#questionyourthinking

When reading “Patriarchy”, a chapter in Race, Class, and Gender in the United States, the conclusion was that men are dominate and women are submissive.

The way that society is perceived in the chapter is: “a society is patriarchal to the degree that it is male-dominated, male-identified, and male-centered”. It started off by saying that men are at the top of the social hierarchy in regards to gender. It then added that many jobs within society are in the control of men. For example, lawyers, doctors, school principals, and corporate jobs. Even in family scenarios, they are the “head of households”. When a woman is one of those positions, she is then questioned if she will be able to do the job as well as a man.

With society viewing me, a woman, incapable of being as efficient as a man, it makes me angry. I think that I can do most things that a man can do, especially become a provider for my family. Both of my parents share the role of being a provider for our family. My mom started her own business and works to provide for her family. Also, my dad doesn’t just decide things and except my mom to accept it; they are a team and they work together. 

When a group of both men and women are called “guys”, a male pronoun, it doesn’t bother me. In fact, I didn’t even realize it until I took the class, RCG (Race, Class, and Gender). But what does bother me is when “society promotes the idea that men are superior to women” and women are perceived to be incompetent. I don’t like that society influences people to consider women below men, when in reality they are not. 

The common thread that I also never noticed until I took RCG is that when most people think of a doctor, they think of a man. While there are a lot of male doctors in the world, I don’t think of a man- I think of Meredith Grey, the main protagonist of Grey’s Anatomy, who is a kick-ass female doctor.