Will "the patriarchy" ever go away? Perhaps that depends on your view of human - and masculine - nature. If men and women are "essentially the same", then there is no reason why it could not go away, given the right circumstances. In fact, some would argue that it already has gone away, more or less, in a great number or countries. And yet, it keeps reappearing all the time - fashionably put, "the power structure keeps reproducing itself", despite social reforms intent on eradicating differences in power and indeed behavior between the sexes. Just as socialism could not eradiacte class inequality (although for a time it seemed to be succeeding), feminism does not seem able to get rid of gender roles, aspiring patriarchs or anti-feminist women.
In this article, Apoorva Sripathi identifies the "Brocialist" as a specimen of man who, outwardly progressive, behaves as a jerk toward women in private. Harvey Weinstein is one example. In a Swedish context, Fredrik Virtanen is another: a self-proclaimed feminist journalist who stands accused of rape and sexual assaults. A third one (also Swedish) would be the comedian Soran Ismail, also accused of rape during the MeToo campaign, since aquitted, but still judged since "everyone knows" that he is guilty. Whatever the case, he has publicly made highly disrespectful ("sexist" in modern parlance) jokes towards women, which in itself is enough to include him in the category. Thus he once commented during a gala on a duo of young female artists (Rebecca & Fiona): "They are favorites of mine, partly because I love their music, and partly because I have a fantasy about a three-way with Rebecca and anyone." Seemingly, the reason why he can say this is because a) he is a feminist, which means that he automatically respects women, and b) since he basically does respect women, and because men and women are supposed to be truly equal now, why could he not make such a joke? After all, a woman could (in theory) make such a joke without being labelled a sexist, couldn't she? Therefore, in the worldview of the Brocialist, men and women are essentially the same, and a joke about a threeway directed at a vulnerable, young woman is merely friendly. We are all just friends now, right? Nevertheless, below this public worldview lies another one, where Ismail and his likes understand deeply that a) there are differences, and b) in this being-different-from-men, they do not respect women in the least. They can (sometimes) respect women as friends, but not as women.
Yet perhaps that is precisely what is needed, regardless of how "reactionary" it will be deemed by some. Men need to respect women as women, as mothers, sisters, daughters and in a sense as goddesses. Let every man who automatically classifies women into "available" and "unavailable" shift his focus from the earthly womanliness of a particular woman to the divine femininity of all.
In this article, Apoorva Sripathi identifies the "Brocialist" as a specimen of man who, outwardly progressive, behaves as a jerk toward women in private. Harvey Weinstein is one example. In a Swedish context, Fredrik Virtanen is another: a self-proclaimed feminist journalist who stands accused of rape and sexual assaults. A third one (also Swedish) would be the comedian Soran Ismail, also accused of rape during the MeToo campaign, since aquitted, but still judged since "everyone knows" that he is guilty. Whatever the case, he has publicly made highly disrespectful ("sexist" in modern parlance) jokes towards women, which in itself is enough to include him in the category. Thus he once commented during a gala on a duo of young female artists (Rebecca & Fiona): "They are favorites of mine, partly because I love their music, and partly because I have a fantasy about a three-way with Rebecca and anyone." Seemingly, the reason why he can say this is because a) he is a feminist, which means that he automatically respects women, and b) since he basically does respect women, and because men and women are supposed to be truly equal now, why could he not make such a joke? After all, a woman could (in theory) make such a joke without being labelled a sexist, couldn't she? Therefore, in the worldview of the Brocialist, men and women are essentially the same, and a joke about a threeway directed at a vulnerable, young woman is merely friendly. We are all just friends now, right? Nevertheless, below this public worldview lies another one, where Ismail and his likes understand deeply that a) there are differences, and b) in this being-different-from-men, they do not respect women in the least. They can (sometimes) respect women as friends, but not as women.
Yet perhaps that is precisely what is needed, regardless of how "reactionary" it will be deemed by some. Men need to respect women as women, as mothers, sisters, daughters and in a sense as goddesses. Let every man who automatically classifies women into "available" and "unavailable" shift his focus from the earthly womanliness of a particular woman to the divine femininity of all.
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