In this blog, I will observe the effects that the oppressive system called patriarchy has on the male entity. I tend to always throw advice in my blog, but in this post, I will only comment and view rather than instruct. I will also not generalize on the male entity as it can bring negative comments.
Co Attributor: Sabelo Dlamini. (@sabelo_jay_dlamini)
My female friends always tell me that they struggle to understand men. "That men just don't get it", or "men are so hard to understand". But are they really? Are we as women not giving the time to see how patriarchy, [a system that oppress both women and men but allows for men to be superior] in fact lets men be difficult on themselves? I shall elaborate.
Let's start first by confirming that patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body. However most men do not use the word patriarchy in everyday life, I am pretty sure they do not how it is created and sustained, or even how to spell it. Men who usually associate the word patriarchy, tend to associate it with the bra burning, radical feminists, But I digress. 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 to maintain their power. Now based on that definition, I shall observe how this oppressive system is self-harming to the male entity.
We are aware that women's role in society is to serve, to be weak, to be free from the burden of thinking, to caretake and nurture others. Men's role in society is to be served, to provide, to be strong, to think, strategize, and plan. Men are taught that their value would be determined by his will to do violence (albeit in appropriate settings). Men are taught not to express their feelings. We can argue how these roles in the 21st century have changed, but let's stick to the traditional roles.
What happens when men do not fulfill these roles? How does society attack the outlier? Now many men admit that they have been brought up in a household that does not instill patriarchal values. My one friend even mentioned how he was allowed to play with barbie dolls, but that it was the society that initiated him into patriarchy values. When men e been initiated into patriarchy, we force them to feel pain and to deny their feelings. Although I might not have enough personal stories to share, it can be accepted that the tyrannical power of patriarchy still holds us captive.
It is also important to observe that patriarchal thinkers are common to females and males and that the male entity is not the only entity to sustain patriarchal values. Most of us learned patriarchal attitudes in our family of origin, and they were usually taught to us by our mothers. Still to this day, my mom frowns upon the fact that I have the skill to connect the amplifier to other devices, but will praise me when I am cleaning, cooking and washing. From home, these patriarchal attitudes are reinforced in schools and religious institutions. Since 2002, women were only allowed to be ordained to be priests and deacons. Weird. We can not assume that men are the sole teachers of patriarchal thinking.
The silence promotes our denial. We can not deny, that men do oppress women. We can not deny that women promote patriarchal values. We can not deny that this oppressive system allows for the domination of men to prosper in society. Now, we as a "woke" generation need to come up with solutions to address how to enlighten men and break their shackles from the mental and psychological oppression. We are so quick to scream "foul" for racial injustices, but when our sisters and brothers are being beaten, raped and marginalized by a social system, we remain silent. WE can not remain silent anymore. I will not stand for the future generation to fall to this system, we need to do something for both entities.
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