Men Confronting Patriachy

anon@indymedia.org (Patriachal Man) | 15.08.2010 16:24

Men confronting Patriachy group. First meeting at the Sumac starting at 7:30pm on the 31st of August.

I am patriarchal. I carry the patriarchy in my back pocket, and use it when it’s needed. Sometimes I’m conscious of this, but most of the time I’m not. When I am conscious of it I am disgusted with myself, in the same way I am disgusted with myself when I pull out my passport at the border control. When I am not conscious of using it I am failing to live up to the ideals that I hold most dear. The ideals that say that I need to be vigilant, identify and then challenge power and authority in all its forms. If I don’t even recognise my own use of power than how will I be able to combat and destroy it in its other forms. So, when I sit in another meeting and watch myself or other men dominate the proceedings uncritically and without thought then I once more feed into a system based upon domination and violence. A system which cannot be separated from others violent systems within this culture, those that relate to border control, wage slavery, ecological destruction, prisons and surveillance, to name only a few. All of which should be fought against constantly and continuously, and it’s not as if I don’t want to smash patriarchy. Just as my experiences have led to me believe that we must destroy all other aspects of capitalism and it’s culture, so do my experiences tell me that the patriarchy should be ground down until it no longer exists. I have seen my mother beaten and raped by male members of her family and stayed close to those men, I’ve seen my friends live through abusive relationships because the society from which they can’t escape has told them that they have no other choice. I’ve witnessed my sisters learning to value themselves on the basis of how their looks correspond with those that the dominant culture position as beautiful, because they are taught that it is the only value they have, their confidence and ability to exercise agency having been shaped by their gender. And I’ve seen roles and skills determined by patriarchy.(DDDDDDDDDDDDDD) But at the same time I don’t fight the patriarchy within myself with nearly the same energy and consciousness as I fight against other aspects of this system. I want to, but somehow, perhaps because it has been so ingrained in me due to the culture of which I am a part. I still find myself playing the male defined role in my relationships with women and men, sometimes I’m called on it, sometimes I catch myself and stop, but its often it played out without anyone saying a thing.

Maybe it’s because it’s too easy to forget that the patriarchy is as much a mediating and destructive factor in men’s lives as it is women (and every other gender), all the examples above highlight the corrosiveness that patriarchy has on women’s lives. But it is important to remember that a) the two genders construct is not unbiased, it is used in order to create and enforce a hierarchy, through defining each gender as a set prescribed thing which is then naturalised, and b) the patriarchy has had a role in limiting my capacity as a human being.

In the most basic sense it has encouraged me to repress my willingness to give and receive emotional warmth and support, it has pushed me towards aggression, and defined me as someone who should control and dominate others around me, thus taking away from me opportunities to listen, learn and develop my capacities as human being. The patriarchy limits my tendencies to accept tenderness and pushed down my willingness to show love and care. It has told me that these are characteristics which belong to another gender, and that to allow them into myself would be unnatural. Needless to say the processes and mechanisms which the patriarchy uses are complex and multifarious. I am not trying to describe it as a single monolithic creature hell bent on controlling us, it works in tandem with other processes of this civilizations culture, and it is reproduced by us all. And it’s this reproduction which must be challenged, taken head on with a full heart and desperate passion, because if we do not confront the patriarchy within us and around us we will continue to feed into the culture of domination and destruction which is rapidly ripping this world apart.

The task of smashing the patriarchy cannot be undertaken alone, it is not a self-improvement programme, it is something that we must collectively organise around within our communities. It is something which we not have the skills or the language to do yet, therefore we must create the language and build those skills together. Men confronting patriarchy groups are just one tool that may help us do this, at the very least it can be a starting place, a space to begin to share experiences and ideas we have. There’s going to be a meeting at the Sumac on Wednesday the 1st of September, and from their we’ll decide where and how we can proceed.

The full version of this article will be in some future issue of Affinity.

anon@indymedia.org (Patriachal Man)
http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/articles/384

UK Indymedia

Men Confronting Patriachy