Yes, I always felt that way in patriarchy. I come from fatherlessness. I became a Christian as an adult. And stepped into a heavily patriarchal system. I can't say that all the churches I've been in are that way. I've been in healthy churches, where Christians weren't patriarchal. But like most broken souls, I went to an extreme. Some of the circles I frequented were patriarchal, and I followed some patriarchal stuff online. I got those vibes, that I, as a child, did something to deserve my fatherlessness. It isn't true.
I have never understood the logic of both blaming the parent who stayed and/or the child for the actions of the absent parent. The absent parent is the bad person and the bad parent, they are one who is selfish enough to abdicate responsibility for their own child.
And let’s face it, they usually take advantage of the insane trope that it’s somehow the mother’s fault.
It actually bends my brain because it doesn’t make sense.
It’s just so heavily entrenched as a belief in patriarchal society that we all absorb it somehow.
I bent my brain around for years. Some of it is religion and patriarchy. Some of it would have happened anyway.
When women try to leave abusive relationships, their children are often mad at them, for hurting dad, for breaking up the family. Many of us kids don't realize mom's reasoning until we're adults, stuck in our own abusive relationships. Then we understand. But as kids, we don't always see.
And yet, there are kids who grow up and are mad at mom for staying and subjecting herself and the kids to the father's abuse. It leaves mom in a no-win situation.
But throw patriarchal thinking on top of that, it doesn't help.
When I read the Bible, Jesus came to set women free from shame. Not heap it upon them. I think that he knew, what these women were up against.
“I feel bad when you say that. *You’re* hurting *my* feelings. Don’t my feelings matter too?”
Your feelings of being “hurt” by me talking about misogyny are not comparable to my feelings of actually being abused, exploited, raped, almost murdered, invisibilised, belittled, dismissed, gaslit and isolated by men.
If you’re not cognisant of the fact that the whole world is set up to make women fawn over, cater to, coddle, and centre men’s feelings, then you’re not the kind of man whose feelings are worth caring about.
If your response to my expression of personal pain I’ve endured at the hands of men is to seek empathy for your discomfort - rather than offering a space for me to just talk and being empathetic - then you are weaponising the language of “vulnerability” and “shame” to silence me, and demonstrating that you feel entitled to my care while feeling entitled not to care about me. Therefore you are 100% an abusive man, as you’re likely to attempt to get your own needs met with complete disregard for a woman’s needs.
If you feel “abused” by my use of the word “patriarchy” then bro, you have a fragile male ego that shatters at the first sign of accountability, and you should probably not be walking around town much less talking to women - so don’t be surprised if you never hear from me again!
PS bro, I’m working on a comedy skit called THE GREAT WHITE MALE ALLY and thank you very much for your contribution. But I have enough material of dumb ass one liners from dudes like you, and don’t need any more, thank you very much.
You forgot my favorite (from my STBX): “men get discriminated against, too!” No honey, that’s just people not liking you for you, not discrimination against an entire protected class.
Briefly dated a guy that seriously asked me if his female coworker's 'behavior' towards him (she was not super friendly or particularly pleasant, and just didn't engage him in conversation) counted as harassment. He could not fathom that a woman simply not giving a shit and catering to him as a dude wasn't protected by some sort of law.
Try my STBX countering my requests to stop mansplaining by telling me to stop “womansplaining” despite my many attempts to actually womansplain what mansplaining means and that to “partake in it [mansplaining] is to have the privilege of knowing that should you be wrong or appear abrasive” (might I add here: also abusive) “you have nothing to lose”.*
Although, this is coming from the same guy who also thinks he’s discriminated against (as an upper middle income, attractive, white guy in tech). Yeah right. He has nothing to lose by being a complete and utter ass - the world rewards him all the same.
The second to last paragraph ("A man like me will never love you!") made me think of this one time: in 2008 I was 29 and started dating a guy in a friend group I'd known since middle school. He was jobless, living at his mom's, using her car (he did not have one of his own) and was on parole (drug sales). And I had my own (small) place, a decent vehicle, working well-paying career in a respected company while finishing my business degree in the evenings. We had two friends that were seriously coupled up and had a lot of fun on "double dates" but our own relationship never got serious. He apparently told his friend (who told his gf, my friend) that I "wasn't girlfriend material." I was shocked that he would say anything negative about me as he acted like we were besties when in person. I worked and went to school while he did...nothing? The only thing I've was ever been able to think of was that my apartment was kind of messy (I was a little busy!) and I generally was not jumping to do his laundry or cook and clean for him. Or maybe it was my feminist views. I dunno, I still puzzle over that, and wonder wtf he meant by it.
