Yuku free message boards

I'd like to point out this is a great question. It helps us figure out the cost of social change. And yes, there is a cost. And to the vast majority of people.

Yes, women too.

Before I go into that, I'm going to try and clarify the question a bit.

1. What is patriarchy?
2. What exactly is ending patriarchy?
3. What exactly is harm?

For the rest of this post, I'll be basing my statements off the following assumptions (Note they aren't set in stone, and are probably at least partially wrong):

1. Patriarchy is a systematized from of devaluing people who deviate from "social norms." It's major expressions are sexual (Male/Female), racial (White/Nonwhite), and orientation (Straight/Gay/Trans). It is culture wide and culture pervasive. It is a memeplex transmitted through language, person to person, and organizations (incomplete list). It is complex and multi-layered. And not all of it's effects harm all people the same way. Many people (Both within and without the "favored" binary) benefit from patriarchy on some level. Straight white males gain social and political power. Rights activists gain a sense of purpose and righteousness. Some of the levels it appears on: Cultural, regional, governmental, legal, organizational, group, individual psychology. All of these levels interplay with one another and often make it very hard to even identify specifics within one level.

2. Ending patriarchy is a long term generational process that began, as far as I can tell, with the suffragist movement (culminating in it's 1921 success). It will involve Generations being born and dying as part of a shift from a majority/norm based culture to... something else. I do not know what this something else is, but it will need to fill all the cultural roles patriarchy played without alienating anyone. This is a borderline insanely complex task, but doable with enough time and effort.

3. Harm, for these purposes, will be referred as anything that causes a person to have to kill a piece of their identity to replace it with a new piece of identity (Growing pains), actual physical damage, and any short or long term damage done to someone's emotional systems. This is a poor definition, but necessary to understand exactly what barriers change agents/activists will face.

Thus, with these as definitions, the answer obviously becomes yes, people will be harmed in patriarchy's end. Offhand, I can think of several groups of people who will have to be harmed before patriarchy is over. The first is the mass of people who don't see a reason to change beyond it. The second is men and women who are "naturally predisposed" to living the way patriarchy says to live. The third is the systems that reinforce patriarchy and their custodians. The fourth is the people who get their life's meaning from fighting patriarchy. There are probably more.

Almost entire generations of people will have to die to move their beliefs firmly into the past because changing them hurts. The number of people whose death will be the only way to remove their ideas from the overall culture will decrease with each generation as new cultural norms are formed. 150 years ago, southerners who were against slavery were in the minority (check the KKK's rise for proof on that). Now, while racism still exists, it's no longer as extreme. I, as a white male, can't just go kill a black male and assume I'll instantly get away with it. Is it perfect? Of course not. Depending on the judge/jury (and their biases), I might get a stupidly short sentence, no jail time at all, or be acquitted. But I wouldn't receive a pat on the back from all my neighbors. The problem has reduced (or at least changed shape). But you couldn't have gotten the civil rights act passed with the people from the 1860s. It would be an abomination to them. 100 years later? It was just popular enough to happen. Important note: I'm talking death by natural causes here, not some dumb "kill everyone who disagrees" plan. It's just that societies can only change so many people's minds at one time. This is why patriarchy will be here next year.

The people who get the biggest advantage from patriarchy are the men and women who like the "Father knows best" BS social norms or would more or less be doing the same thing without it. They exist now, as they have before, and will continue to exist. These people get affirmed by society telling them to do what they would have wanted to do anyway. There are plenty of relationships who are relatively healthy (at least for these times). There are a lot of fringe benefits of this social system... which is why it's here in the first place. Things like, "an easy to follow map for your life" help people function (at least at what I'd consider a baseline level). Even if they don't get all of their needs met, there's still enough of a benefit to make the risk of change a scary one. This is the biggest and most important group of people to consider, since they're at least resistant to change and a large chunk of the population. This, of course, rests on the assumption that some traits are inborn/genetic and social conditioning doesn't control everything (which is what psychology currently supports). It's important to note these people aren't bad. They're just comfortable, and that's enough for them. Oh, and this whole thing is a gross over generalization. There are plenty of people who might change if they knew it was an option.

The third group is the systems that support patriarchy and those who are employed/supported by them. A good example of this is the military. Like any boys club, it's slow to change it's notions of who should be allowed to join. That said, they're pretty much otherwise the same as the second group. My mom and I were talking about the military at one point and she had an interesting comment: A lot of our social change regarding racism/heterosexism seems to coincide with the military hiring these people in greater and greater numbers. Anyone have any information on that?

Lastly, there are the activists themselves. This will probably be the last group to continue to hold out. And the hardest to change. Because they're only a part of the problem in certain situations. The first requirement of this is a person must have "feminist" or "activist" as a strong part of their identity. At some point, discrimination will become so minor that much of the ruckus activists make will seem trite and unimportant, and it will build up resentment towards them. The resentment will probably end up making discrimination happen more frequently. Feminazis, anyone? I think we're approaching a point where identifying yourself as a feminist will actually be a hindrance to the elimination of patriarchy. When I say that, I mean within the next 2-3 generations (40-90 years, depending on how you measure generations).

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to give the question as complete an answer as possible. Most of this is just my immediate thoughts on the matter and I'm sure there's a lot of mistakes there.