Thread: DO you think there is a patriarchy in the U.S?

Originally Posted by Alric

It seems kind of silly to think that women don't want to be in politics and don't want a say in how the country is ran. Women were banned from even voting. There are still women alive today who weren't allowed to vote due to their gender, and who grew up in a time where the idea of women in politics was ridiculed. Thinking that all the institutions that promoted politics as being for men only would disappear instantly in the moment they were allowed to vote is silly.

Seeing as how the US has a very long history of being a patriarchy and it was only a short time ago that women were even given a chance, I think it is pretty important to look at the old systems of patriarchy that still remain that might be causing the problem. Saying, they probably are just not interested is kind of a lazy answer.

Yeah, 100 years is such a short time. To be fair, we should wait until the next Mayan Baktun cycle for women to start to feel comfortable enough to want to participate more.

Originally Posted by GavinGill

I didn't mean to say that women are discouraged from participating, just that politics isn't presented as something that's inherently "for women."

I should stop here, because I'm actually having trouble understanding the meaning of this sentence. Are you saying that politics must now be explicitly for women only? What about men?

Originally Posted by GavinGill

Discouraging them would be intentional, and we don't live in a society that intentionally undermines women.

So our society unintentionally undermines women? If it's unintentional, why are we even talking about it? Clearly it's not the result of human agency and is just nature then, like women not having penises.

Originally Posted by GavinGill

It's not that women don't want to be involved with politics at all, just that there's a smaller number of women that are interested (or able to, for one reason or another) in participating than there are men.

I don't know what you mean by "able to", but yes there appears to be a smaller number of women who are interested. Are you saying that their choices are wrong?

Originally Posted by GavinGill

That's a given, no? If there are hardly any women in the system, then how is the system going to effectively represent the rest of the female population?

Women have the right to vote for whomever best represents them. Am I to be held responsible for (unintentionally??) making women vote for men who don't represent them (in your opinion, based solely on the gender of the politician, which is in itself very sexist)?