Eloquent. Rough. Raw. Impressive. This should be read, saved, shared and restacked by everyone who reads the full narrative. The mirror is clear, the acknowledgement is vivid. The words land with the harshness of realization.
I learned so much reading this essay, and thank you for the thoughtful work that went into it!
My heart aches for the violence that has been perpetrated for so long , especially against the vulnerable such as your reader Nina. Healing is so hard, and I hope it can be found, maybe together with other survivors ?
I was blessed in my life by a father , husband and others who were kind, loving, though not perfect men. I am grateful for that.
I read this piece and need to reread it, maybe several times. It touched in deep places, ignited my curiosity and is demanding my attention. As a woman, an old woman, I have lived a lifetime surviving male violence and then a man shot and killed my son, they even took my child... I'm so angry and emotionally traumatized I can't think straight most days, but your piece has piqued my curiosity and makes me want to find some kind of understanding. To chase down that rabbit hole... maybe more of this will give me some weird peace of mind or at the very least, language to spew my disgust with the patriarchy... I don't know. It's hard to raise above feeling like a victim, to try to look at the larger picture, to want for some understanding. I'm tired, I want to be lazy and simply spit and hiss, like a wild animal, at the men who commit these acts of violence... my own need for violence erupts and that seems unacceptable, I hear my head saying, I can't be both the victim and the offender in the same feeling. Grrrr, this is confusing... I'll let this wash over me and then read it again. Damn you for stirring up all this murk (stuff I feel and don't necessarily have language for) that I work so hard to suppress, to push it down into my gut... it feels insatiable, that there will never be relief for me. Never. It's no wonder, my belly protrudes--it's holding generations of grief and anger! I loathe to say just how good I found this piece... your writing is outstanding... damn you, I'm tired. Maybe I'll thank you one day.
THIS is a masterpiece. As a woman, I thank you, and I do not think I have ever read such a concise explanation of what the patriarchy is and what needs to happen for it to shift. I need to read and re-read this because it's so dense. I wanted to leave a comment of thankfulness.
This piece, Xplisset, as you likely feel in your bones, is outstanding.
Even when we talk about Matriarchy and Patriarchy, it is often as though we must strike some kind of balance or comparison between them. The history and pre-history reveals something much more akin to Partnership, to which you strongly point through examples embedded in the essay.
And you came back to the real stuff in looking in the mirror. True change will not be performative. It will be marked by the grit of our lives. When men do the work, it will be a fucking daily grind. It may feel like loss and capitulation. And it will not be comfortable nor generally supported. But it matters. Can we elevate that? How much it matters? It does.
Note of slight humor: I keep thinking about what would happen if I shared your essay with some of my former law enforcement colleagues. I think they might shit their britches to learn a cop wrote it! For the fucking win, X. For the win!
As a white man, I totally agree with everything you have written in this article, Xavier. It is all TRUTH. Thank you so much for writing. We are here today because of white men. And I am so ashamed of my gender and my race. White men are the problem and have always been the problem throughout history. It is sickening and I am ashamed and disgusted. We, the men, need to listen the prophets of our time, like Angela Davis and you, Xavier. I am currently reading Virginia Wolff’s book Three Guineas where she proposes a simple idea with profound implications: to set up our entire educational system to teach our children (no matter the gender, class, race, sexual orientation, creed) to be against war…period!!! Every subject teaches from that premise from history to literature, science to law, mathematics to medicine…all professions from the unskilled to the skilled are rooted and grounded in that same premise: be against war!! The heaviest of heavy lifts!
White men are A problem, but not the only problem. The problem comes from structures in our society built to create the hierarchy that XPlisset so beautifully explains. I, an old white woman, have this sickness inside of me, too, and also have to change. A society built on capitalism, ownership, and control creates the sickness in all of us, and we have to find a better way.
Xavier, your essay reminds me of a time many years ago when my law firm represented the family of a man who had committed suicide. He and his family had immigrated from a country where women have no right to divorce. His wife left him and filed for divorce, and he hanged himself. We, the white lawyers representing the estate, expressed astonishment. Why would a man commit suicide under these conditions? We all speculated that he must have had a severe mental illness. No, family members explained. The decision of his wife to leave him was a humiliation so severe that it felt like annihilation. The lawsuit, to continue the story, was over the control of property. Fitting neatly into the points of the essay.
I can’t stop reading this Xavier, over and over. You’ve built something heartbreakingly beautiful that rings with clarion truth. You have eloquently described how biology, history and psychology have built this world we all inhabit. I’m in awe.
Thank you so much Diane for your kind words. Unfortunately I have incontrovertible proof the post got contained. Despite the off the wall engagement with restacks and emails and Facebook posts by others, not a single door opened beyond my current subscriber base. NOT ONE. I’ll be writing a piece on this soon.
And I have tried to forward my email copy but then I get this message : Your message wasn't delivered because the recipient's email provider rejected it.
Nah. My family members I always email. This happens occasionally but it always seems suspicious. Crazy. I restacked and will try another way to get your very interesting piece to them.
