Search the Community

In the spirit of promoting dialogue about gender issues, I thought I would create another thread that I've wanted to create for a while, but haven't gotten around to creating. So in this thread, I want to describe the feminist concept of patriarchy. First let's begin with the dictionary definition. Noun. A system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line. a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. a society or community organized on patriarchal lines. These definitions don't sound like they describe Western society today, yet Feminists claim that we live in a Patriarchy. So what is the feminist definition of Patriarchy? Feminist theory defines patriarchy as an unjust social system that enforces gender roles and is oppressive to both men and women.%5B32%5D It often includes any social mechanism that evokes male dominance over women. Feminist theory typically characterizes patriarchy as a social construction, which can be overcome by revealing and critically analyzing its manifestations.%5B33%5D So Patriarchy is oppressive to both men and women? But if so then the definition seems relatively gender neutral while the term Patriarchy is not gender neutral. So if our society is oppressive to both men and women then couldn't you just as easily describe our society as a Matriarchy? The equivalent definition for Matriarchy would be: An unjust social system that enforces gender roles and is oppressive to both men and women.%5B32%5D It often includes any social mechanism that evokes female dominance over men. So we just need 1 case of a social mechanism that evokes female dominance over men to satisfy the definition of Matriarchy? Well one example would be the social expectation where males pay for dates. So the definition of Matriarchy is satisfied so we must live in a Matriarchy. But if the definitions of both Patriarchy and Matriarchy are satisfied, then do we live in both a Matriarchy and a Patriarchy at the same time? Why should we describe our society as a Patriarchy rather than a Matriarchy? And if the definitions are relatively gender neutral, then why not use a gender neutral term like Traditionalism instead? To this I turn to the scientific philosopher Karl Popper. In science a theory is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive an observation or an argument which proves the statement in question to be false. In this sense, falsify is synonymous with nullify, meaning not "to commit fraud" but "show to be false". Some philosophers argue that science must be falsifiable. Falsifiability is very important in science because it means you can test predictions and either verify or falsify a theory to obtain a better understanding of reality. Without falsifiability, how can we exclude absurd hypothesis from our set of scientific beliefs such as the idea that a giant flying spaghetti monster created everything? Is the feminist theory of patriarchy falsifiable? What testable predictions does it make that cannot also be explained by Matriarchy? If there are no testable predictions, then I have to conclude that Patriarchy, like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is unfalsifiable. Ramen.