Quote:
Originally Posted by paulgiamatti
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There are certainly varying definitions of patriarchy, so it's not surprising yours doesn't line up with that of feminist theory - that's fine. Forget the word patriarchy, what I mean is a society that unquestionably favors men over women. I'd certainly say this is still true of ours, as socially progressive as we've become and aspire to be. We do live in a fair democracy now - it took us until 1920 before women got the vote, but here we are, and nonetheless the disparity between men and women still persists.
The reason for this, as Fran Lebowitz often points out, has more to do with our biology than our societal constraints. Men produce testosterone; a huge biological advantage. Women produce children and innately care for them, and can only put off doing so at the suppression of their own nature; a huge biological disadvantage. Not to mention all the aspects of bearing and giving birth to children that all but dispel everything that makes it such a beautiful thing; the hardships of pregnancy, the countless hospital bills, maternity leave, pharmaceutical costs, various complications, death.
And as any woman would know, that paragraph alone is a pathetic attempt to account for all the things that women have to put up with that men simply do not, whether societal or biological. What I mean to say is that it's not necessarily our fault that it's this way, but as a member of the male species I'd argue that we're not helping the situation enough, and the few of us that are doing anything to help are too few and too timid in confronting and educating our own kind.
So even though I deny the premise under which you assume western society is not patriarchal, I think you can see where I'm going when we're talking about certain rights that men might have that women do not.
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I don't disagree with anything said here, though I'd like to point out that anything involving pregnancy in any natural setting (note natural is not to be confused with "traditional") there would be two parents caring for a child, that is how biology as well as society is set up. I'll admit that there's a fair amount of grey area around the subject, however the fact of the matter remains that any issues a female that was giving birth would face would be shared between both partners with the male picking up the slack from the female who is recovering/taking care of the young.
In that way women are in fact, not equal to men. Regardless that point is largely moot as most women get free birth control as well as access to more specialists than men get via insurance. They have a tangible societal advantage to help them cope with a biological disadvantage.
I say this as a child of a single mother. Her life wasn't hard because of anything rooted in society, her life was hard because she didn't have anyone to share any of life's burdens with her.