The Failure of the Patriarchal System.

For some, being a feminist translate into being anti man. A lot of people are still thinking that feminists are trying to erase the place of the man in society to be the one in the power position. Those affirmations could not be more wrong. Women are not trying to dethrone men, they are trying to reach equity in every aspect of life and be considered as important as them in society. But to acquire equity, men must be allowed to break the expectations they have been subject to all their lives. What a man should be and how a man should act is defined by the rules of manliness. Those rules are stopping the men from being who they are as individual and are instead forcing them to live with restrictions. Any human individual has emotions and preferences. They love, they hate and they feel a different way each uniquely. Those things should not be defined by their gender identity.  Patriarchy installed in our society expectations keeping the men away from expressing their emotions or personality. I’ll show in this text why patriarchy is a failed system and how manliness has intoxicated our society for generations.

When we research masculinity in the dictionary, the official definition is “qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men.” The example of the usage of the word masculinity is:  “handsome, muscled, and driven, he’s a prime example of masculinity.”. The first synonyms of masculinity are virility, vigor, strength and toughness. I was shock by this simple grammatical research and how the man is portrayed even by the dictionary.

A man need to be tough, he can’t show his feelings.

A man need to be handsome he cannot be called pretty or cute .

A man need to be physically strong and driven by ambition or he wouldn’t be manly enough.

When did manly became an adjective to describe someone as person. I still don’t understand how gender must reflect a person identity but that’s what we have all been taught since we were are born. In a patriarchal society, the man has the main power and need to govern his household by establishing respect that he has acquired by being feared. Boys and girls are raised with the ideology that they are not the same and they can not do the same things. Those ideas being perpetuated for generations, the barrier of gender have been defined and the women place also. Patriarchy is a fear based system that ; “promotes insanity” and “is at the root of the psychological ills troubling men in our nation” ( Bell Hooks p.4 ). Emancipation being the biggest fear of the men, patriarchy is a system that destroyed many lives for the one that could not fit in every restrictions masculinity has. For men to finally feel included in their own community and be able to fully express their own identity, we must redefine what being a man is.

Redefining and  dismantling those expectations will not only allow the men to feel better about themselves but will also reduce sexism. Patriarchy’s abolition would be beneficial for the emotional liberation of men and could reduce issues such as racism, sexism and homophobia. Michael Kimmel said ; “Homophobia is a central organizing principle of our cultural definition of manhood” in other words, a lack in manliness is what creates homophobia and that fear of loving another man actually comes from seeing him not fitting in the manly category.  Any member of LGBTQ+ community would be able to feel better without the principle of the patriarchy since right now our world is not a approving of their preferences because it is defying the principle of manliness. A kid growing up should not be denied to play with barbies because he’s a boy of refused to play with cars because she’s a girl. Since “Homophobia and sexism go hand in hand” (  Michael Kimmel p.148) so we could also diminish institutional sexism and gender discrimination in our society . Women would feel more free to be themselves without being judge or belittle. Racism can also be implicated in that revolution since the concept is the same which is taking a marginalized group and discriminate it by using their differences against them and isolate them. Racist misconception or stereotype are perpetuated like sexism. No group of individual should dominate another and redefining patriarchy will help that.

In conclusion, patriarchy is a failed system that was mold by a society that claimed that superiority is pictured as a heterosexual white man. A ” normal ” household should be scared of their father who is the figure of authority meanwhile, the mother should be a sensitive housewife. A man cant show any feelings and should work to provide while their woman only purpose is to procreate. This ideology is now outdated and proven to have been false. Its repercussion have hurt family’s , individuals, and even created discrimination. Patriarchy should be redefine and the definition of what a man is should be abolish because our uniqueness , personality and identity should not be reflected by our reproductive organ.

source:

Masculinity as Homophobia
MICHAELS.KIMMEL

Understanding Patriarchy bell hooks