E 341 Lecture Notes - Gender Variance, Heterosexism, Heteronormativity
Document Summary
From greek: patria meaning father and arch meaning rule. So, the most basic level of relevance is the family unit, which is the building block of social order. But also, the family is the realm where individuals might in today"s world feel the limitations of that definition. A social system that privileges men over women it can have different manifestations: on the individual level, collective or cultural level, legal and/or institutional level. In a patriarchy, male members of a society tend to predominate in positions of power; with the more powerful the position, the more likely it is that a male will hold that position. Patriarchy need not be reduced to essentializations such as all men are exploitative or all women are victimized. Patriarchy is not a stable, unchanging state its lineaments are constantly shifting historically, geographically and in specific inter-personal interactions. But it persists more or less virulently in pockets of contemporary existence.
