The thing about "parents' rights" and "protect the children [from hearing that other ways of life than ours are possible and okay]" is that it is literally, in the purest sense of the word, patriarchy.

The word literally means "rule by the fathers". We're generally used to hearing it describe how adult women can be dominated by adult men. However, that's not where patriarchy ends; feminists have been less eager to address how within that system, women can exercise power and domination of their own through the traditional gender roles of motherhood. Their maternal rights to power and dominance may have traditionally been lesser than paternal ones, but they were never less than their minor children's. Even single-mother or female-only families can be, in this sense, patriarchal.

Patriarchal families are a complex system that grants parents complete legal and practical control over nearly every aspect of their children's lives. The patriarchal family controls where the child lives, who takes care of them, what rules they have to follow, how they are educated, who they associate with, what healthcare they receive, what religion they practice, and whether they can work or control any money they earn or that is given to or for them.

Normally discussions of patriarchy are a lot more abstract. But right now it's very concrete and real: we are fighting to limit the family's control over children on issues where we can observe that families sometimes tend to make decisions that are bad for the children's welfare or that disrespect their human rights.

Whether a minor child can get an abortion. Whether they can receive gender-affirming care. Whether it's okay to lie or coerce your child to ensure they follow your religion. Whether they deserve to be educated about factual histories or scientific theories that are necessary to understanding the world around them. Whether they deserve to learn accurate, age-appropriate information about consent, setting boundaries, how their bodies and the bodies of other people work, what a normal range of gender and sexual identities look like, what healthy or unhealthy relationships look like, and what sex is, how it works, what its positives and negatives are, and how they might navigate the world, whether or not they ever want to have it.

Hell, on some levels we're still arguing about whether it's okay to hit your kids, or whether children have the right, similar to the rights adults have, not to be assaulted or abused.

Because there are a LOT of people who say: No. Parents should have 100% control over any or all of those issues. If the parent says no, the child is not allowed to do or have any of those things, and nobody else should be allowed to interfere and provide them to the child without their parents' consent.

Pointing this out often results in parents saying, "Oh, so you want just ANYONE to be able to go up and talk sex with kids? You want kids to be able to decide to jump off cliffs with nobody stopping them???" As though parents are the single protective force in the universe, the only thing standing between their child and the ravages of absolute chaos.

On the contrary: most of the time the argument is for children to receive care and guidance from adults who are monitored to ensure they treat children in safe and appropriate ways, who have spent many years studying the best and most rigorously tested of our collective understanding of how to prepare children for happy, healthy lives.

And we are arguing against people who believe that the only important qualification needed to refuse children that kind of care is to be ranked above them in their family hierarchy.

In conclusion...

Fuck the patriarchy. Children have human rights too.

pretty sure this one is about me (girlbot666) - first of all im not a radfem. second of all sorry but are y'all people of color? do you sincerely think men of color don't have access to male privilege or oppress women of color? andrew tate is literally half black ffs.

as a woman of color i am telling you men of color have institutional power by virtue of being men. they have a vested interest in maintaining the patriarchy even though white people often weaponize it against them. like you guys do not understand intersectionality at all

I feel like you are using “patriarchy” and “male privilege” interchangeably when they are different things.

Male privilege is the advantages benefits that men have by virtue of being men.

Patriarchy is the entire social mechanism of oppression. Male privilege is a tool of patriarchy.

A man can both have male privilege but also be oppressed by the men in power above him in the patriarchal system.

next time a person of color says "white people aren't oppressed" i want you idiots to reply with "ummm ackshully, gay white people are oppressed for not producing white babies for the white-supremacist patriarchy so it's kind of homophobic that you would say that :/" and tell me how that goes for you

You’re free to address an argument you disagree with instead of making up something that nobody said and just arguing with yourself.

?? did the anon in this post not literally say it was racist of me to say that men aren't oppressed

It IS racist to say men aren't oppressed, because then you're claiming racism doesn't exist for men of color and no men of color are victims of racism. Racism is used to oppress people of color in the USA. But if "men" aren't opposed, that includes men of color. Therefore, men of color must be immune to racism.

All those black men in prison? Totally not a result of systemic racism, because men aren't oppressed, therefore black men don't suffer from systemic racism.

So yeah. Claiming men cannot experience oppression is racism. It's also ableism and antisemitism and homophobia and transphobia, etc.

Men belong to oppressed groups. Men can be oppressed.

again, next time a poc says "white people aren't oppressed" i want you to use the same logic to tell them they're being homophobic and tell me how that goes

Claiming white people can't be oppressed IS homophobic. White queer people exist. It's also ableist and antisemitic etc. White people aren't immune to oppression just because we're white.

That wasn't hard.

see how you had to change it from "white people aren't oppressed" to "white people can't be oppressed" to stomach saying it. i know you'll never concede anything to me at this point because you've doubled down too hard for too long but there's no way you haven't noticed the hoops you're jumping through when you could have just been like "yeah my bad i wanted to highlight how certain kinds of men are oppressed but i don't want to imply that men don't categorically oppress women or that hatred of men is a systemic force, I'll be more careful with my phrasing next time." and you wouldn't have reached whitesplaining racism to a woman of color territory. anyway men are oppressors white people are oppressors cis people and straight people and able-bodied people are oppressors, not oppressed. i guess I'm racist and homophobic and ableist now for saying that or something idk

If a person of color says "white people aren't oppressed" they are factually wrong.

White people can be oppressed. White people are often oppressed. I'd wager the number of white people who have some form of marginalization far out numbers the number of white people who do not.

