What does it mean to talk about “patriarchy” in the present? What are the origins of the term, its uses, and its limits? How has it impacted popular discourse, and why does it seem to have gone out of fashion in the academy? And in what ways might the term – and the concept – still hold untapped power? To tackle all these questions and more, Abby and Patrick welcome philosopher Robin Dembroff, author of the brilliant new book, Real Men on Top: How Patriarchy Shapes our Reality. Weaving together intellectual history and social commentary, Robin clarifies the origins of patriarchy as a keystone concept in twentieth century feminism, and traces its trajectories, for better and for worse, across the academy and beyond. Offering a new model for thinking about patriarchy in dynamic and structural terms, Robin suggests that we can think of patriarchy as a kind of grammar, a system for ordering social life, for processing individual experiences, and for reproducing logics of exploitation, dominance, and lack. The conversation that ensues not only subverts tired debates (about the crisis of masculinity, male loneliness, and the like) but clarifies their stakes, and suggests new ways of thinking about institutions, solidarity, and struggles going forward.
Robin Dembroff, Real Men on Top: How Patriarchy Shapes our Reality
More about Robin here: https://robindembroff.com/
A recent piece by Robin: "The 'Real Man' Trap"
Selected texts cited:
Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for a Feminist Revolution
David Gilmore, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity
JL Austin, How to Do Things with Words
Hanna Rosin, The End of Men
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
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