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PATRIARCHY 101: AN UNDERSTANDING
By SMRITI CHAWLA
WHAT IS PATRIARCHY
Patriarchy, a word from the mid 17th century that comes from the Greek word patriarkhia, from patriarkhēs which means ‘ruling father’, has been a subject of debate for centuries. Each wave of feminism has focused on how one must deal with patriarchy, where the descent of family is reckoned through the male line. It has been an evil that has contaminated society through the years. Women have suffered immensely for just being born as women, under the rule of a patriarch. Kings and monarchs have been men who have tyrannically ruled over their subjects and have tried to establish supremacy. It is a system in which men predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. Several critics defend the idea of patriarchy by chalking social differences between men and women to the biological differences between male and female.
HISTORY OF PATRIARCHY
Historically, patriarchy has manifested itself in the social, legal, political, religious, and economic organization of a range of different cultures. However, feminists have argued that the creation of patriarchy by men and women is a process that has taken over 2,500 years. Contrary to the opinion that patriarchy is a natural phenomenon, feminists argue that patriarchy is something that has created through civilization by defining gender roles and behaviours deemed appropriate by sexes. Patriarchy became a part of the cultural construct and was normalized as a natural law over time, by those who benefitted from it. Gerda Lerner asserts that there was no singular event that caused patriarchy to emerge, rather a series of social events that arose in different parts of the world in different times. Marxist theory, as articulated mainly by Friedrich Engels, assigns the origin of patriarchy to the emergence of private property, which has traditionally been controlled by men. In this view, men directed household production and sought to control women in order to ensure the passing of family property to their own (male) offspring, while women were limited to household labor and producing children. Lerner disputes this idea, arguing that patriarchy emerged before the development of class-based society and the concept of private property.
CREATION OF PATRIARCHY
According to Gerda Lerner, “The sexuality of women, consisting of their sexual and their reproductive capacities and services, was commodified even prior to the creation of Western civilization.” Claude Lévi-Strauss introduced the concept of “exchange of women” which has existed since the Neolithic period. Women themselves became a resource, much as land. Both could be acquired by men. However, this still did not strip women of their identity and agency. Men were able to control only the reproductive capacities of women. Acquiring women provided more resources for the tribe as it would increase the human resources available. The product of this commodification of women, inclusive of bride price, sale price and children, was appropriated by men, since it provided economic advantages. While some may argue by saying that women also appropriated patriarchy by not fighting against it, one must realize that it was a rational choice for women, under those conditions of public powerlessness and economic dependency, to choose strong protectors for themselves and their children. Women shared the privileges that men did, as long as they were “under the protection” of said men. Women have, over the years, internalized the idea of their own inferiority, and have unknowingly participated in the process of their own subordination.
SUSTENANCE OF PATRIARCHY
The first, and most significant reason why women did not rise collectively against patriarchy was the absence of women’s history, or perhaps the lack of knowledge of its existence. Women had no knowledge of any prior struggle against patriarchy, and assumed this was the way of life. While this may sound simple, the presence and knowledge of history becomes a great source of inspiration when one chooses to fight an institution as established as patriarchy. Mary Daly termed the lack of history as “existential nothingness”. The other reason is the male hegemony over the symbol system. Male monopoly on definition and the educational deprivation of women became the two aspects of control over the symbol system. The androcentric fallacy was built into the mental constructs of Western civilization, where men believed that history was all about the representation of men and their viewpoint. It is not possible to rectify this fallacy by simply “adding women.”
DESTRUCTION OF PATRIARCHY
According to Gerda Lerner, since patriarchy was created by humans, it may as well be destroyed by them. Patriarchy is not a natural law. She elaborates, “As long as both men and women regard the subordination of half the human race to the other as ‘natural’, it is impossible to envision a society in which differences do not connote either dominance or subordination.” Her belief is that a feminist world view is our only hope to free our minds from patriarchal thought and practice. To step outside of patriarchal thought is one way to get rid of patriarchy, after all an institution succeeds only on the basis of propagating it’s thought. The system of patriarchy is a historic construct. Since it had a beginning, it is only natural that it has an end. Lerner also emphasises, “Its time seems to have nearly run its course- it no longer serves the needs of men or women and in its inextricable linkage to militarism, hierarchy and racism, it threatens the very existence of life on earth.” To build a world that is entirely human, not matriarchal or patriarchal, is the responsibility of each and every human on the planet. Only then can one live in peace, free of dominance and hierarchy.
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