blog #4

Many issues can be connected to Patriarchy, some of which include, inequality and privilege. For this blog, I will be concentrating mostly about patriarchy and inequality.
Patriarchy essentially is about “the valuing of masculinity and maleness and the devaluing of femininity and femaleness.” Well, that isn’t surprising. The Latin word for father is pater and mother is mater. Even looking at the word I can see that males take priority. I suppose that’s my embedded Latin from 6th grade coming out. Gee, I guess I did learn and retain something from that class! Anyways, from these readings, I believe that patriarchy is a main cause for feminism. The reason for this is because of a certain quote in one passage. “So change typically gets limited to the most oppressed, who have the least to lose and are in the weakest position to challenge the system as a whole…” In other words, women were able to change patriarchy. Women were oppressed by the patriarchal system. Women had to dress the way men wanted or deemed presentable, cook the food men wanted, submit themselves to men in all ways, shapes, and forms. Women had nothing to loose by rebelling against the patriarchal system and they had everything to gain.
In addition, under the patriarchal system the women were also facing inequality. Before the first feminist movement, women did not have the right to do anything but what the head of their family said. Throughout the many years since the first feminist movement, inequality has been a reoccurring theme. To be general, and blunt… White Anglo women were the first feminists. Due to inequality, black women formed their own feminist group to deal with issues that went hand in hand with their race and specific needs. These women have named themselves “womanists”. After watching these two groups of women band together to fight for their rights and goals, another group joined the fray. The Mujerista group was formed. Like the womanists, these Latin women have their own agenda. Though the womanists and mujeristas are branches of feminism they all share the same origin. The origin was from patriarchy and the inequality that was instilled by that system.
Patriarchy… I know the word but only one or two examples come to mind. The main example is the Bible. The bible is chalk-full of examples of patriarchy. I suppose I should say that there aren’t many current examples of patriarchy that I see and affect my life. Perhaps the main reason for this is because I was raised by my mother in a single-parent home. Patriarchy wouldn’t directly affect me in anyway. Patriarchy for me in this current time is crap that has been thrown out the window. I’ve never had a “head male” in my life, unless you count my mother who has had to play both roles of mother and father. Haha, I call it dictatorship (just kidding!). Instead, I know of a thing called respect. “Respect your elders” and such similar phrases.
There’s a song that I heard in my later years of high school. In fact, it was quite popular with my graduating class because there were many die-hard hockey enthusiasts. The song was from a very popular cartoon show called South Park. The whole song talks about “blaming Canada”. How does this fit into this week’s bog you might ask? After this week’s reading and my 20 years and some months of experience of male rule, I would like to change the chorus to, “blame men”. (Just for fun!)

Times have changed
Female single parents
Are more popular
Should we blame to government?
Or blame society?
Or should we blame the images on TV?
No, blame men
Blame men
With all their laziness and macho-ness
And flapping heads so full of crap
Blame men
Men

Original lyrics…
Times have changed
Our kids are getting worse
They just want to fart and curse!
Should we blame the government?
Or blame society?
No, blame Canada
Blame Canada
With all their beady little eyes
And flapping heads so full of lies
Blame Canada
Canada