I love Aemilia Lanyer's observation that while Eve only listened to a talking snake, men killed the son of God! Now why didn't the rest of us think of that??? LOL. I argue that Eve was only a few days old and as one of the two first humans had zero experience with disobedience or the realization that snakes don't talk. And anyway, who was God to invent knowledge and then tell his two newbie children not to partake of it? WTF did he want, for them to run around naked and bored after naming all the animals?
It's not as if only Eve is punished. All three are, in various ways. The idea that Eve was solely to blame and it was about sex, is peculiar to medieval Catholicism, with its celibate parish priests under constant temptation.
Thank you, Helen, for this comprehensive and thoughtful analysis of patriarchy. I agree that it is amply supported by historical records to have “existed.”
Since the records are scant as opposed to now, when everyone seems to have their own instagrams and social media as a personal record that will fade with death, it is impressive that you/we can know so much from past records. I appreciate your work for its clarity and demand that women especially regard their circumstances with some kind of precision and refinement, and yes, being able to regard anything with a reflective stance requires conditions for reflection.
My everyday life now includes those conditions even though my parents met when they were both workers in a factory in Akron, Ohio, and neither of them had attended high school, having to leave their families due to poverty by the time they were 13 years old. In one short lifetime, I was able to go to college, then graduate school, also write books, and become a psychologist and a psychoanalyst, and be just now reflecting on your essay on the side of a mountain in Vermont. That kind of life is still almost unheard of in the world of women, but also very possible.
And that is an example of the “end of patriarchy” on multiple levels. My son and grandsons would agree. I have given up trying to say this kind of thing publicly because it seems very difficult for women in North America (at least) to reflect on their social freedom and privileges with a modicum of responsibility for what previous generations of women and men did to provide the conditions we now have. Also to recognize that those conditions are very fragile and need thoughtful leadership to continue.
Gratitude for the past social movements and responsibility for female leadership of a liberal and fair democracy continue to be challenging and perhaps it is because women do not reflect on their past in terms of the strength and autonomy of female leadership and resilience, as you have done in this essay.
It’s also possible, in my view, that democracies and other societies of liberalism have not yet honored birth in the ways it should be honored. The only way that any of us appear in this world is through a woman giving birth. Every birth is an heroic act. Every childrearing is a sacrifice that is supported a great deal by women. Women need to embrace both these facts and what they mean about our human condition…over time and presently.
Many years ago, I read and then taught Adrienne Rich’s “Of Woman Born” and I believe she was trying to clarify “motherhood” as an institution that as distinct from experience the experience of mothering, and to examine it in a way similar to your essay about patriarchy here. As women, we would benefit from much more perspective taking on what is available to us for resilience and inspiration for our own decision-making. I am grateful for your perspective and your work, and I hope that women will be able to embrace leadership and to honor the heroism of birth in the immediate and on-going future. I am grateful in my own life for the many sacrifices of working people and mothers and my own possibilities having been built on the influence of many female teachers and mentors. May our paths cross someday, Helen!
It is very obvious that this is assessed and spoken from a comfortable perspective of a woman that lives in absence of violence and medical malpractise. The hope and fearlessness demonstrated by the ability to swiftly skate by the topics of violence, criminal law, family law and medical research and treatment and its consequences for women and on womens bodies is infuriating for those who experienced it firsthand. I'll leave it at that... and hope you will be protected even though you are against this kind of protection when you will face reality.
You again? Ma’am, this a piece about the governing system of patriarchy as it has manifested in my country historically & whether it exists now. If you want to write about violence, family law, criminal law and medical malpractice, you do that.
You can not claim to know if it exists, if you dont consider the subjects mentioned. In any country.
What you write is factually not true:
"women making exactly the same life and work choices in exactly the same numbers, but women are already everywhere. It is this ability to exercise autonomy and individuality to access every opportunity that we need to seize and the confidence to defy any social pressures we experience that we need to encourage."
This might be your opinion, but it is factually not true and you can't proove it.
"Approaches to gender equality which perpetuate ideas of women’s weakness and need for special protections in the public sphere can only undermine this goal. We have smashed patriarchy in the systematic sense and we can smash any residual cultural hangover with individual assertion of our own choices and respect for other people’s.”
You are very confused. You have cited me making an argument that we need to prioritise autonomy & individuality. Arguments are not truth claims. They cannot be factually right or wrong. You can respond by saying we need to prioritise something else and that would also be an argument and not a fact.
A world of popes, bishops, absolute lords and kings, with the divine big daddy above it all … that's patriarchy. It's been a long time. Patriarchy has been falling apart in the Western world for the last 500 years.
