APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING PATRIARCHY

Patriarchy is a life threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit of our nation.
The word, Patriarchy is not used by most men in their everyday lives. They do not even think
about it or how it is created or sustained.

Patriarchy basically means the forced or exploitative division of social activities. It is a social
system where the males hold primary power and pre-dominate the various leadership roles,
social privileges and control of property in the society. The features of patriarchy have been
accepted in the society and are therefore accepted as biological; people are born with these
differences and are natural. Patriarchy operates to achieve and maintain the gender
inequalities essential for the subordination of women in society. Patriarchy is used to describe
the society in which we live today which is characterized by unequal power relations between
men and women where women are systematically disadvantaged and oppressed.

In the word patriarch, the ‘arch’ stands for the word ‘ruler’. So, a patriarch is basically a man
who dominates something, even if it is his family. It is a system where the man has absolute
authority over the family. In a system where men have more power than women, men have
some level of privilege to which women are not entitled. The concept of patriarchy has been
central to many feminist theories. It is an attempt to explain the stratification of power and
privilege by gender that can be observed by many objective measures.

According to Gerda Lerner in her book, ‘The Creation of Patriarchy’, the development of
patriarchy took place in the second millennium B.C.E in the Middle East, before that male
dominance was not a feature of human society in general.

Earlier women were not conscious about their subordinate status in the society, until this
consciousness began slowly to emerge which started from the medieval Europe.

Feminism is said to be a movement to end women’s oppression. Feminism theorists have

expanded the definition of patriarchal society to describe a systematic bias against women.
Most feminists saw that the oppression of women came from the underlying bias of a
patriarchal society rather than saying that individual men oppressed women.

Generally, people use the word ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ interchangeably which is not correct. Both
the words have different meanings. The word sex is a biological concept which is based on
biological characteristics such as difference in genitalia in males and females. Gender, on the
other hand primarily deals with personal, societal and cultural perceptions of sexuality. It is
more difficult to define; it refers to the role of a male or female in the society known as the
gender roles. The words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ mean different things to different feminist theorists.
The main feminist motivation for making this distinction was to counter biological determinism
or the view that biology is destiny.

One of the ways in which we can see how society creates differences between men and women
is in the way we are socialized at birth. There are some differences between men and women
but according to a research, the ways the parents interact with their children exacerbate those
differences. Women and men have different traits but that does not prove that these
differences are based in biology. Society has direct influence on the characteristics of males and
females that are commonly held.

Before the 1970s, it was understood by most theorists that one’s biological sex determined
what one’s gender was. During this time, they began to question the biological determinism
implicit in the casual relationship between biological sex and gender by theorizing a distinction
between sex and gender. Theorists also recognized the importance of theorizing sexuality with
sex and gender.

Geddes and Thompson in 1889 argued, that social, psychological and behavioral traits were
caused by metabolic state. Women supposedly conserve energy and this makes them passive,
conservative, sluggish, stable and uninterested in politics whereas men expend their surplus
energy and this makes them eager, energetic and passionate. These biological facts were used
to justify all the social and political arrangements. Feminists on the other hand argued that
these differences have social rather than biological causes.

Feminists’ arguments against biological determinism suggest that gender differences result
from social expectations and cultural practices.

Patriarchy is a cardinal concept of the radical second wave feminists. They define it as “a system
of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women”. This
use of the concept of patriarchy has enabled the development of some of the most significant
feminist ideas and programs worldwide, at the same time the concept has been criticized,
modified and in many cases, abandoned. The feminist concept of patriarchy as a widespread
social system of gender dominance evolved in the context of the emerging North American and
European Women’s Liberation movements and the political and intellectual climate of the late
1960’s to 1970’s, which emphasized large scale social systems and structures- capitalism,
colonialism and racism. Marxism with its compelling explanation of inequality and a charter for
social change provided one of the most influential models for progressive thinking. Feminists
borrowed these frameworks and concluded that women’s subordination cannot be explained
by or with the terms of other systems of inequality.

Feminist theorists bring different understandings and analysis to the definition of different
patriarchal institutions and the strategies for its transformation while working on the similar
model. Feminist theorists use the word patriarchy as a concept and like all other concepts; it is
a tool which helps to understand the realities of women.

ORIGINS OF PATRIARCHY:

Traditionalists do believe that men are born to dominate and women to be subordinate. They
believe that this hierarchy has always existed and will continue to exist and like other rules of
nature, this too cannot be changed. Aristotle said, “The courage of a man is shown in
commanding of a woman in obeying”. According to modern psychology, women’s biology
determines their psychology and, therefore, their abilities and roles. Sigmund Freud, for
example, stated that for women anatomy is destiny. In his view, normal human was male. But
these theories of male supremacy have been challenged and it has been proved that there is no
historical or scientific evidence for such explanations. The analysis of many of these theories
enables us to recognize that patriarchy is man-made; historical processes have created it. No
single explanation of the origin of patriarchy is accepted by all. A very important explanation for
the origin of patriarchy was given by Frederick Engels in 1884 in his book, The Origins of the
Family, Private Property and the State. Engels believed that women’s subordination began with
the development of private property, when according to him; the world historical defeat of the
female sex took place. He says both the division of classes and the subordination of women
developed historically.

