HN ridicules the notion of patriarchy because the word itself implies it's somehow men's fault. Which it isn't. Social toles are enforced by most of the society, so we might as well call it "matriarchy", but that would piss feminists off, so we don't.

I don't think there's that implication at all. I think what's happening is that this component of patriarchy isn't really a rallying point for many people. That is, there are a lot of people who are vocally upset about other components of patriarchy in which men actually are the primary antagonists, e.g. rape culture. That does not, however, imply that man are the antagonists, nor that women are the victims of every component of patriarchy.

I think more people should be pissed off about this component, too. A man shouldn't feel obligated to be masculine, nor a provider, nor a protector, nor anything he doesn't want to be. Truthfully, more of HN should empathize with this as well. I would be surprised if a very large portion of us didn't grow up being called a variety of epithets for being less athletic, more booky, less masculine and therefore less valuable than the general population.

Ironically enough, it's exactly this component of patriarchy that leads to the aggressive anti-feminist views seen all over this board.

You can call it matriarchy if you want, I don't really care, except that a) no one will know what you're talking about and b) we don't live in a matriarchal society so it doesn't make sense.

What's happening is that, as you point out, people who claim to be fighting the patriarchy are not in fact interested in fighting against problems where men are the ones being hurt rather than the antagonists. However, they lump both categories together under one "patriarchy" label as a way of demanding that they be treated as though they were tackling both, arguing that because men's problems are caused by the patriarchy and they're attacking it, they're the ones really trying to solve those problems.

In fact, I've seen them go even further and accuse people who make a fuss those problems of being the ones who don't actually care about them, because if they really cared they'd recognise that feminism was the movement that was actually trying to solve those problems and copy its approach of refusing to do anything about them. That, in fact, this proves that said activists are misogynists who are just out to attack feminism.

That's fair. I've never felt that I was being blamed for anything and every feminist I know (including myself) explicitly includes these types of issues in their scope of problems.

Obviously it seems Tumblr-inas get awfully large soapboxes to stand upon, but my personal experience indicates they are outliers.

>A man shouldn't feel obligated to be masculine, nor a provider, nor a protector, nor anything he doesn't want to be.

Well, if a man doesn't want to provide for his kids, then who should provide for his kids? Should a man force his wife to provide for his kids while he sits around doing nothing? Or should a man force the government to provide for his kids?

Other options include (1) not having kids, and (2) finding a partner (possibly a woman) who's willing to provide.

It implies no such thing. "patriarchy" is a descriptive term in social science and it has nothing to do with fault or blame. We don't choose the society we're born into and obviously we're not responsible for those things that are out of our control. We should of course be held accountable for the choices we make, especially when those choices hurt others.

It's also a wrong term. "Patriarchy" means a system where women are owned by men (husbands, fathers, brothers), cannot own property, etc. The only reason why feminists chose this term to describe the current social order (which is clearly not a patriarchy in the literal sense) is to elicit negative emotions.

Uh, no it doesn't.

Patriarchal societies are ones where elder males are the heads of households (generally true) and descent (such as surnames) are passed through the males (generally true).

There are matriarchal societies – including many Native American ones. Those are called matriarchal societies. They're notably different from what we have. I think they're less common today than they ever have been, but patriarchal societies are also "less patriarchal," i.e. males don't own females, as you stated.

Feminists, and everyone with an education, use that term because we do live in a patriarchal society.

Edit: In response to your comment below, you're literally in the comment section of an article discussing the repercussions of men "failing" in their expected social role of head of household.

So... your argument that we do live in a patriarchal society is (1) we get surnames after dads (I mean, really, who cares), and (2) the unsubstantiated assertion that men are the "head" of the household (what does that even mean? that they spend less time with kids? that they earn more money so the wife can spen more? that they're less likely to keep the kids in event of divorce?)? Oh, well, now you've convinced me, of course it's a patriarchy!

What society is the Sikh?

Women are surnamed Kaur (princess) and the men are surnamed Singh (lion).

Patriarchal and matriarchal?

Language evolves so words take on new meanings all the time. It's tedious to invent new words for everything, so you have to use context to figure out which definition is being used. This is completely standard, so I don't see why this is suddenly a problem when it comes to feminist terminology.

Today's society is one where men make most of the laws, own most of the property, earn most of the money, commit the most violence, set the behavioral norms and so on. Everything of importance is controlled by men, white men in particular. Using the word patriarchy to refer a society like that makes perfect sense to me.

Most of those points are moot. Women are > 50% of the population, so they could choose different lawmakers. Men work more, so it seems fair that they earn more money. More violence is caused by biology so we can't really help that (consequently, men also receive the majority of punishment), but statistics say that (1) men are also more often victims of violence, and (2) e.g. in relationships, violence is equally likely, but women get hurt more (which is kind of obvious, as men are stronger). I don't agree that men set most behavioral norms - if anything, I'd say that a lot of media is influenced by women and catered to women's desires. Your remark about whites is unnecessarily racist, whites are the original setlers of "the West" and still the majority of the population (but e.g. in Asia, most positions of power are held by ... drum roll please ... Asians!).

The only valid point is ownership of property, and I agree with it - although I don't want it to be more fairly distributed across sex, but rather across the whole population (the fact that owners are the 1% gives them much more power than the fact that they're white).

> The only valid point is ownership of property

Except it's not true: http://www.businessinsider.com/women-now-control-more-than-h...

They control most of the wealth according to that non-academic report (the report is an advertisement for wealth management services), and I couldn't find an academic study that came up with a similar number. I should also note that the report doesn't say US women possess 51% of the wealth, they just "control" it, whatever that means.

Women do not accumulate wealth at an equal rate to men, one reason is that their salary is much lower (wage gap). A second reason is that most single parents are women and that pushes the wealth distribution for women further down.

In terms of ownership it's closer to 36%.

http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2011/shortchanged-women-and-...

It's especially bad for unmarried women who have about half the wealth of unmarried men. When you take race/ethnicity into account the gap is even wider.

http://globalpolicysolutions.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/...

The "wage gap" has been debunked many times over. Can we please put an end to using it in arguments? Here's one of many examples: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/whats-the-real-gende...

On the topic of ownership of property, yes, the guy owns the property. That is, until she divorce him, then she owns half his properties. LOL.

In other word, she already owned half his property, he just didn't realized it until she divorced him. Hahaha.

Yes absolutely. Sexism harms everyone.

There is a vast difference between ridiculing something and not accepting it on faith solely because very passionate people make assertions about it.

Sure, but that's my point. I think a lot of men on here have probably felt this effect. If it's not from "the patriarchy," or something similar by a different name, then what is it from?

You don't have to think that, say, women's fashion changes faster than men's fashion because "the patriarchy!", but it takes some serious aloofness not to see that male dominance in society trickles down to some very strange places indeed. As an example: that a man's employment status is the largest factor in his marital success.

I think plenty of people agree that Traditional Gender Roles cause problems for men and women who don't conform to them. But not everyone agrees that Traditional Genders Roles should be called "the patriarchy", because that has connotations that men (even the men being hurt by Traditional Gender Roles) are in control, which feels like blaming the victim.

>...that a man's employment status is the largest factor in his marital success.

Well, if he can't provide for his kids, then what's the point of staying married to him? For love? Love can't feed your starving kids. Might as well go remarry some other dude who are competent enough to provide for your kids. Unless of course, you want to take the easy route and rely on government food stamps. Or, be those like stressed out single mom who has to do everything by herself, single handily doing BOTH the jobs of a man and a woman.

This idea really has nothing to do with the concept of patriarchy. It would only be one idea out of many that patriarchy represents.