Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The Success of Patriarchy

On my mind at this moment is women and patriarchy. How well we have claimed patriarchal values for own, how well we police each other if one of us should dare to step out of the patriarchal line, should dare to challenge patriarchy, or worse than that - if one of us should raise herself as high as a man, should expect the same respect when she speaks, demand the same deference to her opinions. And what if one of us should show the same degree of lustfulness as a man.

The exception to this is, of course, the woman who contains within herself many masculine traits. It's not that this woman necessarily condones or willingly supports patriarchy. Rather it's that patriarchy condones and supports women with masculine aspects, as long as it's only to a point. These women are not accepted as equal to men, but they are accepted as being a step above women who are less masculine. This is in many ways similar to how men who are less masculine are seen as less when compared to men who are more masculine.

This acceptance by patriarchy of masculine women sets up a self-defeating cycle for women. The women who are less masculine see the approval and acceptance granted to their sisters and struggle with it. So often it results in a rejection of women who are masculine by women who are no so masculine. Call it self-protection, resentment, fear, it all ends up the same. It results in a divide and conquer situation. These masculine women, the ones who so often have the skills to swim through patriarchy, are rejected by their sisters. so they in turn reject and move away from their sisters. And we continue the push pull. The prejudices of patriarchy insinuate themselves into the psyches of women and instead of fighting together for equality, we fight against each other for scraps of the left-overs. We use the language of patriarchy against each other. We do such a wonderful job of policing ourselves and holding each other down that the patriarchs have never anything to fear. Even when the occasional women or less masculine man gains a degree of power for a short time, it does not last for those upon whom patriarchy treads will be sure to pull them down. Perhaps the idea is that the more of us there under the foot, the less the weight will be. Perhaps there is no idea or thought to it, perhaps it is simply unconscious action driven by the need to preserve what little bit of the pie one has.

I am sad over this. Sad that we continue to see and treat each other as enemies. Sad that we still tend to even realize when we hold the masculine as having more value than the feminine. Sad that we reject those who do not conform to our own little sub-cultures. And even more sad that we police ourselves so effectively and save the proponents of patriarchy so much of the time and effort it takes to control people.