The word “Patriarchy” is enough to trigger an army of feminists into an outrage. Whose whole lives revolve around the idea that they aren’t doing as well as men because of some historic injustice that no one knows who started, that has no formal structure, by law or even by any other means. So the obvious question is, is it even real? If so, then when did it begin? What is it actually? Or is the term patriarchy a mere target of some leftist propaganda who want the society to be divided on gender lines?
Let’s talk about it. Firstly, what does the term Patriarchy mean? It means, the eldest male of the family leads the rest.
When did it begin? Well, in reality there is no formal date to it. But your feminist friend might tell you that it’s a conspiracy against women, done by men of the world a few thousand years ago. Some 5000 years ago, all men of the world came to terms and decided that they will keep women out of power. Legend has it, though there were no means of communication amongst different civilizations yet, all men of the world managed to communicate and establish the laws of patriarchy, surprisingly which went pretty uniform all across the globe. From Mayans in Mexico to Indians of Indus to tribes of the world, all agreed to subjugate women and agree that men shall have hold onto all the power. Wow, if only all matters were as simple as establishing patriarchy, the world would have been such a beautiful place.
But dear feminist didi, there was no way for different parts of the world to communicate, yet how did they apply the same laws? Wait; there wasn’t even a law, because there was no standard script, no standard languages. Hunt, eat, sleep repeat was pretty much the whole human life with reproductive breaks in between.
So when did it actually begin? Well, even the animals have it. The concept of an Alpha male, where the strongest male leads the gang and has multiple partners is prevalent across the majority of the species. Even the apes have it. And since we humans have evolved out of our monkey cousins, we have inherited their traits as well.
So what now? We are humans now . Since there is no formal date, law or structure then how does patriarchy survive? One simple answer is, security. Men provided women with security, hunted for them and earned for them while women cooked, bore children and took care of the household is pretty much 90% of gender roles across history. But there is another key element, that is leadership and the other is warfare. Men have lead and fought all the wars for their people. Remember any war ? The ones who fell were someone’s son, husband or brothers. 99.99% of all humans who have ever died in war to protect their kin have been men. Just think about it. It was bravery and war that produced leaders. And since men fought wars bravely, they became the leaders.
And for a moment let us invite a silly but famous counter argument , which is ” If women lead the world, there would have been no wars”. Which is a silly argument at best and sheer ignorance at worst. This argument is based on the notion that men fought wars for fun or glory. While in reality wars were always fought for resources and to defend kin’s from enemies, where men bled to death to defend their loved ones.
Further, let’s talk about it. “One day I will find a Prince Charming and my life will be settled , and I will just run away with him”. How common is this childhood dream amongst girls? But ever heard, ” One day I will find a Princess and then my life will be settled” from a boy’s mouth. Probably not. Because from childhood boys are trained to believe that it’s their duty to earn for the household while the opposite gender can relax a bit more. It’s true. Settling down for a male and female mostly means different things. For a man it’s his earning capacity while for a lady it’s not that hard usually. If you disagree just get a 360 degree view of your surroundings. Even amongst the couples with the same qualifications at times you will see the burden of earning for the family is mostly on the man.
And this burden is the crux and the root cause of the power structure that we know as Patriarchy. Remember when Uncle Ben told Peter Parker “With great power comes great responsibility”. Such a good dialogue it was. Even the opposite is true. “With great responsibility comes great power”. Because when one person shares the burden of responsibility more than the other, they naturally assume more power. As wise men of the old times would say, the only way to maintain any power structure of the world is if “Power and responsibility are proportional”.
And this takes us to the main issue. No matter how much you glorify household work. Doesn’t matter if you call a housewife a homemaker. The truth at our disposal is that it’s nothing in comparison to the challenges one has to face in the outside world. The professional world is always more challenging than taking care of the household. And this has always been the case, men have always bore more burden than women and thus they have always yielded more power.
Now I know, thus far I must have gained quite a few titles from my readers. Some fancy words that I dare not mention here. But a fact is a fact. Even today we see the same disparity in roles. Many working women would leave their jobs in their 30s while the men have to go on. While it’s very rare to witness vice-versa of it.
And since the general feminist rhetoric stands on the assumption that men enjoy a position of power while women stand oppressed.
For such rhetoric there is but one perfect reply to this. Once Jordon Peterson, a very famous clinical psychologist said, “Most people who commit suicide are men, most people who die in wars are men, most people who live shorter than the other are men, most people who have excelled in various fields are men, any architectural marvel you have ever seen is built by men, so for a moment stop believing that your father, husband, son and brother are part of a huge conspiracy wherein they want to oppress you”.
The whole feminist rhetoric is based on victimhood psyche and merely divides society on gender lines instead of making the society productive , merely creates us vs. them environment. While in reality men and women are complementary to each other and not opponents.
The bottom line is that the victimhood mentality of feminism isn’t helping anyone. The only way to establish the utopian sense of equality imagined by hardcore feminists is for them to stand up and chase human excellence in their desired fields. Shouting equality for all doesn’t make it a ground reality. It shows when all parts of society work that way.
Since the dawn of the evolutionary cycle of primates, Patriarchy has stood as a phenomenon of nature, while I believe all humans are equal in their rights to be but whether their capability to excel also stands on the same pedestal of equality is still to be seen across the globe.
