Patriarchy

I have to say that, before reading The Gender Knot, I truly believed men (at least the men I've come to know) to be incredibly selfish, domineering, control freaks. Turns out I am indeed correct, but apparently it is much more complicated than that. Okay, so I cannot say that all men have this ridiculous, insensitive nature, however, there is credence to this stereotypical "tool" phenomenon. I have personally experienced multiple relationships (romantic and platonic) where the man's character was analogous to that of the quintessential chauvinist; certain passages in this excerpt really help to explain this bizarre behavior. Knot:

          "If men want to be seen and acknowledged by others, it will be through what they do and how well they live up to the standards of patriarchal manhood. This affects both individual men and patriarchy as a system, for men's focus on themselves and women's focus on others reinforce patriarchy's male-identified, male-centered aspects. These, in turn, support male dominance by making it easier for men to concentrate on enhancing and protecting their own status." (p 6)

In other words, this passage really cleared a lot up for me-in simple terms, it is not the fault of the boys/men being raised. It is the fact of being raised within a society that believes in, and continues to perpetuate, a patriarchal society. And this happens by the older generation raising and teaching the younger generation ideals that come from a time when this attitude was accepted. I realize, now, that anything we opposed at one time will take a great deal of time to completely accept. To this day we still see racism, however, it was 50+ years ago that the movement to end racism began. Sure, we tend to be politically correct, especially regarding the media and pop culture, but underneath the surface it still exists.

Obviously, the same goes for the feminist movement. Knot: "Every social system has a certain amount of give in it that allows some change to occur, and in the process leaves deep structures untouched and even invisible." As a society, we don't want to delve deeper into the root of a problem, because it is uncomfortable and unnerving, therefore, we pretend to "deal" with it while actually ignoring the real truth.