Astonishing post, thank you. David Bowie was a visionary chameleon, the music video is perfect.
Who knows how we jumped from animal innocence to self awareness eons ago. The tree of knowledge and its forbidden fruit is one of our origin stories. We get attached to our stories and try to bend reality to fit. Then we pretend it’s wisdom.
The ability to create life out of our bodies gives women both power and vulnerability. Survival and procreation are hard wired in all of life. Protecting new life is instinctive. Gestation and birth are inherently dangerous. Nursing saps our bodies of nutrients. And so we humans created social structures to protect our species. Be fruitful and multiply became our driving force. Protecting women made sense, but, even good intentions can be corrupted. Women have long been both revered and reviled.
There has always been a snake in the garden. The desire for power has haunted us for all our known history. In early tribes, ancient religions, nomads, agrarian societies, monarchies, modern religions, dictatorships and democracies we have grappled with managing power. That lust for power and conversely our attempt to protect ourselves has brought us to the edge of our own extinction. We keep blaming external forces, but, the flaw lives within. Until we take responsibility for our own impulses we will drive civilization into greater danger.
We are the danger we fear; we are the solution we seek.
It may not have been as mythic and vibesy as you might initially think. It may have all started with men as well as women figuring out that birth isn’t some miraculous spontaneous act. It was just the result of one man and one woman sleeping together. I this this goddess mythology begs to unravel with the domestication of dogs and other animals needed for agriculture.
No, nothing mythic. Just big brains, danger, fear and the instinct to lash out to survive. We have a long history of trapping ourselves in belief systems. We are trapped now because we’ve monetized civilization ending bombs and AI systems that we hope will save us from ourselves. As if anything we created could be free of our own stain. Money is our modern religion. The crisis is upon us.
Yep! I agree with what you wrote. Will people walk this backwards... maybe someday. We have a long way to go before they do. This will help, thank you!
Another excellent Substack!! May I add to the list however, that men need to stop saying that women can have penises!!Patriarchy is now trying to take our literal biology!!Thats the last thing!
Eloquent. Rough. Raw. Impressive. This should be read, saved, shared and restacked by everyone who reads the full narrative. The mirror is clear, the acknowledgement is vivid. The words land with the harshness of realization.
Thank you.
Damn - I wish I could write this well! I’m figuring you have been researching and editing this for years.
I can’t support your work yet, but I will at some point!
Thx Jay. And you most certainly can support this work besides going paid. RESTACK.
Tell the Substack world by re-stacking!
Done
I learned so much reading this essay, and thank you for the thoughtful work that went into it!
My heart aches for the violence that has been perpetrated for so long , especially against the vulnerable such as your reader Nina. Healing is so hard, and I hope it can be found, maybe together with other survivors ?
I was blessed in my life by a father , husband and others who were kind, loving, though not perfect men. I am grateful for that.
I read this piece and need to reread it, maybe several times. It touched in deep places, ignited my curiosity and is demanding my attention. As a woman, an old woman, I have lived a lifetime surviving male violence and then a man shot and killed my son, they even took my child... I'm so angry and emotionally traumatized I can't think straight most days, but your piece has piqued my curiosity and makes me want to find some kind of understanding. To chase down that rabbit hole... maybe more of this will give me some weird peace of mind or at the very least, language to spew my disgust with the patriarchy... I don't know. It's hard to raise above feeling like a victim, to try to look at the larger picture, to want for some understanding. I'm tired, I want to be lazy and simply spit and hiss, like a wild animal, at the men who commit these acts of violence... my own need for violence erupts and that seems unacceptable, I hear my head saying, I can't be both the victim and the offender in the same feeling. Grrrr, this is confusing... I'll let this wash over me and then read it again. Damn you for stirring up all this murk (stuff I feel and don't necessarily have language for) that I work so hard to suppress, to push it down into my gut... it feels insatiable, that there will never be relief for me. Never. It's no wonder, my belly protrudes--it's holding generations of grief and anger! I loathe to say just how good I found this piece... your writing is outstanding... damn you, I'm tired. Maybe I'll thank you one day.
btw, I don't understand all this restacking, how does one do that? And, what does it mean?
THIS is a masterpiece. As a woman, I thank you, and I do not think I have ever read such a concise explanation of what the patriarchy is and what needs to happen for it to shift. I need to read and re-read this because it's so dense. I wanted to leave a comment of thankfulness.
This piece, Xplisset, as you likely feel in your bones, is outstanding.
Even when we talk about Matriarchy and Patriarchy, it is often as though we must strike some kind of balance or comparison between them. The history and pre-history reveals something much more akin to Partnership, to which you strongly point through examples embedded in the essay.
And you came back to the real stuff in looking in the mirror. True change will not be performative. It will be marked by the grit of our lives. When men do the work, it will be a fucking daily grind. It may feel like loss and capitulation. And it will not be comfortable nor generally supported. But it matters. Can we elevate that? How much it matters? It does.