Is that untwisted enough for you?

i think in part the crux of our disagreement is that you are thinking of "white people" and "men" as individuals whereas I am thinking of them as social classes. as a social class, white people and men are not oppressed, they are oppressors, and i maintain that. and i think it is important to not make sweeping statements when you are talking about men's individual experiences of oppression for disability or race or what may have you, and not men as a social class. The logical conclusion of that language is a world full of oppressed people and no oppressors. and if none of us have true institutional power, all of us are powerless to help each other.

as you said, the majority of white people are oppressed, just for some reason other than their whiteness. but if it then logically follows that "white people are oppressed", then how are we supposed to hold them accountable for the racist systems that benefit them? this is the exact same logic many many white conservatives use to deny that they have institutional power - "how could i possibly oppress people of color? i grew up homeless, i am disabled, etc. i have no power". while you haven't gone quite that far yet i see you making a logical leap from "men sometimes suffer due to patriarchal norms" -> "men are hated by people in power" and i fear you, or others hearing you say this, will take that to mean that really, men might have power over women who check all the same oppression boxes otherwise, but most men have no true institutional power. does a poor black man have access to power that a disabled wealthy white woman does not? the answer is not "neither of them have power, the patriarchy hates both of them" but that they both have the power to oppress each other. i hope this helps you understand my frustration with your language better, because i feel like you are fixating on validating the pain of marginalized men and imagining me as some mean "radfem", without really hearing my concerns about accountability (and losing sight of the fundamental misogyny of the world we live in, given that you far more readily expressed "men are oppressed" then "white people are oppressed" (which you still will not type out as a stand-alone statement)).

I'd also like to share a really excellent article that is adjacent to the topic at hand! it's written by a trans man, and it's about reconciling transmasculinity and feminism. it doesn't purport to "agree" with either of our interpretations of patriarchal oppression, instead it takes a bird's eye view of why this conversation is so difficult in the first place. you probably won't find it satisfying (which you'll see is kind of the point) but it is hopefully insightful:

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/690914

Yeah, I think language and how it's used is the big confounding aspect here. Because I think we both agree that as classes, men and white people and cis people and abled people etc definitely have privileges related to being cis, or white, or men, etc!

But "men" can also mean individuals. And unless people specify "I'm talking about men as a class" there's no way to differentiate.

Personally, to avoid such confusion, when I'm talking about systems of oppression, I use the name of the system. I don't say "men are X", I say "the patriarchy is X".

Because I think if you try to assign privilege to groups of people based on class, it gets really hairy really quickly. Personally, these "classes" break down almost instantly the moment you begin interrogating them.

There isn't a monolith "man", there isn't a monolith "cis people", etc etc. Because classes are made up of individuals. And when you try to generalize upwards from the individual to the class level, you inevitably have to make statements that simply aren't true for every individual in that class, at which point the function of the class is weak at best.

I'm not saying talking about people as classes has no purpose! I talk about cis people as a class and trans people as a class all the time.

And I also don't think it's a 1:1 across every single possible identity. Some identities can give you privilege sometimes and in other cases the same identity can make you marginalized.

I'm trying to think, and I can't imagine a situation where a cis person would be oppressed for being cis. I can think of situations where men are oppressed for being men, though, cases where a person's manhood is an inseparable part of their identity and their oppression. I can't think of a situation where white people are oppressed for being white. But I can think of a situation where a straight person would be oppressed for being straight.

I think identity is just complicated like that. And branching off of that, having privilege and being oppressed aren't mutually exclusive.

So I personally don't think you can take a class of person, like men, and say "men as a class are not oppressed". Because "men" isn't really a coherent single class in the first place, it's a bunch of subclasses, and even on the tippy top level, it's a false statement unless you tack on "men aren't oppressed for being men" - but even then, that's sketchy at best because again, when you take intersectionality into account, some men's manhood is an integral part of why they're oppressed.

---

So, as for "how to we hold [them] accountable".

I'm going to speak on this from the perspective of someone who is afab and trans among other things.

I don't see any point in holding privileged individuals accountable for the actions of systems of oppression, especially when those systems usually hurt those people, too. I don't know if that's what you meant, because again, language is so imprecise, but it feels like you're saying, "that poor disabled white man must be individually held accountable for the harms of white supremacy and the patriarchy" and that just seems... pointless, unfair, and impossible? If that's not what you mean, I apologize.

Yes, individuals benefit from these systems. Yes, I think individuals should become aware of that, and it'd be nice if they'd join me in the fight to take down those systems. But "held responsible" on the individual level? No. Because being born privileged is not a choice, therefore it is not something someone should be "held responsible for".

That seems to be coming from a place of considering privilege something inherently "bad" that has be be atoned for? Again, if I'm getting the wrong vibes, I apologize.

Someone else said the following so I'm borrowing their words here, but basically, there's more than one kind of privilege. There's privileges that are things that just happen, and there are privileges that exist due to systemically created inequality.

So like, white privilege? That's not a thing that should exist. That's a privilege we created ourselves, and it's a privilege that would cease to exist if we eliminate white supremacy. Yay! That'd be a good thing!

But like... people with 20/20 vision have privilege, too. That doesn't mean we should go around stabbing everyone in the eyes, lol. Abled privilege a lot of times is just a thing people have based on how they were born and even if society were a perfect utopia, we'd still have disabled people (because a perfect utopia is not one that runs on eugenics thanks). What we can do is dismantle systemic ableism and create a world that is as accessible as possible.

So yeah. I don't think all individual cis people need to be "held responsible" for systemic transphobia. Do I think there are specific individuals and organizations and businesses and governments etc who DO need to be held responsible for upholding these systems? Yeah, absolutely.

But Maggie down the street who's never been anything but kind to me is not responsible for and does not need to held responsible for cishet society oppressing trans people.

Feminism isn't "Women vs Men"

Feminism is "Us vs The Patriarchy"

And "Us" includes everyone.

the patriarchy is the men btw.

No, it's not. The patriarchy is a system. Women can also enforce the patriarchy. Women can be and often are misogynistic and sexist.

Understanding the difference between a hierarchical system and individual human beings should be feminism 101.

👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼

so whenever Russian characters crop up in American/English-speaking media theres a very noticable thing where writers v often dont understand patronymics and full names.

Now, there’s two gradations of “full name” that are in use here. There is the “FIO” full name, or SGP perhaps (surname, given name, patronymic), and there is the full given name.

As an example, let’s take Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich.

Ivanov is the surname. You can tell bc of hte -ov suffix at the end. (Not the only one possible but a pretty decent indication something is a surname when it is there)

Ivan is the given name. You can tell bc Russian has a set (an expansive one) of given names and this is one of them, one of the most historically popular at that.

Ivanovich is the patronymic, it can be translated as “son of Ivan”. You can tell bc of the “ovich” suffix. There is also “evich” and for at least one name just “ich”. Colloquially they will also get shortened into just “ych” making the variation “Ivanych”. (”Y” is the letter used for transliteration of a sound that doesn’t exist in English but is considered fairly close to “i’)

To be clear, “Ivanov Ivan Ivanych” is the exact same person as “Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich”, this is hte exact same name, the only thing that changes is how formal the speaker is being about it.

