Patriarchy begins at home

As is probably true for most women reading this, this Kavanaugh ‘thing’ has me seething, reeling, and itching to respond in some overt way.  I’ve been a feminist for a long time and while I knew we still had plenty of work to do, I naively believed that we had actually made some progress in stanching the power of patriarchy.  But what I see now is that the only progress we have made is that we’ve convinced some men to allow us to share that power in some arenas.  There are a few more women holding higher level offices in politics and business.  There are a few more women doctors and college professors – even some college presidents.  There are a few women in traditionally male dominated careers like fire fighters, police, and what are commonly known as ‘the trades’.  Even some religious organizations are allowing women to take on roles previously restricted to men.  And while I wish it wasn’t so, women now participate in military combat.

But, when I look a little deeper what I notice is that, while women have been allowed to take on these roles in the working world, the other expectations of what it means to be a woman have not changed.  And that’s where the power of the patriarchy still holds firm. In case you have forgotten, patriarchy is a social system in which males hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property.  Clearly, this system is still strong in the world.  While men may allow women to have some greater role in certain situations, what is really telling is that this has not meant a release from the traditional roles women have been relegated to.  The female college professor who is married and has children is still most likely the one to assume all the responsibility for managing the care of the child(ren) and the home. The husband may sometimes ‘babysit’ while the wife does other things, or may feed, bathe, and get the child ready for bed.  He may do laundry or sometimes clean house or cook meals.  But all of this is usually reliant on the coordination of the women.  And I still hear women who are one half of a two-parent, both working household comment on how grateful they are that their husband is such a big help around the house!  Why is he the ‘helper’ and she the one being helped?  Because she is still conforming to the expectations placed upon her by the patriarchy.

And why are so many women and girls still obsessed with creating an appearance that appeals to the (mostly sexual) interests of men?  According to Money magazine, the average woman will spend $15,000 on makeup during her lifetime.  (And since I spend none, someone out there is over doing it!)  And then there’s the clothes, and the hair, and the body shape.  Most women seem compelled to do everything they can to look as young and thin and pretty as possible (or torture themselves for not being able to live up to the ideal.)  Of course, some men spend some time, money, and energy to make themselves attractive to women but we all know that what women do is hugely out of proportion to what men do.  So why is it that a man’s natural appearance is much more acceptable than a woman’s?  Why is it the expectation that women will go all out to look good for a man but the reverse is not true?  No matter how often women may say, “I do it for myself,” I’m sure that is only a delusion.  They are conforming to the expectations placed upon them by the patriarchy.

One of the primary features of a patriarchal system is that it is based on an ideology that acts to explain and justify the dominance of men and attributes that dominance to inherent natural differences between men and women.  So while some women may be seen as capable of displaying some characteristics required for assuming some previously exclusive male roles, that does not mean that the ‘natural differences’ that keep women in their place have been erased.  Indeed, in the eyes of the patriarchy, all women are still expected to retain the “natural” submissive, subservient status required to maintain the system.  Maybe they can be a brilliant neuroscientist but they still better come home and make dinner, or show a little cleavage and flirt with their male coworkers.  They had better understand that they should welcome the sexual attention of men and continue to regard men’s needs as primary.  No matter what role a woman may hold in the male-dominated world, they better never forget their true place.

So I think that our mistake, this generation of feminists who have struggled against the patriarchy for nearly 50 years, has been to assume that if we made inroads into politics, business, education, science, and religion, then it would follow that we would lose those other expectations that still serve to keep us under the thumbs of men.  And I think we’ve gone along blithely believing it was so.  Some of you have even found ‘good men’ who seem to be willing to let go of those expectations.  But the storm around the nomination, accusations, and approval of Kavanaugh as the newest Supreme Court justice has made it abundantly clear that we were wrong.  Men still want to control women’s bodies (by controlling their access to birth control and abortion.)  They band together to support each other (or just keep silent) when women accuse one of them of assault, making a loud noise about being falsely accused (even though the statistics are against them.)  They retaliate by accusing women of lying to get attention or gain power and belittle them for coming forward.  They still believe it is acceptable to force unwanted sexual attention on women because “that’s just how men are”; “women probably really want it when they say they don’t”; or if they don’t want it there must be something wrong with them.  All in all, they cannot conceive of the idea that any woman would not welcome sexual attention from any man because, after all, it’s in men’s nature to give it and women’s nature to want it.

Men are not going to give up this sense of superiority and entitlement on their own.  In all this hub-bub of #MeToo and the Kavanaugh investigation men have fought back with incensed outrage and vitriol against the accusers.  They believe they have much to lose by giving up their power over women, and maybe that’s true, but perhaps we will all have more to gain.  We won’t know until the scales are balanced.
  
So, sisters, it’s up to us.  We must rise up against the patriarchal expectation of woman as man’s property – the wife/spouse responsible for keeping his home and making his meals, the mother responsible for raising his children, the lover responsible for satisfying his sexual needs and affirming his ‘manhood’, and all the other little ways men are allowed to maintain their control over women.  All the talk is about 2018 and 2020; about voting out the old white guys and voting in more women.  But that will not be enough.  That will not bring down the patriarchy.  The patriarchy is perpetuated in our homes and our personal lives.  It is perpetuated by our conforming to all of those little expectations that we have come to believe we have chosen.  It is perpetuated by our deference to men’s entitlement rather than calling them on it.  And until we are willing to challenge patriarchy at its root, all those women we elect will still be expected to look and act according to men’s preferences while at work, and they will all go home to families that have the same expectations of them as wives, mothers, and lovers.  Patriarchy depends on every one of the small, personal instances of conformity we let slip by.  But we must be vigilant.  There is something very big at stake here and even if we have to do something really hard now, I believe it will be worth it for all of us in the end.