A patriarchy is a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. The bad news is, we live in a patriarchy. And what are the effects of the patriarchy? In this weeks segment we asked how the patriarchy affects your daily lives, from from being able to wear certain clothes, to being told to ‘smile more’, to being too scared to travel alone. We discuss how much we relate to a lot of daily occupancy of inequality, and how sad it is that we do.

There are many problems with the patriarchy, and infinite ways it shows up in our daily lives. Some things are more deeply engrained: like the emphasis on female beauty standards and expectations that negatively impact women’s self perception and self worth. Other issues are more about what women are taught- to be polite, to be mothers, to be submissive- and the ways in which we adopt these roles ourselves.

Touching briefly on family dynamics, we talk about the examples we were set growing up, and the kinds of future we could have when we were older, as well as how perhaps we have internalised sexism, limiting ourselves and our capabilities.

We talk about how the patriarchy even affects our sex lives, although perhaps sometimes it won’t seem like a feminist issue or like something that is a result of the patriarchy, like finding it difficult to say no to sex. However, we establish that it impacts everything, especially the way men and women interact. We break down some of the pressures that we felt sexually with men that perhaps we haven’t felt with women, and how with men we fall into a position of submission.

Ultimately, even though the patriarchy fucks us in many ways every day, we understand that in order to break all of these systems down we need to ourselves be aware of our misogyny and call men out on theirs. Let’s start now, this Women’s History Month. And let’s go and SMASH the patriarchy!!

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Produced by Mable Productions

Original music by Sacha Puttnam

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