Patriarchy

To me, the term "patriarchy" is worthless. I'm not saying there are no ways in which society is structured to harm women; just that this word is so loaded with different meanings and associations that it ruins any discussion it touches.

"Patriarchy" conjures up images of a Mafia council of old men who decide how society is run, for the benefit of guys.


In a recent Metafilter discussion, it was used variously to refer to laws against women owning property, Afghanistan under the Taliban, the U.S. in 1953, the U.S. today, and Saudi Arabia. In fact, every society in the history of earh is said to be, and have been, patriarchal. (According to Wikipedia, the notion of an earlier, matriarchal stage has been discredited.)

So, is the U.S. or Britain a patriarchy today? There's no way to sensibly answer that question. A word that means everything means nothing.

As much as anyone using it might deny this, there is something about the term that has built-in assumptions:
1) that men organize society, deliberately;
2) that they run it for their own benefit and to the detriment of women;
3) that women gain no benefits from the way society is run today, and have no control over it;
4) there is no valid basis for any of the differences in the social reality of men and women;
5) there has been no significant progress in gender relations, ever. After all, we're still patriarchal, right?

In case you can't tell, I think that's a ridiculous portrait of reality.