"Trapped in the Birdcage of Patriarchy"

The readings this week were really enlightening. The first one entitled Patriarchy my Johnson really help me to understand this system of patriarchy and how it functions. Although we participate in this system we ourselves are not patriarchy. I liked how the reading said that when we challenge these ideas that the systems says are okay and we are in fact helping to deconstruct these notions. When we decide to speak out and to not take the path of least resistance we can in fact change the system itself. The evil that comes from this system exists because good people do nothing. "In other words, when people step off the path of least resistance, they have the potential not simply to change other people, but to alter the way the system itself happens." This system is ingrained in all of us from birth through socialization. This socialization teaches us how to participate in these social systems. The reason this is a issue is because we treat everything in this society on an individualized basis instead of seeing it as a fundamental system that works as a structure despite the people who live in it.

The second reading about the term oppression and seeing women as oppressed really struck a cord with me. I had never heard a man say he was oppressed unless he was apart of a minority group too so to hear that men claim to be oppressed as well is news to me. That I feels lessens the word oppression and also it's meaning. I compared it to my Black Diaspora class when all the white students said that they all could be considered black since the oldest human remains were found in Africa then technically we are all black. My professor proceeded to say that everyone could not claim to be black because it would discount the struggles of black people. The same I feel with this reading that if the oppressors themselves say they are actually oppressed as well that discounts the struggles face by women and other oppressed groups. The birdcage analogy was really effective in helping me understand how oppression and likewise patriarchy work. By looking at an individual situation you cannot see how it can be oppressive but if you add up all the situations in which women are oppressed it puts in to perspective how the oppression works as a system. The small things that men do that the article says is not gallant but in fact reinforces this system and puts women down goes to show that this system of patriarchy has infiltrated the way of life for all of us and most of our actions are done in our response to the socialization of American society.