Men’s Rights Activists have scored yet another major victory over the imaginary feminists who live in their heads. On Facebook today, the moderator of the A Voice for Men page asks a question that no straw feminist can answer:
CHECKMATE FEMINISTS, in your FACE, there were QUEENS, where is that EVIL PATRIARCHY NOW???
Well, pretty much where we left it. Apparently AVFM’s Facebook admin has never actually bothered to read anything feminist scholars have ever written about patriarchy. Or even a dictionary definition of the word.
Because, guess what, AVFM admin? “Patriarchy” doesn’t actually mean that women have zero power or influence in society, but rather that men (as a class) hold much more power in society than women (as a class).
Here are a few definitions of “patriarchy” I found on the internet with a couple of basic Google searches:
“control by men of a disproportionately large share of power”
You will notice that all these definitions include qualifications to them: disproportionately, largely, more likely.
While the term patriarchy does describe societies in which women as a class are subordinate to men as a class, feminist historian Gerda Lerner has noted, it “does not imply that women are either totally powerless or totally deprived of rights, influence, and resources.”
In other words, feminists are indeed aware there was a Queen Victoria.
But ask yourself this, AVFM admin: How did she get the power she had?
While royal succession can be weird and complicated, the basic rule — and it’s a pretty patriarchical one — is that when the king dies, the job goes to the oldest legitimate son.
Princesses are promoted to Queen only if there are no legitimate male heirs. The job goes to a woman rather than some less-directly related man because, within the largely patriarchal structure of the monarchy, preserving the bloodline is more important than making sure there’s always a man in charge.
In the case of Queen Victoria, Wikipedia notes,
She inherited the throne aged 18, after her father’s three elder brothers had all died, leaving no surviving legitimate children.
So three guys had to die for her to get to the front of the line.
The existence of queens doesn’t prove that patriarchy is a myth; it just shows that patriarchy is more complicated than the simplistic caricature that antifeminists like to pretend is what feminists believe.
Patriarchy is never the whole story. There have been, and still, a number of other power structures in society and culture that intersect with patriarchy in complex ways. Feminists have been talking about these intersections for decades now — that’s what intersectional feminism is.
But MRAs aren’t actually interested in the details of feminism. After all, straw feminists are a lot easier to debate.
did anyone mention how Q. Victoria was treated differently as a ruler, as were women rulers im patriarchy generally? cuz thats a thing too.
Here are some dogs embarrassing themselves for all eternity.
http://imagesmtv-a.akamaihd.net/uri/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/dog-pizza-fail-catch-gif-1427202956.gif
http://barkpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/http___makeagif.com__media_5-20-2014_17HdvT.gif
http://i.imgur.com/Upg59Ja.gif
http://imagesmtv-a.akamaihd.net/uri/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/dog-catch-food-miss-fail-1427203100.gif
http://i.imgur.com/LN78SyC.gif
http://barkpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/http___makeagif.com__media_5-20-2014_6QyxVP.gif
http://giant.gfycat.com/SolidLividAfricanharrierhawk.gif
http://media.giphy.com/media/3o85xsVPUc9upJyZPi/giphy.gif
http://www.gifbin.com/bin/052011/1305635144_dog-catching-ball.gif
Okay that last one is clearly a human trapped inside a dog costume. But you other dogs, seriously just stop trying to catch things. It’s not your game.
With Bailey, it’s a matter of motivation. She catches the squeaky ball only about a third of the time, but rarely misses when you throw food at her.
I love dog fails 🙂
http://i.imgur.com/Dl6PLBd.gif
http://barkpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/http___makeagif.com__media_5-20-2014_D8KvJA.gif
The last one gets me every time.
@calmdown
http://i.makeagif.com/media/1-27-2014/fRX2rN.gif
My brother once dropped a fried egg on his cat’s head. Didn’t get a picture though. :/
Srsly, mister MRA, anyone who has played Crusader Kings could have told you this.
The cheezening is real.
Hello, mammotheers
News about the thing I told you yesterday.
My mother didn’t burn her body, only her throat, internally, which made her unable to speak for a while.
Dad has pneumonia. Happy pneumonia stories are much appreciated.
Gosh, thank goodness that they’re okay, @Chiomara. Thank you for the update!
I’ve had pneumonia, and it was a pretty unhappy two weeks, plus a bit more congestion than usual for a few months. Really not that big of a deal to be honest. I hope that your dad’s case is even milder than mine was, and that your mom’s throat heals quickly.
