I take it to mean that the ultimate goal is to upend the systemic issues that have led to the explotaition and oppression of women. To examine the root causes of prejudiced thinking and behavior. I would say that prior to this reading, I believed feminism to encompass this, but I would have thought its main goal was the pursuit of equality. For me this alleviates the discrepancy that can sometimes occur when women achieve a measure of success equal to a man’s. Sometimes these achievements can seem absent of feminism, either in their motivations or in addressing the systemic issues that had been an obstacle for them. Perhaps an example of this would be Margaret Thatcher becoming the first female British prime minister. Her pursuit of that position was not to pave the way for other women (and given that it took nearly twenty years for there to be second one could argue whether or not she inadvertently did), but to achieve and measure success within the patriarchal system, thereby validating and reinforcing it. To say that men are the measure of success can sometimes feel that we are still allowing men to be the gatekeepers. This isn’t to say that these achievements aren’t important or worth pursuing, but does illustrate how without the accompanying goal to end sexism, we are still allowing for the continued subordination of women. 

I also appreciate this definition because it presents a common ideological enemy, allowing the possibility that anyone can be complicit in its perpetration. As she illustrates, we are all products of the patriarchal system, and perhaps unaware of our unconscious biases, and that “females could be sexist as well”, at times at war with themselves.  She goes on to discuss in “Feminist Masculinity” and “Feminist Parenting” the detrimental effects that sexism can have on males as well and the importance of raising children in a feminist household in hopes of stopping this cycle. She writes, “Patriarchal masculinity teaches men that their sense of self and identity, their reason for being, resides in their capacity to dominate others”. This also highlights many of the struggles men are facing in their identity, and why this fight can be so trying, because if you take away the power and domination that men have built their identities on, what do they have left.

I see a lot of parallels in debates on gender. I can say at 38 that I am a gay cisgender male, but while I am still working to develop the knowledge and vocabulary with which to discuss gender (both my own and other’s), my younger self would never have contemplated questioning gender constructs and their relation to me. “Cisgender” has only been in my vocabulary for a little over a decade. Though I started in ballet at 11 (I guess going against gender norms), I still had a deep desire to conform, which also meant not to question or challenge. It is really only in my recent adulthood that I’ve begun to examine what gender means to me; the ways in which I conform or not; how much of that is performative and why. In doing so I’ve also recognized how pervasive and aggressively defended these constructs are. Many people have so stringently shaped their identities around them, that to try and shape your own identity outside of the system is seen as a threat to their whole sense of self. Those who don’t conform are always forced to defend themselves, as opposed to those who do conform questioning why they are so devoted to these constructs. 

And I feel the same can be said for sexism and the patriarchy. These are systems that people have built their lives and identities upon, that demand adherence to survive, and thus to go against them is seen as radically destabilizing. As it should be.