johana-star · February 22, 2013 02:48
diff --git a/gistfile1.txt b/gistfile1.txt
 @nthmost @mcmoots There's no winning with some people, and this stuff is complex.

 I recently read bell hooks' [Understanding Patriarchy](http://imaginenoborders.org/pdf/zines/UnderstandingPatriarchy.pdf) in which she deftly explains what patriarchy is and how it hurts women and men. I don't think the anti-misandrists really grok the whole (patri|kyri)archy thing, they just feel a sense of powerlessness which they attribute to a loss of privilege because straw feminists took it away.

 bell hooks definition of patriarchy is: "a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence." Kyriarchy, as I understand it, is pretty much this same system of social conditioning and control, with the lens of multiple axes of control and submission–so instead of just having gender as a way to assign power relationships, we can also mix in sexuality, race, class…

 One part of this that I'm just coming to grips with is the way which men and women are conditioned to behave differently by rewarding and punishing different emotions in children based on whether they are boys or girls. Again, Understanding Patiarchy sez:

  "When my brother responded with rage at being denied a toy, he was taught as a boy in a patriarchal household that his ability to express rage was good but that he had to learn the best setting to unleash his hostility."

 So it's not super surprising that when men feel a sense of powerlessness that they are hostile to feminists. They're doing what they were taught, and I feel some sympathy for them, though not quite enought to try to engage with them on the topic of equality.
	@nthmost @mcmoots There's no winning with some people, and this stuff is complex.

	I recently read bell hooks' [Understanding Patriarchy](http://imaginenoborders.org/pdf/zines/UnderstandingPatriarchy.pdf) in which she deftly explains what patriarchy is and how it hurts women and men. I don't think the anti-misandrists really grok the whole (patri\|kyri)archy thing, they just feel a sense of powerlessness which they attribute to a loss of privilege because straw feminists took it away.

	bell hooks definition of patriarchy is: "a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence." Kyriarchy, as I understand it, is pretty much this same system of social conditioning and control, with the lens of multiple axes of control and submission–so instead of just having gender as a way to assign power relationships, we can also mix in sexuality, race, class…

	One part of this that I'm just coming to grips with is the way which men and women are conditioned to behave differently by rewarding and punishing different emotions in children based on whether they are boys or girls. Again, Understanding Patiarchy sez:

	"When my brother responded with rage at being denied a toy, he was taught as a boy in a patriarchal household that his ability to express rage was good but that he had to learn the best setting to unleash his hostility."

	So it's not super surprising that when men feel a sense of powerlessness that they are hostile to feminists. They're doing what they were taught, and I feel some sympathy for them, though not quite enought to try to engage with them on the topic of equality.