everybody's talking about decentering men right now and of course with the discourse there's been all kinds of confusion, critiques, questions. this wont be so much about what decentering is or how to do it (but i will drop a link to a thread later in the post if you want ideas), im focusing more on the whys. why we should decenter men. why it's so important. why it's necessary to progress. why it's radical. why the mere suggestion of it sends so many women into a tailspin lol
since theres so many thoughts and discussions and definitions out there on what exactly decentering men is, ill start with defining what i mean when i say it (which i also think is pretty in line with what most feminists are meaning). one of the most effective aspects of patriarchy is androcentrism, which basically means a lens that centers the male. so with decentering men, i am referring to the practice of not automatically centering men, their experiences, their priorities, their bodies, their comfort, their needs, their desires, their perspectives. no, i dont think decentering men means never talking to them, never being around them, or not loving them. yes, there are times and scenarios and situations in which a man should be centered. all lives matter lol. but decentering means not assuming that should be all the time, and it certainly shouldn't take priority over women's experiences and safety and perspectives at all times.
so i hope we (reasonable people) all at least agree that patriarchy is built for the benefit of men, and patriarchy centers men. and so decentering men is a valuable practice for the simple fact that it is in direct opposition to a founding premise of patriarchy. and i dont really think an argument can be made (again, by reasonable people) that "decentering men" is a harmful practice. and going beyond just "not harmful", i think its beyond fair to say that decentering men at least potentially has value for individual women who still center men, which is a majority of women. if we dont even agree on these points so far, well, i dont know what to tell you except that you're wrong, and probably a man.
but i dont think its honoring the radical -- defined as "relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something-- yes RADICAL nature of decentering men to say its just "not harmful" or even "helpful". im here to say--counter to some critiques ive seen-- that i think its not only just radical but absolutely necessary to undoing all this shit.
the situation we currently and collectively find ourselves in is that first of all, a lot of women just have not had the freedom, opportunity, inkling to or desire to even just imagine what their life might look like if not centered around a man. a lot of women have not even considered that they can buy a house or raise a child with a friend instead of a husband. a lot of women have no conception of what sex not centered around or even involving a dick might be like. and even for those that have considered these things, scenarios not involving men often get painted as lesser or "not the real thing" in some way. a lot of women’s eyes get HUGE when i tell them im building a women-centered commune. and while i find the reaction of shock and awe touching in ways (if you’ve ever been the person to deliver a bit of info or ask a question of somebody that was needed to make a critical connection, you know the vibes— the look of confusion that comes over their face which then gives way to their eyes opening wide like windows being flung open in the attic to let the light flood in to some dark corner of their mind. the following excitement of their brain connecting dots is palpable and i love that shit. humans love new ideas lol)— i also recognize that shock& awe as a tell that im suggesting something that they hadn’t fully or consciously-considered before. and this isnt a one-time reaction. i get this reaction-- shock at the suggestion that women can just live amongst other women-- more often than not. and then inevitably, after the shock, comes the follow-up questions— could that even work? how would that work? what would it look like? could this… actually work? could it work even better? and while i LOVE these convos im getting to have with other women (truly one of my fav things to do is pondering & answering questions about how tf we can get away from raggedy ass men lmao) i also recognize these questions and convos as the result of women generally not imagining what their life might actually look like with women at the center, instead.
and that’s not to fault anybody— a LOT of patriarchy’s work has been putting in structural and systemic barriers to women even imagining, let alone tangibly-accessing a life that doesn’t center a man. and that’s kinda my point— i consider the fact that so many haven’t even truly explored these possibilities to be a testament to how critical that piece will be in undoing it. and i consider showing women what might fill the “void” that society has told us would be created by decentering men, a women-centered commune and life, could look like, could work as one of my top priorities with balvida. decentering men, even in thought, creates important space needed between how things are and how things could be. and for that reason alone, its a radical thought experiment.
now. decentering men in thought translating to decentering men in action? is proving to be, like all movements, like all change, a very um… complex and nuanced process for women lol. its very true that many women who have gotten behind “decentering men” in theory and in tweets often struggle to -- or simply don’t-- put that into practice in significant ways as easily. i consider myself lucky to have been able to generally materially-distance myself from men, which certainly makes it a lot easier to decenter them. and even still, there’s lots of little ways and maybe even a few big ways left that come to mind when i think of ways i could decenter them even more. we’re all on our journeys lmao. but i say this to say that yes, as many have pointed out, simply thinking about or wanting to decenter men isn’t enough when so much of our survival is tied into centering them. and of course, per usual, we have patriarchy to thank for that. the routine theft of women’s labor, power, and resources to be redistributed to and for the benefit of men has so conveniently and violently made it very difficult not to center them.
