V GEETHA

PATRIARCHY
INTRODUCTION
 Not all men agents of patriarchy, not all women resist it
equally – diff in terms of caste, religion, sexuality, class,
gender etc
 CH 1
PATRIARCHY: A HISTORY OF THE
TERM

The concept of Patriarchy

 Layman lang: ‘male domination’ ’male prejudice’ ‘male
power'
 Patriarchy: ‘the absolute rule of the father or the eldest
male member over his family’
 Anglo- European anthropologists – referred patriarchy as
men being family heads, descent traced through father,
laws and norms dictated through male elders
 ‘matriarchy’ considered as a contrasting idea- social
system where women had the political authority and
control over men - regareded ‘primitive’ while patriarchy
‘advanced’ stage of existence

 Currently shift in understanding patriarchy from

descriptive to analytical- took place in 1970s giving birth to
feminist political and intellectual culture globally
 Led to dvlp of women’s studies as a discipline within which
women demanded their experiences and opinions to be
valued and considered

 Patriarchy thus constructs a social system where while

men are given rights and choices naturally or by virtue of
just existing, but the women have to struggle and fight for
each of them
 Patriarchy also imposes and uphold rigid gender roles and
duties eg, there is intense glorification of wifehood and
motherhood where they are granted immense sanctity-
this makes women internalize these dties as their main life
goals
 There is also heavy pealization linked w the inability to be
able to fulfil these roles eg women who cannot be wives or
mothers by circumstances are looked down upon and
women who do not wish to fulfil these roles simply out of
choice are villanised and ostacrized – these women (both
kinds) are not given visibility and space instead they are
humiliated and even exiled as punishment

 Not all men powerful under the patriarchal system- young

men, poor unprivileged, dalit, lower caste, effeminate,
queer men etc discriminated against, excluded and denied
 their humanity- thus many men also targets of patriarchal
authority
 However in terms of social and economic sense – ALL men
have access to greater power and resources than women
of their community
 ‘Queer men also don’t necessarily lose their civic and legal
status esp if they are not from working class. As long as
they don’t express their sexuality and gender publically-
they have access to spheres of influence and power
- While i agree w how it is all men because
intersectionality exists at the end of the day,
no matter which kind of social stratification
we are talking about, men always have it
better. However this kind of trivialisation of
the experiences of queer men is also very
demeaning- while the point made can be
credited, the way it has been presented is
extremely cruel
- Furthermore we also need to think about the
reason men are punished for being
effeminate in the first place
- All this directly stems from misogyny directly
- Women are considered inferior and there
is ,for the lack of better words, a general
hatred towards women that is very
 prominent in the society- where they are
considered objects that exist merely to gratify
male pleasures and nothing else
- So when we apply this to effeminate or queer
men we see that this misogyny manifests
itself into homophobia and other kinds of
hatred
- Queer men act ‘feminine’ and because of this
direct association w women- they are
considered less masculine as thus not as
superior
- This can simply be concluded by the general
consensus that women are inferior therefore
anything associated w them will also be
inferior, for example, men who express
themselves through feminine behaviour
- Therefore when engaging in such discussions
it is extremely important to bring in
intersectionality and also address how
misogyny is reason for homophobia

 in most countries women who don’t conform to

conventional feminine roles i.e the reproductive duties are
villanised and dehumanised
 women who don’t conform to social norms are considered
a threat to the society and are at the danger of being
injured, punished or even killed (eg, witch hunts)
 these women also stand to lose their basic legal and civic
amenities
 many scholars believe patriarchy should simply be talked
about in the historical sense
 many even argue that there is nothing like patriarchy but
instead it’s just diverse social arrangements that
sometimes privilege some men

 provisional definition of patriarchy:

Patriarchy rests on defined notions of masculine and
feminine, is held in place by sexual and property
arrangements that privilege men’s choices, desires and
interests over and above those of the women in their lives
and is sustained by social relationships and cultural
practices which celebrate heterosexuality, female fertility
and motherhood on the one hand and valorise female
subordination to masculine authority and virility on the
other.
 CONTEXTS AND MEANINGS

 historically, women have often expressed their anger

and plight (inflicted by patriarchy) through various
modes like poetry, folk song, stories, religious poetry
etc- these were passed down from one generation to
the other
 however this history is not well known simply bc of
the lack of research on this front - thus many info
regarding this has been lost
 but in recent times there is more research on this
topic and now we know more about women’s
struggles and resistance
 18th century – globally – women w some men
engaged in exams of gender roles, privileges,
gendered social and economic arrangements – lead
to research and studies about relationships bw roles,
beliefs and attitudes

 Interactions bw diff fields link knowledge on

patriarchy
 INDIA: THE CRUCIAL DECADES

 1970s- intellectual and political changes in India –

brought arguments and debates on women and
patriarchy:
 Late 1960s- early 1970s – coming of
‘communist or left militancy’ / Naxalism
(uprising against landlords in Naxalbari in WB)
in rural Andhra Pradesh and Bihar- women
participated in the armed struggle and for eco
and social justice incl gender justice
 1970s- movements in southern india- abt
‘planned economic dvlp’ and alt ways of
bringing eco and social changes – some women
participated
 Socialist jaya prakash narayan protested against
corruption – joined by youth incl women
 1974- “Towards Equality” report produced by
govt – focused on structural and systematic
oppression and discrimination of women and
proposed a series of changes
 1975 – emergency declared – followed by
resistance movements in 1980s – women also
participated
  1960s-70s – police terror against communist
militants – transformed into struggle agasint
indra gandhi’s regime
 1970s – Anti – Price Rise movement by women
esp homemakers –poor and underprivileged
women came together for economic rights
resulting in the formation of the Self-employed
Women’s Association [SEWA]
 1975 – UN – first international women’s
conference in Nairobi