Female suffixes are “evna” and “ovna”. Anna Petrovna, Anna Fadeevna. There is also “ichna” for at least one name and an antiquated “ishna” which is the colloquial alternative in some cases. Anna Fadeevna = Anna Fadeishna. This IS antiquated tho.

Coming back to our Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich, this is the “FIO” form of his name, the way it will be put on formal documents that require one’s full name. The “Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov” form is also acceptable, its just not the order you write on documents in. The patronymic (Ivanovich) always comes after the full given name (Ivan), the surname can be stuck on either side of that.

The traditional respectful address to someone you know is the full given name + patronymic. Ivan Ivanovich! Could you come over here? It’s used with plural/formal “you”. This form is also becoming obsolete in recent years but if you’re writing mid-20th-century or characters of middle age+ Ivan Ivanovich is the name to go.

(Note the difference from the address + surname form in English: Dr. Smith or Mr Smith etc. In Russian this form does not exist except several centuries back or in very very impersonal century back “citizen Ivanov” that like a policeman would use to address you. Not anyone you actually know personally. Schoolchildren will often not know their teachers’ surnames because they are all Ivan Ivanovich to them.)

Now I keep saying “Ivan” is the FULL given name. The short given name from “Ivan” is “Vanya”. This is a set linguistic fact - the set of given names in Russian is factually two linked sets, a set of full given names and a set of short given names. Some short given names can  be short from several full given names, some full given names can have several short names (a person will usually pick one to use). A short given name doesn’t go anywhere on formal documents. It just follows from your full given name naturally, like conjugation. Some full given names (Gleb, Oleg, Diana, Vera) are short enough to be used as short given names too and so don’t realy have assigned short counterparts. In fact Vera can be both a full name on its own - Ivanova Vera Ivanovna - and short for Veronica - Ivanova Veronica Ivanovna.

Short names are formed through a variety of rules. There are basic requirements for the form they take as a result though. Full given names can have “complicated” consonant pairs together: Dmitriy, Aleksandr, Pavla, Anna. Short names are “simple” will almost always go consonant-vowel. Dmitriy -> Dima, Aleksandr -> Sasha, Alik or Shura (don’t ask how that last one happened, it’s a miracle of absurdity, but it’s one of the traditional shortenings), Pavla -> Pasha (well, Pavla is a rare name, you hear Pasha and you usually assume Pavel, the male name), Anna -> Anya. (”y” is not a consonant here, “ya” is a vowel sound English doesnt really have)

(As an exception to the consonant-vowel rule, when there’s a consonant pair the second of which is “l” it’s usually kept together in the short name - it’s just very simple to the Russian ear / tongue. Vladislav - Vlad or Slava, for example)

Often a name will be formed fully from the syllables / consonants of the full name, give or take changing the last vowel to the gender neutral “a”/”ya” (It will either be “a”/”ya” or a consonant). Vladimir -> Vlad, Ruslana -> Lana, Tatiana -> Tanya, Anna -> Anya, Katerina -> Katya, Dmitriy -> Dima or Mitya, Ivan -> Vanya. And then there’s the “sha” suffix tacked on as the second syllable: Pavel -> Pasha, Natalia -> Natasha or Tasha, Daria -> Dasha, Aleksandr -> Sasha, etc.

So long as they conform to these rules, you can kind of make them up. Though considering the whole of history, you’re not super likely to make up something that hasn’t been made up before you. Anna historically speaking turns into Anya, Nyura, Nyusha… -shudders-

So how are short names actually used?

As an implication of familiarity/subordination, that’s how. For the weebs in the audience, you know the ‘-chan’ suffix in Japanese? Kind of exactly like that. Japanese has more nuances, but generally if you wouldn’t call someone -chan, you shouldn’t call them by their short name. (Unless they specifically asked you to, but I think that’s a thing in Japanese too)

Short names are never paired with patronymics. The steps of formality in address are basically “Ivan Ivanovich” => “Ivan” => “Vanya”.

(There’s also formal you, so to be completely clear: “Ivan Ivanovich” (formal you) => “Ivan” (formal you) => “Vanya” (formal you) => “Vanya” (informal you). If someone is getting called their full given name + informal you, it’s either implying antiquity - pre 20th century - or they’re using their full given name as their short given name.)

You call your children and siblings by short names. You call your friends by short names. You MIGHT call your employees, especially if they are sufficiently young, or if you’ve known them for a long time and the “familiarity” part applies, by short names.

SHORT NAMES ARE NOT FORMAL. This is important. Nobody has “Natasha” written in their passport (unless I guess they were making new documents in America or something from scratch and didn’t use any old ones as basis of establishing idenity so could make up whatever. It’s still weird! It’s like having “Johnny-boy” written in your passport!)

SHORT NAMES ARE OFTEN GENDERED BUT YOU CANNOT TELL HOW WITHOUT KNOWING THE CORRESPONDING FULL NAME. “Pasha” and “Misha” are both male names becaus they are short from “Pavel” and “Mikhail”. Of course you could have a Pavla or a Mikhaila, but the former is very rare and the latter is probably a foreign Mykaila Russianified or something. In these cases it’s usually considered normal to assume gender, even if there’s a tiny chance you could be wrong.

PATRONYMICS ARE NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES INTERCHANGEABLE WITH SURNAMES. You have the same surname as your family members, but if you have the same patronymic, either you’re siblings or there are multiple people with the same given name in your immediate family, which is slightly odd. A patronymic is formed from your father’s name by unambiguous and definite rules. Foreign names can be turned into patronymics easily. (Though kids of foreign citizens can get whatever their parents want on their birth certificate - patronymic by the rules of one of the parents’ home country, no patronymic at all, whatever) Surnames are surnames and work the same way they work anywhere else.

PATRONYMICS AND SURNAMES ARE NOT CONNECTED IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER. Any surname goes with any patronymic same as it goes with any given name. Except for the obvoius “statistically likely to be from the same culture” part. (Your “Russian” character could have Georgian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Lithuanian, Bielorussian, Kazakh, Tatar descent, descent from any number of indigenous cultures on the territory of Russia that I personally never heard about until I started translating documents in high amounts and stumbling upon them. Russia is an empire!) But even that’s just statistics - you could have a Tsukino Farha Bogdanovna and I’d just go “that’s a fascinating family history right there”.

