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.
Sexist and classist, as expected from the people who believe themselves to be feudal lords.
They do realize that queen Victoria inherited the throne. Apparently they are not keen on knowing the difference between the United States which is a republic and Great Britain of 1890s which was a constitutional monarchy.
Recommended reading (watching) on how there were English Queens and patriarchy.
How to Become the British Monarch (CGP Grey)
Breif History of the Royal Family (CGP Grey)
also most of what I know about the British Monarchy.
So is the idea here to “prove” that sexism and patriarchy never existed, so that any modern-day discrepancies in wages, power, STEM representation, and prestige can be chalked up to women’s incompetence? Because otherwise I don’t see what there is to be gained from such a willfully stupid misreading of history.
Does anyone (Alan?) know what 1808 case they’re referring to? I always thought women weren’t allowed to stand for Parliament prior to 1918.
Let it never be said that AVFMorons was ever troubled by any sense of proportion. Every time one of them stubs his toe or gets a hangnail, he finds a way to blame women.
You have to love how a singular example manages to disprove ALL of feminism, but they hear one woman say “I’m wary of men because of multiple examples of men being violent/awful in my experience, and the experiences of other women I’ve spoken to/follow on social media/am otherwise aware of.” and all of a sudden it’s “NOT ALL MEN! HOW VERY DARE YOU LUMP ALL MEN INTO ONE SINGULAR GROUP!”
Or how they think this is a “checkmate” and ignore when we bring up facts that disprove their arguments.
It’s almost like they don’t care what feminists actually think.
So you’re saying that men had to die for Victoria to come into power?? Isn’t that just how it always is!!! Men dying for women!!!! Just like on the Titanic!!!!
Victoria’s predecessor, William IV was also King of Hannover, but the crown of Hannover went to Victoria’s uncle because German law wouldn’t let the crown go to a woman if there were any male heirs available. Just saying.
Not sure what 1808 case they’re referring to, but 1808 is after the publication of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen. So even if you define ‘Feminist Movement’ very narrowly, 1808 did not come before it began.
@ buttercup
Can’t think of anything. As you say, women couldn’t even stand for parliament (and therefore become government ministers) until 1918.
There are of course non governmental office holders (various odd things like Lord lieutenants of counties, governor of the Bank of England and the like) so maybe there’s a case about that sort of thing?
ETA: on a related note, there’s a nice quote attributed to Elizabeth I
Potential suitor: “But what is a queen without her man?”
Elizabeth: “Queen”
So patriarchy doesn’t exist unless every single woman is worse off than every single man?
Is that like how global warming doesn’t exist if there’s enough snow somewhere on earth to form a snowball?
@Alan – Ah. So, Head v Ass, 1808.
Apparently this landmark ruling also made it legal for women to be queen! Even though England had already had four queens by that point.
This type of thinking is extremely popular and can be applied to a lot of right wing thinking. like “Beyonce (a modern Queen 🙂 ) is super rich and successful so therefore no WoC are oppressed!”
and here:
http://ifglobalwarmingisrealwhyisitcold.tumblr.com/
Looks like our inside feminist is doing their best at quashing AVFM from the inside by making them look dopey and ignorant.
See, I was going to erase that because it gives away our insidious plot to overthrow the menz. But if they’re stupid enough to just roll with the Onion-esque post as if it was logical and legitimately proved a point, then, hell, we could be as out in the open about it as we want and they wouldn’t figure it out!
HAIL TO THE GYNOCRACY!
乾杯！
What happens when they find out that Paul Elam is actually a mole working for the gynocracy by helping MRAs to make fools of themselves in public?
Y’know, this is actually the smartest thing I’ve ever seen come out of AVFM. It’s logically consistent, if nothing else. But still, come on. Mathilda, Jane, Mary, Elizabeth, Mary, Anne, Victoria, and Elizabeth. Not counting the Scots, that’s 8. Total. In 950 years. And only after the entire rest of the line of succession was dead. Get better examples, guys
And speaking of queens, this woman is 76
@throwaway
@GrumpyOld SocialJusticeMangina
Guys, careful with your posts. There’s some AVFMers who read this blog from time to time and we don’t want to play our hand too early.
And in related news, without hopefully giving away any spoilers, dudes are already complaining about tonight’s episode of Game of Thrones pandering to feminists or trying to shut us up after criticisms of last scene.
Sigh.
Even if she didn’t actually say it, that’s still motivational as fuck and I still need it on a print on my wall.
http://jezebel.com/cnn-kate-middleton-brilliant-for-having-a-boy-instea-871501638
That’s how friggin’ entrenched it is.
And I guess my mom is an idiot for having me – an icky feeemale – first and my brother second? Wut?
So a woman has to sit on the throne and keep it warm until an acceptable man can take over. Yeah, that’s not sexist at all…
calmdown, that global warming blog, yikes. Apparently the average editorial cartoonist is even more obtuse than the Onion’s fake editorial cartoonist pretends to be.
Seriously? Are they actually trying to argue that patriarchy not only doesn’t exist but never existed? Because I remember a time in my life were I’m rather shamed to say I had some MRA’s thoughts. But even at this time were I was arguably the stupidest I’ve ever been (and that’s saying something) I wasn’t fucking dumb enough to think Victorian England was an example of a matriarchy.
There it is. The MRA equivalent to, “If humans evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?”