but things are happening. dynamics are changing. as i just mentioned, as a woman who has had the privilege to maintain material distance from men, i know exactly how crucial that is. but i also know im part of a growing number of women, especially in this country, who have options. we’ve seen article after article talking about women becoming the breadwinners in their households. women who still desire to get married are facing an increasing probability (and in many cases choosing to) “marry down” financially. so what this lets me know is that while yes, patriarchy has systematically kept men at the center by depriving women of material options, there’s a lot of women who are still choosing to center men even when they have the option not to. so in a landscape where its increasingly true that women have options that weren’t available to them previously.. in a landscape where much of the financial, legal, and social consequences of divesting are loosening and women now find themselves faced, for the first time in many cases, an opportunity to actually make a choice… when our involvement with men isn’t as closely tied to financial or even social security, why is it still so hard for women to decenter men?
well for many women, the answer to this starts with the fact that our ideals around men and how to engage them was shaped by watching older women. many were raised by women who generally did have less choice in her material conditions. so while there are obviously still many of those same barriers facing us today, we now find ourselves in a position where many have the opportunity to make choices that maybe our mothers and grandmothers didn’t necessarily make. there’s also the huge, huge immaterial component of patriarchy that relies on social conditioning to keep men centered— it’s one thing to keep women locked into marriage by making it financially-impossible for her to leave. that’s patriarchy for dummies. but you could also convince a woman that she’s a failure and will be looked at as a worthless old hag and will never feel love again even if she could leave. and that continues to be very, very effective still, holding strong even as material options open up. even yet, in the face of overwhelming anecdotal and statistical evidence, in spite of the loosened grip for many women the last couple decades, many women still find themselves bristling at the idea of being asked to decenter or “give up” men. many women are using their new and hard-won freedom to double-down, to contort themselves and beg for the chains that are now laying broken open beside them.
so how do we get women to make the choices that our mothers felt they (or actually) couldn’t? how do we actually start to divest as the option becomes more and more available? what is the antidote to the increasingly socio-cultural & emotional & decreasingly material glass ceiling that keeps so many aspiring wives and #BoyMoms and first-born daughters locked into the performances and dynamics first modeled for them by women who had access to less choice than them? when our proximity to men isn’t as closely-tied to our financial, physical and social security, and as many step into understanding that our proximity and attachment to men is actually harmful to us in these areas— how do we release women of these lingering emotional investments?
the answer to that question for many, many women starts with decentering men. the practice of moving that pivotal piece, the singular piece which we’ve been taught our whole life should be the center of anything we do, actually is a radical practice for women. even as a small step in practice, the ideological implications of not automatically centering men are HUGE. once the assumption that our lives should center and be structured around a man, any man, all men, is challenged, that opens the possibility of taking a step back for a more objective look at what value— and in many cases more importantly & numerously, what risks— men are actually adding to our lives. instead of powering forward assuming that nothing you do as a woman could possibly have meaning or value, lead to happiness, lead to love without the presence of said men, the narratives that shaped our formative understandings of what it means to be a woman who loves men can be examined more clearly. and one thing about patriarchy is that it HATES clarity. decentering men allows women space to no longer assume they must be with or marry a man. decentering men allows women space to consider whether she wants to be with a man at all. decentering men allows women to consider what it even means to HER to be a woman. decentering men allows women to start to communicate with each other directly instead of thru the filter of middle men who are very invested in us hating each other. decentering men allows women to go from the persistent relational “what are we?” anxiety to feeling empowered to answer that question for themselves and then, in turn, be the ones setting those terms instead of accepting weaponized non-answers or worse, dangerous ones. with even that little bit of extra added clarity, many women start to question and then realize that men are not inherently a value-added to our life. men are actually, in many cases, taking away from our lives.
on the topic of romantic relationships tho, the everlasting thorn in women’s side, the reason feminists are dragged anytime they suggest women should take a look at our relationships lol— i think the fact that so many women react to the call to decenter men with visceral and angry feelings that romantic relationships with men are being “taken” from them is so telling. theres almost like an instinctive knowledge that decentering men will likely mean a radically different landscape for our relationships because there’s an intuitive understanding that the only way we’re able to keep sustaining these relationships is if we continue to prioritize men. even to their detriment, there seems to be a lot of resistance from women to really ask what men are bringing to the table or adding to our lives because thanks to the centering of men as the fixture in our lives, some women find it offensive that a man should have to do anything other than just be a man. there’s an understanding, maybe buried deep deep down but there nonetheless, that prioritizing ourselves likely means the end of the kind of white picket fence, disney-esque families that we’ve been taught to value our whole lives, despite the fact that many of these same women who react with anger at the idea of “losing men” are reporting high levels of dissatisfaction and danger from their attempts at keeping said men and relationships. and so many of the women who do achieve the white picket fence end up opting out down the line. so it really begs the question, even if you’re right that decentering men means likely giving up this kind of relationship, what are you ACTUALLY giving up? what are we ACTUALLY losing by decentering men?
