices/behaviours.
RE: "I don't have patriarchy in my home." - Clover - Feb 12 2025
(Feb 12 2025, 10:25 AM)Sunny This woman I respected, who has a husband and a male child, literally told me she doesn't have that problem bc she doesn't watch tv. She literally said "I don't have patriarchy in my home".
"I want freedom from patriarchy."
"We have freedom from patriarchy at home."
The freedom from patriarchy at home:
Well, I get how maybe it might feel that way for her, it really didn't help answer your question. And it's really—I guess maybe patronizing is the word—how they dismiss your concerns about so much media being misogynistic with just "I don't use screens to relax." It feels like these women are dodging the question. They don't have a good answer I suppose for acknowledging how much misogyny there is in media, so they deflect by saying they just don't "have screens."
"Never meet your heroes" as they say. (Although I disagree with this phrase, I think it's good to realize that people you might look up to actually have qualities in them that disappoint you, as it shows how human we all are. There is no hero, only human. I better like the phrase "take what resonates, leave the rest.")
I wish we could have an answer to your question.
RE: "I don't have patriarchy in my home." - komorebi - Feb 13 2025
(Feb 12 2025, 11:55 AM)Clover "I want freedom from patriarchy."
"We have freedom from patriarchy at home."
The freedom from patriarchy at home:
Clover lmao 🤣
Sunny: to answer your original question, it sure ain't easy. Spend more time with other like-minded women; be extremely selective about the media that you engage with. Prioritize female creators wherever possible. And when it gets to be too much, disconnect and go for a walk (if that's possible—I read that you're disabled so might not be an option for you 😔).
I stopped watching TV years ago because in general I found it to be so painfully sexist and racist, but I personally have much better luck with other media. If you like reading comics/manga, I know some good ones!
RE: "I don't have patriarchy in my home." - Sunny - Feb 15 2025
(Feb 12 2025, 11:41 AM)drdee It is so frustrating to me when people use these kinds of conversations for some kind of status-seeking. 'I'm better than you, I have an 'egalitarian relationship' and don't consume popular media' is just an embarrassing take.
Thank you for putting this into words! This is why it has bothered me so much, ack.
(Feb 12 2025, 11:55 AM)Clover "I want freedom from patriarchy."
"We have freedom from patriarchy at home."
The freedom from patriarchy at home:
Well, I get how maybe it might feel that way for her, it really didn't help answer your question. And it's really—I guess maybe patronizing is the word—how they dismiss your concerns about so much media being misogynistic with just "I don't use screens to relax." It feels like these women are dodging the question. They don't have a good answer I suppose for acknowledging how much misogyny there is in media, so they deflect by saying they just don't "have screens."
Thanks for making me laugh c:
But yes, this exactly! As usual, Andrea was spot on. I need this quote taped to my forehead.
(Feb 13 2025, 12:44 PM)komorebi Sunny: to answer your original question, it sure ain't easy. Spend more time with other like-minded women; be extremely selective about the media that you engage with. Prioritize female creators wherever possible. And when it gets to be too much, disconnect and go for a walk (if that's possible—I read that you're disabled so might not be an option for you 😔).
I stopped watching TV years ago because in general I found it to be so painfully sexist and racist, but I personally have much better luck with other media. If you like reading comics/manga, I know some good ones!
Thank you for the advice! This is helpful. (I am able to walk! Not much yet, but I used to be bedridden so my 5-10 minute walks outside are such big progress for me!!)
I agree about tv. I'm starting to try to rely less on it, I've started reading again as well as working out. I'd love some comic recommendations please!
RE: "I don't have patriarchy in my home." - YesYourNigel - Feb 16 2025
Ah yes, #NotLikeOtherGirls combined with "This only happens to bad and stupid women", as if the patriarchy is some self-induced thing you can avoid by just playing your cards right, and other women have only themselves to blame if they don't.
(Feb 12 2025, 10:25 AM)Sunny This woman I respected, who has a husband and a male child, literally told me she doesn't have that problem bc she doesn't watch tv.The patriarchy would be solved if only all these whipper-snappers stopped being glued to their SmArTpHoNeS all day 🙄
I feel like this might be trying to pin the patriarchy onto some general apolitical cause that people from a wide spectrum of political beliefs (and hopefully the men in her life as well) can latch onto - it's not the men, it's the phones! It's the video games! It's the internet anonymity! It's just dumb kids! Like...why is misogyny always a thing there in the first place? Why don't all these causes just so happen to result in misandry for a change or, idk, mass veganism? Why does it always happen to match the societal norms pushed onto us every day through every facet 🤔 Could all the consistent norms in media and the internet and different communities possibly reflect people's irl norms? 🤔🤔🤔
(Feb 12 2025, 11:41 AM)drdee This is also why I avoid conversations about 'beauty' practices - 'I do/don't wear makeup, have long hair, shave my legs and arms, wear dresses' - these conversations (at least to me) seem to always get into who's more high-status by avoiding various choices/behaviours.Well, the women who refuse to engage in beauty practices are actively refusing to take part in furthering patriarchal views of women being sex objects first, and anything else second, usually to extensive pushback, dismissal and against a lifetime of socialisation. That is more "high status" within feminism for a reason.
