I have frequently said that one of the biggest problems we have these days is too many boys running around in men's bodies. In your terms, I'd say that's too many men exemplifying the shadow patriarchy.
As a result, I'd said my most important job is to raise my son to be a healthy, positively masculine man, and my daughter to expect that from the men in her life.
As for the loss of chivalry, I feel we've lost honor. A man (compared to a boy in a man's body) keeps his word, admits when he has been wrong, and makes amends for his failings. This has become too rare in our public world.
I totally agree. I hit that hard on the essay How to be a Man and I’m doing the same as you, raising my daughters and my son. Glad to see you’re doing it!
A not insignificant part of why women feel mistreated when they move as “equals” into male spaces is that they suddenly experience life as a junior male. Female social environments are more subtle, more fluid and rely on an illusion of egalitarianism. Outside the peer group, male groups enforce “learn your place” and “your opinion doesn’t matter until you’ve proven yourself” - and young men often require “breaking in”.
If you swap iron for clay and try to forge it you won’t get the same results.
100% true. It’s a reason why it doesn’t make sense that women should be able to leave work, raise a faimily and come back at the same level of their peers who never left. First, that not fair and second, you’re going to drown.
“Sociopaths create chaos in society, but they’re useful as weapons of war…”
My jaw fell!
If patriarchy is credited with every form of male protection and absolved of every form of male domination, what historical or analytical meaning does the word retain? At that point, are you defending patriarchy... or simply renaming male virtue?
I’m not sure I fully follow this question. The patriarchy is a form of domination, as we explored. However, that domination is actually the supression of the worst elements, not the celebration of it. It checks power and directs energy.
Your last sentence is throwing me, is the patriarchy not best seen as male virtue? It’s certainly become a pejorative, but is the patriarchy everything wrong with men and male viritue is separate from the patriarchy?
That distinction is precisely what I am asking you to make. Male virtue:courage, protection, restraint, responsibility, is not synonymous with patriarchy. Patriarchy is a structure in which authority and power are predominantly vested in men, historically over women, children and lower-status men as well. If virtuous men restraining dangerous men is what you mean, then we may be speaking about social order, law, discipline or responsible masculinity. None of those requires the subordination of women.
That's what I'm trying to reclaim here because that definition is the:
Patriarchy = everything wrong with everything in the world
Matriarchy = everything right with everything in the world
As we explored here, the patriarchy exists, first and foremost, to restrain MEN! It's only incidental that it restrains women. That's what the matriarchy does very effectively. However, when women viewed what men do as the only value proposition and moved into those roles, they're also regulated by the patriarchy. (more on that here: https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/rediscovering-the-goddess )
If you only use patriarchy as a pejorative, then you're right; what I'm talking about is healthy masculinity, but then the matriarchy, by definition, can only be negative too. As I pointed out, you can't compare the tyrant to Gaia.
So I'm trying to do twofold: 1. reclaim what the patriarchy is. 2. contextualize it with the matriarchy.
I understand your project more clearly now: you are not using "patriarchy" primarily as a historical or sociological description, but attempting to reclaim it as the healthy ordering and restraint of masculine power. Within that framework, I understand why you associate it with male virtue. My question remains, however, because reclaiming a word does not erase the history it describes. The restraint of women under patriarchal systems was hardly incidental. What you are describing may be a valuable model of healthy masculinity in relation to a corresponding feminine principle. But that is an archetypal or normative model, not necessarily an account of what historical patriarchy was. I think the disagreement lies precisely in the movement between those two meanings.
So, I'd challenge your use of the word. It's not wrong that I'm 'reclaiming' because the original understanding was what I wrote about. Only in the recent past has the patriarchy only been a pejorative.
But the history it describes is also biased if you only focus on its impact on women, and not on men. But moreso, it falls flat when you look at the impact of the matriarchy on women (and men (have you ever read about the 'white feather brigade?))
If you view the patriarchy as separate from a healthy masculinity, do you also consider the matriarchy separate from a healthy femininity?
Now, there's more to this discussion that I hinted at in the article about the shadow feminine, but if you're curious.... Islam isn't a patriarchy... It's a toxic matriarchy (also, kind of the same with the machismo hispanic culture): https://sotiris.substack.com/p/islamic-feminism-and-muslim-matriarchy
Yes. I consider matriarchy distinct from healthy femininity for exactly the same reason that I consider patriarchy distinct from healthy masculinity. Masculinity and femininity describe qualities, identities or ideals; patriarchy and matriarchy describe arrangements of authority. Neither virtue logically requires rule by one gender.
The White Feather campaign demonstrates that women can shame men, enforce militarism and participate in coercive social systems. It does not demonstrate that Britain was a matriarchy: those women did not control the state, the army, the declaration of war or even the vote. Participation in enforcing a system is not the same as possessing structural authority within it.
Nor do I think the earlier, less pejorative use of "patriarchy" meant “healthy masculinity.” It meant rule or authority organised around fathers and men. One may argue that such an order also restrained and burdened men... and I agree that any analysis ignoring that is incomplete, but that makes patriarchy effects more complex.
Brilliant.
Thanks.
This post about men only further confirms you’re the man 👊🏻
I appreciate that. It’s a good challenge to write about, that’s for sure.
