Occasional Paper Series 2/2010
Rethinking ‘Patriarchy’ in a Rural Context
Judith Soares and Cecelia Batson-Rollock
Abstract
In this paper, we present what we consider an important point of entry for interrogating the concept of ‘patriarchy’ as an overarching concept in explaining gender relations andoffer that this concept, as tool of analysis, is not always useful in explaining gender arrangements.
Noting the way in which historical transformations can affect the relations between women and men as individuals and as social groups, we argue that the material conditions of a society based on equal access to resources and the main means of production determine social interaction, and can influence the expression of gender roles and situations of relative gender equality. To illustrate our point we refer to the experience of a rural farming community in St. Vincent and the Grenadines where women and men see themselves as social equals.
Introduction: The Concept of ‘Patriarchy’
More than any other school of feminist thought, that of radical feminism has made the most significant contribution to the development of feminism as a body of knowledge. In their seminal contribution to feminist theorising, radical feminists isolated the concept and theory of ‘patriarchy’ as the main factor responsible for women’s subordination and male arrogance in both the private and public spheres.Contending that ‘patriarchy’ is a system of power relationswhich underlies the organisation of society into its complex matrix of unequal relations between an oppressive male presence and an oppressed female population, radical feminism challenges ‘patriarchy’ by opposing constructed gender roles, brought on by men’s oppression of women.Instead, this body of thought calls for a radical reordering of social relations and of society itself. Essentially, radical feminism argues that ‘patriarchy’ is the defining feature of contemporary society and, hence, the root of women’s oppression is to be found in patriarchal gender relations which if not overthrown will perpetuate the exploitation of women for the benefit of men. As Rosemarie Tong puts it, for “radical feminists…it is the patriarchal system that oppresses women, a system characterized by power, dominance, hierarchy, and competition, a system that cannot be reformed but only ripped out root and branch” (1989: 2-3). At the same time ideas of ‘patriarchy’, like all other ideas of domination, have been disseminated through negative cultural traditions and civil society’s material and institutional structures.These include the family, schools, the media and religious institutions.As Acosta-Belen and Bose state, “the subordination of women has been ideologically conceived as an integral part of the natural order of things and perpetuated by praxis, religion, education and other social institutions”(Acosta-Belen and Bose:1995: 15). It is because of this that Tong further states that “it is not just patriarchy’s legal and political system that must be overturned; its social and cultural institutions (especially the family, the church and the academy) must also go” (1989: 3).
By ascribing women’s oppression to male supremacy and byarguing for the elimination of male dominance and supremacy and for the liberation of women, radical feminism has laid the foundation on which feminist theorising, in its various forms, has been constructed as ideology and theory. In fact, it could be said that radical feminism is responsible for the expression of many of the ideas of feminism, shaped and developed into their various strands. According to Humm (1995)“each feminist theory finds that a different feature of patriarchy defines women’s subordination” (p. 200) as expressed in the works of radicalsocialist, Marxistand psychoanalystfeminists such as Firestone (1970);Millet (1970);Barrett (1980);Hartmann (1976); Mitchell (1974);Dinnerstein (1976) Rubin (1984); and Daley (1968, 1973). These feminists, for example, bring to the conceptualisation of ‘patriarchy’ different features, but with a core concept relating to the subordination of women through patriarchal ideology and practice. In the tradition of radical feminism, then, contemporary feminists, from their different strands of thought,argue generally that ‘patriarchy’ “has power from men’s greater access to, and mediation of, the resources and rewards of authority structures inside and outside the home” (Humm: 1995: 200). Essentially, the concept of patriarchy is critical to contemporary feminism, as Humm points out, as a body of thought which seeks to explain women’s subordination and the “totality of oppressive and exploitative relations which affect women” (Humm: 1995: 200).
While it may seem that the concept of ‘patriarchy’ can be universalised in its application, there are some feminists like Rowbothom (1983) who caution against its universal usage because such usage, they argue, should be contexualised within the socio-history of the particular society which is under scrutiny in order to give specific meaning to any gender analysis. Failure to do so would result in an ahistorical and mechanistic analysis which would mask the real meaning of social phenomena and/or issues of social relations between women and men. While Rowbothom is taken with the ahistorical character of the concept, Deniz Kandiyota (1997) is quick to point out that this concept is not always useful as tool of analysis. In this, she agrees with Rowbothom’s conceptual viewpoint but from a different angle.Kandiyota claims that the usage of ‘patriarchy’ is too generalised for it to have meaning. In this respect, it does not provide a sound ideological, cultural or historical framework within which to analyse “distinct arrangements between genders”.