I often see feminine women try to reach for an "agree to disagree" in that aspect, where we're supposed to equally respect the daringly pro-woman option and the more cowardly one that maintains the appeal to men. The thing is, I do think the latter is deserving of empathy - rejecting beauty practices and femininity is scary because women are raised to see this as the only thing that gives them value, as the only aspect of their identity, and to always prioritise everyone else and never push back on anything, and I imagine it only gets worse for women who've spent a lifetime doing it instead of, say, tomboys.
Where I think it gets into NotLikeOtherGirls is when feminine women get portrayed as privileged just because femininity is encouraged under patriarchy, ignoring the extent of harm that femininity causes them, or when (usually also feminine) women think the only thing that makes other women less respectable is their more extreme adherence to beauty standards (sth sth Madonna-wh*re complex). I think there needs to be some empathy for feminine women's situation instead of just pushing to make a lifechanging decision that many women don't feel ready for.
What I have no patience for is taking it as a personal attack when femininity gets criticised and the extent of the negative impacts of it on women is acknowledged just because feminine women feel guilty and not-very-feminist about their part in it.
Quote:"So you have no husband or children?" and she replied that yes she does but it's an EGALITARIAN RELATIONSHIP and he RESPECTS HER
Of course he does! Not MY Nigel!
We tend to characterise any sexism as something proactively bad and evil and a personal failing, rather than literally it being a constant cultural background noise that we all suffer from. We're both raised to believe in actively misogynistic things (namely that the patriarchal world is fair and just and a result of the sexes simply being different - or straight up that women are inferior and men superior), but also we experience it on our own skin in terms of treatment we endure - women who get punished for not being nice and accommodating enough will not develop the same reactions and insticts as men who get told they have the world at their fingertips, even if neither of them ever buys into any sexist idea. The exact same thing a woman does will get backlash and the thing the man does won't - result is that, even without any personal sexist beliefs, women learn this is bad and causes problems, the man doesn't. Their lives will be defined by this different treatment. It's passive vs active sexism.
It's also why it's so infuriatingly offensive for TIPs to pretend like they can just undo decades of this differing treatmen from the youngest most impressionable years because "they wanted to be the opposite sex so that's how they experienced the world", as if this gendered socialisation is something you actively choose like clothes in the morning and, as an extra offensive corrolary, that those other women simply choose their identity of being oppressed and treated as subhuman. I don't give a crap what you identify as, you're going to be sexualised for your body if you're a woman, and have the world of options open for you if you're a man (among many many other things). This isn't something you can just "choose" not to experience by shutting your eyes and pretending it's not there. It really comes from complete inability to recognise the extent of sexism in our society, so anything that isn't the absolute loudest worst screeching about what subhumans women are gets labeled as good and progressive.
It's best to see sexism as something forced onto us that we need to push back and heal from, rather than some evil thing that could only be done by the vilest of people. Just because your Nigel is profiting off of sexism doesn't necessarily mean he's some evil irreparable person, unless he refuses to acknowledge this and work on himself to make your relationship equal. And given how defensive this woman is of him, I'm going to guess he doesn't.
(Feb 12 2025, 11:55 AM)Clover And it's really—I guess maybe patronizing is the word—how they dismiss your concerns about so much media being misogynistic with just "I don't use screens to relax."
Why not go a step further? "I don't leave the house" "I don't date men" "I don't talk to people" "I don't study or read. I'm too cool for that" 😎
RE: "I don't have patriarchy in my home." - drdee - Feb 16 2025
'That is more "high status" within feminism for a reason.' LOL in that case I'm the most high-status feminist of them all, rarrr! (but it's entirely because a) my employment doesn't depend on my appearance and b) I have no current or potential males that it's necessary for my financial/emotional wellbeing to be attractive for)
RE: "I don't have patriarchy in my home." - YesYourNigel - Feb 16 2025
Women being forced into these arrangements for survival or a sense of normalcy doesn't erase their negative impact on women in any way, in fact it reinforces it. Failing to acknowledge that makes you end up with libfem/choice feminism conclusions where things like surrogacy, prostitution, being a housewife, kink, really any kind of patriarchal pandering is empowering because the patriarchy rewards obedient women with money or psychological comfort within said patriarchal system.
Many women are tied to overt patriarchal limitations, but many have options, they're just afraid of rocking the boat and they don't think they're good for anything else. When you're raised all your life, literally since you were a baby, to think your primary worth is in looking nice and being servile to others, is it any wonder that you find jobs or lifestyles that prioritise that more attainable? The same ones that end up sending all those women into the meat grinder of objectification and telling them they chose it? You can't avoid the patriarchy but you can at least do whatever you can to minimise its damage by not pandering to it.