GOOGLE RUSSIAN GIVEN NAMES, DON’T MAKE THEM UP. And pay attention if something is marked as “diminutive” - that means it’s a short name, and it will not be used on formal documents or in conjunction with a patronymic. Go for the name it’s diminutive for and just have the character ask everyone to use their short name if you want - it’s trendy these days.

There’s all kinds of fuckery going on with name use on the margins - some old people will call their close friends the “patronymic + informal you” construction. (Actually it’s a “Russian babushka” stereotype that actually exists within the culture. And if anyone ever uses the “short name + patronymic” form irl it’s this category of people, though I’d imagine only in third person) Some bosses or even teachers will invite their students to call them by their short name (I am so deeply uncomfortable with this). Age is often the difference between a Vanya and an Ivan Ivanovich in the same situation.

All patronymics and a good share of surnames conjugate by gender! “Ivanov” and “Ivanova” are the exact same surname, but a guy will have the former writen in their documents and a gal would have the latter. If you legally change your gender that letter changes too. (No, there’s no gender neutral form. Some surnames, like those ending in -enko, just don’t do this, but those that do are at all times one or the other) I guess expatriates a couple of generations down could have whatever going on, but if you have an actually-born-in-Russia “Ivanova Ivan Ivanovna” that means “Ivan” is a girl with a male name for some fucking reason. Name gendering is just tradition, patronymic gendering is grammar. (And if you have an “Ivanova Ivan Ivanovich” that’s just someone making a typo) (Maybe our hypothetical Ivanova Ivan Ivanovna transitioned and liked her birth name so much, she decided to not even go for Ivanna or something else plausible, Ivan or bust. Officials would probably just shrug and go with it lmao)

Oh, and in less formal lists and situations, surname + short given name is a classical combination. When I call my grandboss, surname + short given name is how I introduce myself, because I’m much younger and much subordinate so short name it is, but she’s under no obligation to identify me from my given name so surname it is. (To people who I expect to remember my name but who weren’t expecting me to call, just surname is good, but to people who can connect my surname with my identity but probably don’t remember my given name immediately & exactly from that, giving also the form of given name they address me by is the reasonable person thing to do)

If I were introducing myself in the “Hi! I’m Tsukino Usagi!” anime intro format, I’d go for “Short given name + surname”. Short name is usually the one people think of as their personal identity as it’s whatt their close circle will have been calling them for their entire life, and ACTUALLY it’s normal for the surname to come after the given name. In a book citation of “famous doctor X did Y” they will probably be “famous doctor fullgivenname-patronymic-surname”. For a Russian speaker, switching between Japanese name order and English name order is not a difficulty, but we WILL be distressed by not being able to tell which is which and therefore which it is on sight )=

MARVEL COMICS WALL OF SHAME

- Natasha Alianovna Romanova. First, “Romanov” is not a common surname, it’s the surname of the royal family, it’s like a random English guy being called “Tudor”. Well, it’s plausible, it IS formed by the classic “common given name + -ov” rule, but Roman isn’t even that common a name (and not exactly Russian), and… well. It’s just weird. I don’t think there’s good chances for it to have come into existence as such historically WHEN IT WAS THE RULING FAMILY SURNAME. Second! Natasha is a short name! She should be Natalia/Natalya! Third… I mean I will not say Alian is not an existing male name, and I won’t even say it’s not used in any cultures that exist within Russia, but if they were aiming for “common Russian male name” they missed 180 degrees.

- Ilyana Rasputin. First, -in is a suffix that makes this surname adjective-ish, meaning it conjugates by gender, meaning she is RASPUTINA. Her brother is Rasputin. She is Rasputina. Second, again, I have heard of exactly one (1) guy with this surname, and it’s the same guy you’re thinking of right now. It is in no way, shape or form common, or reasonable to give to a character without making it a plot point. Third, Ilyana is not a Russian name that exists. Ilya is a male name, but there’s no female form. FOURTH, I distinctly remember reading a comic where she was calling her brothers “Piotr” and “Mikhail”. That’s their full names! I mean bonus points for actually finding the full names this time, but it’s extremely weird for their LITTLE SIBLING to use them! They should be Petya and Misha as far as her own speech is concerned!

P.S. “All Night Laundry” is a fantastic webcomic, but “Grandimir” is not a real name, “Grand” is not a Russian word root and will not be used in a name this way, you’re looking for “Velimir” or somethng (though that’s, like, a thousand years antiquated). Also while both the uncle and the nephew having the “Petrovich” patronymic is not that odd, Petr is not THAT rare a name and maybe their brother/father was Petr Petrovich… considering we never learn their surname, I seriously suspect the writer just confused a patronymic with a surname. Also, naming their dog the same name crosses the line into slightly weird. Who names a dog after their father? This is actually what prompted this…

OH AND ALSO

If your character was born to a single mom who never specified the father on the birth certificate, they probably still have a patronymic. Their mom will make one up arbitrarily. A patronymic is an integral part of the name, if you don’t have one you like, don’t have a Russian name. Your name is not Russian then, it’s not formed by Russian rules.

I once handled a set of documens where the mom first wrote an arbitrary patronymic for the kid, then the father popped up and she changed the birth certificate to have the accurate patronymic and also the actual data about the father.

(Also a different spelling of the child’s name in English - my job was translating all of that into English. From Ukrainian, because I live and work in Ukraine, but Russia has the same rules for this stuff.)

ALSO ALSO

all children up to perhaps older teenagers are called by short names. They will KNOW their full given name bc it’s what’s on their documentation, but they will identify themselves by their short names to each other and adults, and adults will practicaly always - except for some schoolteachers with teenagers - call them by the short name. And informal you. This is part of why Ilyana calling her brothers by their full names is so implausible: at least with one of them I believe the age difference was small enough that in Ilyana’s formative memories everyone around her would be calling him by the short name.

It’s not presumptive to call someone who is visibly a kid by the short name. It’s kind of weird not to, though I personally have deep adoration and respect for teachers who go for this specific kind of weird and start treating kids as adults worthy of respect earlier than the rest of society does.