in theory, we're giving up critical and dysfunctional piece of the way we value ourselves. in reality? we’re not giving up much at all. we’re actually gaining.
most of the critique of “decenter men” as praxis comes from heterowomen who love men and most likely are "choice" feminists.. most of those can be boiled down to “now you’re taking this man-hating thing too far!” lol. that's also where we get retorts like "if you're talking about men, youre still not decentering them!" which is funny too. i dont know any other movement that is expected to create and affect change without discussing the ways in which their oppressor is directly and indirectly oppressing them. is talking shit about men and the ways they are violent the ONLY thing one should be doing to fight the patriarchy? certainly not. but sharing information and shining a light on the bullshit certainly IS a necessary part of fighting the patriarchy, which is exactly why women who do that are demonized with a variety of terms, from as petty as "gossip" or "bitter" or "jaded" or "mentally-unstable" "cant get a man" or "attention-seeking" or "a feminist". talking shit about the ppl who are harming you and fucking up the world is our goddess-given right. add to this the fact that the women who claim it's still "centering" men to discuss the ways theyre oppressive and violent is that they rarely have an issue with men being centered in ways that *reinforce* the status quo and feed into the fairytales. the never-ending discussions on how to get and keep a man and how long it should take to get married and how to avoid being a single mom and how you cant wait for somebodys son to change your last name and and and..
other critiques discard “decenter men” as a “useless” or “too vague” slogan that lacks actionable weight. this is a critique i generally find somewhat misguided given that many of the suggested alternatives like “abolish the patriarchy” also don’t really immediately say much in the way of exactly how to do that. at least “decenter men” puts a face to the problem, but im also of the opinion that that’s probably exactly why some women don’t like it lol. the “patriarchy”, especially for women earlier in their unlearning journey, can continue to exist as this amorphous entity of “bad shit that happens to women” without necessarily identifying who or what is doing the bad shit. “decenter men” tells you exactly where to start looking and what you can start doing about it.
there are other critiques-- ones i personally find a little more substantial-- coming from women who suggest it’s actually not going far enough. some will point to things i addressed already, like the financial and social barriers to women decentering men, and say that simply decentering men isn’t enough to tackle those. while i agree that decentering men isn't all it takes to undo it, the general point of this blog is to talk about how addressing women's emotional and socialized attachment to men is also very important to tackle, especially as more and more women move into positions of choice.
another critique in the vein of “decentering men” not going far enough comes from mostly progressive/radical women & feminists who are a lot further in their learning & unlearning journey. this tends to include lesbian & queer women & nonbinary ppl who have already, intentionally or not, decentered men. they point to our currently very limited conceptions of gender, they point to straight women’s homophobia, or cis womens transphobia, or most women's treatment of sex workers, and all the ways that simply decentering men might not directly address these things or women's investment in other aspects of patriarchy that go beyond our individual relationships with men. i agree that women, especially cishet women, have a lot of work to do beyond simply choosing not to be so focused on their romantic relationships with men. and i totally hope& think that at some point, needing to “decenter men” could become a defunct practice. i too long for a world where your gender or your sex or any aspect of your identity does not determine how you are allowed to express yourself, how you are allowed to navigate this world and human experience. however, i also think that a lot of women’s attachment to antiquated and harmful ideas on a wide range of things like woman&manhood, femininity, masculinity, gender, religion, sexuality, race— a LOT of that can be traced back to women’s resistance to and fear of not being good enough to earn a man in which to build her life around. a lot of women’s own investment in these hierarchical systems stem from a fear of losing the social standing of the status quo or often misguided beliefs that they themselves are “winning” the patriarchy. and while its true that investing in rigid binaries & hierarchies or being a patriarchal princess can come with individualized benefits— they only hold up in relation to other women and ppl of marginalized genders or positions in society. if you follow it back far enough, you’ll find that the house always wins, and the house in question ALWAYS has a man at the center.
