About Me
- Matt
- I'm a Social Anarchist and an avid reader of comics. Twitter handle is @armyofcrime.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Ways that patriarchy hurts men
There is this thing on the internet called Men's Rights Activism, or MRA. Ostensibly, the purpose of this is to address gender based disparities that negatively impact men. The confusing part of this, for me, is that this already exists. It's called Feminism. But what of these man-hurting social problems? Well, they do exist, but they are certainly not caused by an excess of estrogen.
Women's preferential treatment in custody disputes
It is commonly alleged that in divorces the mother is much more likely to get custody of the children, all other factors being equal. From what I've read and seen, this seems to be true. Is this because courts are biased against men? No, not really. Traditional gender roles tell us that women are nurturing and caring and are the ones to actually raise a couple's children. The father's primary role is to "provide for his family".
These roles limit both genders, but historically are significantly more limiting to women. Whereas it is not a contradiction for man to have a family and a career, the assumption is that his wife will stay home and raise their kids, a woman with a career was considered a contradiction until recently. These roles let men be the titans of industry, movers of the earth, statesmen and great leaders. Men are the ones who "do things, invent things and create things" while women do the neccesary but inglorious, unpaid and unheralded "domestic" work.
Admittedly, these are upper middle class assumptions, as being a stay at home parent is a luxury increasingly few people can afford, however the upper middle class run society and these gender roles seem to remain intact throughout the social strata. In poorer families, this most commonly takes the form of the woman doing the "housework" and working outside the home, something called "double burden" or "second shift." In wealthy homes, servants and nannies (traditionally female occupations) may do the domestic work to free up the wife's time.
By assigning child support payments to the father and primary custody to the mother, the law is actually preserving what it can of traditional gender roles. The man is still expected to provide, albiet from afar, while the woman actually cares for the children (in all likelihood working a "double burden"). The net effect seems to be that the man has his responsibility reduced to a bare minimum, providing financial resources only, while all the other burdens are stuck on the woman.
"But that's what young men are for."
One of the most disastrous and positively evil aspects of patriarchy arguably hurts men even more than it hurts women. That is war, and the draft specifically. In American history, in conflicts like Vietnam, World War 2, World War 1 and the Civil War men are conscripted and sent to die in enormous numbers. This is certainly not due to a misandrist plot by a secret matriarchal coven trying to weed out the males of the species.
Traditional ideas of gender portray men with any number of positive characteristics that can be applied to conflict: strength, boldness, rational thinking, courage and honor. Men can go off to war, fight and kill, receive accolades and become heroes. More likely, they will suffer injury and death for no real reason, but the idea of dutifully going off to war is a masculine ideal that persists to this day. Wars (with a tiny handful of exceptions) are commanded by men and fought by men. If women want to participate, until relatively recently they had to stick to standard feminine roles like nursing. Women are too weak, too emotional and too unreliable to be trusted in combat, or so goes the thinking, and have only been allowed in the armed services gradually and in certain areas at a time. Other countries are much more progressive on this issue than America, which only recently started allowing women into front line roles.
Both of these examples are ways patriarchy harms men. Feminism seeks to redress gender disparities and create more social equality, a goal everyone, man and woman, should support.
Women's preferential treatment in custody disputes
It is commonly alleged that in divorces the mother is much more likely to get custody of the children, all other factors being equal. From what I've read and seen, this seems to be true. Is this because courts are biased against men? No, not really. Traditional gender roles tell us that women are nurturing and caring and are the ones to actually raise a couple's children. The father's primary role is to "provide for his family".
These roles limit both genders, but historically are significantly more limiting to women. Whereas it is not a contradiction for man to have a family and a career, the assumption is that his wife will stay home and raise their kids, a woman with a career was considered a contradiction until recently. These roles let men be the titans of industry, movers of the earth, statesmen and great leaders. Men are the ones who "do things, invent things and create things" while women do the neccesary but inglorious, unpaid and unheralded "domestic" work.
Admittedly, these are upper middle class assumptions, as being a stay at home parent is a luxury increasingly few people can afford, however the upper middle class run society and these gender roles seem to remain intact throughout the social strata. In poorer families, this most commonly takes the form of the woman doing the "housework" and working outside the home, something called "double burden" or "second shift." In wealthy homes, servants and nannies (traditionally female occupations) may do the domestic work to free up the wife's time.
By assigning child support payments to the father and primary custody to the mother, the law is actually preserving what it can of traditional gender roles. The man is still expected to provide, albiet from afar, while the woman actually cares for the children (in all likelihood working a "double burden"). The net effect seems to be that the man has his responsibility reduced to a bare minimum, providing financial resources only, while all the other burdens are stuck on the woman.
"But that's what young men are for."
One of the most disastrous and positively evil aspects of patriarchy arguably hurts men even more than it hurts women. That is war, and the draft specifically. In American history, in conflicts like Vietnam, World War 2, World War 1 and the Civil War men are conscripted and sent to die in enormous numbers. This is certainly not due to a misandrist plot by a secret matriarchal coven trying to weed out the males of the species.
Traditional ideas of gender portray men with any number of positive characteristics that can be applied to conflict: strength, boldness, rational thinking, courage and honor. Men can go off to war, fight and kill, receive accolades and become heroes. More likely, they will suffer injury and death for no real reason, but the idea of dutifully going off to war is a masculine ideal that persists to this day. Wars (with a tiny handful of exceptions) are commanded by men and fought by men. If women want to participate, until relatively recently they had to stick to standard feminine roles like nursing. Women are too weak, too emotional and too unreliable to be trusted in combat, or so goes the thinking, and have only been allowed in the armed services gradually and in certain areas at a time. Other countries are much more progressive on this issue than America, which only recently started allowing women into front line roles.
Both of these examples are ways patriarchy harms men. Feminism seeks to redress gender disparities and create more social equality, a goal everyone, man and woman, should support.
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