Patriarchy In The Argument Culture

Even though we now live in a modern society where equality is valued, patriarchy is still very apparent and it stimulates women to be passive due to the assumption of male superiority and places women as the primary victims in the argument culture (Ortner 531). The stereotypes that women and men have are encouraged by men because it gives them the advantage to reason and validate their actions using those stereotypes. In the article “Too Soon for Post-Feminism: The Ongoing Life of Patriarchy in Neoliberal America”, written by Sherry B. Ortner, who is an anthropologist, touched upon this topic that even though our country right now is developing to strive for equality, especially gender, we still have not reached it yet. Ortner reveals the abundance

When communities encourage competitiveness and assertiveness out of women, it may consequently give women the upper hand in the argument culture. This environment is shown in the article “Be Angry” written by Claudia Rankine, a professor and a poet, about Serena Williams and her story of overcoming problems that Williams faced as a minority. Serena Williams is a professional tennis player who was surrounded by other women that are either helping her improve or competing against her. This type of environment leads to Williams becoming more aggressive, but because of her race she is called a “angry nigger exterior” for arguing back to the referee for a call that was unjust (Rankine). Then when Caroline Wozniacki comes along, she acquired Williams “attributes while leaving her “angry nigger exterior” behind” (Rankine). From this, we can see that these two athletes were able to fight back because their environment did not suppress them to be passive or submissive. Wozniacki even got the title best female tennis player of all time because of it. This has also been theorized by Yaling Deng and other scholars in the article “Gender Differences in Emotional Response: Inconsistency between Experience and Expressivity” and they said, “With the development of society, increasingly more women participate in social competition. Such social changes may affect the development of social gender roles, thereby affecting emotional responses” (Deng 10). The environment alters the emotional response that may occur, therefore proving that in an environment where males are encouraged to be more assertive and aggressive, they would give the males the upper hand. While in an environment where females are the ones who are encouraged to be assertive and aggressive in a competitive