Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off A major flaw in the United States of America is that our entire cultural structure is built upon a foundation of patriarchal entitlement. Modern laws are built upon outdated philosophies that were widespread during eras of abuse and cruelty. These inherent defects continue to enable systemic inhumanity. This is a nation that has never faced its fundamental sins of genocide and slavery. As a result, the remnants of those ideas continue to infect all of our social institutions. In this nation, men are conditioned to believe that they should be granted privileges that are not afforded to other groups. This ideology lurks like a shadow on the pages of historical documents. The continuing existence of this perverse assumption is why martial rape was not outlawed until 1993. A law to spare women from the abuses of their husbands was a long time coming. Unfortunately, many children must endure abuses because they are forced to exist within a blind spot created by the continuing endurance of patriarchal entitlement. We live in a society that maintains a deplorable yet prevailing insistence on the non-personhood of children. This is rarely overtly stated but you can get a hint of it in comments like, “Children should be seen and not heard,” and “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” We see glimpses of it within the lengths to which some people will go to defend the cruel and self-defeating practice of corporal punishment. I’ve personally countered these arguments with statements like, “I don’t agree with hitting children, but I wouldn’t hesitate to hit an adult that hits a child.” Often, when I make that statement, it’s perceived as a threat rather than a defense of a marginalized person. The reason is that the people advocating for abusing their own kids see themselves as the only person in the equation. That’s the only explanation I can imagine for why they’d insist a physical beating was acceptable for their children, but not for them. Throughout the United States, there are many communities that have made it a longstanding tradition to disregard the personhood of children. These communities use this assumption as the basis for many of their flawed convictions and behaviors. In fact, if you attempt to debate the personhood of children, you’ll be accused of attacking their “deeply held personal beliefs.” The question of whether children are people is quite frequently dismissed as “a proposal too absurd to even debate.” I know. I grew up in a place like that. Children who survived such situations know that when you get to a certain age, you begin to attain the rights and privileges of humanhood. However, how can we expect people who were raised within a denial of their own humanity to conduct themselves appropriately? What basis of experience can they draw upon to guide them in acceptable, interpersonal conduct? Who has been their model for decent behavior? The open secret in our country is that treating children as non-people leads to lifelong trauma. However, since we are conditioned to never perceive any flaws in a patriarchal structure, our children are expected to navigate these challenges without guidance or acknowledgement. The whole structure is based on the absurd notion that children will “forget.” However, the problem with trauma is that it gets into your bones. It’s not as if you reach a certain age and you magically forget all the abuses you were forced to endure in your time of greatest vulnerability. Living within a system that denies your status as a human being requires you to develop various survival characteristics. It’s akin to living like a wild animal in a world of dangers. You’re quick to run. You’re jumpy. You are inclined to violence as a form of self-defense. Those are only the obvious consequences. It’s less easy to see a child’s inability to trust and form strong bonds. This leads to a sense of loneliness and an overall lack of compassion. This is the developmental pipeline that leads to rape culture. It’s also why many men are inclined to dismiss empathy as “toxic.” The trauma responses you develop after years of abuse do not just go away. It’s inappropriate to assume a child will “come of age,” and suddenly emerge as a fully formed, stable, and well-adjusted adult. In fact, the result is more frequently the exact opposite. In our modern society, we see a distressing number of individuals who casually engage in abusing the people around them, or following abusive leaders. This is because they endured a period when they weren’t recognized as a person, and they think such a thing is normal. In fact, they’d be shocked to hear the extent to which they’d been abused. They’d be inclined to say, “My parents treated me the same way, and I turned out okay.” The answer is that our cultural ideology is not okay. It’s deeply flawed and abusive and it has to change. What we have today is a society that’s quite comfortable with stealing the personhood of any group which it perceives might become a threat to patriarchal authority. We’ve seen these deplorable tactics deployed against children, women, immigrants, the impoverished, the disabled, the educated, and the LGBTQ+ community among others. Unfortunately, our authoritarian ruling class knows that at the first hint of a threat to their unearned power, they can activate the latent hate conditioning that results from treating children as non-people. Perhaps the compliance instinct is a subconscious response from adults that do not wish to have their personhood revoked. The fact that people even acknowledge that’s possible shows the true extent of our shared cultural trauma. Another aspect of this self-perpetuating system of cruelty is that our abuse culture is not discussed. A few years ago many right-wing groups began demanding a “Parental bill of rights.” This was mainly among conservative groups that disliked the idea that schools would teach “their” children (again, a suggestion of property) something the parents didn’t want the children to know. The reality is that parents were angry that schools were providing children with a safe space within which they might receive protection from the emotional and physical torment of their parents. Even as we were talking about the parental bill of rights, there was little to no discussion of a companion student bill of rights. I would say there wasn’t any discussion at all except for the times I personally mentioned the need for student rights. The simple fact is that we need to make it a point of national emphasis to provide protections and assistance so that vulnerable populations do not have to endure abuse. This should apply whether the abuse is physical, emotional, or a consequence of the assumed denial of personhood. Furthermore, our society has to actively dismantle the systems in place that protect the patriarchal entitlements that rob human beings of their humanity. It’s important to know that many of these features weren’t deliberately implemented, but simply came as a consequence of the assumptions of an unenlightened age. It’s time we took the truths we held to be self-evident, and inserted them at the foundational level of all our social and civic institutions. We need to start from scratch, remove the vestiges of patriarchal entitlement, and ensure that all of our systems defend the basic right to humanity of all people without question or preference. This will entail purging corrupt concepts from all political, educational, religious and legal structures in addition to any others where the rot might be discovered. We can no longer allow for those who abuse women, children, or any other traditionally marginalized groups to go unpunished. The concept of patriarchal entitlement has to be obliterated. Our first step is to pull back the blinds and force our communities into recognizing the prevailing systemic abuse that results from the denial of personhood in any form. A terrible percentage of our population has been indoctrinated to accept the offensive and inaccurate belief that personhood must awarded. This isn’t true. Personhood is an unalienable right. It is a fatal flaw of the Constitution that the framers overlooked the importance of this concept. The founding fathers were self-serving and didn’t want their own autonomy infringed, even at the risk of subjugating their own children. Until we make the fundamental change of dedicating our nation to the protection of personhood, we’re going to continue to see issues such as mass shootings, unjust incarcerations, toxic rape culture, hunger, homelessness, and violence against women, children, the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, and any other marginalized group. Going forward, our objective must be to recognize and protect the humanity of all people. Our emphasis from the earliest days of education should be that everyone in our community is entitled to the same rights as anybody. Any institution that undermines this foundation of belief must be either transformed or eradicated. Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% off I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe
