// a feminist deconstruction of the Patriarchy
Pavel Gitnik is a multidisciplinary writer, speaker, and artist-scientist. He examines and promotes ideas in the fields of linguistics, narrative, and the relationship between reality and expression. He also solved the chicken-or-egg problem.
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(Dedicated to my mom, grandmas, sister, and all the women in my life)
The TV says we live in a patriarchy, but when I was growing up, my mom ran my house -- my grandmas and aunts ran theirs, and the men worked to provide for what was needed.
Now as an adult watching the media tell our stories to us, I'm not sure I like it.
First, I'm not sure their story about men and women is true. I think all real-talk agrees who is the real decider.
Second, I just don't 'like' it.
Honestly, it's really not that good.
Ok, so the monster is chasing us and it's gonna eat us and watch the rest of the movie to see how it's gonna eat us?
The monster -- being the "conflict".
The worst thing about current "patriarchal society" framings is not the insidious disservice it does to both women and men alike, disempowering one while villainizing the other.
The worst part is how we frame the conversation itself.
This isn't a debate --
we have to sleep in the same bed tonight.
So let's get something to drink that we both like, turn on some new music, and sit down and figure out what's bothering us.
// "we miss each other" //
// "we feel like we're failing at what we're supposed to be good at" //
// "and what we promised we'd be good at" //
// "we're afraid 'you'll leave me'" //
// "i'm not really mad at you" //
// "i love you" //
// "but i'm scared" //
// "i'm just really scared" //
Current media discourse unfortunately doesn't contain this valuable code.
This is how a good movie could go.
Something to for life to imitate art by.
But currently, outside of fictional context, reality is presented very simplistically and lacking in catharsis. When people think of "the real world", the mostly calculate based on non-fiction/news/commentary sources and not reality gleaned through film. However they watch the "real world" unfold before them on the television in similar cinematic ways. Conflict and excitement with anticipation of relief.
However, does relief come at the end of their movie?
The story on the TV doesn't seem to push us in the right direction, but it doesn't mirror reality either because it doesn't align with how we feel on the ground.
How a man loves a woman. How a woman loves a man. So deeply, we could not even fathom.
When my dad passed, my mom would water the grass by his monument, for years she would tend to it herself, despite the staff at the memorial park.
Yet the headlines will have us believe we "hate each other".
That we want different things.
When what we want most lies in one another.
Have we empirically become so near-sighted?
Looking at our phones up close has led us to forget that the goal was to look through those devices, at the actual world. They're supposed to help us understand at least something, not confuse us for confusion's sake. Not make us sad at the end of it.
The TV is here to make us better.
- Pavel