Patriarchy

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Introduction

Patriarchy is a concept that refers to a system of social, economic, and political relations and institutions pertaining to gender inequality of men and women. In essence, patriarchy is a hypothetical social system where a male elder or the father of the house exerts absolute authority over the family. By extension, other men exercise complete authority over the entire community. Patriarchy has to do with the beliefs, values, and relationships embedded in the political, economic, and social systems that define equality between women and men. Feminine attributes are undervalued while masculine attributes are privileged. Worth noting, patriarchal relations occur in both public and private spheres and ensure that men dominate and women are treated as subordinates. Feminist theories trace the geographies and histories of patriarchal ties to show that it manifests in flexible and dynamic ways to sustain patriarchal relations. There is a connection between colonialism, nationalism, and capitalism, and patriarchy. Patriarchal relations operate along social relations of hierarchical relationships. The purpose of this text is to study the topic of patriarchy from a cultural studies perspective. The essay dissects the theories that can be applied to understand the power dynamics, feminist theories of patriarchy, Marxist model of family and women, identity issues and the psychoanalytic theory of patriarchy.

Power Dynamics

Power dynamics in relations are perpetuated and reinforced by historical, institutional, and cultural contexts, including religious, political, employment, or family arena. Power dynamics are evident across all relations. There is a need to understand that when used negatively, they create oppression, dominance, privilege, elitism, and marginalization of one group over the other (Adisa, Abdulraheem, & Isiaka, 2019). However, when used positively, power dynamics can create wholesomeness and empowerment that fosters inclusivity of all power. Societies are patriarchal by nature. As a result, men occupy the dominant role in our cultures and institutions while women tend to get excluded from many significant forums. For instance, very few women occupy leadership positions in both political and religious arenas. In arenas where important matters are discussed, you find one woman while the rest are men. For instance, at a global peace conference, only a few women tend to participate and this begs the question of how peace talks can be held without women. It is important to involve women as much as men in essential conversations because the issues tend to affect women as much as they do men. As long as women are viewed as subordinate beings, patriarchy will continue to occur, and women will remain excluded in development opportunities and issues that affect them.

Without a doubt, the inequalities that exist between women and men are some of the most pervasive patterns in the distribution of power. For a long time, society has taught us that a woman is powerless. Women should be obedient, quiet, and accommodating. On the other hand, society has defined men as controlling, outspoken, and imposing will on women. Gender roles often perpetuate power inequalities. For example, the notion that men think that is unnatural for women to speak in public spaces. This has presented a barrier to women’s access and participation in decision-making. In Malawi for example, party leaders and functionaries traditionally reinforced their status by getting sexual favors from women. As a result, women’s exploitative roles and subordinate roles have become an enduring feature of Malawi’s political system. Family is also at the center of power and politics. Family power dynamics tend to shape development outcomes. For instance, in Sri Lanka, access to resources and increased female employment has challenged the power relations between women and men within households leading to conflict. The need for social control of men was dire to the extent that some of the non-governmental organizations that employed female members of staff received bomb threats.

Feminist Theories of Patriarchy

While some feminist theories posit that patriarchy affects women, other theories hold that patriarchy is an unjust system with harmful effects on both women and men. All in all, feminist theories expand the definition of patriarchy to include a systemic bias against women. Emerging in the 1960s, second-wave feminists examined female leaders and female-headed households. They were interested in whether such occurrences were uncommon. Instead of saying that men individually oppressed women, feminists viewed women as oppression due to underlying biases of patriarchal societies. Worth noting, society tends to rank people according to hierarchy. The members of a society are often stratified according to levels, including race, gender, socio-economic status, class, religion, ethnicity, and ability status. Gender stratification occurs when gender differences grant men power and privilege over women, gender non-conforming, and transgender people. Feminist theories aim to understand how gender inequality occurs and examines women’s interests, roles and experiences. While critiquing social relations, feminist theories main focus on promoting women’s interest.

