A fantastic quote on what patriarchy does to males:
"We who are male have lost touch with out vulnerability, our deepest human capacities for tenderness, our need for dependence--in short, a whole range of emotions. We simply do not feel very well. We are more alienated from our bodily existence, and our sexuality, instead of being a richly diffused sensousness and invitation to intimacy, has taken a narrow genital focus. We lose touch with the concrete particularity of pulsing life and instead are seduced by abstractions, confusing them with reality. We seem to live with a constant need to prove self-worth through achievement and winning. We relate competitively with other men and find it easier to have buddies than deep friendships. Predictably, we males will die younger than women--about seven years at the latest count."-James B. Nelson
This quote, with some other things I've read, reflects what I've been thinking about gender for some time: I like the "feminine" traits that I embody, as well as my ability to deal with my own emotions. I pity men who have been trained to ignore emotion and take on violence and dominance as a modus operandi.
I'm beginning to realize just how much we need each other. Men and women need each other as friends and as fellow human beings for sustaining life and just for seeing the world.
No one individual--save one with extreme power and influence--an be blamed for patriarchy. I think I must see males thus. So many have been my brothers, my teachers, my friends. Going the route of the radical feminists and eschewing all things associated with males (including men themselves) just isn't an option for me.
No one individual can be held responsible for an entire system of ills. Each one of us, though, is responsible to love.
2 comments:
I, too, "pity men who have been trained to ignore emotion and take on violence and domination as a modus operandi"; that's well put. And surely it happens. But I don't know what to do with the fact that Nelson's description of what patriarchy does to males rings utterly false to me: I haven't lost touch with my vulnerability or emotions, nor do I feel at all alienated from my concrete bodily existence. I often do feel the need to prove my self-worth through achievement and winning--but so does almost everyone else I know, man and woman alike, probably because that's the basic lesson of American capitalism. Does that mean that I just haven't been schooled in "proper" patriarchy? Or what?
Nelson's quote is certainly an over-generalization. I know many males who are different thus, and I myself have been accused of not being very "feminine"... and I've spent much of my life working to prove that I can intellectually match up with anyone.
I think perhaps there's greater truth in what Nelson has to say when you look at patriarchy systematically. For instance, that American capitalism thing. Power, ambition, and violence are the values of our society, and they're values he most associates with patriarchy. They're values that have defined much of history... that's part of why I think women's liberation has become as aggressive as it has. If feminism were to truly embrace itself outside of patriarchy, I don't think it would be as militant as it is now.
But I digress. If Nelson's description doesn't match up with yours, then how do you see yourself experiencing patriarchy?
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