Are Genders Other Than Women Affected by Patriarchy? Let’s Find out!
Patriarchy, much like most other problems of this era has been made to look like a never-ending battle of man versus women. We all know about the issues that women have faced over the leading due to and leading further to patriarchy. To understand the roots of patriotism, we have to go a little back in evolution.
Picture credits- The guardian
Gender roles weren’t always about sexism-
There was a time when gender roles were about survival. Probably why we find it so difficult to move on from. The men would go out, hunt to feed the family, and would protect the women and the offspring. For this, he developed bigger bodies, and a bigger ego, and a tendency to lead. The women, on the other hand, stayed home, gave birth to children, took care of them, and hence developed a more nurturing and softer trait to suit their roles. This is where gender roles were born. During this time, when there wasn’t enough technology to dictate life the way we wanted, gender roles were not suppressed. It was the need of the hour.
But with time, we evolved and developed a more civilized place for yourselves and advanced technologically. We were finally secure enough to not have to constantly guard ourselves against all kinds of possible threats. This is when women started to step out, but by then our gender roles were so stuck in our mind that it became more about suppression and rules for acceptance than it was about the need to survive.
The fact that it is so deeply engraved in your genetic memory to expect certain things from a certain gender is what makes the idea of getting over patriarchy and adopting modern ideas like feminism so difficult and complex.
On a wider perspective, when men and women have finally arrived at a point in civilization where they no longer have to cater to their gender roles and can finally be individuals, why do we try to bind each other by the norms of patriarchy and are women the only ones paying the price?
HOW PATRIARCHY AFFECTS GENDERS OTHER THAN WOMEN-
1- PATRIARCHY AND MEN-
On the exterior, it can seem like men are on the benefitting side of patriarchy. Men are simply just slightly more privileged than women when it comes to patriarchy. But men or women, this is what patriarchy does- It puts your gender before who you are as a person. It takes your complex nature and everything you can experience and narrows it down to what is expected of you as a gender. Patriarchy puts a lot of fulfillment pressure on men, making them providers by default.
Men are often pressured to bring in more income than their peers. If a man is financially unmotivated, he is deemed unfit and incapable by society.
A man’s worth is often measured by the size of his financial contribution while his values and aspirations as a human being go unnoticed.
picture credit- feminism in India
More than this, a certain degree of emotional rigidness is expected from men with zero considerations of their emotional capacity and responses. This leads to men having to suppress all their emotions, leading to fragile mental health and resentment towards society.
Men are often discouraged to communicate openly (or even privately) about their issues or mental health because their vulnerabilities are often confused to be weaknesses.
Men are brutally judged and shamed for being emotional and are often expected to be the bearers of other people’s emotions.
This makes them more of a consequence of their gender than a human being.
2- PATRIARCHY AND TRANSGENDERS-
Again, if society uses gender as the sole trait of identifying and labeling human beings, the amount of injustice that cannot be ignored is in mounts. Transgender has suffered at the hands of patriarchy as well. A society that has so rigidly defined people as male and female, fails to accommodate a third gender. This has resulted in people not knowing how to perceive them, being unable and unwilling to give them a place in society, or give them a job or even see them as fellow citizens. This limits an entire gender’s life to begging, prostitution, and criminal activity. This takes away their basic right to live in the name of gender and gender roles as dictated by the outdated and unaccommodating ideas of patriarchy.
3- WOMEN AND PATRIARCHY-
Needless to say, women have suffered the most under patriarchy subjecting them culturally normalized labor and house chores and perpetually being underestimated by the whole society. Women, more often than not are treated as property, and society still discreetly denies them a position without the reference of their relationship with a man. A wife, a sister, a daughter, just never enough by herself.
On the surface, it can just seem like an issue of gender equality or women’s position in society. But patriarchy paralyzes human potential like nothing else, putting us into boxes with bold labels of men and women and quickly deeming us unfit if we dare to step outside.
Patriarchy is not about women saving themselves from men. It is about choosing human expression, human potential, and compassion over anything that tells us otherwise. Which in this case is patriarchy.
So let’s pledge to unlearn prejudice, one day at a time!
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Originally published at https://www.fuzia.com.