A while back, a blogger named emmawolf clicked the “like” button on one of my posts. As is my habit, I took a look at emmawolf’s blog and I saw this post about slut-shaming. I agree with the central premise that slut-shaming is bad regardless of the target, but that’s not what I want to talk about here. See the first comment on that page is by someone called ytakery, and it includes this paragraph:

Feminism also normally contains a belief that there’s some sort of patriarchy actively oppressing women. That’s normally the more controversial part, that all or most men worldwide are participating in a conspiracy to oppress and slut shame women.

I read that, and I thought to myself, “Maybe that’s the problem, maybe that’s what people think the fucking patriarchy is and that’s why they don’t get it.”

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written about the fucking patriarchy, so let’s discuss it a bit, and let’s discuss why that image of a conscious conspiracy of men is not only wrong, but counterproductive to equality.  Read the rest of this entry →