At that stage when private property arose in the society men wanted to retain power and
property, and pass it on to their own children. To ensure this inheritance, mother-right was
overthrown. In order to establish the right of the father, women had to be domesticated and
confined and their sexuality regulated and controlled. According to Engels, it was in this period;
both patriarchy and monogamy for women were established. Hartmann looked at the link
between patriarchy and capitalism and argued that patriarchy links all men to each other
irrespective of their class. A woman’s work benefits both capital and her husband. Hartmann
defined patriarchy as a set of relations which has a material base and in which there are
hierarchical relations between men and solidarity among them, which in turn enable them to
dominate women. The material base of patriarchy is men’s control over women’s labour power.

The search for the social origins of this relationship is part of the political strategy of women’s
emancipation.

HISTORY OF FEMINISM:

It is one of the most important social movements in the past two centuries. It has brought
about the most progressive and enduring transformation of human society on a global scale.
Feminism movement started in the late eighteenth century; it is a movement for the
emancipation of women. The history of feminism is divided into three waves.
Throughout the long first wave of feminism, women fought against several injustices. Women
were restricted in terms of the ownership of property, requiring them to marry so as to inherit,
thus preventing them from attaining true independence. Women had no control over their own
bodies. They had no legal protection against sexual violence. Women were discriminated
against in the workplace. Women were paid less than the men in workplace for the same work
and were not even allowed to apply for certain jobs. They were denied promotion and were not
given allowance for the maternity leave. Many of these problems still persist today.

Once the suffrage was granted, women’s movements fell into decline and remained quiescent
till the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was reignited by a new generation activists, they called
themselves the ‘Second Wave of Feminism’. The second wave feminists argued that women
were victims of false belief in the promise of femininity and urged them to look beyond their
domestic situation for fulfillment. National Organization for Women was formed in 1966 and
became the central focus in the US for feminist activism. Second Wave feminism also took the
view that equality between the sexes would only come about if there was a sea change in
cultural attitudes on the part of both women and men.

The second Wave of Feminism came to an end in the early 1980s, partly as a result of its
successes. Many women thought that many relevant battles had been fought and won and
primarily because of the change in the political climate. This is the period of the so-called
‘culture wars’ when feminism was caricatured as mere political correctness and its political
agenda scorned in the press.

The third Wave of Feminism is cited as the beginning with the outraged response of feminist
critics. Unlike the former movements, the term ‘feminist’ becomes less critically received by the
female population due to the varying feminist outlooks. This wave was about acceptance and a
true understanding of the term ‘feminism’.

TYPES OF FEMINISM:

1. Liberal Feminism- It has been described as the theory and work that focuses more on
issues like equality in the work place, in education and in political rights. Liberal
feminism looks at the issues in the private sphere. Liberal feminists tend to support
marriage as an equal partnership and more male involvement in child care. Their
primary goal is gender equality in the public sphere, equal access to education, equal
pay, ending job sex segregation, better working conditions through legal changes.
Private sphere issues are of concern mainly because they influence equality in the public
sphere.
2. Socialist Feminism- This phrase was increasingly used to describe a mixed theoretical
and practical approach to achieving women’s equality. This theory analyzed the
 connection between the oppression of women and other oppressions in society such as
racism and economic injustice. Socialist feminism recognized the oppressive structure of
a capitalist society. It recognized the fundamental oppression of women particularly in a
patriarchal society. Rather, they held and continue to hold that class and gender are
symbiotic, at least to some degree, and one cannot be addressed without taking the
other into consideration. Socialist feminists wanted to integrate the recognition of sex
discrimination within their work to achieve justice and equality for women, for working
classes, for the poor and all humanity.

3. Marxist Feminism- Marxist feminists are feminists who ally themselves with the
philosophical and economic theories of Karl Marx. Marxist feminists view the capitalist
drive for profits as responsible for women's second-class status and other forms of
oppression such as racism and homophobia. Women’s entry in the paid labour force
was considered as the first step in liberating women from stifling dependence on men.
Marxist feminism is very similar to socialist feminism.
4. Radical Feminism- Radical feminism is a philosophy emphasizing the patriarchal roots of
inequality between men and women, specifically, the social domination of women by
men. Radical feminism views patriarchy as dividing societal rights, privileges and power
primarily along the lines of sex and as a result oppressing women and privileging men.
Radical feminism opposes existing political and social organization as it is inherently tied
to patriarchy. Thus, they tend to be skeptical of the political action within the current
system and tend to focus on culture change that undermines patriarchy.

At the moment, feminists are increasingly using the tool of patriarchy to recognize the subtle
depth of the forces that keep oppression in place, from the expectations about the behavior of
women in the workplace to the way they are portrayed in fiction. It will be harder to unravel
the effect of this cultural inheritance. As Max Weber observed, it is the very longevity of
patriarchal traditions and norms that serve to prop it up – “the belief in the inviolability of that
which has existed from time out of mind”. The eradication of patriarchy looks like a task of
enormous complexity; when it is smashed, it will take a lot down with it. And so the patriarchs –
from the bully in the White House to the bully in your workplace – are still in charge for now.

SOUMYA KASHYAP

ENGLISH HONOURS; 2ND YEAR

ROLL NUMBER: 106