Patriarchy: 7 Keys To Understanding Cultural Machismo
Patriarchy has been defined as a system of subordination of women to men that has been reproduced over thousands of years.
This concept, closely related to machismo and inequalities, has had a lot of weight in both psychology and social sciences, since it tells us about a dynamic of relationships that causes a part of the population to be totally or partially dominated by the other.
The discussions and debates that revolve around the idea of patriarchy generate a lot of controversy, among other things, because of how difficult it is to study its existence or its presence in certain societies, but also because of the far-reaching implications that it has for us. , both politically and philosophically.
But patriarchy is not just a controversial issue, It is also a relatively difficult concept to understand These are some of the keys that can help us better understand what we understand by patriarchal society.
1. Machismo and patriarchy are not synonyms
Although they are two very related concepts, machismo and patriarchy do not refer to the same thing Machismo is a set of beliefs, cognitive biases and attitudes that predispose people to act as if women had less value than men, while patriarchy is defined as a social phenomenon that has historically been the driving force of machismo and certain privileges that only man enjoys.
While machismo is expressed through individuals (regardless of whether they are men or women), patriarchy is something that exists in large groups, a power dynamic that is only understood if we take into account many people at the same time.
2. It is not just a system of cultural domination
When talking about machismo, we often tend to think that this is just a psychological phenomenon, a way of thinking in which women are undervalued and objectified. However, from gender studies and feminism it is customary to talk about machismo generated by patriarchy as a phenomenon that has two pillars: one psychological, based on how individuals think and act, and another material, based on objective characteristics of our environment and institutions: clothing, laws, movies, etc.
In this way, the psychological and material aspects would feed off each other, giving rise to individuals whose sexist attitudes are reinforced by the environment in which they live and which they contribute to reproduce through their actions.
3. It is believed to be related to the property system
Patriarchy is understood as a phenomenon that jumps from generation to generation, and that is why a relationship between it and the idea of property has been hypothesized. This idea, deeply rooted in Marxist philosophy, proposes that, just as properties are inherited and offer the possibility of exploiting others to work with them, generating a part of value that the owner can keep despite not having worked , Women have been conceived as a resource, something that can be possessed and with what the patriarchs of the family have dedicated themselves to trading, either to have cheap labor (normally applied to household chores) or to be able to have offspring (something that is also linked to the domestic sphere and, therefore, therefore, private).
Since the woman could not aspire to be an owner, since she only took care of the assets necessary for the well-being of the family, she could not aspire to negotiate as equals with the man, which would place her at a disadvantage even when Female participation in jobs outside the home began to be normal.
4. Its relationship with capitalism is confusing
Within feminist currents there has been much discussion about whether patriarchy is a system of domination linked to capitalism (as understood from Marxism) or whether they are two separate phenomena. Both have been theorized as relationship dynamics based on repression and exploitation but it is not clear if its historical engine would be the same.
5. Patriarchy has been universal
It is very easy to find societies in which men have clear power over women, but so far we have not been able to find any example of a relatively broad and stable culture in which the opposite occurs.
The idea of matriarchy, proposed in the 19th century by anthropologist Johann Jakob Bachofen, talks about primitive societies thousands of years ago in which women had power, but It is not based on empirical evidence to support it
6. It is not clear if it originated from genes
As patriarchy is conceptualized as a universal system spread throughout the world and that has resisted all types of political changes, some researchers have proposed the idea that its origin has to do with genetic propensities. Specifically, a possible explanation for its existence would be the alleged differentiation in the way both sexes behave, for which DNA is directly responsible. According to this idea, Men would have a kind of natural tendency towards dominating and aggressive behavior while women would more easily manifest submissive behaviors.
The other proposal, much less controversial, is that Patriarchy occurred due to cultural dynamics in which men and women were educated to divide the work leading this to a situation in which men gained bargaining power over women that they have been exploiting throughout generations.
Of course, between both proposals there are theories that could be considered intermediate between these two extremes.
7. It’s a terribly abstract concept
Being a social phenomenon with different ways of manifesting itself, the existence of patriarchy in certain countries is not given as an obvious fact. This is because this concept is not in itself an explanatory model that can be proven or refuted through empirical testing, and therefore The same fact can be interpreted as proof of the existence of patriarchy or as a sign of its absence
For example, the abundance of famous actresses who fit well into beauty canons can be understood as an example that women need to sell their bodies to prosper, but it can also be interpreted as an example that women can have more. power than men without having to work much harder than them.