and when i say decentering men is actually is a radical practice, especially for women who love men, i’m not just talking about romantic relationships. while the "decenter men" movement tends to focus mostly on evil feminists breaking up our unhappy homes, catering to boyfriends and husbands are far from the only ways women have been compelled to center men. and one doesnt have to spend too much time listening to discourse happening in queer spaces to recognize patriarchal conditioning and a centering of men running allll up thru the relationships and dynamics over there too. i say this to make the point that while heterosexual romantic relationships are obviously a prime site of violence against women, romantic relationships are hardly ever women's first or only experiences with centering men and cishet women certainly aren't the only ones who could benefit from restructuring their worldview. when i asked women for examples of how they practice decentering men, so many of the responses came from women who named ways they’ve unlearned shit they were taught to do as a good daughter or sister, or even just as a random woman who happens to be in the vicinity of a man. (this shit is already getting long for me to get into specifics of how one can practice decentering men but i think theres a lot of good examples and suggestions in the quotes and replies of this thread)
so while the focus on “decentering men” is often met with horror at the idea of “giving up” on romantic relationships on the part of hetero women, or disinterest on the part of women for whom the romantic aspect is irrelevant, theres a huge aspect of decentering men that will target our non-romantic relationships and connections as well and its just as important. and a lot of the other important aspects of “abolishing the patriarchy” we all claim we want gone are hinging on, in great part, on women’s willingness to take a clear and honest look at the men around them, the men currently at the center of their lives, and how those men are impacting not only them but the world around them. it is women’s lingering desire to participate in the never-ending performance that starts even before the relationship is established and continues as women try to prove themselves as good girlfriends, the aspiration to be chosen and validated as wives, the continued overlooking of physical & sexual abuse in favor of protecting and keeping men in our homes, the coddling of boys and sons, the underlying manufactured competition women find themselves in with all other women, the self-sacrificing and gaslighting women do to maintain the facades — these are all things that come under direct threat when women instead center themselves and their well-being. from this position of increased emotional and physical well-being, women can now be honest with themselves about what’s actually going on. it’s easy to “fight the patriarchy” when it’s approached as some far-away war with no perceived sacrifices or losses for you and it’s the painful realization that maybe its a little closer to home that keeps women looking the other way. its the promise of being one of “the chosen ones” dangled over women’s heads that keeps women jumping thru hoops to defend and replicate harmful dynamics. it's the fear of everything crumbling without its centerpiece that keeps women locked in. but once you’re willing to hold the men closest to you up to the light and be honest about what you see, its truly NOTHING to extend that same level of scrutiny to the rest of them and the systems that serve them. decentering men is a major step in undoing women’s attachment to the harmful men and dynamics in their homes and its a major step in undoing womens attachment to the harmful men and dynamics in the world at large. freeing women from their commitment to harmful interpersonal relationships is to free women from the mental barrier of fear of what it might look like to live without any particular man in their life. decentering men allows women to practice refusing to carve out exceptions for the harmful men in their life by freeing them from the fear that they’ll somehow be worse off without him around. if you’re able to be honest about the men in your life, women now have a little more freedom to be honest about the ways they’ve been impacted by, vulnerable to, enabling of, and in some cases defenders of patriarchy. and it’s from this position of mental freedom that we advance into more dynamic and complex understanding of how ALL systems of oppression mimic, feed into and are replicated by patriarchy. its all androcentrism. ALL of it services men and any intentional effort to reclaim some of that space in the center of our own lives is ultimately a practice that is a direct threat to male-centered lives and institutions
death by a thousand “NOs”. patriarchy's least favorite word
while its not currently possible to give anybody the “benefit” of realizing themselves free of all social conditioning, decentering men brings us much closer to a neutral slate from which to rebuild our identities and politics. decentering men allows women to ask and maybe even answer the question of who they might be if they weren’t a side show in their own life. decentering men allows women to face down their “worst” fears, which yes-- for many women-- includes not being "chosen", not being validated, not having a man featured as the centerpiece. decentering men allows a majority of women— who still consider themselves to be destined for cisgender, heterosexual, monogamous marriages— to consider more options.
decentering men on an individual level is radical and of importance to dismantling the system of patriarchy on a collective level because it is our interpersonal relationships and connections to the men in our lives, our resistance to, our fear of losing those that remains as a huge hurdle to women’s willing divestment from patriarchy. the personal is indeed political. decentering men, in thought and in action, allows women to face the fear of what happens when theres no man to organize themselves and their lives around. decentering men allows women to practice living in that reality and start to imagine and create space to build a new reality that allows women, for maybe the first time, to center themselves in their own lives.
under patriarchy, where everything is designed to center men, a woman simply not doing this might be the single most radical step one could individually take and is a necessary step to keep moving forward.
some artwork im doing for balvida. ive been in a weed-fueled 3-day photoshop frenzy working on all kinds of visuals.. but im having SO much fun. i didnt really spend a lot of time on thinking about what balvida's presence online would look like prior to starting this journey but the diretion is really starting to come together and i LOVE the direction its going in.
im gonna make women-centered living look as hot as it is.