Feminist theories employ a conflict approach to assess the reinforcement of inequalities and gender roles. Conflict theory holds that stratification is harmful and dysfunctional to society. It also holds that inequality is perpetuated only because it benefits only the powerful and the rich at the expense of the disadvantaged and poor people. Radical feminism particularly assesses how patriarchy perpetuates male dominance. Feminism’s primary focus is how the theory of patriarchy organizes society into relationships based on the notion of male supremacy. The feminist perspective of stratification recently incorporates intersectionality. Intersectionality is a sociological theory coined by Kimberle Crenshaw. The theory opines that various social, biological, and cultural factors, including race, gender, ethnicity, and class, interact and perpetuate social inequality. As such, forms of oppression such as sexism and racism do not occur independently but instead are interrelated. In essence, they form an intersection that included multiple for multiple forms of discrimination. Essentially, women’s marginalization and oppression is not only shaped by gender but also other factors such as class and race.

Marxist Model of Women and Family

In the Marxian theory, women were the custodians of the household and were responsible for childbearing and raising children. The theory recognizes that this is important work, but the work was not valued enough and was not part of the capitalist model of production. After the death of Marx, Friedrich Engels continued the work of Marx’s theory and published text on family, private poverty, and the state. The text was used as an outline of the Marxian approach to inequality and oppression of women. Engels insisted that patriarchy came as a result of advancement in agriculture where men gained control of surplus because they used tools, land, and animals to develop private property. Additionally, to control women’s sexuality, men came up with patrilineal systems of inheritance as a way to establish dominance. As a result, there was a world-historical defeat of the female gender and women became reduced to instruments of production of children and servitude.

Identity Issues

Although the Marxist theory did great in expounding on the nature and origin of groups according to common economic interests, it was not effective in explaining how people form groups based on the notion of common identity. Over the years, identity politics have become a significant foundation for political and social action. Today, the dominant social movements are based on single issues such as culture, religion, nationality, region, environment, and sexual preference (Higgins, 2018). Worth noting, movements today are not based entirely on class. Marxism did not have much to say about where the power originates from. Although they are single-issue movements, a person may identify with more than one group. As a matter of fact, multiple identities have become rather common while single identities are an aberration.

Psychoanalytic Theory of Patriarchy

This is the expression that patriarchy is not just about male domination over women but also an expression dependent on age and gender. An example is power expression by an older man over children, women, and young men. While some men tend to inherit the notion and have stakes during convections, others tend to rebel. This model is based on Freud’s description of the neurotic family based on the analogy of Oedipus. Wood (2019) writes, “individuals falling outside the category of oedipal triad including the father, mother and child are often less subjected to male domination.” In such cases, power is enacted unconsciously. Everybody, even the fathers I subject to authority. Unspoken convections and traditions are performed in everyday customs, habits, and behavior. The relationship of a mother, father and the inheriting son forms a culture’s dynamic and emotional narratives. They also provide models for organizing power relations in sectors that have no association with the family including business and politics.

Conclusion

In closing, patriarchy is a system of beliefs, values, and relationships in social, economic, and political systems that define equality between men and women. We live in a largely patriarchal society where society reinforces masculine attributes and undervalues feminine attributes. Power dynamics are at the center of male domination because genders dictate what men and women do in society. Women tend to have little involvement in leadership and religious positions because of beliefs that hold that women are not equal to men and hence they should not speak in the presence of men. Feminist theories employ a conflict approach to assess the reinforcement of inequalities and gender roles. Feminism’s main focus is how the theory of patriarchy organizes society into relationships based on male supremacy.

References

Adisa, T. A., Abdulraheem, I., & Isiaka, S. B. (2019). Patriarchal hegemony: Investigating the impact of patriarchy on women’s work-life balance. Gender in Management: An International Journal.

Higgins, C. (2018). The age of patriarchy: How an unfashionable idea became a rallying cry for feminism today. The Guardian, 22.

Wood, H. J. (2019). Gender inequality: The problem of harmful, patriarchal, traditional and cultural gender practices in the church. HTS: Theological Studies, 75(1), 1-8.