Chiomara, so glad they’re doing better! Here’s hoping for a quick recovery for both of them.
Hope you’re doing ok, too! What a thing to have to go through!
@Chiomara
Good to hear. I’ve had pneumonia, it sucks, but then it’s done.
@ Chiomara
Best wishes for a speedy recover to you and yours.
Ah, CK2, AKA why I never had to study for the map portions of my European History exams. Incidentally, the next patch is going to add a bunch of configurable settings when starting a game, including how strictly the gender laws will be constrained, so players will be able to have absolute cognatic freely available for everyone at game start. This will disable achievements, because it impacts the game balance and means e.g. that if you have a promising daughter getting her on the throne will not require nearly as much blinding, castration, murder, or granting of bishophrics as it otherwise would and would make Empressive way eaiser (right now I think the best way is to start as one of the major Indian kingdoms because Jain heir designation is not subject to gender priority; agnatic-cognatic elective will also work but of course the opinion penalties make getting votes harder).
I am also hoping that unlike previous patches *cough conclave status of women laws cough* they’ll actually extend this to Turkic and Republic succession properly, because I am specifically bitter about that for two reasons. Firstly, because in an iron man game starting as Charlemange I converted Francia to Catharism and started installing female relatives lower in the line of succession as Doges and it was thoroughly ridiculous and stupid that their daughters couldn’t inherit.
Secondly…
http://i1375.photobucket.com/albums/ag472/name_here1/CK2%20Space_zpsa3p3yshv.jpg
…It’s hardcoded and not nearly as mod-friendly as the rest of the game. Apparently if a republic is absolute cognatic then the election math goes funky and also they still don’t count as adult male relatives for trade post limit so it’s hard to have an eternal line of cybernetic clone-daughters who keep winning elections.
@Chiomara – I didn’t get a chance to comment yesterday. So glad to hear you’re all safe.
My dad had pneumonia in the fall. Even though he’s not young (65 then, now 66) the antibiotics worked pretty quickly. For a while he felt very tired and listless, but he was able to work again in 2 weeks.
I wish both your parents a quick recovery, and please don’t worry about talking to people when you need to.
@Chiomara:
All my best to your parents. Pneumonia is unpleasant but as Dalillama says, it doesn’t stay around.
@guy:
There’s something about CK2 which makes its quotes extra funny when taken out of context.
Mathilda’s case has already been discussed, but it’s worth noting that Mary II had to share the throne with an Orange! And it’s well-known that Elizabeth I had “the heart and stomach of a King”. Where she got them I couldn’t say, but I believe she threw them at the Armada, with the result that the Spaniards gave up their attempt at invasion and went home in disgust. 😉
@ImaginaryPetal:
ALL GOOD DOG.
NO DOG EM BARE ASS.
ALL DOG SNIFF BARE ASS??? WHAT IS EMBARRASS
I saw the Queen last year, I was catching a train at Manchester Picadilly and she arrived on her own special train and they played a fanfare when she got off. Now, I’m a pretty hardcore anti-monarchist, but even I’ve got some fondness for the old girl. Having your own train is like a fantasy of mine.
My dad has had six daughters by two wives, all my cousins are female. We’re the most misandrous family ever. When we discovered my sister would be having a boy we were all very surprised.
Cheezcat is adorable 🙂
@Chiomara
I am sorry about what happened to your family. I had pneumonia a long time ago (in my teens), like others have said the major symptoms only lasted a few weeks with antibiotics. I hope they both have a quick recovery.
This post reminds me of a youtube argument I got into with an “egalitarian” who mostly posts antifeminist videos. She was saying that because there were queens women were not marginalized. She said that when she was in college there were a lot of books about Mary Queen of Scots and that the Iron lady proved that women are equal now. I asked her to name a female sultan and why haven’t there been more female prime ministers? and wished her a happy international Mens day in November.
And the wingspan of an albatross!
Not the best place for this but it looks like women aren’t going to be subject to the draft in the US thanks to GOP shenigans. Why they don’t just abolish it entirely I don’t get.
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/2016/05/17/ndaa-house-women-draft-stripped/84481376/
Stand by for the usual gnashing of teeth.
@garhunt05
Shajar al-Durr was Sultan of Egypt. Not that this really discredits the overall point, since disapproving factions shortly forced her to marry and made her husband officially the Sultan. I just wanted to spread the word about her.