Is It Sexist to Speak Ill of Patriarchy?

Recently  <a href="https://medium.com/u/df74214abb39?source=post_page-----c67ef92da787--------------------------------" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Argumentative Penguin</a>  wrote one of the most disjointed, most chaotic, most non-linear essays I think I’ve ever read on Medium. Normally, I would have simply disregarded it and moved on, but in this particular instance, he had tagged me. In addition, he had put forth a lot of erroneous assumptions about the things that I often write about as a social scientist and generally mischaracterized some of my thoughts and beliefs, as well. Because of this, I felt compelled to publish a rebuttal. <a href="https://medium.com/lucid-nightmare/women-and-children-first-30670af1950" rel="noopener">Here</a> is the original story for reference. I’d love to have been able to just do a broad summary, but there are so many contradictions, left-field potshots, and so much just general messiness that I believe there is no way to address any of it except item by item by item. This is going to be long. I guess I shouldn’t wonder at this lack of attention to detail from a penguin who has named his publication The Arctic Circular. There are no penguins in the Arctic — as most schoolchildren can tell you, penguins only live in Antarctica. But, I digress. The Penguin begins by giving some background and analysis of the cultural myth that in ocean-going disasters, women and children have always been given precedence. As he goes on to correctly point out, “There’s just one problem with this entire ‘Titanic as the blueprint for everything’ picture. It’s nonsense.” In fact, in an analysis of sea disasters over 300 years that he references, what the researchers found was this: “Women have a distinct survival disadvantage compared with men. Captains and crew survive at a significantly higher rate than passengers. We also find that: the captain has the power to enforce normative behavior.” <a href="https://medium.com/inside-of-elle-beau/is-it-sexist-to-speak-ill-of-patriarchy-c67ef92da787">Learn More</a>