The P Word (yes! I mean Patriarchy!)
Reflections on having conversations, taking responsibility and building
movements

Some context
Bryan Law's article in NvT #46 forms the immediate context for this article.
However I think the issues go well beyond Bryan. I have certainly come across
similar issues being raised in other activist contexts, and I believe them to
be very important. 

Having conversations
'Patriarchy' is like any other word. It can be useful if all present
understand how it is being used. But unless we share a common understanding
of what words mean, confusion and upset are likely to result. You can see
this in the case of simple words such as 'paper.' As in, "please buy me a
paper while you're at the shop." If I mean the Advertiser and you mean the
Age, our conversation has come unstuck, and we won't even realise that until
you get home.

Let me give another example. The word 'nonviolence' was used in the guiding
principles for the women's peace camp at Benalla this year. After a day or
two at the camp it became very obvious that between the 200 of us there were
some very major disagreements over that useful little word. 

Some thought it meant we shouldn't be 'angry and adversarial', or that we
should be completely passive. Some thought nonviolence was consistent with
damaging military property and acting in physical defence of women should the
police hurt them (and there were 198 other interpretations!) 

Conversations depend on us having common understandings. We may arrive at
these common understandings by accident, or we may arrive at them by noticing
that we have no shared understanding and by putting in the time and effort
necessary to generate some. In my view ANN's discussions about patriarchy
will not move forward until there is enough discussion about crucial words
like 'patriarchy', 'feminism' and 'pro-feminist' to create a common
understanding that does not currently exist. Until this happens, people will
not really be having conversations. They may be talking, but the result is
not going to be communication. 

I believe that patriarchy is a useful concept for understanding some aspects
of the way society works. It has an interesting and honourable history as a
conceptual tool within feminism. Like many words in use today it has had
different meanings over time. Its origin appears to be as a label for a male
headed household, or a patrilineal society (one in which property is handed
down from father to son). 'Patriarchy' and for that matter, 'matriarchy' are
still used this way in some forms of sociology and anthropology.

However in current usage within feminism and in other contexts, 'patriarchy'
is usually shorthand for 'male domination' or 'sexism/the sexist society'.
And that is the way I use it. Patriarchy to my mind is just one aspect of The
Problem, one that is interwoven with other oppressive structures like
capitalism, racism and heterosexism. 

However, I can't speak for every feminist on the planet here (even supposing
I wanted to!) Feminism is not one glorious harmonious organisation (pay your
money and get your membership card right here!) but a sprawling, growing,
evolving social movement (Elle MacPherson calls herself a feminist? - so it
said in the newspaper here, anyway!) There is not complete agreement over
precisely what is meant by 'patriarchy' even within the women's movement, and
that is way too big to meet at Commonground on an annual basis!

Some feminists (and some nonviolent activists I have spoken to) believe that
'patriarchy' names not just part of the problem, a really integral part of
it; but the root cause from which the entire system of oppression we see at
work in society grows. On this view, racism, capitalism, heterosexism and so
on are all built upon the foundation of patriarchy. These are just some of
the ways I see this handy little word being used around me, but there are
plenty of others. 

Ideally these differences in the way we use words create opportunities for
conversations that allow us to learn, grow and generate better understandings
of how the world works and how to change it. Sometimes they get completely
bogged, and the result is uninteresting and painful. 

Sometimes having conversations can get uncomfortable.. Sometimes men feel
guilty or blamed when patriarchy is the subject of discussion. Sometimes the
same conversations make women feel uncomfortable. But that is not a reason to
steer away from the conversation or to put a ban on the use of the word. The
fact that people feel uncomfortable about things is not usually a good
indicator of whether they are useful or correct. Sometimes it is an indicator
that you're going in the right direction. These are everyday understandings
for many nonviolence activists. 

You don't decide whether to take part in an action on the basis of whether it
feels frightening, you take part because it makes sense to you, and you work
out how to deal with the fear. If the action makes people whose current
actions we protest feel uncomfortable about their role in maintaining
militarism or rainforest destruction, we don't think there is something wrong
with the protest. We think we're headed in the right direction - maybe they
will act differently in the future. To my mind, taking a decision not to use
the word 'patriarchy' because it makes men feel uncomfortable is going a step
beyond "shooting the messenger" into "shooting the message".

The nature of oppression is that it will be more obvious to some people than
to others. It is also the nature of oppression that some people have a vested
interest in not seeing its existence. Not seeing that there is a problem, and
not seeing the part they play in maintaining the problem. To my mind this
probably means that no single individual is likely to see the whole picture
of oppression. We will need to talk with other people to get a look at the
different facets of oppressive social structures. Which makes the need to
have conversations that really communicate all the more pressing.

Thinking about oppression
Oppression is important. It is important for us to have as subtle an
understanding of oppression of all kinds as we can manage to build, in order
that we may effectively counteract and ultimately abolish it. For me, this is
why it is important not to stop at the kind of model of human liberation that
Bryan suggested in his article. 

He talks about the oppressive society and argues that "[i]t is not true that
men as a group are 'privileged' by this system." Oppression takes many forms.
Almost all of us benefit from some form(s) of oppression. Almost all of us
are part of maintaining some form(s) of oppression. Almost all of us bear the
weight of some form(s) of oppression. Acknowledging this is not engaging in a
competition for the title of "most oppressed" or the "most innocent", it is
about trying to understand how the world works.

