What Actually IS the Patriarchy?

By: Dr. Denise Renye

It occurred to me the other day not everyone knows what the patriarchy is. They may have heard the term, they may know people want to “smash” it, but they don’t know what the patriarchy actually is. Instead of giving you the dictionary definition, which may not be all that helpful, let’s break it down.

It’s often said the three primary motivators of human beings are sex, power, and money. Patriarchy focuses mainly on power and has implications for sex, money, and numerous other factors. What patriarchy comes down to is this: giving men power and taking power away from women, nonbinary folx, and “girly” men. In other words, men who display what are perceived as “feminine” traits like sensitivity, vulnerability, and care are less valued under patriarchy and discriminated against.

Patriarchy functions like a ladder, giving as much power and prestige as possible to straight men and proportionately less power and prestige to those who aren’t. Under this system, homosexual men have less power and prestige than straight men, but still more than a woman. And a woman who “acts like a man” has a higher status than a woman who does not. And this is where it gets tricky. Because “acts like a man” can be expressed too butch in so far as she gets too far away from the societal norms of what beautiful is, as has been defined for decades by media..

We see patriarchy playing out in numerous ways. Most recently, we see it with the regulation by men of whether people with uteruses may have a safe abortion. By making this determination, men continue to be in control, they continue to have power, which again, is what patriarchy seeks to accomplish. The patriarchy, an entity in and of itself, seeks to maintain the status quo, to keep power where it has been for millennia. It is driven by fear of loss of control.

This power play also shows up in smaller ways, for instance, in conversations. Researchers from Stanford University eavesdropped on conversations in coffee shops and drugstores. They counted the number of interruptions by both men and women finding only one (!) of the total 48 interruptions was by a woman.

The study happened in 1975, but what about more recently? In 2014, George Washington University researchers found both men and women interrupt each other at similar rates but women still got talked over more not only by men but also by other women! Men cut women off 2.1 times during a three-minute conversation and 1.8 times when talking with other men. However, women interrupted men only one time on average. When talking with other women though? They interrupted other women 2.8 times during a three-minute conversation.

What I’m getting at here is under patriarchy, women and nonbinary folx are given the message what they have to say doesn’t matter as much as what men have to say. They are told it’s OK to interrupt women, to assert dominance, and signal they have something more valuable to contribute. That also shows up in “hepeating.”

In 2017, astronomer and professor Nicole Gugliucci coined the term. It’s when a woman suggests an idea and it's ignored, but then a man says the same thing and everyone loves it. Hepeating is also why women in the Obama administration told the Washington Post they got into the habit of repeating each other's ideas while praising whoever came up with them to make it harder for credit to go to the wrong person.

Some men and people erroneously believe the patriarchal system is just fine. After all, they’re either the ones in power, OK with the status quo, or are uncomfortable making waves. The thing is, patriarchy affects men negatively too. Under patriarchy, the Marlboro man is idolized; a man who is strong, rugged, doesn’t ask for help, never sheds a tear, and engages in a physically-demanding job (being a cowboy). That idea of what it means to be a man then impacts behavior, such as being uncomfortable with or repressing emotions. It also shows up with erectile dysfunction. Men who have penises think they should be able to always get or maintain hard. And if they can’t, they feel ashamed of being too “soft” because hardness is associated with manliness whereas softness is associated with womanliness.

Again, anything seemingly “feminine” is considered bad or negative under patriarchy, especially if men do it. For instance, consider the uproar surrounding Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg taking paternity leave in the fall of 2021.

Right-wing commentator Candace Owens called Buttigieg “sickeningly pathetic” for taking two months of parental leave during a national transportation crisis. “Privileged times have produced the weakest men that have ever lived in America. Remove this little boy from office,” she tweeted with the hashtag #BringBackManlyMen. That is patriarchy in action and as you can see, women can internalize patriarchy and bolster its continued reign as well.   

Patriarchy sets rigid roles for men and women, has no idea what to do with transfolx, and essentially keeps people from being themselves – men included. Everyone suffers because they are unable to live an authentic, aligned life. Instead, they are told how to be, how to act. All in the name of maintaining power.

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References

Anglesey, Anders. “Candace Owens Calls Pete Buttigieg Paternity Leave 'Sickeningly Pathetic'” Newsweek.com. October 18, 2021. https://www.newsweek.com/candace-owens-pete-buttigieg-twitter-paternity-leave-supply-chain-crisis-1639801

Eilperin, Juliet. “White House women want to be in the room where it happens.” The Washington Post. September 13, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/09/13/white-house-women-are-now-in-the-room-where-it-happens/ 

Park, Andrea. “The Internet Is Loving This New Word for When a Man Repeats Your Idea and Gets Credit.” Allure. September 25, 2017. https://www.allure.com/story/hepeat-twitter-reactions

Robb, Alice. “Women Get Interrupted More – Even By Other Women.” The New Republic. May 14, 2014. https://newrepublic.com/article/117757/gender-language-differences-women-get-interrupted-more

Zimmerman, Don H.; West, Candace. “Sex Roles, Interruptions and Silences in Conversation.” Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance. 1975: 105-129. http://web.stanford.edu/~eckert/PDF/zimmermanwest1975.pdf