By Sukalpa Bhattacharjee
The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)
As the air around resounds with the Azadi Anthem, one feels like adding one’s own slogan on behalf of a population which constitutes more that ‘half the sky’ and for whom every new day is a new way of realizing ( through suffering) what it means to live under patriarchy. The concept of patriarchy has been used within the women’s movement to analyse the principles underlying women’s oppression. The concept of patriarchy which has been developed within feminist writings is not a single or simple concept but has a whole variety of different meanings. Patriarchy has invited different types of response in different societies depending on the socio-cultural milieu in which women as a marginalized group live. But patriarchy as a hydraheaded monster has many avatars and forms and it manifests both in visible and invisible ways.
Women in general and educated and urban women (whether ‘homemakers’ or working) in particular, experience patriarchy in subtle and invisible forms. The discrimination and disparity expressed through fixed and assigned gender roles in sharing household responsibilities and raising children presumes women’s capabilities to be limited only to the domestic sphere. Even women do not realize that when their husbands refer to them as ‘home minister’ in public, they are not being appreciative but sexist. To say she is best suited for the domestic space is to legitimize her exclusion from public sphere and her absence in professional spaces. Studies have proven that human beings are basically androgynous and there is no reason as to why women cannot be paternal and men cannot be maternal. So gender roles in a patriarchal set up fix women as stereotypesmaternal (mother), caring (wife), emotional (partner) (emotion as opposed to reason),tolerant(widow) etc. Scholars working on gender roles should not echo patriarchal definitions of gender roles but the patriarchal politics behind assignment of gender roles. This caution is even more relevant when we encounter uncritical myths about women’s secure role and dignified position in matriarchy or matrilineal societies.
Patriarchy, like Capitalism operates through ‘agents’ which/whom they choose from among the victims themselves without their own knowledge. Capitalism chooses the ‘native’ subaltern to work against forces that strive to bring about the economic and social transformations of the backward class. Patriarchy also is not about men alone as agents of exploitation but women who internalize patriarchal lust for power and the desire for the subordination of the weak. So the relation between patriarchy and capitalism is one of “partnership.” The predominant reaction of the victims of patriarchy has been the desire to revolt and transform feelings of rebellion into a political practice and theory. Rebellion against patriarchy links the question of women’s liberation to other forms of liberation movements underlying oppression on the basis of race, caste, ethnicity and class. Therefore Prof. Gopal Guru argues in his article “Dalit Women Talk Differently” (1995) that dalits can dream of liberation from caste system only when dalit women are freed from two forms of patriarchy- brahminical patriarchy on the one hand and dalit patriarchy on the other.
But how do we recognize or locate patriarchy in our homes and in our daily lives? For those of us who know the academic definition of patriarchy and can by heart them from cover to cover, can we say with sincerity whether it has transformed our lives into a more dignified existence in comparison to those who have no knowledge of these definitions? Do institutions of marriage and family have the slightest space for reformation of oppressive laws and strictures that had been in force since the time of Manusmriti? How do we account for educated societies still indulging in dowry practices under camouflaging phrases? How do women, who have seen their fathers struggle to gather the amount of dowry and jewelleries (so that their daughters would be accepted in their in-law’s house) pretend to live a picture-perfect family life? How would it possible to live and ‘give’ ones own self unconditionally to a man who has been a tacit ally to this crime and who lives in self denial by speaking of progressive issues in public? Is the institution of marriage and family then based on drab rituals and caricatures of love making without any love or dignity for the (gendered) other?
Women who live in the oppressive structures of marriage and families through everyday battles still exhibit some resistance to patriarchy- they have dared to ‘attack the crocodile and yet live in the river’ in contrast to the proverbial strategy “If you live in the river you should make friends with the crocodile”. The liberation of the rural subaltern women of the subcontinent from patriarchy is of course much more difficult and is an ongoing sociopolitical project of political activists and committed social groups. But the problem is mainly with two categories of women who fuel patriarchy–firstly the ones who live in denial of the oppressive networks of patriarchy and secondly those who have become partners and collaborators to patriarchs and patriarchy. These are two types of gendered victims – one the average middle class literate women and the others who have managed their way to the centres of power or Parliament. The average women around carry marital symbols on their bodies, keep fast for their spouse without the slightest knowledge about its authenticity.
Did religion prescribe such practices or did patriarchy codify them as the “laws of Manu” to control women’s will and her body? When we live in denial of these we become like sacrificial goats who are loaded with all kind of symbols and rituals just before our own sacrifice in front of the gods. Doesn’t it occur to any of these women who live under veil or vermilion (and the rituals that these symbols invite) as to why the reverse is not practised? Have we ever heard of a man keeping fast for his wife’s longevity?
But, the more dangerous trend is exhibited by the second category mentioned above to occupy seats of power and who use their oratory skills, passionate trembling voice and theatrical bodily articulations to justify religious fundamentalism and regressive ideologies that have historically oppressed women. These are gendered agents of patriarchy who speak against rights of other marginalized groups and the rights of students. French feminists in the seventies had stated “listen to a woman speak at a public gathering…she throws her trembling body forward… it’s with her body that she vitally supports the “logic” of her speech”.(Hélène Cixous:1975).The logic that this feminist writer talks about is the logic against patriarchy which a woman had to establish in public. Ironically, what we are seeing in the Parliament now is the theatre of reverse logic of legitimizing political patriarchy through oratory and trembling voices, by gendered agents of patriarchy.
This Women’s day let us say together “Patriarchy Se Azadi”