'Patriarchy' describes only one of the forms of oppression, and in my view
men as a group are indeed privileged under patriarchy. Marilyn Frye puts it
like this:

"For any woman of any race or economic class, being a woman is significantly
attached to whatever disadvantages and deprivations she suffers, be they
great or small. None of this is the case with respect to a person's being a
man. Simply being a man is not what stands between him and a better job;
whatever assaults and harassments he is subject to, being male is not what
selects him for victimisation.... If a man has little or no material or
political power... his being male is no part of the explanation. Being male
is something he has going for him, even if race or class or age or disability
is going against him. Women are oppressed, as women. Members of certain
racial and/or economic groups and classes, both the males and the females,
are oppressed as members of those race and/or classes. But men are not
oppressed as men."1

Taking responsibility
Guilt and defensiveness are intrinsically boring. They deprive us of
interesting conversations and real relationships. 

Bryan asks, in respect of men's feeling blamed about patriarchy, "[h]ow tough
ought we be in requiring people to clean up their act and be clear about
something which is attached to deep pain?" In part my answer is the simple
fact of writing this article. Patriarchy causes me pain. Seeing ideas about
how it is maintained and how it can be dismantled trivialised and
misrepresented causes me pain. But that pain isn't very useful if it just
paralyses me.

How tough should we be in requiring people to clean up their act? I say,
pretty tough. Patriarchy, like the other forms of oppression that nonviolent
activists seek to change, is bigger than all of us. It was made well before
we were born. Feeling guilty or placing blame on individuals won't help
anyone. However, we do need to take responsibility for changing the effects
sexism has had on us.

If we are serious about addressing oppression and injustice, we need to
address the stuff that we are part of and not see oppression as something
that only happens 'over there'. We don't leave oppression outside the door
when we go along to our favourite activist groups. We bring it with us when
we go to meetings, actions, gatherings or for that matter when we go into the
kitchen or the bedroom.

It is simply not possible for me to decide not to be a white Anglo person
when I wake up in the morning, and then have a day in which I don't benefit
from the historic and present day racism of this society. 'Just' because I am
white and Anglo I will not be refused service in a hotel or a shop. I will
not be attacked by National Action as I walk down the mall. I will not be
subjected to slurs about my ethnicity. Wanting not to be racist and working
against racism is simply not enough. It can't take away my skin privilege and
it can't remove the fact that I am part of a racist system, 'just' because
I'm white and Anglo. But wanting to end racism and working on that project
does make me a person who is taking responsibility for the existence of
racism and the ways it benefits me and oppresses others. I do have a role in
ending racism, but feeling guilty is no part of my role in that.

Addressing oppression includes addressing sexism, wherever it is found: in
men who have been trained long and hard to be part of patriarchy whether they
like it or not, or in women who have internalised patriarchy's messages about
our supposedly 'natural' limitations. Until we tackle this, movements for
nonviolent change will be constantly struggling under the weight of the
training men have received to make them part of militarism and
institutionalised violence against women and children. The movements will
also be the poorer because women are not acting and speaking with all the
power and brilliance of which we are capable. Feeling guilty or being
defensive won't move us forward in the work we need to do to address these
issues.

Oppression, including sexism, is like the air we breathe. We don't find its
existence obvious, we don't think about it or even notice it much of the
time. It's pointless to argue that any of us could remain unaffected by
something that is so deeply rooted in our society. 

In the case of sexism, men need to start from the assumption that they will
be sexist, and that the women they deal with will notice that, at least some
of the time. It's just a question of whether the women you know think you'll
listen if they tell you, and how articulate they are about what it is that's
bothering them about what you said. And comparable, though not identical
things can be said about other forms of oppression. 

If someone says "hey, you've got snot hanging out of your nose", you don't
argue with them, you say "oh, thanks", and wipe your nose. It might be
embarrassing, but the person who told you did you a favour. I think that's
the attitude we need to take to talking about oppressions, including sexism.
If a woman tells you something you've done is sexist, even if you don't
agree, take the information and think it over. Since she holds a different
role within patriarchy, there will be lots of things she notices that you
don't, and vice versa. Until we can have these conversations without
defensiveness, very little of the information we all have about what it's
like to be a woman/ a man in a sexist society and what needs to change will
get shared around.

Building the movement(s)
There is nothing genuinely respectful or loving about respecting the places
where each of us have learned to be part of maintaining oppressive systems.
And there is no way to build a genuinely inclusive and forward moving
movement for nonviolent social change that short circuits the painful but
important process of each of us unlearning the training we have had in being
oppressors, as well as the training we have had in being oppressed. If we are
serious about social change, our organisations should be the places where we
all get to challenge oppression and to change. 

So let's begin having conversations, taking responsibility and building the
movement(s) we want to be part of, and that we want our co-activists of all
sexes, classes, sexual preferences and ethnicities to be part of. It won't be
boring.
Mary Heath

Footnote:
1. Marilyn Frye "Oppression", in The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist
Theory (The Crossing Press, California, 1983), 18. Marilyn Frye writes about
this question with great clarity and I recommend her to anyone who is
interested in sharpening their understanding of issues of oppression.