If you are not very smart, if you are kind of lazy, if you are not into working, if a career is not something that interests you, and if your libido is very dormant, patriarchy is quite a good little system for this kind of a woman. You agree not to do any of the things you don’t want to do anyways (working, getting an education, pursuing sexual fulfillment) in exchange for somebody else paying your way and keeping you for life. Not bad at all.
We all know that the patriarchy deprives women of their full humanity. What we forget is that a full humanity is quite a burden. All of those choices, responsibilities, problems, struggles. It’s all kind of hard. This is why there is and always will be a certain number of women who will defend their right not to be fully human and retain their patriarchal role of a kept, infantilized, stupidified object.
I hope I don’t need to explain that the patriarchy deprives men of their full humanity, too, albeit in a different way, which is why there will always be men who will support it because, for them, too, being fully human is a burden. So they willingly castrate their existences and place themselves into the rigid patriarchal mold.
Of course, those of us who have chosen to pursue the full range of human existence (whether we are male or female) annoy the patriarchally minded folks because we remind them of what they have renounced for the security of their traditional roles. This is why they get so rabid whenever they see us or are reminded of our existence.
Clarissa's Blog 
My brothers and sisters are all more successful than I, and they embrace the patriarchy fully and absolutely — at least it seems that way, as they are fully into reproduction and the ideology of family, including extended family.
I’ve really expended the better part of my energies trying to fight the forces of traditionalism, which were all around me. I’ve won the right to live as I want, but I don’t have the power to forge a career right now. Meanwhile, those who haven’t gone against the tide continue to cruise on.
http://unsanesafe.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/siblings-in-distress.html
LikeLike
Yes, I agree completely that having to engage in the struggle to defend your right to be fully human really saps one’s strength. It’s like walking in wet sand.
LikeLike
If you’re standing on a wet beach, you can push yourself to walk through it and make onto the dry sand – or you can give up and stay in the wet sand forever.
Sorry, that was hideously twee. 😛
LikeLike
Avoiding such people is, of course, the best policy. But what if they are your family members? Then the whole thing becomes more tricky.
LikeLike
I’ve always said to myself: “If I got a good enough kick in the pants, I would be jettisoned to success in a hurry.” The pity is there are not more sadists around to make me realize how good my life could be.
LikeLike
This post got me thinking, I was wondering how conservative women like Ann Coulter and Debbie Schlussel would fit into this paradigm of women who buy into patriarchy? They hate feminism and fawn over anything masculine and seem to hate other women, yet they are successful and would not have had the sort of careers they had if it was not for feminism. I wouldn’t call them lazy or stupid, yet it seems they use their intelligence and success to look down and hate women.
LikeLike
I might be mistaken but I always thought that people like Ann Coulter were simply shrewd businesswomen who sell whatever will bring them money and then laugh behind closed doors at the idiots who buy the junk they peddle.
LikeLike
Maybe in Coulter’s case, she does seem like that sort. But Schlussel is a real piece of work, I really believe she hates women and I read her blog so you don’t have to, it requires a stiff drink 😀 This is someone who said that Lara Logan deserved to be assaulted when she was covering the protests in Egypt and was actually praising Breivik when he shot all those people at the summer camp in Norway, she said the kids were Hitler Youth and deserved to die :O She’s always saying how evil feminism is, yet she’s not married nor has kids and is a lawyer, hypocrite. She doesn’t have any books out and even mainstream conservatives think she’s nuts, she sounds like it.
LikeLike
Jeez, how horrible. I’ve never even heard of this Schlussel person. She sounds like she has grave mental issues. Of course, self-haters of all kinds abound. It’s possible she hates women because she hates herself for being a woman. Very sad when that happens.
LikeLike
Debbie Schlussel did not say that Lara Logan deserved to be assaulted. Her comment was directed to how women like Logan fail to recognize the oppressive aspects of what was happening in Egypt, until it hits them personally.
See here for example:
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/33031/how-muslims-celebrate-victory-egypts-peaceful-moderate-democratic-protesters/
If anything, she’s been critical of Logan and other leftist female reporters for failing to recognize the patriarchal system where it flourishes.
Her comments about the shootings in Norway were more nuanced than you portray them to be. She condemned the shootings, but pointed out that the camp was not quite as innocuous as it’s been portrayed as being :
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/40472/karma-2-norway-utoya-camp-was-also-fatah-plo-terrorist-camp/
LikeLike
So you’re saying leftist women should be raped, and that kids deserved to get killed? Go to hell, no one deserves to be raped or killed, are you one of her stupid groupies who think women are evil and one ought to kiss up to men? That bitch and her stupid groupies threatened me when I told her that what she said about Breivik was evil, anyone who agrees with that is evil. Since I am not a Christian who believes in forgiveness, you threaten me or my family, you are my enemy. Go to hell, no offense Clarissa 😀
LikeLike
“Since I am not a Christian who believes in forgiveness, you threaten me or my family, you are my enemy. Go to hell, no offense Clarissa ”
– None taken! I agree that people who threaten others for disagreeing are vile creatures. Crazy creatures like this Schlussel person do seem to attract unhinged fanatics, and that makes them even scarier.
