Been thinking about the “Patriarchy Hurts Men” conversation that comes up more and more, and how it is sometimes offered as a counterpoint to the assertion that “Patriarchy Benefits Men”. I think both are true, but in very different ways.
There are lots of situations where we, collectively, recognize some Good Thing as also being damaging in other ways. Take conversations about how the children of the wealthy — slathered in money, living lives of leisure — do not grow and mature the way we feel good people should.
Sometimes the benefits/harms are both concrete, other times the benefit is obvious and the harm is subtle and “spiritual” in nature. Lots of writing has been done on how oppressors are invisibly tainted and damaged by their acts, while the oppressed visibly, tangibly suffer.
Individuals don’t have to consciously, willingly participate in those systems to be affected by them — in a society defined by white supremacy, for example, I can’t disavow whiteness and “start from scratch” like a rich kid donating his inheritance and working for a living.
So… I think there is a lot of tension around these two ideas (“patriarchy hurts/helps men”) because there is a real tendency to for the “patriarchy hurts” conversation to become just another variation of “Actually, it’s really hard being GUY, too!”
That same tendency has been an ongoing critique of the “oppressive structures harm both groups” analysis as long as I’ve read about it. It’s not that there isn’t truth in it, but that the nature of oppressive structures is always to push responsibility away from those “on top.”
So yeah. Patriarchal systems genuinely harm men — we are often treated as bodies to be mulched for war and commerce, we are taught that anger and stoicism are our emotional ideals, we’re mocked if we enjoy anything “feminine” (and taught to do the same to others)
…And yet, in exchange for those things we are given things that the system continually tries to steal from women. Autonomy, recognition, respect, the expectation of safety in normal circumstances…
None of those things are universal —that is, patriarchy is no so all-encompassing and totalizing that No Woman Has Ever Been Safe and No Man Has Ever Been Disrespected. But the tilt of the system is clear and unmistakable.
That’s what we — as guys who give a shit about untangling and dismantling these harmful systems — need to figure out how to see both sides of.