I went out with a dude recently who, when we were discussing where we’d go to dinner said straight out, “Just so you know, I’m paying for everything.” I raised an eyebrow—he’s plenty aware of my feminist sensibilities—and he joked: “Consider it reparations for the Patriarchy.” I actually laughed out loud and told him that if I’d known that ahead of time, I would have made us reservations at the most expensive restaurant in town, because the P owed me way more than the low-key dinner I’d planned at a neighborhood restaurant.
When I talked with some of my girlfriends about the date, I asked them: What other reparations should we get from the Patriarchy?
The answers, in no particular order:
- Free health care, especially reproductive health care.
- A lifetime of therapy and/or anti-depressants.
- “Funding my master’s degree, because the Patriarchy is especially harsh on women in science.”
- “Paying for my kids’ education, since sexist employment policies meant taking a salary cut so that I could have a 9 to 5 schedule while raising them.”
- “10 solid minutes of cunnilingus three times a week or more, to make up for all the men who thought their pleasure was more important than mine.”
- “A maid service. With male cleaners. Preferably white ones.”
What would be your ideal form of reparations from the Patriarchy?
This is going to sound stupidly sappy, but I just this weekend listened to an interview with Peggy Orenstein about her most recent book Cinderella Ate My Daughter and it made me want to throw all the things. Basically, as reparations for living in a world of binary/oppositional gender oppression I’d want the promise of every adult that they’ll do everything they can not to pass on toxic gender essentialist roles to their children, and the promise that kids will be encouraged to develop whatever kind of sex, gender, and sexual expression they feel most accurately reflects them. I’ve seen too many little boys having the nurturing quashed out of them, and too many little girls fearful they’re fat and unattractive at, you know, the age of FIVE. I hate that we’re perpetuating that shit into future generations.
Absolutely what annajcok said. Simply just CHANGING that for the future generations might be reparation enough to make up for me having dealt with it.
But, reversible vasectomies sure would be nice, too. IUDs are damn uncomfortable, and does anyone REALLY want to be on hormonal birth control?
OT – this patriarchy convo is just an awesome idea tho – but Anna please give your take on that book in another column!
As to what reparations, I dunno, no clue. I am sure that you will give me some great ideas though.
Equal high quality education for all US citizens, with oversight of the by enlightened progressive fully qualified dedicated people with no hidden agendas.
@annaj- This….A million times over. Now that I’m an aunt I’m a lot more aware of kids’ toys, books, shows, etc, and it just makes me ragey to see the gender politics in there. It makes me ever more ragey when adults get all defensive about it and start yapping about things being hardwired. (uh yeah, if it’s so hardwired why do we even need to genderify things?) For a related read, I recommend “Delusions of Gender” by Cordelia Fine.
For myself, personally, I’d like a retroactive pay increase and a tenured position at a R1 university, based on the simple observation that my male peers with comparable or weaker CV’s and recommendations had no trouble getting jobs or getting tenure. Sadly, in my subfield I was about 15-20 years too early for parity in interviewing or hiring.
I’d also like some free therapy to help me get over my “U R Doin It Wrong” issues, most of which arose from my repeated headbutting with the patriarchy.
An admission by every male on this planet that women’s health care should be decided by women and that abortion, in particular, is NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS, SO STFU. Yeah, I’m pretty pissed off this morning.
Since I and almost all of my female friends are looking for jobs right now that allow a balance of personal and work life without having to dumb ourselves down or earn less money, I would want reparations in the form of challenging, highly paid, rewarding, but not all-consuming work.
blindirishpirate, there are actually a lot of people who would want to be on hormonal birth control – women who suffer from severe periods and women such as myself who seem to be one-pill-a-day away from depression, for example.
Yeah, I know hormonal birth control isn’t right for everyone, but I am very happy with BCP and know many women who take it therapeutically to protect them from endometriosis, anemia and PMDD. I don’t have those problems, but I also like how not ovulating increases my odds of long-term fertility and also protects me from ovarian cancer. The Patriarchy should give it to me for free. If you don’t have health insurance, that shit is expensive.
oh yeah, I’d also like to see everyone STFU about other people’s looks/weight. Y’all can think whatever you want, but shut up plz. It just propagates patriarchal bullshit and people internalize it.
Support for more women candidates in leadership roles in local, state, and federal government.
Hiring more women in leadership positions in business and education.
Allowing women into professional baseball.
I always felt like my parents should pay for my lifetime of therapy and antidepressants…
How about free child care and actual paid maternity and paternity leave? And free health care with mental health parity?
As to the BCP issue – I’m on the pill because I get terrible PMS that takes the form of raging self-hatred, so I just take my pills continuously (no placebo week) and it has made a HUGE difference for me.
Hell, even with health insurance hormonal BC is expensive if you need a name brand product! There is no generic ring, but even low-dose pills gave me migraines. Being on the ring is basically the lowest dose you can take, because you don’t have to worry about stomach acid destroying some of the hormones. And even with my totally awesome insurance (dad is a public school teacher) my co-pay is still $40/ring. With my mail order pharmacy, I can get 3 rings for 2 co-pays, but I still need 13/year. That means I spend $320/yr on my BC, plus an extra $80 every third year.
So the Patriarchy can pay for my hugely expensive BC, please. Also, make sure that when I get that first job, that I am making the same as my male peers in similar roles, so that I’m not behind on salary for the rest of my life. That would be nice.
The UK patriarchy does pay for my hormonal birth control, thankyou UK! Or at least, pill prescriptions are free, I *think* it’s the same for all birth control.
On my hometown reunion FB site all the women are lamenting having to take Home Economics in school over Shop like us dudes, so they want free Wood Shop/Car Repair etc classes retroactively!
Joe, me too!
NN, why baseball in particular?
Ah, ok, I concede. Sorry for generalizing on the hormonal birth control account.
I’d also like to see everyone STFU about other people’s looks/weight
I second (and third!) this…I really, really hate the amount of body/gender/looks policing I witness in the world. I hate the judgyness other people feel entitled to exercise toward other peoples’ lives.
@rodriguez request noted! I haven’t actually read “Cinderella” yet, but after listening to the interview I may need to. I don’t usually get into moral panics about consumer marketing, but she makes a compelling case for girls’ (and boys) conception of gender being truly constrained by the incessant marketing.
@annimal love love LOVE “Delusions of Gender,” along with Rebecca Jordan-Young’s “BrainStorm,” which is much more academic/dense but super worth the read if you want to know how all the research on gender difference is actually done (and what’s crap about the methods used).
I’ve said for many years (to myself, mostly), that our government and officials need to be 100% women run equal to the time that it has been run by men. Once that time period is over, it should be 50/50.
…….just 10 minutes?!
I would insist on a salary match. The big P will have to pay me the exact same per pay cheque as my employer, just for the trouble of being a female breadwinner.
Amongst other things, paying all the stay-at-home moms for the actual value of the work they did/do.
Full-time, high-quality, state-sponsored daycare. Since women are working more, for less pay, someone needs to take good care of the kiddos. And if it’s not entirely state-funded, it should be 100% tax deductible!
More sci-fi with strong women (yay Fringe!), and less with skinned space babes.
More than one female rockstar at a time
3 action films a year that pass the Bechdel test
The right to walk down the streets at night without worrying about being raped
Decent maths teaching at girl’s schools
*green skinned sapce babes