What he meant was that you are successful in life and he's not. Rather than doing something about his own loserness, he made you into something undesirable. He tore you down to built himself up. Glad it went nowhere!!!
This is what he meant -- you weren't girlfriend material because you weren't doing his laundry or chores. This was a guy who was a misogynist who thought "gf material" meant "a girl who does stuff for me."
I posted this on Facebook but as usual, my normally active friends who "like" every goddamn thing I post have not reacted at all. Is it even visible? I will post it 100 more times, this is BRILLIANT.
One of the things that is unique and refreshing about Zawn's writing is her stance against the "not my man" response. A read a Facebook post that captures that dynamic where friends and acquaintances were (rightly) criticizing a woman who had to travel for work and was leaving the household tasks to her preteen daughter rather than her husband who would just not step up. While I agree parentifying a child because of a spouse's lack of responsibility is not ok, so much of the criticism from self-proclaimed feminist women was, "well, this is why you don't marry losers like that. I know I could trust my husband to take care of the house, etc." A lot more energy blaming the mom for her poor choice in picking a spouse rather than condemning the spouse who wouldn't even take care of his own kids or house properly. Which ends up being anti-feminist because the guy escapes accountability yet again
I think so, but I think it's a small percentage relatively speaking. Our society structurally incentivizes men to exploit women in romantic relationships, that I think truly the odds are not in favor of most women having a good, egalitarian heterosexual partnership or marriage. The "pick better men" is just a victim blaming distraction, imo.
Yes, I always felt that way in patriarchy. I come from fatherlessness. I became a Christian as an adult. And stepped into a heavily patriarchal system. I can't say that all the churches I've been in are that way. I've been in healthy churches, where Christians weren't patriarchal. But like most broken souls, I went to an extreme. Some of the circles I frequented were patriarchal, and I followed some patriarchal stuff online. I got those vibes, that I, as a child, did something to deserve my fatherlessness. It isn't true.
I have never understood the logic of both blaming the parent who stayed and/or the child for the actions of the absent parent. The absent parent is the bad person and the bad parent, they are one who is selfish enough to abdicate responsibility for their own child.
And let’s face it, they usually take advantage of the insane trope that it’s somehow the mother’s fault.
It actually bends my brain because it doesn’t make sense.
It’s just so heavily entrenched as a belief in patriarchal society that we all absorb it somehow.
I bent my brain around for years. Some of it is religion and patriarchy. Some of it would have happened anyway.
When women try to leave abusive relationships, their children are often mad at them, for hurting dad, for breaking up the family. Many of us kids don't realize mom's reasoning until we're adults, stuck in our own abusive relationships. Then we understand. But as kids, we don't always see.
And yet, there are kids who grow up and are mad at mom for staying and subjecting herself and the kids to the father's abuse. It leaves mom in a no-win situation.
But throw patriarchal thinking on top of that, it doesn't help.
When I read the Bible, Jesus came to set women free from shame. Not heap it upon them. I think that he knew, what these women were up against.
This is awesome, plus I laughed out loud several times, thank you! 🙏❤️
“I feel bad when you say that. *You’re* hurting *my* feelings. Don’t my feelings matter too?”
Your feelings of being “hurt” by me talking about misogyny are not comparable to my feelings of actually being abused, exploited, raped, almost murdered, invisibilised, belittled, dismissed, gaslit and isolated by men.
If you’re not cognisant of the fact that the whole world is set up to make women fawn over, cater to, coddle, and centre men’s feelings, then you’re not the kind of man whose feelings are worth caring about.
If your response to my expression of personal pain I’ve endured at the hands of men is to seek empathy for your discomfort - rather than offering a space for me to just talk and being empathetic - then you are weaponising the language of “vulnerability” and “shame” to silence me, and demonstrating that you feel entitled to my care while feeling entitled not to care about me. Therefore you are 100% an abusive man, as you’re likely to attempt to get your own needs met with complete disregard for a woman’s needs.