P.P.P.S. Because of how grammatically definite patronymics are, there isn’t actually a sex/gender form on the post-soviet (Russian, Ukrainian) birth certificates. Passports have that, but birth certificates just don’t. It’s Obvious From Context.

Out of curiosity, is there any semi-common circumstance where someone would use a matronymic (or a patronymic made from their mother’s name, if those wouldn’t be the same thing)? Either instead or in addition?

The concept doesn’t exist. The only thing I remember like that is the “Lenin” joke (”Lenin” translates as “Lena’s” and in that joke a guy interacts with some kids one of whom is acting in some memetic way and when he asks adults nearby whose the kids are, he gets “Galin” (Galya’s), “Tanin” (Tanya’s) and “Lenin” (Lena’s) for the last one). Matronymic isn’t a thing.

Again, single mothers’ kids just get a made up patronymic. At this point it’s a #aesthetic thing. And Russian does not have matronymics.

Like... this word can be constructed and recognizable in English, but it does not exist in Russian.

whoa yeah I’ve never really thought of it this way but mainstream (liberal) feminism really is about “learning to enjoy patriarchy” 

How is that?

this might be difficult to explain from scratch so to speak but liberal feminism is essentially based on the idea that femininity is devalued and generally under attack. this is opposed to 2nd wave feminism (which is what most of my feminism is routed in) which states that women are under attack and femininity is an oppressive construct intended to keep women subordinate.

the idea that it’s femininity which is under attack implies that femininity is inherent to women, and that women are oppressed for our femininity. again, this is opposed to the idea that women are oppressed with femininity. 

this ends up leading to ideas like ‘masculine privilege’–butch women oppress & have power over feminine women, and butch women reject femininity due to internalized misogyny (since they’re supposedly rejecting their nature). I’ve actually been accused of the above by a liberal feminist. 

2nd wave feminism would state that “masculine privilege” doesn’t exist, because masculine women are still oppressed for being women under patriarchy and are punished in various ways for rejecting femininity (the tool meant to oppress them). only male privilege exists, and masculinity is only rewarded in males.

the foundation that mainstream/pop/liberal feminism has built itself on is why there’s a huge emphasis on ‘weaponized femininity’ (think ‘eyeliner so sharp it could kill a man’), enthusiastically embracing femininity, far more sex-positivity than sex-critical discussion (leading to ideas like “criticizing porn is anti-feminist”,  “criticizing bdsm is anti-feminist”, etc.), a general distrust of butch or gender non-conforming women (“trust no butch”), “feminist” articles about what type of lipsticks stay on best while giving blow-jobs (I’ve actually seen this), body-positivity that centers around ‘all body types can be beautiful’ rather than ‘women do not have to be beautiful and should not focus on it’, etc etc etc. I hope this was an ok summary even though I’ve really oversimplified the whole thing lol.

Oh the irony! Conservative Christian values now supplanted by pornography, greed, lying and total lack of integrity.

“It’s easy for liberals to decry the hypocrisy of Republicans, the putative party of family values, embracing Trump as its avatar. But there is no real hypocrisy here. The core value is patriarchy, which can take different forms. There is an older patriarchy which wears the mask of chivalry, and offers women protection in exchange for submissiveness. But the age of chivalry is no more. We now have raw patriarchy, which asserts its rights through naked displays of power. And the president, with his porn star mistresses, his boasting of sexual assaults, and even his phallic tweets about the size of his nuclear button, is the perfect leader for conservatives’ post-chivalric world.”

I’m????

Oh my God this actually explains so much.

So there’s a known thing in the study of human psychology/sociology/what-have-you where men are known to, on average, rely entirely on their female romantic partner for emotional support. Bonding with other men is done at a more superficial level involving fun group activities and conversations about general subjects but rarely involves actually leaning on other men or being really honest about emotional problems. Men use alcohol to be able to lower their inhibitions enough to expose themselves emotionally to other men, but if you can’t get emotional support unless you’re drunk, you have a problem.

So men need to have a woman in their lives to have anyone they can share their emotional needs and vulnerabilities with. However, since women are not socialized to fear sharing these things, women’s friendships with other women are heavily based on emotional support. If you can’t lean on her when you’re weak, she’s not your friend. To women, what friendship is is someone who listens to all your problems and keeps you company.

So this disconnect men are suffering from is that they think that only a person who is having sex with you will share their emotions and expect support. That’s what a romantic partner does. But women think that’s what a friend does. So women do it for their romantic partners and their friends and expect a male friend to do it for them the same as a female friend would. This fools the male friend into thinking there must be something romantic there when there is not.

This here is an example of patriarchy hurting everyone. Women have a much healthier approach to emotional support – they don’t die when widowed at nearly the rate that widowers die and they don’t suffer emotionally from divorce nearly as much even though they suffer much more financially, and this is because women don’t put all their emotional needs on one person. Women have a support network of other women. But men are trained to never share their emotions except with their wife or girlfriend, because that isn’t manly. So when she dies or leaves them, they have no one to turn to to help with the grief, causing higher rates of death, depression, alcoholism and general awfulness upon losing a romantic partner. 

So men suffer terribly from being trained in this way. But women suffer in that they can’t reach out to male friends for basic friendship. I am not sure any man can comprehend how heartbreaking it is to realize that a guy you thought was your friend was really just trying to get into your pants. Friendship is real. It’s emotional, it’s important to us. We lean on our friends. Knowing that your friend was secretly seething with resentment when you were opening up to him and sharing your problems because he felt like he shouldn’t have to do that kind of emotional work for anyone not having sex with him, and he felt used by you for that reason, is horrible. And the fact that men can’t share emotional needs with other men means that lots of men who can’t get a girlfriend end up turning into horrible misogynistic people who think the world owes them the love of a woman, like it’s a commodity… because no one will die without sex. Masturbation exists. But people will die or suffer deep emotional trauma from having no one they can lean on emotionally. And men who are suffering deep emotional trauma, and have been trained to channel their personal trauma into rage because they can’t share it, become mass shooters, or rapists, or simply horrible misogynists.

The only way to fix this is to teach boys it’s okay to love your friends. It’s okay to share your needs and your problems with your friends. It’s okay to lean on your friends, to hug your friends, to be weak with your friends. Only if this is okay for boys to do with their male friends can this problem be resolved… so men, this one’s on you. Women can’t fix this for you; you don’t listen to us about matters of what it means to be a man. Fix your own shit and teach your brothers and sons and friends that this is okay, or everyone suffers.