Of all the concepts generated by contemporary feminist theory, patriarchy is probably the most overused and, in some respects, the most undertheorized. This state of affairs is not due to neglect, since there is a substantial volume of writing on the question, but rather to the specific conditions of development of contemporary feminist usages of the term. While radical feminists encouraged a very liberal usage, to apply to virtually any form or instance of male domination, socialist feminists have mainly restricted themselves to analysing the relationships between patriarchy and class under capitalism. As a result, the term patriarchy evokes an overly monolithic conception of male dominance, which is treated at a level of abstraction that obfuscates rather than reveals the intimate inner workings of culturally and historically distinct arrangements between the genders (p. 86).
She, therefore, offers “an important and relatively neglected point of entry for the identification of different forms of patriarchy through an analysis of women’s strategies in dealing with them” (Kandiyota: 1997, p.86). In this respect, she advises that “women strategise within a set of concrete constraints that reveal and define the blueprint” of which she terms the “patriarchal bargain” of any society which is based on distinctions of class, caste and ethnicity. Such patriarchal bargains, she continues, “exert a powerful influence on the shaping of women’s gendered subjectivity and determine the nature of gender ideology in different contexts” (Kandiyota: 1997 p. 86). They also influence the nature and form of women’s resistance to various forms of oppression while being susceptible to historical transformations which can lead to new areas of struggle and ‘renegotiation of relations between genders” (Kandiyota: 1997, p. 87).
While we accept that ‘patriarchy’ is fundamental to contemporary feminist thought, whatever its strand[i], and recognise its liberal usage and complexity in definition, our research has revealed that ‘patriarchy’, as a pure concept, is not always useful as a conceptual tool of analysis in understanding or explaining gender arrangements. Our view is more in line with Kandiyota’s that there is the “existence of set rules and scripts regulating gender relations, to which both genders accommodate and acquiesce, yet which may nonetheless be contested, redefined and renegotiated” (p. 97). In this regard, we also agree that gender relations can, indeed, be transformed, redefined and renegotiated. Our point of departure, however, is that we argue that such gender relations, while subject to redefinition, renegotiation and transformation, are not necessarilysubject to contestation under particular socio-historical conditions and in specificcultural contexts. It is also our view that the “existence of set rules and scripts regulating gender relations’, assumed to be socially constructed by a ‘patriarchal’ society, can also be reversed or negated in favour of more palatable ‘rules and scripts’ which govern the relations between women and men. This, however, is, dependent on the existence of particular historical and social circumstances.Our argument finds support in the findings of our recent interrogation of social life in a small rural and remote community in St.Vincent and the Grenadines, Fancy. The findings indicate that the concept, ideology and practice of ‘patriarchy’ do not dominate social relations between women and men. In this community, where there are no male hierarchical relations and where there are expressions of men’s solidarity with women, and women’s solidarity with men, men agree that women are, in fact, their equals and that “women and men have the same rights” (Paul interview: 2008)[ii].
Within the body of feminist thought, thisappears as an anomaly and out of keeping with any feminist theorising on the unequal relations of power which are said to characterise gender arrangements. The expression, then, of “men and women having equal rights” and ‘men’s equality with women’ points to the need to reconceptualise or to rethink ‘patriarchy’ and to draw within its ambit, the more subtle distinctions which can give more meaning to general theories as the combination of the specific and the general provides a more meaningful picture of social phenomena. This is important because the case of Fancy provides an interesting theoretical and practical situation, precisely because within the wider Vincentian community, the ideas and practice of patriarchy have resulted in the exclusion and marginalisation of women in a system which operates on male dominance, male hierarchical relations and male solidarity (Soares: 2007). These ideas have not penetrated the community which has preserved relatively equal social relations. Our intention, then, was to unravel the underlying reasons for the lack of ideological penetration and the absence of constructed gender roles.
