Sunday, January 16, 2011

Patriarchy: ur doin it wrong

This train of thought started with something I heard years ago about people living under the Taliban in Afghanistan. Apparently women weren't allowed to leave the house unaccompanied by a male relative. My first thought is this has to be inconvenient for the men too, because the women can't even go to the market or do errands without a chaperone. This didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. If I had a spouse whom I saw as subservient to me, I'd totally be making them do all the errands!

Then, several years after I learned this, I was watching Big Love. Nikki (the most fundamentalist of the wives) thinks its inappropriate for her sister-wives to have jobs, on the basis that they should be taking care of the family. But that would leave Bill (the husband) with at least 10 (maybe more, depending on the season) mouths to feed single-handedly. And he's an entrepreneur! Surely it's of value for at least one of the wives to keep herself employable (as Barb, the first wife, does, being a substitute teacher) in case the business fails!

Then I saw this article on an evangelical movement where daughters are expected to stay in their parents' home until marriage and basically serve as additional homemakers rather than going to school or having a job. But how many homemakers do you need? I know that in my own family, if I thought I should be living with and serving my parents, I would be far more useful to them by bringing home my salary than by additional homemaking. Even if they had put me through university, they would have recouped their investment quickly.

They wouldn't have to completely subvert their dogma to make these changes either. The husband/father could still retain his role as head of household and decide who will work in the home and who will work outside the home, dictate or veto specific career paths, etc. It's like the men who created these patriarchies are really excessively disproportionately insecure in their dogma and their own place within that dogma. It surprises me these cultures can continue to exist for so long despite this insecurity - and it surprises me that this insecurity persists despite the longevity of the cultures.

1 comment:

laura k said...

It's like the men who created these patriarchies are really excessively disproportionately insecure in their dogma and their own place within that dogma.

I see that insecurity as a hallmark of fundamentalist cultures and of patriarchal systems of all types. The greater the insecurity, the greater the need for control. It applies to marriages as well as religions.