breaking through the patriarchix;
(Originally posted by johnny9fingers at Because I thought this little run of Sinfest should have a bigger audience.)
I wanted to share this comic because it's been on my mind for the past few days. While it's hard to guess the tone of the comic, I have been looking at gender theory and the study of linguistics and it's been absolutely fascinating. Gender-based encoding becomes something that you see everywhere: perceiving the Patriarchix, as I like to call it.
To say on a dismissive level that it is nothing but a problem of interpretation is for me avoiding thinking about the matter altogether. When we deeply consider the reflexive outbursts, interjections and statements that we make in response to people, we realise that these are peppered with unspoken expectations of gender roles that we might consciously consider to be outdated but which we still unconsciously abide by.
A very good example is this article (found somewhere in the comments on the comic on politicartoons), which deals with the issue of men falling behind women. The problem isn't the issue in question itself; the problem is what the article has to say about men and encouraging them to buck up:
The Founding Fathers believed, and the evidence still shows, that industriousness, marriage and religion are a very important basis for male empowerment and achievement. We may need to say to a number of our twenty-something men, "Get off the video games five hours a day, get yourself together, get a challenging job and get married." It's time for men to man up.
Focus, if you can, on the words that basically encode societal expectations of what it means to be a man. My main issue is that these terms are fundamentally opposed to a tolerant society acceptable of a person regardless of gender, race, age, and sexual orientation. In feminism it is a common topic of discussion about how patriarchal society imposes certain expectations of what women should be like; if we expect gender equality, then this elimination of gender-based expectation must apply to both men and women. Unfortunately, this expectation remains entrenched when we continue using terms such as "man up": the very term itself encapsulates and fossilises conventional male roles in society. In short, patriarchal society does not only bind women: it also binds men.
The reason why I am focusing on the binding of males within the system is not because I am attempting to shift the focus: I still very much believe that there is much to be done about the dissolution of unconscious biases about the female in society. Rather, I am attempting to put into perspective the idea that in order to effectively get across the idea of egalitarianism, it is vital to dispose of gender-based arguments and terminology. We cannot talk about men or women so much as we must talk about being a useful, contributing citizen: violence is condemned not because it is an "unmanly" thing but because violence is an act that violates our acceptance that every person deserves to be safe, that bodily harm is not a way to resolve matters and that violence only begets violence. Dissolving gender-based thinking also prevents the exclusion of those who fall into the gap (e.g. LGBTs) between conventional gender stereotypes. Modern discourse, to go anywhere, must deliberate on how inclusive it is.
I wanted to share this comic because it's been on my mind for the past few days. While it's hard to guess the tone of the comic, I have been looking at gender theory and the study of linguistics and it's been absolutely fascinating. Gender-based encoding becomes something that you see everywhere: perceiving the Patriarchix, as I like to call it.
To say on a dismissive level that it is nothing but a problem of interpretation is for me avoiding thinking about the matter altogether. When we deeply consider the reflexive outbursts, interjections and statements that we make in response to people, we realise that these are peppered with unspoken expectations of gender roles that we might consciously consider to be outdated but which we still unconsciously abide by.
A very good example is this article (found somewhere in the comments on the comic on politicartoons), which deals with the issue of men falling behind women. The problem isn't the issue in question itself; the problem is what the article has to say about men and encouraging them to buck up:
The Founding Fathers believed, and the evidence still shows, that industriousness, marriage and religion are a very important basis for male empowerment and achievement. We may need to say to a number of our twenty-something men, "Get off the video games five hours a day, get yourself together, get a challenging job and get married." It's time for men to man up.
Focus, if you can, on the words that basically encode societal expectations of what it means to be a man. My main issue is that these terms are fundamentally opposed to a tolerant society acceptable of a person regardless of gender, race, age, and sexual orientation. In feminism it is a common topic of discussion about how patriarchal society imposes certain expectations of what women should be like; if we expect gender equality, then this elimination of gender-based expectation must apply to both men and women. Unfortunately, this expectation remains entrenched when we continue using terms such as "man up": the very term itself encapsulates and fossilises conventional male roles in society. In short, patriarchal society does not only bind women: it also binds men.
The reason why I am focusing on the binding of males within the system is not because I am attempting to shift the focus: I still very much believe that there is much to be done about the dissolution of unconscious biases about the female in society. Rather, I am attempting to put into perspective the idea that in order to effectively get across the idea of egalitarianism, it is vital to dispose of gender-based arguments and terminology. We cannot talk about men or women so much as we must talk about being a useful, contributing citizen: violence is condemned not because it is an "unmanly" thing but because violence is an act that violates our acceptance that every person deserves to be safe, that bodily harm is not a way to resolve matters and that violence only begets violence. Dissolving gender-based thinking also prevents the exclusion of those who fall into the gap (e.g. LGBTs) between conventional gender stereotypes. Modern discourse, to go anywhere, must deliberate on how inclusive it is.