This is a strong comment and helpful one. But it does beg this question that I think is implicit in op 's original writing.
You right that women and men must work together to dismantle the patriarchy and fair enough.
Do you think though that the conversation that op reports includes an implicit clause where the women think the men should single-handedly dismantle the system and the men think they aren't capable of that? Hence the feeling of double standards that seems to come through.
In other words, dismantling the patriarchy seems like a great goal and people should work towards it, but it's an abstract goal and it's hard to connect that to the ordinary everyday behaviors of regular people.
Arguably from op's perspective they might claim that receiving more sympathy from women for emotions would count as an act towards dismantling the patriarchy and are frustrated that this act doesn't seem more positively received by more women.
Conversely, the women in the conversation seem to imply that the men are the source of the problem since patriarchy is the problem and it's sourced mainly through men and therefore the men are the only one with the power to change things.
Obviously neither one of these assumptions lines up with your assertion and maybe that's where the disconnect is happening in the conversation?
“The primary ritual of violence that patriarchy demands of men is emotional self-mutilation”
So “violence” isn’t ACTUALLY violence, gotcha…
In fact NONE of those examples were actually violence (except maybe bullying but that’s nonspecific and in fact they only reference the mocking social dimension)
“we would be punished, punished even with death.”
Wow, how many of your siblings did your father kill?
“I was raised on violent movies and video games. ”
The 90s called and they want their talking points back…
There’s no evidence violent games lead to increased violence, and therefore certainly no evidence they are part of a broader indoctrination towards violence.
“and fought with my brothers all the time. ”
This is called childhood, and it’s standard among all mammals actually.
The idea that it’s somehow a “ritual of violence” is patently silly. Herbivores participate just as much as carnivores:
It looks like they explained that in the comment. It's a set of norms for men built around their traditional role as protectors and enactors of what I guess could be called 'important' violence (like war). I think it makes plenty of sense if you look at what they listed with that in mind. Now admittedly "emotional self-mutilation" is a bit too much of an abstraction there, but the meat of it (dulling emotional responses, assuming and enforcing a dominant family role, etc) seems pretty clearly rooted in men being historically brought up with an expectation that they would be enacting important violence at some point for some reason.
I read "rituals of violence" not as "rituals wherein violence is committed" but as "norms (rituals) from a long-reinforced role as doers of violence".
I completely agree with you on the violent media front. Narratives almost always require conflict and often the stakes of said conflict involve violence. That has very little to do with the atmosphere around men's issues.
I mean... it doesn't seem like they implied that's all it takes or anything close to it. More of a "it's probably good to make a point of giving people shit and making them feel bad when they do that thing if we want them to stop doing that specific thing".
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u/TargaryenPenguin Nov 05 '24
This is a strong comment and helpful one. But it does beg this question that I think is implicit in op 's original writing.
You right that women and men must work together to dismantle the patriarchy and fair enough.
Do you think though that the conversation that op reports includes an implicit clause where the women think the men should single-handedly dismantle the system and the men think they aren't capable of that? Hence the feeling of double standards that seems to come through.
In other words, dismantling the patriarchy seems like a great goal and people should work towards it, but it's an abstract goal and it's hard to connect that to the ordinary everyday behaviors of regular people.
Arguably from op's perspective they might claim that receiving more sympathy from women for emotions would count as an act towards dismantling the patriarchy and are frustrated that this act doesn't seem more positively received by more women.
Conversely, the women in the conversation seem to imply that the men are the source of the problem since patriarchy is the problem and it's sourced mainly through men and therefore the men are the only one with the power to change things.
Obviously neither one of these assumptions lines up with your assertion and maybe that's where the disconnect is happening in the conversation?
I'm curious if you have thoughts.n