Smash the Patriarchy: A totally appropriate self-affirming coloring book: 1 (Totally Appropriate Series)

Product Information

Every year, between November 25 — the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women — and December 10 — International Human Rights Day — there are 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence. Too many women, with higher degrees and years of work experience, simply give up because it is so hard to “have it all.” Of those parents who did not work outside of the home in the United States in 2016, 78 percent of mothers reported they didn’t work because they were taking care of their home and family. For women, who generally earn less than men and who societies expect to provide more unpaid care work, it makes rational sense in economies with few social safety nets to embrace what social scientists call “hypergamy,” or the desire to marry up and find a partner who can and will support them. This practice reinforces the traditions of patrilineality and patrilocality because the man remains the “head of household.” And even in couples where wives earn more than their husbands, women still bear a disproportionately larger share of household tasks, which is why so many pine for new domestic arrangements. However, just because there is a general absence of these more direct or coercive manifestations of oppressing women, arguably does not render “patriarchal attitudes” absent. In fact, by avoiding using “patriarchal attitudes” in some concluding observations but not in others, the CEDAW Committee are painting a limiting picture of what a “patriarchal” state looks like. For the purposes of interpreting obligations under the Convention, the CEDAW Committee does not appear to be utilising the concept of “patriarchy” as a system of power. The meaning of patriarchy as utilised by the Committee aligns itself with the limited interpretation as the overt subordination of women by men. Limiting patriarchy to mean culture and “harmful traditional practices” in this way risks othering and exotifying patriarchy itself. This usage of patriarchy is also a far cry from the meaning as conceptualised by some notable feminist theorists and activists, such as bell hooks. Patriarchal societies tend to be built around the perceived biological differences between men and women, but most sociologists argue that the patriarchy is an entirely social construct. Traditionally, men are supposed to be independent, strong, logical, secure and unemotional whereas women are supposed to be dependant, emotional and weak. However, these roles were made for stability, consumption and production not for fulfilling relationships of happiness, respect and intimacy. Like I said before, it can be exhausting battling sexism day in and day out. The members of Mommy Long Legs have their own wonderful antidote for this: humour.

And yet, only a tiny percent (between 0 and 8%) of individual men and women turn out to have a typically “male” or “female” brain. Most people are somewhere in the middle, and whether someone has skills for maths, spatial awareness, leadership or any other gendered attribute can not be predicted from knowing their sex, as multiple studies have shown. Anatomically and cognitively, there are more differences within the two sexes than between them.

Useful resources:

We've got to include this classic! While the riot grrrlmovementwas by no means without its problems (intersectionality was not exactly its focus), Bikini Kill remains a watershed band in terms of female empowerment. When a class of people is oppressed by another, the former has every right to be angered by it. In fact, to expect anything other than anger is profoundly ignorant. Yeah, and I just want to say that I feel like a lot of the time we put a ton of pressure on ourselves. Like I remember, I invited over my partner's relatives, and on a Friday night for dinner, and we had gone to their house for like Russia Shauna. So I'm used to like seeing them in this big kind of feast context. And so then, the day before, the mom was like, Hey, can we bring hollow bread? It's Shabbat. She gets up every Friday like our daughter gets every Friday. I like freaked out. I was like, Oh my god, wait, Shabbat dinner. Like what exactly does that mean? What do I need to do? And I made this like, elaborate feast and like, was literally dripping with sweat by the time they got home and my partner had worked late. So when he came in, I was like a dragon like screaming at him because I had done all this work. And like, maybe during Yeah, during the dinner, the dad was like, oh, wow, this is like so nice. Like that done. He's like, we would have been happy with pizza. I was just like, smile grimacing, like, Why? Why did I do that? I think it's just that remembering that we don't need to be perfect. We don't need to put as much pressure on ourselves that we do. And I think that that's kind of a part of undoing some of what we've learned is just not getting so worked up to be kind of showing off this perfect household or this perfect dinner. Like I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves, because that's what society has told us to do. Like, when my friends come over, I like freak out. And I'm like cleaning. And it's just like, why? And it's just like, Oh, well, I don't want them to think that we're just complete slobs. And also I know that deep down, if they were going to judge someone for a messy home, it would be neat. Not that they necessarily would. But just because you know, the house is the is the woman's domain, you know, so just want to kind of point that out.

Yeah. And it's such like a self fulfilling prophecy, particularly for entrepreneurs, I've had so many friends who have started a business, and then, you know, they'll say, Well, my husband's making more money. And so I'm gonna, you know, it doesn't make sense for me to take time to work on the weekends, because or, you know, whatever it might be, because he's making more money. And so he needs me to be with the kids. I'm like, Well, you know, your business is never gonna make more money. If you continue to say, Well, I can't work on it, because it's not making enough money. And so it's just this vicious cycle that we get trapped in. If for those listening, who do have a partner, how can we ensure the division of household and invisible labor is equitable? Kathleen Hanna (vocals),Tobi Vail (drums), Kathi Wilcox (bass), and Billy Karren(guitar) came together in the town of Olympia, Washington to start a revolution (or Revolution Girl Style Now! as their 1991 demo was called). They wanted to make feminism accessible in a time when people were saying the movement was dead, and they ended up givinghope to teenage girls everywhere who were fed up with the harassment they experienced in school, on the street, and at shows. Identify as a feminist, and educate people that feminism simply means equal rights for all genders not “hating men” or less rights for men There is no evidence that women are any less capable of the jobs and social positions that men predominantly hold. When women are given the opportunity to hold “male” roles, they show themselves to be equally proficient. Researchers recently calculated that it was bias against women, not under-representation, that accounts for the gender distribution seen in the Nobel prizes, for instance. Women are not less intelligent, less logical or less able than men. The roots of patriarchy, in other words, cannot be found in our biology. Patriarchy is partially rooted in the cultural and legal traditions of patrilineality (paternal descent) and patrilocality (where wives leave their natal kin to join a husband’s family). These twin forces still operate in the daily lives of billions of people and maintain a distinct lingering influence even in contemporary cultures that see themselves as more “enlightened” with regards to the traditional family. We can’t undermine patriarchy without dealing first with these two less familiar concepts: patrilineality and patrilocality. PatrilinealityIn contrast to men who prioritize their own professional ambitions, the study noted that the number one reason women academics gave for refusing an external offer of employment was that their male partners were not offered appropriate employment at the new location. The availability of a job for their partners outweighed other key considerations such as salary, benefits, research funds, or opportunities for promotion. And since getting a decent raise in academia usually requires moving to a new university, women’s relative immobility exacerbates the gender pay gap. Patriarchy is as old as our religion and religious texts. Just like we all have a religious text in our houses and a religion assigned to our identity, we have patriarchy dictating the terms of our life. So the first step towards dismantling patriarchy is to start the conversation of equality and feminism and make it familiar to your inmates. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.