Wanna know what gender suffers most from Patriarchy? Hint, it's not women...
As a feminist, I've been learning so much over the last couple of years. Though I'd say Ive always identified as such, the pandemic caused me to be online more and taking part in important conversations, which lead me to take more responsibility in holding this title. I've learned about the flaws that exist within this movement and the barriers that have set us back from total equity between various genders, but I think the most important lesson I learned through recent dialogues and epiphanies is this: no one is more negatively effected by patriarchal rule than white, cis men. I said what I said - the people who have created, upheld and "benefitted" from this problematic system are the ones who it's impacting negatively the most.
Feminine and Masculine energies
Before I really get into this topic I think it's important to establish my views on gender, which are quite simple: I believe we put too much emphasis on our genitals in regards to the kind of person they make us. We need to shift towards energy, and recognize the ways in which all of us express our varying levels of feminine and masculine energy. We all have a balance of each, despite our biological features, and we all have the capability of expressing these energies in either a skillful or toxic way. So yes, I do believe there is such thing as toxic femininity! But thats a post for another time. So if we break down the barriers of physical sex and focus in on our energy, you would be surprised to recognize what types of traits someone with a strong, masculine energy presence actually possesses. We have been conditioned through our society to constitute unhealthy masculine behaviour like competitiveness, aggression and moving away from love as typical "men being men", but if we look at healthy masculine traits, we see beautiful things like being peaceful and grounded, deep listening, integrity and awareness. These are things that are thought of by those deeply conditioned by the patriarchy as weak and lesser than, which leads me perfectly to my next point.
Repression turns into aggression and depression
If cultivating safe, supportive spaces is seen as weakness, it's easy to understand why cold, withdrawn, stubborn men and mascs are applauded. I know why this has been set as the standard, because I know how powerful the emotion of fear is. It has the capability of turning entire nations against each other, the power to destroy the very planet we live on. The patriarchy breeds fear, it sends the message that letting your guard down and opening your heart will cause you to lose everything you think you love and ruin life as you know it. In patriarchy, toxic masculinity is the ultimate manhood to be protected at all costs, and so many cis men live their entire lives afraid of expression their healthy masculine essence. And when our deepest emotions are repressed, when actual energy is held within, it's going to explode out of us via extreme and violent emotions like anger and rage. The need of expression needs to be met somehow, and so the cycle continues. Cis men continue to express in unhealthy ways and act in ways they believe are protecting their manhood. Until this message has shifted, we are going to see our political and economic systems run beneath the strong force of toxic masculinity and white supremecy.
The role of religion and white supremacy
As if repressing the things that make masculinity beautiful is not bad enough, we also need to recognize the role that religion and racism plays in upholding the patriarchy and developing very unhealthy cis males. Most religions try and succeed at establishing superiority of being biologically male, christianity especially. According to "good Christian values" being a supportive, active listener and encouraging a healthy dialogue including fair power dynamic with feminine partners is considered shameful. Of course! Women or femmes can't know the value of authenticity, intiuition and vulnerability, or they will reclaim their power and our (cis male) power will dissipate. The only problem is, these men don't understand that there is more than enough power to go around. We all can live fulfilling and balanced lives among each other if we stopped caring so much about competing for it. As for the role of white supremecy, we can look at intersectional feminism to understand the ways in white racism further perpetuates patriarchy. At some point in history and over a long period of time, cis men who had white skin used their exact physical features to establish a hierarchy. This made it so that the struggle to distribute power fairly was more substantial and contained more hurdles. They couldn't allow all women to band together, and all men to have an equal shot at the ranks. No the real true mount everest is the white, cis male. BIPOC men fall lower but they still have more power and have been conditioned to fight to keep this power, just as BIPOC women got left behind in the feminist movement because white women had higher ranking in society and didn't want the deadweight. These two factors created an intricate system that has made it a massive struggle to overcome.
Will we overcome the patriarchy? I believe eventually we have to for our species and our planet to survive. And I just really wish that cis men could let their guard down long enough to realize how sweet the relief would be if the system they think they've really benefitted from was removed. All to find out that this system was slowly bringing them further down too.