The next time a guy says, “What? You don't want to be my friend?” I’ll text him this and then ask if he really wants to be friends or just have another potential girlfriend.

y’all I am living for these analyses where the new way to fight the patriarchy is to teach men to love each other and themselves

Im a communication student and can confirm the above is absolutely 100% accurate and it’s called agentic vs communal friendship theorized by Steven McCornack

Abusive men pave the way for lazy men to get wives and girlfirends.

Lemme clarify, how many times have you heard your overworked female friends and relatives say “Yeah, Jerry drinks beer every evening after work while I cook dinner and clean up after everyone and does the bare minimum to help me raise the kids but he’s such a nice guy. He’s never beat me in my life. I couldn’t ask for a better guy in my life.”

Like no, Sally, your husband is a common stone among turds and you know it.

I try to explain this conceptually to people as a thing that happens not saying that this is good but it’s a thing that happens.

This is what male privilege is and how all men benefit from it.

This is why you are not exempt from statements about “all men” even if you are overall good.

You benefit from the bar constantly being lowered by systemic issues within the gender.

The expectations on you are always lower than they should because “at least you’re not X”.

That…is the best response I’ve seen to the “not all men” thing. Thank you.

Tool of the Matriarchy   (via sonnywortzik)

This is such an interesting dissection of a very common trope in writing female characters that I never really thought about before, but it’s so prevalent and so obvious and so fucking disgusting.

This is a really well put together breakdown of this trope, particularly how the fantasy basically breaks down to “unremarkable men are remarkable to women with no life experience”, but the one thing I might say merits further conversation is the point he tries to make that the trope isn’t typically reversed because women don’t find the idea of naive men sexy. I’m not going to say that women DO want to cow around inexperienced manchildren, but I will say I think he’s making a fairly inequal comparison when he says reversing the trope plays up men’s buffoonish nature. Half of the equation here is that the character is supposed to be heavily sexualized and I would argue that his examples of “born yesterday” men are not. Or if they are supposed to be, they were devised by someone with a very patronizing view of what people who find men attractive are attracted to.

I feel like choosing Blast From the Past as as example of a Sexy Naive Man Played By Brenden Fraiser when George of the Jungle exists goes to show that the guy who made this either has a shaky concept of what constitutes “sexy” when it comes to male characters or was cherrypicking his examples to make his point;

His whole performance in this movie was deliberately constructed to be a direct reversal to the female version of this trope.

Another better example of a 1:1 reversal of this trope would probably be, of all things, Universal Soldier. Jean Claude van Damme’s character is intensely athletic and competent at his designated role as a secret government super soldier, but he’s grossly ignorant to social nuances like when it’s acceptable to wander around naked. He’s not played off as a buffoonish manchild, he just leaves Ally Walker scrambling to protect his decency between bouts of grappling with Dolph Lundgren.

Probably the most iconic, deliberate reversal of this trope that I’m kind of amazed was overlooked is the titular character of the Rocky Horror picture show.

Like… This character exists completely as commentary on this trope. There is no conceit of trying to pretend he exists as anything beyond a sexualized, naive plaything for the amusement of the worldly, experienced character who built him. His verse in the finale number outlines this even more explicitly;

His role in the story also works to deconstruct the convention in exactly the way this guy say he’d like to see it handled more often; the conflict is rooted in Rocky choosing to become involved with a similarly sheltered and inexperienced person rather than the seasoned one he was built for, effectively “ruining” his intended purpose as a blank slate for Frank to claim ownership of.

I’m not trying to argue with this guy’s central point or anything because it’s a super important thing to be aware of, just with the idea that staging the same trope with a male character as the inexperienced party doesn’t typically work because inexperience makes men unattractive, when it’s more because the guys making these movies are usually either afraid of or don’t understand what DOES make men sexy.

If I can tag on here–

It’s less that gender-reversed instances of this trope don’t work or don’t exist, than it is that there are very few instances where the trope is played straight, as it were. Both George of the Jungle and Rocky Horror, I would argue, are intentional subversions of the trope, meant to poke fun at / comment on the usual portrayals of innocent sexualized women. ‘Innocent-sexy-man’ doesn’t really exist as a trope in-itself because it is inherently subversive of western patriarchal values.

Whereas, ‘buffoonish man needs taking care of’ is definitely a trope, and it’s allowed to be a trope because it assigns women to ‘acceptable’ roles as nurturers and care-givers of men. It’s still a male fantasy– rather than sexualizing innocence, it says, ‘hey dudes, don’t you hate making responsible choices and being a functional adult? Find yourself a Competent Woman and you won’t have to! Let her do all the work and you can laze around being a shithead! Call her a shrew when she asks you to complete basic tasks!’  It’s the still shitty flip-side of the ‘innocent-sexy-woman’– it’s the ‘every-woman-can-be-your-mother’ trope.  (the ‘marry-your-mother’ trope, if you will, as opposed to the ‘marry-a-literal-or-metaphorical-child’ trope)

If we’re looking for actual female fantasies, George of the Jungle is definitely it; but even George of the Jungle isn’t a straight reversal of the ‘innocent-sexy’ trope. ‘Innocent-sexy-woman’ is, at heart, about a sexualized power-balance. If anything, I would argue that George of the Jungle acts as the Ultimate female fantasy because it’s one of the few movie relationships where there is no power imbalance. George has no concept of patriarchal norms, no toxic masculinity, no need to establish himself as master and protector, which makes him the perfect female romantic fantasy. 

tl;dr:  the male ‘innocence’ fantasy is about showing a naive young woman ‘the ways of the world’ and making her dependent on you; the female innocence fantasy is about finding a naive young man and mutually noping the fuck out of toxic western social structures.

re-blogging for additional comments and examination of tropes. 

So this is what trust looks like.

Funny, my first thought was “So this is what the patriarchy looks like.”

Yup. This is how women are supposed to trust men. With their lives.