If you feel “abused” by my use of the word “patriarchy” then bro, you have a fragile male ego that shatters at the first sign of accountability, and you should probably not be walking around town much less talking to women - so don’t be surprised if you never hear from me again!
PS bro, I’m working on a comedy skit called THE GREAT WHITE MALE ALLY and thank you very much for your contribution. But I have enough material of dumb ass one liners from dudes like you, and don’t need any more, thank you very much.
[Phone hangs up. Dial tone]
This is fucking amazing writing! 👏
You forgot my favorite (from my STBX): “men get discriminated against, too!” No honey, that’s just people not liking you for you, not discrimination against an entire protected class.
Briefly dated a guy that seriously asked me if his female coworker's 'behavior' towards him (she was not super friendly or particularly pleasant, and just didn't engage him in conversation) counted as harassment. He could not fathom that a woman simply not giving a shit and catering to him as a dude wasn't protected by some sort of law.
Try my STBX countering my requests to stop mansplaining by telling me to stop “womansplaining” despite my many attempts to actually womansplain what mansplaining means and that to “partake in it [mansplaining] is to have the privilege of knowing that should you be wrong or appear abrasive” (might I add here: also abusive) “you have nothing to lose”.*
Although, this is coming from the same guy who also thinks he’s discriminated against (as an upper middle income, attractive, white guy in tech). Yeah right. He has nothing to lose by being a complete and utter ass - the world rewards him all the same.
*http://www.wellesleycounterpoint.org/writing/2020/10/2/womansplaining-mansplaining
The second to last paragraph ("A man like me will never love you!") made me think of this one time: in 2008 I was 29 and started dating a guy in a friend group I'd known since middle school. He was jobless, living at his mom's, using her car (he did not have one of his own) and was on parole (drug sales). And I had my own (small) place, a decent vehicle, working well-paying career in a respected company while finishing my business degree in the evenings. We had two friends that were seriously coupled up and had a lot of fun on "double dates" but our own relationship never got serious. He apparently told his friend (who told his gf, my friend) that I "wasn't girlfriend material." I was shocked that he would say anything negative about me as he acted like we were besties when in person. I worked and went to school while he did...nothing? The only thing I've was ever been able to think of was that my apartment was kind of messy (I was a little busy!) and I generally was not jumping to do his laundry or cook and clean for him. Or maybe it was my feminist views. I dunno, I still puzzle over that, and wonder wtf he meant by it.
What he meant was that you are successful in life and he's not. Rather than doing something about his own loserness, he made you into something undesirable. He tore you down to built himself up. Glad it went nowhere!!!
This is what he meant -- you weren't girlfriend material because you weren't doing his laundry or chores. This was a guy who was a misogynist who thought "gf material" meant "a girl who does stuff for me."
OMG this should win an award. Multiple awards!!!!
I posted this on Facebook but as usual, my normally active friends who "like" every goddamn thing I post have not reacted at all. Is it even visible? I will post it 100 more times, this is BRILLIANT.
Facebook deliberately makes links less visible. It's incredibly frustrating
I wish I could plaster this all over some of the online communities I’m a part of. Most of the time it’s other women saying this nonsense.
One of the things that is unique and refreshing about Zawn's writing is her stance against the "not my man" response. A read a Facebook post that captures that dynamic where friends and acquaintances were (rightly) criticizing a woman who had to travel for work and was leaving the household tasks to her preteen daughter rather than her husband who would just not step up. While I agree parentifying a child because of a spouse's lack of responsibility is not ok, so much of the criticism from self-proclaimed feminist women was, "well, this is why you don't marry losers like that. I know I could trust my husband to take care of the house, etc." A lot more energy blaming the mom for her poor choice in picking a spouse rather than condemning the spouse who wouldn't even take care of his own kids or house properly. Which ends up being anti-feminist because the guy escapes accountability yet again
Oh my gosh thank you for discussing the heteronormative critique and women can be abusers too. People deliberately try to misunderstand.
“You need to pick better men.”
Are there better men? Honestly. Asking for myself
I think so, but I think it's a small percentage relatively speaking. Our society structurally incentivizes men to exploit women in romantic relationships, that I think truly the odds are not in favor of most women having a good, egalitarian heterosexual partnership or marriage. The "pick better men" is just a victim blaming distraction, imo.