Patriarchy

Categories: Anthropology | Feminism | Sociology | Men

Patriarchy (from Greek: patria meaning father and arché meaning rule) is the anthropological term used to define the sociological condition where male members of a society tend to predominate in positions of power; with the more powerful the position, the more likely it is that a male will hold that position. The term patriarchy is also used in systems of ranking male leadership in certain hierarchical churches or religious bodies (see patriarch). Examples include the Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox churches. Finally, the term patriarchy is used perjoratively to describe a seemingly immobile and sclerotic political order.

The term "patriarchy' is distinct from patrilineality and patrilocality. "Patrilineal" defines societies where the derivation of inheritence (financial or otherwise) originates from the father's line; a society with matrilineal traits such as Judaism, for example, provides that in order to be considered a Jew, a person must be born of a Jewish mother. "Patrilocal" defines a locus of control coming from the father's geographic/cultural community. In a matrilocal society, a woman will live with her father and/or brothers after marriage, and those males will hold a higher influence on the women's offspring to the detriment of the children's father. Most societies are predominantly patrilineal and patrilocal, but this is not a universal.

1 In anthropology
2 In gender studies
- 2.1 Feminist view
- 2.2 Profeminism and patriarchy
3 In psychology
4 See also
5 External links
6 References

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In anthropology

No matriarchal society has ever been known to exist. The majority of the top economic, political, industrial, financial, religious, and social positions are held by men and there are no known exceptions to this rule. Anthropologist Donald Brown has listed patriarchy to be a "human universal" (Brown 1991, p. 137), which includes characteristics as age gradation, personal hygiene, aesthetics, food sharing, rape and other sociological aspects, implying that patriarchy is innate to the human condition. Noted anthropologist Margaret Mead has observed that "... all the claims so glibly made about societies ruled by women are nonsense. We have no reason to believe that they ever existed....Men have always been the leaders in public affairs and the final authorities at home."[1]

Variations exist along the cultural spectrum as far as the visible manifestations of patriarchy. In countries such as Saudi Arabia, patriarchy is distinctly visible and European nations where the conduct is more subdued. In either culture, men still dominate public life. In many Marxist cultures, the impetus for egalitarian outcomes is manifested in efforts to depict gender equality. In China, the Communist government is supposedly governed by the Party Congress, by law composed of equal numbers of men and women. In reality, it is the male-only Politburo that governs and the Party Congress is powerless.

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In gender studies

In gender studies, the word patriarchy often refers to a social organization marked by the supremacy of a male figure, group of male figures, or men in general. It is also usually marked by the subordination of women, children, and those whose genders or bodies defy traditional man/woman categorization.

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Feminist view

Many feminist writers have considered patriarchy to be the basis on which most modern societies have been formed. They argue that it is necessary and desirable to get away from this model in order to achieve gender equality.

Feminist writer Marilyn French, in her seminal work Beyond Power, defines patriarchy as a system that values power over life, control over pleasure, and dominance over happiness. She argues that “It is therefore extremely ironic that patriarchy has upheld power as a good that is permanent and dependable, opposing it to the fluid, transitory goods of matricentry. Power has been exalted as the bulwark against pain, against the ephemerality of pleasure, but it is no bulwark, and is as ephemeral as any other part of life. Coercion seems a simpler, less time-consuming method of creating order than any other; yet it is just as time-consuming and tedious and far more expensive than personal encounter, persuasion, listening, and participating in bringing a group into harmony. None of this is unknown, unfamiliar, unperceived. Yet so strong is the mythology of power that we continue to believe, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that it is substantial, that if we possessed enough of it we could be happy, that if some "great man" possessed enough of it, he could make the world come right”.

According to French, "it is not enough either to devise a morality that will allow the human race simply to survive. Survival is an evil when it entails existing in a state of wretchedness. Intrinsic to survival and continuation is felicity, pleasure. Pleasure has been much maligned, diminished by philosophers and conquerors as a value for the timid, the small-minded, the self-indulgent. "Virtue" involves the renunciation of pleasure in the name of some higher purpose, a purpose that involves power (for men) or sacrifice (for women). Pleasure is described as shallow and frivolous in a world of high-minded, serious purpose. But pleasure does not exclude serious pursuits or intentions, indeed, it is found in them, and it is the only real reason for staying alive" [Beyond Power]

This philosophy is what French offers as a replacement to the current structure where power has the highest value.

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Profeminism and patriarchy

Profeminism refers to a school of thought developed by men that supports the feminist analysis of patriarchy as a system that privileges men over women, and also men over other men. A profeminist analysis of patriarchy acknowledges that gender interacts with other dimensions such as ethnicity, power and social class. Patriarchy is seen as a hegemonic gender order imposed through individual, collective and institutional behaviours.

Patriarchy as an embodied set of beliefs about the 'natural' gender order (frequently backed up by notions of biological or deific determinism) often operates through a collective willingness towards 'gender blindness', a refusal to observe and study the effects of gender on social relations and power. One clear effect of this has been a refusal until recently to acknowledge the full extent of physical and sexual violence committed against women by heterosexual men.

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