LikeLike
“So you’re saying leftist women should be raped, and that kids deserved to get killed?”
Nonsense. Reread what I wrote. You have a very active imagination.
LikeLike
omg…what next…women in skimpy clothes deserve to be attacked, assaulted….what a bs comment about a children’s camp…
LikeLike
This post really spoke to me. Loved it.
LikeLike
Thank you. Also thank you for being one of the few people who does link to me.
LikeLike
There are also women who wanted things forbidden them by the patriarchy but didn’t get them and, instead of aiming their pain and anger at the system that got in their way, decide no other women should get what they didn’t. Or maybe they decide that what the patriarchy gives them is all they have, and so they fear any kind of change.
In my experience, these women have been the ones who do the most harm.
LikeLike
Oh yeah, I’ve seen that before. It seems like quite a few women have that attitude, I think that’s why I keep hearing about why women prefer a male boss to a female boss, it’s like they don’t want any competition.
LikeLike
“There are also women who wanted things forbidden them by the patriarchy but didn’t get them and, instead of aiming their pain and anger at the system that got in their way, decide no other women should get what they didn’t.”
I think this is also a lot of the backlash from men policing the masculinity of other men, especially younger men. They don’t want men to be recognized as victims anymore than they have been (none at all), because why would the younger ones be worth it more than they were? They should just man up and consider themselves lucky they didn’t get beaten up even more than that…
LikeLike
“I think this is also a lot of the backlash from men policing the masculinity of other men, especially younger men. They don’t want men to be recognized as victims anymore than they have been (none at all), because why would the younger ones be worth it more than they were?”
– This is a very valuable comment. I think you are absolutely right.
LikeLike
“There are also women who wanted things forbidden them by the patriarchy but didn’t get them and, instead of aiming their pain and anger at the system that got in their way, decide no other women should get what they didn’t. Or maybe they decide that what the patriarchy gives them is all they have, and so they fear any kind of change.”
– Oh yes. I have met such women, and it is tragic how they play out this sad scenario.
LikeLike
I think that some of the issues can easily get confused here – particularly when our feelings (e.g. “buttons”) are pushed. Often – our fears – commonly coming from early childhood get in the way of our “rational thinking”.
Whether we are talking about gender, race (or even things like the Middle East) – we commonly come from fears of rejection to annihilation related to where we’ve felt and continue to feel hurt at a deep level.
The is also a difference between trying to explain Why some things may have happened such as the Norway killings, and justifying what has happened.
Where one strives for “success” through rejecting one’s identity – such as women kowtowing to some men, the “prize” usually is only there as long as one continues to be useful to the individual or group with the power.
We men – have as many or likely far, far more issues to deal with amongst ourselves with masculinity. At times – I think it important to give women slack as sexism clearly hurts one’s spirit and soul and fighting it isn’t easy. (That doesn’t excuse oppressing others of course!).
Excuse – me for in a way invading what has been mostly a useful discussion amongst women.
LikeLike
“Excuse – me for in a way invading what has been mostly a useful discussion amongst women.”
– There is no need to excuse yourself. Anybody is welcome to participate in these discussions on my blog, irrespective of gender.
LikeLike
Having choices can be a burden, getting in the game means you can lose. You are so right that there are temptations for women, and men too, to reject freedom.
LikeLike
There’s the illusion right there. There are various games that one can lose, but there is never one game that one can avoid and thereby avoid losing. It gets more complicated, too, since not every loss is down to one’s decisions. One does not get to choose, very often, the outcome of many “games”. The positive factor of this is that so long as you are still alive, you haven’t lost the game of life.
LikeLike
I have said this many times publically on my facebook, to be attacked by a barrage of ‘I would never change being a wife and mother’ from the women who have enjoyed their lazyness and fear beyond recognition having to take responsibility for themselves. Heaven forbid they actually had to become the breadwinner, imagine how scary it would be for those women to have men wanting to stay home and raise the babies and make the home and they take responsibility for keeping the financials of the house and protection of it ticking over. I love that you are raising this issue, as so many forget about it when it is at the very core of the whole ‘gender role’ argument……..the one where often, it’s women who are the more sexist of the genders when they like being ‘kept like children’.
LikeLike
Thank you for this great comment and for the support, Amanda!
LikeLike
Clarissa
Do you have a specific definition of what you call patriarchy
LikeLike
Good question. I’ll write a separate post on it, OK?
LikeLike
Clarissa: thank you so much for expressing so eloquently what I’ve been trying to say for ages! Hope you see this comment even though it’s two years late!!
LikeLike
I always see all comments irrespective of when they were left. Thank you!
LikeLike