Sorry this is a little late... love jay smoooth.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
What is Patriarchy?
This week we read the chapter “Where we are at” from Allan Johnson’s The Gender Knot. (FYI much of this post is paraphrasing)
He writes, “a society is patriarchal to the degree that it promotes male privilege by being male dominated, male identified, and male centered”
Male Dominance: positions of authority are generally reserved for men.
This means that men can control and shape culture in ways that reflect and serve men’s collective interest. His example: handling sexual assault and rape cases in ways that put the victim rather than the defendant on trial. Male Dominance promotes the idea that men are superior to women. This is because men are occupying superior positions (ie. CEO, Doctor, President etc) so we infer that men are more valuable, more able to do important jobs. Johnson argues that if presidents, generals, etc are all men then men become identified with superiority even if most men aren’t powerful in their individual lives. In this sense, every man’s standing in relation to women is enhanced by the male monopoly over authority in patriarchal societies, (even though most men are not necessarily in positions of power, but rather work under other men.)
Male Identification: core cultural ideas about what is considered good, desirable, preferable or normal are associated with how we think about men and masculinity. But also takes men and men’s lives as the standard for defining what is normal. His example: 60 hour work weeks are considered full time. This only works if you have a servant (or housewife… or nowadays immigrant woman of color working for you.) Qualities of masculinity: control, strength, competitiveness, toughness, coolness under pressure, logic, forcefulness, decisiveness, rationality, autonomy, self-sufficiency, and control over an emotion that interferes with other core values (such as invulnerability). These qualities are associated with the work valued most in patriarchal societies—business, politics.
He also mentions that the more powerful a women becomes, the more desexualized she is. Take, for example, Hillary Clinton. Whereas the reverse happens to men. “In other words, power looks sexy on men but not on women.” Furthermore, many of the women who have had a lot of political power have been “tougher, more decisive, more aggressive, more calculating and more emotionally controlled than most men around them.” They’ve had to do this, both to do the job, and to prove that they could embody masculinity just as well as or better than their male counterparts. We are always asking ourselves, “will she be as good of a Supreme Court Justice as a man?” (But we don’t wonder this about men.) For Johnson, the bottom line on the female exception (women with power) is that “they affirm the very systems that subordiate women by fostering the illusion of gender equality and by embracing the patriarchal values on which male power and privilege rest.” As long as you need to be masculine to do a good job in high-paying industries, men will always occupy more of those jobs, since they are groomed to be masculine and women are distinctly NOT.
Male Centeredness: The focus of attention (in newspapers, history text books, movies, etc) is primarily on men (or masculine characters) and what they do. Male experience is what patriarchal culture uses to represent human experience, even when it is women who most often live it (sleepless in seattle). Johnson shows that only four of nearly forty films awarded the Oscar for Best Picture since 1965 tell a story through the life of someone who is female (Chicago, Out of Africa, Terms of Endearment, and The Sound of Music)
Johnson writes that while men are taught they they are valued for what they do, women are taught that they are valued for their ability to empathize, support others and be a mirror. Essentially, they are valued for how well they can make men feel in the center.
He writes, “a society is patriarchal to the degree that it promotes male privilege by being male dominated, male identified, and male centered”
Male Dominance: positions of authority are generally reserved for men.
This means that men can control and shape culture in ways that reflect and serve men’s collective interest. His example: handling sexual assault and rape cases in ways that put the victim rather than the defendant on trial. Male Dominance promotes the idea that men are superior to women. This is because men are occupying superior positions (ie. CEO, Doctor, President etc) so we infer that men are more valuable, more able to do important jobs. Johnson argues that if presidents, generals, etc are all men then men become identified with superiority even if most men aren’t powerful in their individual lives. In this sense, every man’s standing in relation to women is enhanced by the male monopoly over authority in patriarchal societies, (even though most men are not necessarily in positions of power, but rather work under other men.)
Male Identification: core cultural ideas about what is considered good, desirable, preferable or normal are associated with how we think about men and masculinity. But also takes men and men’s lives as the standard for defining what is normal. His example: 60 hour work weeks are considered full time. This only works if you have a servant (or housewife… or nowadays immigrant woman of color working for you.) Qualities of masculinity: control, strength, competitiveness, toughness, coolness under pressure, logic, forcefulness, decisiveness, rationality, autonomy, self-sufficiency, and control over an emotion that interferes with other core values (such as invulnerability). These qualities are associated with the work valued most in patriarchal societies—business, politics.
He also mentions that the more powerful a women becomes, the more desexualized she is. Take, for example, Hillary Clinton. Whereas the reverse happens to men. “In other words, power looks sexy on men but not on women.” Furthermore, many of the women who have had a lot of political power have been “tougher, more decisive, more aggressive, more calculating and more emotionally controlled than most men around them.” They’ve had to do this, both to do the job, and to prove that they could embody masculinity just as well as or better than their male counterparts. We are always asking ourselves, “will she be as good of a Supreme Court Justice as a man?” (But we don’t wonder this about men.) For Johnson, the bottom line on the female exception (women with power) is that “they affirm the very systems that subordiate women by fostering the illusion of gender equality and by embracing the patriarchal values on which male power and privilege rest.” As long as you need to be masculine to do a good job in high-paying industries, men will always occupy more of those jobs, since they are groomed to be masculine and women are distinctly NOT.
Male Centeredness: The focus of attention (in newspapers, history text books, movies, etc) is primarily on men (or masculine characters) and what they do. Male experience is what patriarchal culture uses to represent human experience, even when it is women who most often live it (sleepless in seattle). Johnson shows that only four of nearly forty films awarded the Oscar for Best Picture since 1965 tell a story through the life of someone who is female (Chicago, Out of Africa, Terms of Endearment, and The Sound of Music)
Johnson writes that while men are taught they they are valued for what they do, women are taught that they are valued for their ability to empathize, support others and be a mirror. Essentially, they are valued for how well they can make men feel in the center.
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