Congrats, I was yelling my head off that patriarchy means rule of fathers, not rule of men. Over everybody, including sons. 1968, Woodstock etc. can be roughly understood as the succesful rebellion of sons against fathers. And that really changed everything.
The classic 1960’s “rebel without a cause, bad boy on a motorbike” stuff was by 1930 standards defined as a bad son, not as a cool sexy man. Even in the 1969 Easy Rider movie, they were considered cool only within a specific subculture, and random rural men really hated their guts, even murdered on of them.
Fathers absolutely don’t like hookup culture, casual sex etc. Sons (the attractive ones) do.
Real patriarchy is super boring. But also stable - it seems these two traits are mostly the same? I mean this literally, Dubai spends a lot of money on trying to be interesting and generally they fail.
Hello Helen, thank you for your wonderful journey from the middle age to modern era focusing on gender inequality.
I know it is not in your main expertise, but I dream to have a look also in ancient times, because I read that ancient Egypt and Sparta were more balanced patriarchies compared to Athene (very unequal patriarchy I think).
As other comments notice, I would also like taking in consideration what were the men's only duties in patriarchal societies and, to some extend, still today in some democratic countries. I think that if we have to chose to born in XX century as men or women in England, we would be quite naive to not to take in consideration the draft and compulsory duty to defend the country as soldiers: draft, obey almost as a slave, killing other human beings and exposing the body to deadly conditions.
"Even though there are good evolutionary reasons for gendered differences in these preferences and traits on average, there is much variation and overlap and social pressure to comply with them cannot be justified"
I don't have a view on this, but perhaps a functioning society requires conformity in such behaviours.
The propensity to arrive on time varies greatly, but any shared activity has to impose conformity in arriving on time.
Each of us may wish to set out our own unique working hours, but most activities need to impose fixed hours.
Thank you Helen, really enjoyed reading this. You write "Since women have had access to all professions, they have quickly come to dominate education, healthcare, publishing, and psychology. Does this make these heavily social fields, which guide how society thinks and feels, matriarchal?" Good question. I'd love to know your thoughts on contemporary matriarchy.
I love Aemilia Lanyer's observation that while Eve only listened to a talking snake, men killed the son of God! Now why didn't the rest of us think of that??? LOL. I argue that Eve was only a few days old and as one of the two first humans had zero experience with disobedience or the realization that snakes don't talk. And anyway, who was God to invent knowledge and then tell his two newbie children not to partake of it? WTF did he want, for them to run around naked and bored after naming all the animals?
It's not as if only Eve is punished. All three are, in various ways. The idea that Eve was solely to blame and it was about sex, is peculiar to medieval Catholicism, with its celibate parish priests under constant temptation.
Thank you, Helen, for this comprehensive and thoughtful analysis of patriarchy. I agree that it is amply supported by historical records to have “existed.”
Since the records are scant as opposed to now, when everyone seems to have their own instagrams and social media as a personal record that will fade with death, it is impressive that you/we can know so much from past records. I appreciate your work for its clarity and demand that women especially regard their circumstances with some kind of precision and refinement, and yes, being able to regard anything with a reflective stance requires conditions for reflection.
My everyday life now includes those conditions even though my parents met when they were both workers in a factory in Akron, Ohio, and neither of them had attended high school, having to leave their families due to poverty by the time they were 13 years old. In one short lifetime, I was able to go to college, then graduate school, also write books, and become a psychologist and a psychoanalyst, and be just now reflecting on your essay on the side of a mountain in Vermont. That kind of life is still almost unheard of in the world of women, but also very possible.
And that is an example of the “end of patriarchy” on multiple levels. My son and grandsons would agree. I have given up trying to say this kind of thing publicly because it seems very difficult for women in North America (at least) to reflect on their social freedom and privileges with a modicum of responsibility for what previous generations of women and men did to provide the conditions we now have. Also to recognize that those conditions are very fragile and need thoughtful leadership to continue.
Gratitude for the past social movements and responsibility for female leadership of a liberal and fair democracy continue to be challenging and perhaps it is because women do not reflect on their past in terms of the strength and autonomy of female leadership and resilience, as you have done in this essay.
It’s also possible, in my view, that democracies and other societies of liberalism have not yet honored birth in the ways it should be honored. The only way that any of us appear in this world is through a woman giving birth. Every birth is an heroic act. Every childrearing is a sacrifice that is supported a great deal by women. Women need to embrace both these facts and what they mean about our human condition…over time and presently.
