Unfinished post from...a month ago?

I’m on to a new book called The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy by Allan G. Johnson.

Johnson’s approach more closely reflects my own feelings about gender and privilege. He goes to great lengths to unpack how “patriarchy” is not the same as “men”, not even “all men”. It is a system of social organization, the system in which we all participate. And that system privileges people who are male over people who are not, based on nothing more than their perceived gender. He also says some important things about privilege--namely that you cannot opt out. Privilege is conferred on a person by their society, so they cannot simply make the choice to abdicate that privilege, unless they actively work to change the system that bestows it. He also points out that lasting change can only be achieved by altering the system in total, rather than the individuals operating within it.
That, however, is precisely the way that gender relations are dealt with in our society, as Johnson points out--great pains are taken to analyze individuals and their motivations and psychologies, as if they are rogue malcontents operating in a social vacuum. From his own experience he discusses how groups charged with public education and social action to reduce domestic violence were unwilling to address patriarchy as a system...”it would make a lot of men angry.” The alternative--allowing a lot of women to continue to be hurt.
He asks a really great question: if patriarchy is, in fact, just the nature of things, why does it take so much effort to keep going? Why is the process of assimilation so difficult, painful and confusing for those involved? If women are naturally more subordinate, how do you explain the fact that we’re fighting for equality now. He points out the fact that there’s as much difference between just men or just women as there is between the genders themselves.