Earlier this week, our inspiring president expressed that he felt it was a “very scary time for young men in America” and it warmed my soul. No really, it made me smile and filled me with an indescribable euphoria. What he got wrong, however, was stating that it was “young men” who are currently in danger. Young men are not entirely the problem. Patriarchy is. I wish to assert that it’s a very scary time for patriarchal ideology. Allow me to try and explain what I mean.
Men have been “killing it” for a good thousand years or so. They control virtually everything—religion, the workforce, media, education—my god I could go on forever. Patriarchy has been running in first for almost every conceivable award it could possibly win. It’s been so calculating in the ways it maintains control over society and the bodies it seeks to dominate. It’s almost genius.
However, it is about time Patriarchy made a glaring mistake. It’s underestimated the people it seeks to control.
I’m not going to say it’s self-destructing, but it kind of is. One can only wear a clever disguise for so long before it starts to wear out, fray, and come apart at the seams. Patriarchy believed it would rule forever. There was no way it could slip up and reveal itself to the world in such visceral ways. Yet people are catching on. They are no longer accepting such vile treatment. Movements like MeToo have been forcing some of patriarchy’s most powerful agents to face the music. It would seem though that said agents are not letting go so easily. Many are staging comebacks and running for office, allowing the media machines to quickly forget their transgressions and beg the collective culture to “forgive them.”
Now this isn’t to say that patriarchy isn’t still benefiting from a pretty decent batting average. Just within these past few weeks they’ve proved at every conceivable turn that they will do anything to keep that vice grip on power. Women and men are consistently silenced to benefit the greater structures that further such control. We watched on as Patriarchy proved women’s pain, suffering, and autonomy does not matter to our government. Perhaps Judge Kavanaugh truly believes he did not assault Dr. Blasey Ford. Perhaps he does not remember the ordeal and meant every word, tear, and outburst. That reveals a far darker truth in our society—we don’t fully understand the rules of consent.
It makes sense, considering most boys grow up to believe it is their right to own a woman’s body if they so wish. Girls are meant to be chased, wooed, and then domesticated. Girls becomes lovers, who turn into mothers, right? We need to do better in teaching our children the agency they deserve as human beings on this planet. A large part of our culture no longer buys into patriarchal gender roles anymore, so why do we still perpetuate its behavior?
As a child of the early 90s, I think we hold some of the remaining vestiges of patriarchal ideology. We are a generation that is beginning to wake up, while many of those younger than us are already there. Now, this sort of awareness isn’t true of all experiences, I definitely am aware of that, but I see far too many of my peers feeding into Patriarchy almost blindly. I get it—as much as I don’t want to. We did not have the resources to teach us what consent was. Our health classes were a joke and a good portion of our relationship advice was coming from media and our parents. For some, parental guidance put us in the right direction and fostered a relatively healthy model for relationships. I’m not looking to place blame on anyone in any of these situations. Many of my peers are very happy in their lives and engagements and families, and THAT IS OKAY. However, we can no longer sit idly by and accept that their experience speaks for the entire world.
The good news is that many people across the world are no longer buying into Patriarchy and all of its cruel machinations. All walks of life are working to tear down the veils and under our current administration, they seem to be working to do so as well. I personally believe that this is because Patriarchy is getting careless. It has bred some of the most vile and destructive ideologies our history has ever seen. Power has created legions of lost, hurt, and angry people and now one of them controls our lives. As much as I believe there is a lot of evil residing in the White House, I also believe that such evil is not created in a vacuum. These men were not born this way, but molded and crafted by their power and circumstance. If you live one way for seventy years it will be incredibly difficult to shift that framework. Part of me remains hopeful that we can break through the veil and subvert our harmful discourse. It will take time, but it is far from impossible.
One thing I wish to make clear in this post: it is fairly reactionary. I may have rambled quite a bit and some of it may not have made sense, but I needed to write out my feelings after this week of horrifying displays of power. Witnessing the fear of the women in my life has broken my heart so many times over and I needed to rant somewhere. My point in all of this is that our narrative is shifting. While Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation was a major victory for Republicans, it also woke a lot of people up. They are afraid and fear can stir action. The election is just a few short weeks away and people are harnessing their fear and rage to act. How they will act has yet to be seen, but the point remains—Patriarchy is showing its cards in very obvious ways. What those in power don’t realize is people are taking notice and are not happy with what they’re seeing.
There is still plenty of work to be done in all of these facets. Patriarchy is not an easy subject to discuss or challenge, especially when most don’t wholly know what it is or what it includes. It’s hard to show men the danger in a system that has supposedly benefited them for centuries and even harder to show women the ways in which they’ve been oppressed. Oppression exists on all intersectional levels, including race, gender, and class. People of color and folks who exist outside of the binary are subject to even worse oppression under Patriarchy.
I have so much more to say, but not enough time to do so in the present. What I can impart to you all—if any of this stirs you in any way, shape, or form—is how important it is to read about this. Become familiar with texts and essays from intersectional feminists, race theorists, and gender theorists. Bell hooks is an excellent starting point. Her definitions of patriarchy are straightforward and accessible. Talk to professors who work in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies and ask for texts that break down Patriarchy in helpful ways. This does not need to be a scary time for men. Men are just as vital to feminism and can stand on the forefront of challenging patriarchal ideology, but they need to do that legwork. It’s ok to ask for help, but the brunt of the work must be theirs. Men are not wholly the issue, but the harmful behaviors taught to them from childhood are.
This is a scary time for Patriarchy—because we are not taking its shit any longer.