Many years ago, I read and then taught Adrienne Rich’s “Of Woman Born” and I believe she was trying to clarify “motherhood” as an institution that as distinct from experience the experience of mothering, and to examine it in a way similar to your essay about patriarchy here. As women, we would benefit from much more perspective taking on what is available to us for resilience and inspiration for our own decision-making. I am grateful for your perspective and your work, and I hope that women will be able to embrace leadership and to honor the heroism of birth in the immediate and on-going future. I am grateful in my own life for the many sacrifices of working people and mothers and my own possibilities having been built on the influence of many female teachers and mentors. May our paths cross someday, Helen!
It is very obvious that this is assessed and spoken from a comfortable perspective of a woman that lives in absence of violence and medical malpractise. The hope and fearlessness demonstrated by the ability to swiftly skate by the topics of violence, criminal law, family law and medical research and treatment and its consequences for women and on womens bodies is infuriating for those who experienced it firsthand. I'll leave it at that... and hope you will be protected even though you are against this kind of protection when you will face reality.
You again? Ma’am, this a piece about the governing system of patriarchy as it has manifested in my country historically & whether it exists now. If you want to write about violence, family law, criminal law and medical malpractice, you do that.
You can not claim to know if it exists, if you dont consider the subjects mentioned. In any country.
What you write is factually not true:
"women making exactly the same life and work choices in exactly the same numbers, but women are already everywhere. It is this ability to exercise autonomy and individuality to access every opportunity that we need to seize and the confidence to defy any social pressures we experience that we need to encourage."
This might be your opinion, but it is factually not true and you can't proove it.
"Approaches to gender equality which perpetuate ideas of women’s weakness and need for special protections in the public sphere can only undermine this goal. We have smashed patriarchy in the systematic sense and we can smash any residual cultural hangover with individual assertion of our own choices and respect for other people’s.”
You are very confused. You have cited me making an argument that we need to prioritise autonomy & individuality. Arguments are not truth claims. They cannot be factually right or wrong. You can respond by saying we need to prioritise something else and that would also be an argument and not a fact.
Sorry, not confused at all and not letting you turn me into your "ma'am". I understood just fine and you did too.
I'm afraid not and I still don't know what you mean so we seem to have reached an impasse.
A world of popes, bishops, absolute lords and kings, with the divine big daddy above it all … that's patriarchy. It's been a long time. Patriarchy has been falling apart in the Western world for the last 500 years.
If there really was a patriarchy, women would have to fight wars, and men would be exempt.
Congrats, I was yelling my head off that patriarchy means rule of fathers, not rule of men. Over everybody, including sons. 1968, Woodstock etc. can be roughly understood as the succesful rebellion of sons against fathers. And that really changed everything.
The classic 1960’s “rebel without a cause, bad boy on a motorbike” stuff was by 1930 standards defined as a bad son, not as a cool sexy man. Even in the 1969 Easy Rider movie, they were considered cool only within a specific subculture, and random rural men really hated their guts, even murdered on of them.
Fathers absolutely don’t like hookup culture, casual sex etc. Sons (the attractive ones) do.
Real patriarchy is super boring. But also stable - it seems these two traits are mostly the same? I mean this literally, Dubai spends a lot of money on trying to be interesting and generally they fail.
Hello Helen, thank you for your wonderful journey from the middle age to modern era focusing on gender inequality.
I know it is not in your main expertise, but I dream to have a look also in ancient times, because I read that ancient Egypt and Sparta were more balanced patriarchies compared to Athene (very unequal patriarchy I think).
As other comments notice, I would also like taking in consideration what were the men's only duties in patriarchal societies and, to some extend, still today in some democratic countries. I think that if we have to chose to born in XX century as men or women in England, we would be quite naive to not to take in consideration the draft and compulsory duty to defend the country as soldiers: draft, obey almost as a slave, killing other human beings and exposing the body to deadly conditions.
In response to your comment:
"Even though there are good evolutionary reasons for gendered differences in these preferences and traits on average, there is much variation and overlap and social pressure to comply with them cannot be justified"
I don't have a view on this, but perhaps a functioning society requires conformity in such behaviours.
The propensity to arrive on time varies greatly, but any shared activity has to impose conformity in arriving on time.
Each of us may wish to set out our own unique working hours, but most activities need to impose fixed hours.
Just some thoughts.
Thank you Helen, really enjoyed reading this. You write "Since women have had access to all professions, they have quickly come to dominate education, healthcare, publishing, and psychology. Does this make these heavily social fields, which guide how society thinks and feels, matriarchal?" Good question. I'd love to know your thoughts on contemporary matriarchy.
Ohh.. and doing a bang up job in all those realms!