Today’s Guest Column
I don’t usually have to voice my opinion in something as serious as a guest column, but Marc Priester’s Friday column, “Patriarchy: Bad for everyone” left me feeling so infuriated that I felt I had to respond. It is the most vile and disrespectful piece I can recall reading in The Diamondback.
Priester chose to explore the plight of patriarchal oppression on women by using a metaphor that reduces a woman and her sexuality to nothing more than a commodity meant to be consumed by men. This metaphor just further reinforces the deeply rooted patriarchal notion that a woman’s sexuality exists solely as an object of a man’s desire and satisfaction. This alone makes the column a complete failure in its attempt to point out patriarchal oppression.
Then, there is his idea that the worst side effect of the “slut tax” and slut-shaming is its ability to “decrease the number of individuals in the sexual marketplace.” This basically states that because of slut-shaming, there are fewer women with whom to have sex.
I don’t think Priester understands the breadth of problems and distortions caused by slut-shaming. It teaches people a woman’s body is dirty, that a woman choosing to have safe, consensual sex with as many partners as she pleases is wrong if that number goes beyond a vague, uncertain and constantly shifting point. Slut-shaming perpetuates the idea that if a woman is dressing like a “slut” or commits actions that fall within the “slut” paradigm, then she is asking to be raped.
I’m sure women who struggle with body image, those ridiculed by their peers and society and survivors of sexual assault do not care about what slut-shaming does to their availability in his “marketplace.”
The greatest travesty Priester attributes to the patriarchy, a travesty that gravely oppresses both men and women, is its ability to act as a “cock-block like no other.”
Yep. Sure. The patriarchy is a cock-block. I understand and would like to apologize that the following examination of actual patriarchal oppression will be a general one. I just don’t think I have the knowledge and ability to truly dive into the oppression’s many intersections of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, age, etc.
Saying the worst thing about the patriarchy is that it is a “cock-block” is so terribly offensive and disrespectful to countless people who are constantly oppressed by the patriarchy and the hurtful notions it perpetuates. The patriarchy leads not only to slut-shaming but also to the regulation of a woman’s reproductive organs, the disassembling of female-centric health care services, the notion of a woman existing only to please a man socially and sexually, differences in pay based on gender, and the disparity between the number of women versus men in STEM fields, politics and other arenas. And this is without looking at the oppression’s multiple intersections.
While men are faced with problems created by the patriarchy, they go much deeper than a man’s ability to find a sexual partner in the “marketplace.” Priester is not wrong when he says that the patriarchy is bad for everyone. I agree it “may be the most evil construct that is still socially acceptable,” but the reasons he cites are far from the problems at hand.
These problems are brought up without fully representing the myriad intersections of oppression. Because of patriarchy, single fathers are seen as unfit for child care, as the role of caregiver is traditionally held by women. Because of patriarchy, a man, young or old, entering a park with a young child will be seen as creepy, untrustworthy or as a possible pedophile because of this same notion that women are caregivers. Because of the patriarchy, sexual abuse against men is often unreported because of the man’s fear of appearing weak or feminine. This also ties into the fact that reported abuses may not be taken seriously because of the distorted idea that men cannot be raped. So yes, the patriarchy is bad for everyone, but it is far from “screwing men just as much as women.”
As someone who identifies as a cisgender male — identifying with my biological sex — the same identification I believe Priester holds, I am a beneficiary of the patriarchy, as is Priester. The patriarchy has helped us throughout our lives in ways unvailable to women. It’s possible that in writing his piece, Priester was ill-informed and naive to the ways it reinforced patriarchal notions and diminished the impact and severity of patriarchal oppression.
If that is the case, I hope he becomes aware of these problems and attempts to educate himself on the issues. I understand navigating this struggle may not directly affect him, but it can be a confusing undertaking. However, if this is not the case, then I hope Priester realizes he is nothing more than a misogynistic perpetrator of patriarchal notions — a member of the exclusive, wretched club he considers to be “archaic and inhumane.”
Contrary to what the column states, the patriarchy is not the “remnants” of a “bygone system.” It is alive and well, affecting women and men alike, acting as a constant influence in society, and it needs to be dismantled by women and men alike to fully erase its effects.
Sean Patrick Forsythe is a junior theatre major. He can be reached at sforsyth@terpmail.umd.edu.