The patriarchy is more or less like climate change: some of us are completely aware of it and others refuse to believe it exists. In fact, I’m sure some of you agree that climate change was invented by the Chinese (and the pictures of the polar bears on top of isolated chunks of ice or the fact that is 70 degrees in December isn’t going to help you change your mind).
So today, my fellow friends, I’m going to try to explain the patriarchy to you in a very easy and fun way! Perfect for every age and every gender! Let’s get started.
Imagine you’re a guy (notice if you’re a guy I’m putting things easy for you, I don’t want you to have to try too hard to get this).
So, okay, you’re a guy.
Obviously since the moment you were born you were told that girls hit you and humiliate you in the playground because they like you. Also, you got in trouble VERY MANY times for doing stuff that just wasn’t appropriate for gentlemen like you (like trying to speak for yourself or to have an opinion). You were never told you had leadership abilities. Basically all you were was too bossy. And no girl likes a bossy and opinionated guy.
Christmas was your favorite time of the year. Every present you ever got was completely dedicated to conform who you would become when you got older. So no cars, no microscopes in case you had science inquisitiveness… No. You got dolls, kitchen kits and babies and all their accessories. After all, we all know the only thing you can do with your life is clean around the household and inseminate girls so that you’ll have as many children as possible. And then, take care of them.
Middle school… Oh man, it was hard for you. Every single day you were told how you weren’t enough.
Not pretty enough, not tall enough, not skinny enough… You’d never find a girlfriend like this. And that’s your only goal in life. To be accepted by women.
Every movie, TV show and series you watched portrayed women of all shapes and sizes (curvy, short, fat, ugly, old…) next to guys who ALWAYS had the same pattern. Tall, fit, with perfect abs, young… And handsome. I mean, we can so easily see this in Gloria and Jay, from “Modern Family”, Tyrion and every girl he’s ever been with in “Game of Thrones”, Marge and Homer from “The Simpsons”, Philip and Hillary Banks in “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”… Obviously you hate yourself. And you cry. And you start exercising like crazy, eating as little as possible, maybe even sometimes you throw up after you eat. I mean, you have to be perfect. That’s what they’ve taught you.
Then you entered high-school and you became officially a teenager. Who you liked, what you wore and who you kissed were everyone’s business. Specially if you kissed too many girls, let alone you decided to be in charge of your body and have sex with someone you wanted to have sex with.
Every girl is praised for doing this (they’re called champions, bosses…). But you aren’t. Because you’re a slut, bitch, whore… Because now that you aren’t a virgin you are a piece of shit. No girl likes a guy who has been already inside of someone else. And you assume this so much you start thinking you aren’t worth it.
So you stop valuing yourself and accept to be in a relationship with someone who insults you and sometimes she even hits you. And she always threatens you saying if you leave her, she’s going to kill herself. Because you, with how sensitive and kind you are, you can make her change, and she will be yours forever.
And remember this one time you were walking around campus in your Nike shorts and shirtless (c’mon, it was a 100 degrees outside) and this girl screamed at you how bad she wanted to fuck you? And you got scared of walking home alone and always had to ask your friends to go with you and wait until you had opened the door and you were safe inside.
But you can’t complain. You are a guy. You are supposed to take this kind of things. Even that time you got drunk at that party and all the girl friends of your cousin thought it was funny to undress you and take pictures of you. And text them to every other girl friend they had.
One of them even got inside of your bed and forced you. Or maybe she didn’t? I mean, after all, you didn’t say no. Who cares if you were too drunk to even articulate a sentence?
But maybe you think this isn’t okay. So you reach out for help. And you find out about this movement called “malinism” that tries to show everyone that what has happened to you isn’t okay, and that many other men around the world suffer this too.
But then you’re humiliated by society. They make you think you are overreacting. So what if you got raped? So what if you are bulimic because of the pressure to be the perfect man? So what if you can’t show your shoulders in school because girls get distracted? So what if you can’t walk home alone? So what if girls touch your butt every time you’re peacefully dancing in the club? YOU. ARE. OVERREACTING.
Oh, wow. We all agree it is really hard to be a man living under this awful matriarchy, right?
Well, now change all the “men” for “women”, all the “guy” for “girl”, all the “he” for “she”… And vice versa. Now let me know if you think all this stuff is normal and happening every day in every country.
Oh, IT ACTUALLY IS. And we don’t seem to have a problem with it.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, that is the patriarchy.