Note of slight humor: I keep thinking about what would happen if I shared your essay with some of my former law enforcement colleagues. I think they might shit their britches to learn a cop wrote it! For the fucking win, X. For the win!
Spectacular. I will read it again and share with my student who has started a group of male-identifying students to discuss the impacts of patriarchy
As a white man, I totally agree with everything you have written in this article, Xavier. It is all TRUTH. Thank you so much for writing. We are here today because of white men. And I am so ashamed of my gender and my race. White men are the problem and have always been the problem throughout history. It is sickening and I am ashamed and disgusted. We, the men, need to listen the prophets of our time, like Angela Davis and you, Xavier. I am currently reading Virginia Wolff’s book Three Guineas where she proposes a simple idea with profound implications: to set up our entire educational system to teach our children (no matter the gender, class, race, sexual orientation, creed) to be against war…period!!! Every subject teaches from that premise from history to literature, science to law, mathematics to medicine…all professions from the unskilled to the skilled are rooted and grounded in that same premise: be against war!! The heaviest of heavy lifts!
White men are A problem, but not the only problem. The problem comes from structures in our society built to create the hierarchy that XPlisset so beautifully explains. I, an old white woman, have this sickness inside of me, too, and also have to change. A society built on capitalism, ownership, and control creates the sickness in all of us, and we have to find a better way.
Xavier, your essay reminds me of a time many years ago when my law firm represented the family of a man who had committed suicide. He and his family had immigrated from a country where women have no right to divorce. His wife left him and filed for divorce, and he hanged himself. We, the white lawyers representing the estate, expressed astonishment. Why would a man commit suicide under these conditions? We all speculated that he must have had a severe mental illness. No, family members explained. The decision of his wife to leave him was a humiliation so severe that it felt like annihilation. The lawsuit, to continue the story, was over the control of property. Fitting neatly into the points of the essay.
I can’t stop reading this Xavier, over and over. You’ve built something heartbreakingly beautiful that rings with clarion truth. You have eloquently described how biology, history and psychology have built this world we all inhabit. I’m in awe.
Thank you so much Diane for your kind words. Unfortunately I have incontrovertible proof the post got contained. Despite the off the wall engagement with restacks and emails and Facebook posts by others, not a single door opened beyond my current subscriber base. NOT ONE. I’ll be writing a piece on this soon.
Astonishing! I’ve sent it far and wide too. Are our noses pressed so close to the trees that we truly can’t see the forest?
And I have tried to forward my email copy but then I get this message : Your message wasn't delivered because the recipient's email provider rejected it.
That sounds like you have an invalid email address as the recipient
Nah. My family members I always email. This happens occasionally but it always seems suspicious. Crazy. I restacked and will try another way to get your very interesting piece to them.
Astonishing post, thank you. David Bowie was a visionary chameleon, the music video is perfect.
Who knows how we jumped from animal innocence to self awareness eons ago. The tree of knowledge and its forbidden fruit is one of our origin stories. We get attached to our stories and try to bend reality to fit. Then we pretend it’s wisdom.
The ability to create life out of our bodies gives women both power and vulnerability. Survival and procreation are hard wired in all of life. Protecting new life is instinctive. Gestation and birth are inherently dangerous. Nursing saps our bodies of nutrients. And so we humans created social structures to protect our species. Be fruitful and multiply became our driving force. Protecting women made sense, but, even good intentions can be corrupted. Women have long been both revered and reviled.
There has always been a snake in the garden. The desire for power has haunted us for all our known history. In early tribes, ancient religions, nomads, agrarian societies, monarchies, modern religions, dictatorships and democracies we have grappled with managing power. That lust for power and conversely our attempt to protect ourselves has brought us to the edge of our own extinction. We keep blaming external forces, but, the flaw lives within. Until we take responsibility for our own impulses we will drive civilization into greater danger.
We are the danger we fear; we are the solution we seek.
It may not have been as mythic and vibesy as you might initially think. It may have all started with men as well as women figuring out that birth isn’t some miraculous spontaneous act. It was just the result of one man and one woman sleeping together. I this this goddess mythology begs to unravel with the domestication of dogs and other animals needed for agriculture.
No, nothing mythic. Just big brains, danger, fear and the instinct to lash out to survive. We have a long history of trapping ourselves in belief systems. We are trapped now because we’ve monetized civilization ending bombs and AI systems that we hope will save us from ourselves. As if anything we created could be free of our own stain. Money is our modern religion. The crisis is upon us.
I’ve known it was a man’s world for as long as I’ve been waiting for the Equal Rights Amendment to pass.
Wow, I'll be thinking about this for a long time.
This is perfectly put. Thank you.
We need this.
Yep! I agree with what you wrote. Will people walk this backwards... maybe someday. We have a long way to go before they do. This will help, thank you!
Powerful, truthful, painful, honest commentary that is challenging and profound.
Another excellent Substack!! May I add to the list however, that men need to stop saying that women can have penises!!Patriarchy is now trying to take our literal biology!!Thats the last thing!