110: How to Dismantle Patriarchy Through Parenting

 

• Why Brian, a cisgendered, heterosexual White male - an apparent beneficiary of patriarchal systems - is so interested in dismantling it
• Some of the specific ways we parents perpetuate patriarchy through our parenting, even if we don't realize we're doing it!
• Why 'masculine' qualities like logic are prized over 'feminine' qualities like understanding the physical experience of the body and recognizing emotions (and why it's ridiculous that these qualities are gendered in the first place)
• How patriarchy hurts men (mentally, emotionally, and physically) as well as women
• Brian's top four conclusions and actions to take to begin the work of dismantling patriarchy in our own families (and, by extension, in society more broadly)

    Jump to highlights 01:25 Introduction to Brian Stout, and how this episode follows up on the earlier conversation with Dr. Carol Gilligan on patriarchy 07:48 How patriarchy shows up in men's suicide rates, violence, and mental health 11:36 Why male and masculine, female and feminine, aren't the same thing 12:55 How mothers end up teaching patriarchal attitudes, mostly through what kids see, not what's said 18:44 Why repair matters so much, and the line: no one starts with violence the first time 20:23 Trying to find balance - wanting daughters to speak up and sons to reach out, in a world 24:26 Why swapping genders in kids' books doesn't fully fix the problem 29:19 Fathers, emotional distance, and a generation without models for closeness 32:35 How schools teach rational thought but nothing about caring or holding space for someone else's pain 39:15 Making room for both a women's movement and a broader feminist movement 45:38 Bell hooks on feminism's history with race and class, and where the movement is headed 52:11 Finding community: men's groups working to dismantle patriarchy 55:16 How to find a therapist who actually supports this way of parenting