[evolveme]

Originally Posted by Corkey

Put it this way, I was never "groomed" to be anything other that who I am, not the baby stuff, the dress stuff, not the marriage to a man stuff. That is why I call it situational, and not patriarchy.

Your first sentence is confusing. It could mean that you were groomed to be who you are, in which case, you're not leaving much room for the element of personal identity and how it might arise independent of the nurture conundrum. I, too, am a lot of things despite my "grooming." Or it could mean that despite the way you were groomed - to include your infancy/childhood, having to wear dresses, and whether or not you were married/encouraged to marry - you are who you are. Again, it isn't clear. Still, none of this - not one bit - changes the reality that women and female bodied people, and cismen and boys as well - live in a kyriarchical society and are oppressed by the conditions of that society. It effects the way we are raised, and places expectations of behavior onto us out of its power-over paradigm.

So however you, Corkey, became who you are is really irrelevant to whether the patriarchy exists and fully impacts the reality of women and girls every-motherfucking-where. It just does. To say "It's just situational," is a flat out denial of its existence, and that is seriously dangerous thinking.