Woman : “Hey, can we just… Drop the bow?” Man : “WHY DON’T YOU TRUST ME I’M NOT A VIOLENT GUY, YOU ARE INSULTING ME THINKING I WILL HURT YOU!!!” Woman : “No it’s just… Well I’m afraid.” Man : “But why? Look at me, I’m not afraid. And we’re equal, look, we pull the bow together.” Woman : “I think we’re not equal, you can kill me with the arrow and I can’t.” Man : “What? So you would like to be able to kill me? You’re so agressive!” Woman : “That’s not what I mean, we were talking about equality : you can hurt me, I can’t.” Man : “Of course you can. You can hit me with the bow if you want.” Woman : “That’s not the same thing, it will never kill you.” Man : “Oh, you always complaining, stop victimising yourself! Do I talk about the difficulty of holding the arrow? Of the responsibility it giving to me?” […] Etc, etc. Every debates about gender equality, ladies and gentleman.

omg the comments.  Brilliant.

Marina Abramovic and Ulay, Rest Energy, 1980

this was an art piece by Maria and Ulay (one of the most famous art couples like ever) illustrating trust in relationships. ya’ll need to calm the fuck down. “It’s like being in love: giving somebody the power to hurt you and trusting (or hoping) they won’t.” - Maria Abramović

Hold the fuck up everyone, the artist said (amongst many things) that it’s about love so don’t you dare interpret it any other way or find other relevance or resonances and don’t you dare be aware of the fact that it’s the woman who will be shot through the heart if this fails how could that possibly be relevant to interpreting it jegus don’t you know anything, also the author is not dead the author is alive and well and the only important thing is authorial intention. And there is only one correct way to interpret a piece of art. I mean it’s not like the artists could have found a different way to represent a relationship where both people are equally likely to be hurt by the fall out. This was literally the only thing they could have done so the monodirectional risk is just irrelevant okay? The end.

I’ve not read anything by Abramovic stating that there was no feminist element to the work, but who cares about that, right? All works must be considered free from feminism unless the artist explicitly specifies otherwise.

I mean it’s not like an intrinsic part of the piece really really painfully obviously highlights how much we put at risk by trusting people sometimes. It’s like, it’s all about how wonderful trust is, but ignoring that an intrinsic part of trust and why it matters at all is that you can be hurt by it?

HOW DARE PEOPLE DISCUSS ART. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. THATS NOT WHAT ITS FOR.

(The art piece is called ‘Rest Energy’)

WHERE’S THE LIE THO

so basically… To be a good man you should only be with one woman for your entire life? And if you’ve been with someone that’s disgusting? Ok.

dude. it’s a play-off of how people treat women by slut shaming them. see how ridiculous it sounds when they switch genders? then why is it that way for women. 

It sucks that it had to be explained…

That individual actually helped this post become better by showing how men perceive women in today’s society and their reactions towards oppression. Double standards are wild.

Feminists: *has equality* Feminists: “WE WANT EQUALITY”

in the United states:

-We have never had a woman president.

-Both the Federal House and the Senate right now are roughly 80% men

- There are only 3 out of 9 women on the supreme court

- Only 6 of out 50 state Governors are women in 2015. [x]

- Women only make up 24% of STATE legislatures and 22% of STATE senates. [x]

- Women only make up 18% of all MAYORS in the country. [x]  

-In one recent study of large companies in America, there are more CEOs named JOHN than there are TOTAL WOMEN. [x]

-In 2010 the median income of Full time Year Round workers was $42,800 for men, compared to $34,700 for women.

-Women need an additional degree in order to make as much as men with a lower degree over the course of a lifetime.

And these are just a FEW political and economic statistics (we haven’t even gotten to cultural and social issues here). That’s not even getting started on what race, disability, and sexuality brings to the table in terms of bullshit inequality. 

Yeah. “We have equality” my pissed off, queer, hairy ass, we do. 

NOBODY IS FORBIDDING THEM FROM FROM BEING IN THE SUPREME COURT. OR IN ANY TYPE OF POLITICAL COURT.

Also, the wage thing, remember in 1963 when JFK made this little bill that said women get paid equally? Yeah that’s still in effect today. You know, women have babies. They take maternity leave for that. Most are out of work for a good 2-3 months. And not always paid for it. That’s a good chunk of change lost. If you are getting paid less than a man, that’s something you need to take up with your HR rep. I work with men. And they get paid more than me. Know why?? Because they’ve been working there longer than me. They’ve been working their way up to the raises they have. And you know what???? I’ll get there someday, too. Its called hard work. We. Are. Equal. Go to a third world country, come back, and then tell me we aren’t fucking equal.

Just because something doesn’t explicitly have a law against doesn’t mean that it still isn’t a facet of inequality though? Women being underrepresented in government is the result of literally over 100 years of gendered political repression. You only get on the supreme court if you are PUT THERE by the President. So, it’s not an accident that the gender equality is so off.  

and yeah, let’s talk about pay gaps.

Wage gaps can and do still happen, of course, we know that they do, but pay gaps are even more insidious. In 2010 the median income of Full time Year Round workers was $42,800 for men, compared to $34,700 for women. The reasons for this are varied, and when you factor in race, disability, trans identity, and sexual orientation the numbers can become even more startling.

But just looking at gender, even ignoring employers that do break the law and pay their female employees less (and yes, you can TRY to bring that to court and pay all those court fees. Never mind that not all women have the resources to DO THAT), there are many other factors that come into play: Women have less success in gaining promotions than their male counter parts (and other Glass Ceiling effects), women are dissuaded from higher paying fields (such as STEM fields) through institutional hostility, women are expected to take unpaid maternity leave for child care when men are not (regardless of whether or not they will), women are less successful at salary negotiations and are sometimes even penalized by employers for trying at MUCH higher rates than men, work that is traditionally female dominated being undervalued on a cultural level (women might be cooks, but not chefs; nurses, not doctors; etc.) and a myriad of others.

We know, for example Women need an additional degree in order to make as much as men with a lower degree over the course of a lifetime.A woman would need a doctoral degree, for instance, to earn the same as a man with a bachelor’s degree, and a man with a high school education would earn approximately the same amount as a woman with a bachelor’s degree.

The fact is that women, on average, DO make less than men, and the issue isn’t always direct illegal wage imbalance. The issues are often far more wide reaching and speak to a cultural misogyny that has to be confronted beyond just legislation.

You mention maternity leave here. (Did you know that the US is one of the only “industrialized countries” in the world to NOT have guaranteed paid parental leave? yeah. That’s fucked up.) The entire notion that women, more so than men, are expected to take off time from work for family is one of those cultural aspects of inequality that I mentioned. 

