All Episodes
Previous Next
June 23, 2014 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
08:45
The Patriarchy
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
I don't know about you, but I am really concerned about the patriarchy.
I was going to do a montage of feminists talking about the patriarchy, but I don't need to.
You and I both know that the feminists will go on about the patriarchy at length and how awfully oppressive it is to women.
So a patriarchy is a social system in which males are the primary authority figures central to social organisation.
They occupy roles of political leadership, moral authority and control of property, where fathers hold authority over women and children.
But not just that.
Feminism has its own definition of patriarchy.
Feminism defines patriarchy as the unjust social system that is necessarily more oppressive to women.
As feminist and political theorist Carol Pateman writes, the patriarchal construction of the difference between masculinity and femininity is the political difference between freedom and subjection.
In feminist theory, the concept of patriarchy often includes all the social mechanisms that reproduce and exert male dominance over women.
As we can see, a patriarchy would absolutely not allow women to gain power.
Female power and any method by which it might be derived would be a direct threat and challenge to such a domineering and oppressive system.
Well, in today's world, money is power.
It certainly comes as a surprise to me to find out that there are 172 female billionaires, and that number is growing by leaps and bounds every year.
I don't know about you, but I would have thought a patriarchy would be doing everything it could to prevent it, even by having laws against such a thing.
But strangely enough, the patriarchy has actually enacted laws to ensure that women get paid the same as a man for the same work.
Which, as you could imagine, has not only led to women earning the equal of their male counterparts, but it's actually led to young women earning more than young men.
Now I know what you're thinking.
Well, how could that be the case?
How could they be gaining these jobs?
Well, it turns out that women are actually the majority graduates from universities, and not just some women-only universities, but taken in aggregate across all universities.
But not only that, these universities all have feminist societies, which are specifically geared towards helping women, not to mention women-only scholarships.
This is a very strange thing for any patriarchy to have, because you would think if you were trying to oppress women, the last thing you'd be doing is trying to get them into university, and then helping them along through, so that they now outnumber men as graduates, and are now out earning men in the workplace.
Alright, alright.
At least women aren't getting political power, because that would literally be the end of a patriarchy.
They can vote?
Oh my god, and they've been able to vote for decades.
Alright, well, I mean, at least they're voting for male politicians.
There is no way a patriarchy would allow female politicians.
Oh, so they have female politicians.
In fact, not only do they have female politicians, but they have feminist politicians.
Feminism being an ideology that is dedicated to smashing the patriarchy.
Why would a patriarchy allow their own opposition to openly and brazenly oppose them?
The arrogance of the patriarchy is astounding.
Even when there are public movements against stopping the patriarchy out in full view in public, the patriarchy doesn't care.
Okay, okay, these things are all quite peripheral.
What about in people's daily lives?
You know, like pop culture.
I take it the patriarchy has got them in the mind before they even realise what's going on.
And like the Illuminati, keeping it from the masses by keeping the veil over their eyes.
Okay, not only these women rich and famous the world over, but they are also feminists.
And they are singing songs that are practically feminist anthems.
Okay.
Well, at least women are being oppressed on social media.
There's no way they're speaking out against men and patriarchy on social media, right?
Because that's the voice of the people for Christ's sake.
The Raw Vox Populi.
Hashtag kill all men, hashtag smash the patriarchy.
Why is the patriarchy not doing something about this?
Okay, maybe the patriarchy is just too subtle for us to notice overtly.
Maybe we need to look at the results of the patriarchy to see it oppressing women.
Ah, perfect.
For example, men initiating domestic violence.
Oh, right, okay.
No, okay, women are the ones who initiate domestic violence more often than not.
Okay, um, well, at least you know that a patriarchy ultimately is going to sentence women to far harsher and far longer sentences, right?
What?
63% shorter sentences on average for the same crime.
Why would a patriarchy be sentencing men to more than 50% longer sentences than women?
What kind of oppression is this?
Come on, patriarchy!
What?
The patriarchy has funded women-only groups who recommend that prisons should be closed for women, but keep men's prisons open.
I. Alright.
Alright, well, at least women are probably the majority of the homeless.
I mean, they must be suffering in some way.
So, men are 76%.
Men are 74% of the homeless.
Well, why the hell would that be?
I mean, if 70% of the homeless women are fleeing violence, where are they going?
Oh, they're going to women-only rape crisis centers.
Which is exactly the sort of thing I wouldn't expect an oppressive patriarchy to have.
But, okay, well, I mean, are there any other kind of symptoms that you'd expect from an oppressive patriarchy?
Do they at least have the shitty jobs?
So they form a kind of female slave underclass, maybe.
The female helots to the male Spartans, as it were.
Oh, well.
I mean, I suppose if men are dying at a rate of 93% men to 7% women, then the women probably aren't doing the worst jobs in society.
Come on, patriarchy.
It's like you're trying to help the women.
Well, surely medical science isn't spending far more on women's health issues than men's, is it?
Why?
Why would the patriarchy be spending literally more than twice as much on breast cancer than it would for prostate cancer?
Gender-specific cancers, practically.
Okay, well, at least when there is ideological opposition to feminism, a movement that is about women, for women, and primarily run by women, surely the patriarchy backs it.
Surely the patriarchy gets behind it and goes, you know what?
I am not oppressing women hard enough.
They need to get back in the kitchen.
Except it's actually supporting it through the mainstream media.
Why would it be doing this?
Why would the patriarchy allow this movement to be fallaciously tied to a mass murderer?
I would think there would be a massive propaganda war going on in favour of the men's rights movement.
I mean it sounds just like the sort of thing the patriarchy would get behind.
But for some reason the patriarchy has even allowed women's groups and women that they are supposed to be oppressing to petition and get a major conference for this men's rights group cancelled.
I I am flabbergasted.
I I what is the patriarchy doing?
So to sum this up, we apparently live in a patriarchy that oppresses women by providing them with wealth, power, education, suffrage, pop culture, freedom, shelter, safety, health and protection from opposition.
Why would any woman fight against the patriarchy?
▲
Export Selection