I think I’ve seen enough definitions of ‘patriarchy’ to fill a dictionary of its own. It’s the world’s ultimate super villain. It’s stigmatising body hair, it’s causing men to kill themselves, it’s removing rights from fathers and taking the pockets from women’s clothing. It’s a 20% wage cut on women’s payslip, and it’s stopping them from becoming engineers. It’s putting men in power, taking them out of it, and throwing them onto the streets. It does everything, everywhere, and fucks everything right up, for everybody. Global warming? Patriarchy. Wealth inequality? Patriarchy. Racism? Patriarchy. Male violence? Patriarchy. Female violence? Ah shit well the patriarchy made her do it. But words that mean so much, also mean nothing. It’s all fun and games really, buy into whatever world view you like – but the problem is ‘the patriarchy’ is being used to dissect and address incredibly complex societal problems, where it fixes nothing and only wastes time, money and resources. It’s at the centre of our politics, it's the ink that writes intervention strategies, and the boring bluster from our politicians. Perhaps most of all its the fraudulent lens through which we view domestic violence… So let’s have a look ~ Risk Factors Bates and Graham-Kevin Felson and Outlaw Straus Pence Illustration by Gan Khoon Lay from the Noun Project. Images by Gradienta and Cesar Carlevarino from Unsplash.

2022-09-27