And again, all this discussion fails to take into account things like disability, trans people, sexuality, and race, which makes all of these issues even more extreme and complicated. 

Don’t fucking tell me to “Go look at third world countries.” Countries in the developing world have their own sets of problems (many of which are directly linked to a history of colonization and exploitation by the Western World). But inequality existing in Afghanistan or India doesn’t make OUR inequality here at home any less of an issue. 

Also: Fun fact India has LESS sexual assault per person that is reported than the US.   Afghanistan has had a woman as prime minister.  So fuck off with that bullshit argument. America is not some grand enlightened land of equality and flowers, while the developing world is squandered away in some dark ages of oppression. 

The Myth of the Extraordinary Woman doesn’t challenge sexism. Having one female character in a group of male characters who deserves to be there because she “earned their respect” by “being the best” does NOTHING to threaten the patriarchy, because it’ll just isolate her as an aberrant case. MOST women are useless, but THIS ONE is special. 

You know what does threaten the patriarchy? Communities of women. Older female mentors taking younger ones under their wing. Presenting a united front to sexism. Women who don’t even WANT to join the boy’s club, who seek the approval of other women, and value THEIR opinions over gatekeeping sexists. 

Which isn’t to say that having your boundaries violated and your consent ignored and often being physically hurt may not make someone feel degraded and powerless but there’s no need to add a moral/integrity aspect to compound those injuries with the rhetoric and values that Christians and radfems seem to, and then muddling and fucking the issue up further by equating all consensual sex work with sexual assault.

I absolutely know by now when my boundaries are being violated and when I’m being assaulted and when I am not. I promise you. It was more confusing when I was a kid but I’m clear on it now and when I work—and it IS work, it’s absolutely as much work as child care, and uses the same skillsets, catering to and managing people with underdeveloped communication skills who want what they want and don’t like taking no for an answer—I am not being assaulted.

I have been assaulted AT work, in the club, but only rarely by customers!

I know the difference.

And it really denies the violations of the actual assaults to treat payment or non as the deciding factor.

Patriarchy

Several days ago was my father’s birthday. When my grandma was saying a toast she said: “To the man of the house, the head of the household!” <= rough but p much exact translation from Russian. Now to make it clear, our house isn’t my father’s by any stretch of imagination. He’s an immigrant, and moved in with my mother and her parents (grandpa is already dead, and grandma’s the one who said the toast) when he married her. As far as I’m aware, he doesn’t own any share of the flat legally, it’s shared between my grandma, my mother, me and my brother after grandpa’s death. And I don’t see him making more household decisions than my mom, either. Not fewer either, maybe, I’d call them as equal… so why is he “the head of the household”? because he’s “the man of the house” because he’s male

My grandma isn’t some sort of ass backwards traditional family values proponent. She’s had to fight discrimination to get her degree and her job, and she taught me to never give up and never be ashamed to employ underhanded tactics to get what you want. (Too bad I’m not nearly as extroverted and aware and spunky as her). She’s 70 and she still works, partly because of the family income and partly because at her job they don’t want to let her go - they’ll have to employ like a dozen people to get her job done when she goes. She’s the most badass person I know. She calls my dad the head of the household because he’s a man.

People mock “the patriarchy” and say feminists make it up because it’s long dead. My dad doesn’t want to teach me to drive because I’m a girl and he has trouble overcoming prejudice against women driving.

Reality check, guys.

Just because your family holds antiquated patriarchal values doesn’t then mean that the whole rest of Western world shares those values or exists in patriarchies. There are obviously going to be certain people or households who hold those values but on a grand scale the Western world does not anymore.

In addition, you state that numerous of your above-mentioned family members are immigrants, and thus have other cultural backgrounds. If your family members hold patriarchal views, the odds that they came from their original culture are hardly insubstantial. If they did indeed come from their original culture, then your family’s patriarchal views are even less indicative of Western cultural views on gender than they would be if they came from a Western country to begin with.

Oh my god don't I just love it when people project their own cultural expectations on my life and teach me to take those facts they dreamed up into account. Yes, my dad is an immigrant. From Russia. From Stavropol; that's about a day's ride in a car away. Fun fact: although it's my mom's family that lives and has lived for at least the last generation in Ukraine, if I was going to get "Ukrainian" ethnicity stamp in my passport (if that was still a thing after the Soviet Union disbanded), it would be from my dad's side. Because he's from where Ukrainian kossacks were relocated, and I even learned a few Ukrainian songs from his side of the family when visiting there. So... no. Those are the exact same values and the exact same culture as over here. Then, the problem is, my family is anything but "antiquated" in its values compared to culture that surrounds me. My dad has been teaching me computers and advanced math since I was a little kid (dad, I'm in the fifth grade. I don't need integrals to solve this equation. Please show me how to solve it without integrals). I have got a bachelor's degree in Program Engineering with full support of my family, one of as many as TWO girls in my study group of 20+ people. And our teachers treated as special snowflakes for being girls in that field, either giving us higher marks or higher expectations. My mom specifically gave my brother extra chores the last time he said he didn't have to help me unload groceries because I'm a girl - extra chores in unloading groceries, that is. My family is one where I'm not scared of coming out as either bi or asexual (I used to think I was bi, not knowing asexuality was a thing), even if they prefer to ignore it so far in favor of their "married with kids" ideal model so far, and where my mom took care to explain to me that homophobia was a bad&stupid thing when I was a kid. My family is one where I never hear the "blonde" jokes the newspapers are full of. My family is one that bought me Legos when I was a kid and made a bucket of building blocks for me, so that I was surprised to discover when I grew up that those are considered "boys' toys". My family is, if anything, higher than average on the whole "modern feminist values" thing.

Of course, there's a point of view that Ukraine is not a first world country and not indicative of "Western values". To which I say, fuck you. It's the place where I live. It's not Muslim (which is what America tries so hard to distance itself from), it's not African or Asian. We are the very east of Europe, but we are Europe. Our historical figures are known for getting education in Vienna and inspiration in Paris. We have gone away from the "women belong in the kitchen" mentality further than America, thanks to the Soviet ideology stating that EVERYONE should work a full day job and be financially independent earlier than those old ads I saw on tumblr of "women won't leave the kitchen" were produced. We are with you, want it or not. And patriarchy that I see here is your problem, too.