Regardless of which side you fall on. Total control is total paranoia. Hence there is great wisdom in the ying / yang philosophy.
100%. Total control is also total fragility. It just can’t last.
I have frequently said that one of the biggest problems we have these days is too many boys running around in men's bodies. In your terms, I'd say that's too many men exemplifying the shadow patriarchy.
As a result, I'd said my most important job is to raise my son to be a healthy, positively masculine man, and my daughter to expect that from the men in her life.
As for the loss of chivalry, I feel we've lost honor. A man (compared to a boy in a man's body) keeps his word, admits when he has been wrong, and makes amends for his failings. This has become too rare in our public world.
I totally agree. I hit that hard on the essay How to be a Man and I’m doing the same as you, raising my daughters and my son. Glad to see you’re doing it!
A not insignificant part of why women feel mistreated when they move as “equals” into male spaces is that they suddenly experience life as a junior male. Female social environments are more subtle, more fluid and rely on an illusion of egalitarianism. Outside the peer group, male groups enforce “learn your place” and “your opinion doesn’t matter until you’ve proven yourself” - and young men often require “breaking in”.
If you swap iron for clay and try to forge it you won’t get the same results.
100% true. It’s a reason why it doesn’t make sense that women should be able to leave work, raise a faimily and come back at the same level of their peers who never left. First, that not fair and second, you’re going to drown.
“Sociopaths create chaos in society, but they’re useful as weapons of war…”
My jaw fell!
If patriarchy is credited with every form of male protection and absolved of every form of male domination, what historical or analytical meaning does the word retain? At that point, are you defending patriarchy... or simply renaming male virtue?
I’m not sure I fully follow this question. The patriarchy is a form of domination, as we explored. However, that domination is actually the supression of the worst elements, not the celebration of it. It checks power and directs energy.
Your last sentence is throwing me, is the patriarchy not best seen as male virtue? It’s certainly become a pejorative, but is the patriarchy everything wrong with men and male viritue is separate from the patriarchy?
That distinction is precisely what I am asking you to make. Male virtue:courage, protection, restraint, responsibility, is not synonymous with patriarchy. Patriarchy is a structure in which authority and power are predominantly vested in men, historically over women, children and lower-status men as well. If virtuous men restraining dangerous men is what you mean, then we may be speaking about social order, law, discipline or responsible masculinity. None of those requires the subordination of women.
That's what I'm trying to reclaim here because that definition is the:
Patriarchy = everything wrong with everything in the world
Matriarchy = everything right with everything in the world
As we explored here, the patriarchy exists, first and foremost, to restrain MEN! It's only incidental that it restrains women. That's what the matriarchy does very effectively. However, when women viewed what men do as the only value proposition and moved into those roles, they're also regulated by the patriarchy. (more on that here: https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/rediscovering-the-goddess )
If you only use patriarchy as a pejorative, then you're right; what I'm talking about is healthy masculinity, but then the matriarchy, by definition, can only be negative too. As I pointed out, you can't compare the tyrant to Gaia.
So I'm trying to do twofold: 1. reclaim what the patriarchy is. 2. contextualize it with the matriarchy.
I understand your project more clearly now: you are not using "patriarchy" primarily as a historical or sociological description, but attempting to reclaim it as the healthy ordering and restraint of masculine power. Within that framework, I understand why you associate it with male virtue. My question remains, however, because reclaiming a word does not erase the history it describes. The restraint of women under patriarchal systems was hardly incidental. What you are describing may be a valuable model of healthy masculinity in relation to a corresponding feminine principle. But that is an archetypal or normative model, not necessarily an account of what historical patriarchy was. I think the disagreement lies precisely in the movement between those two meanings.
So, I'd challenge your use of the word. It's not wrong that I'm 'reclaiming' because the original understanding was what I wrote about. Only in the recent past has the patriarchy only been a pejorative.
But the history it describes is also biased if you only focus on its impact on women, and not on men. But moreso, it falls flat when you look at the impact of the matriarchy on women (and men (have you ever read about the 'white feather brigade?))
If you view the patriarchy as separate from a healthy masculinity, do you also consider the matriarchy separate from a healthy femininity?
Now, there's more to this discussion that I hinted at in the article about the shadow feminine, but if you're curious.... Islam isn't a patriarchy... It's a toxic matriarchy (also, kind of the same with the machismo hispanic culture): https://sotiris.substack.com/p/islamic-feminism-and-muslim-matriarchy
Yes. I consider matriarchy distinct from healthy femininity for exactly the same reason that I consider patriarchy distinct from healthy masculinity. Masculinity and femininity describe qualities, identities or ideals; patriarchy and matriarchy describe arrangements of authority. Neither virtue logically requires rule by one gender.
The White Feather campaign demonstrates that women can shame men, enforce militarism and participate in coercive social systems. It does not demonstrate that Britain was a matriarchy: those women did not control the state, the army, the declaration of war or even the vote. Participation in enforcing a system is not the same as possessing structural authority within it.
Nor do I think the earlier, less pejorative use of "patriarchy" meant “healthy masculinity.” It meant rule or authority organised around fathers and men. One may argue that such an order also restrained and burdened men... and I agree that any analysis ignoring that is incomplete, but that makes patriarchy effects more complex.