In attempting to explain the unique social relations being experienced in the farming community of Fancy, we argue,based on our investigation, that gender relations were not just transformed, but were redefined and not contested within a particular socio-cultural and historical context andon a particular material base. This material base is a land tenure systemwhich has passed from generation to generation (Joy, 2007, Ashton 2002). In addition, the pattern of landownership, as we offer, eroded the ideology and practice of ‘patriarchy’ by erasing lines of social demarcation which has encouraged the absence of a gendered division of labour which, according to feminist theory, is occasioned by the unequal structuring of women’s and men’s work. (Kuhn and Wolpe, 1978; Firestone, 1968, 1970; Hart, 1992).It was, therefore, not difficult for the women and men of Fancy to embrace the practice of ‘equal relations between women and men’, for, with this pattern of landownership, we further argue, came the transformation of ideas of male dominance and women’s subordination held in the collective consciousness of a people who feel that women, like men, should control their own destiny (Soares, 2007). (Here we speak not of ‘gender equality’ but of social justice).
Our methods of investigation which took place over a period of two years (2006-2008) included informal interviews with women and men, observer participation and group meetings of women.
The Status of Women in St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Numerically, women outnumber men in most countries of the Anglophone Caribbean where, generally speaking, for every 100 men there are 103 women (CARICOM: various years). However, in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a small country with a population of some 119,000, women exceeded men in 2000 but by 2005, women represented some 50.4 per cent of the total population. Despite this, Vincentian women and men have, historically, coexisted in a society where gender disparities and unacceptable unequal relations of power persist. Women and men in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, therefore, do not enjoy equal social, economic and political relationships. For, while women and men must work and live together, there are differentials in their condition of life in a region and country where there is a differential articulation of the impact of policy and policymaking along the lines of race, class, and gender. This means that women continue to face discrimination as a matter of course (Soares, 2007).
The country’s report to the Third World Conference on Women held in Nairobi, Kenya in 1985 noted as follows.
[W]omen were mostly employed in low paying, low status, low skilled areas, which brought low economic returns. Unemployment was higher among them than their male counterparts and they tended to have fewer technical skills than men. In addition to limited employment opportunities, inflexible working hours, lack of support structures for women who wanted to combine family and employment responsibilities…those who worked in the industrial and agricultural sectors were discriminated against since they did not receive the same pay as men for the work which they performed(cited in Ollivierre: 2000: 1).
For the majority of women, there was no significant shift in their conditions of life. Of the approximately 37 percent of Vincentians who fall below the poverty line, “a great number…are women” who live in deplorable conditions of poverty despite the government’s ‘war on poverty’(Status of Women Report: 2003). Poverty reduction measures which were not gender specific did not address the crux of the social and economic situation. It was concluded, then, in the government’s “Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper” that “marked gender disparities exist reflecting the different roles, responsibilities and options available to men and women which will unless addressed comprehensively, continue to be a significant restraint on progress in St. Vincent and the Grenadines” (Status of Women Report: 2003). Women did not figure centrally in the socio-politics and economics of this small import-oriented, export-propelled economy where women’s issues were recognised as deserving of attention, but not of action. Among these women were the women of Fancy whose social experience excluded notions and practice of gender disparities, male dominance and social exclusion.
Fancy: The Community
Fancy is a small remote rural community locatedat the northernmost point of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It is a community of smallfarmers and to a lesser extent fisherfolk.
The community comprises one primary school, a health clinic with regular opening hours, and several churches and the main means of subsistence are is cash crop farming. While there is a post office, there are no government offices, commercial banks, non-bank financial institutions or other business enterprises to facilitate monetary transactions or to provide employment. Women, which number 269 of a population of 500, are either farmers or homemakers or both. Although the community is a remote one, community members are linked to the ‘outside world’ through telephone connection (both landline and cellular telephones) and a cooperatively-owned transport bus which makes daily runs to Kingstown, the country’s capital which is about 36 miles to the south. In terms of access, there is only one entrance and exit to the community which lies in a hilly terrain in an area which is prone to land and rock slides.
Fancy is an interesting community in terms of its social dynamics. It is a socially cohesive community built on the spirit of kinship, the extended family and collective/communal action.In this community where women reported that their relationship with their husbands and partners is “good”, social discord is virtually absent and the physical abuse of women by their men is not a part of the community’s culture. However, verbal abuse takes place at times, particularly when the husband or partner is drunk. When this happensthe community intervenes to diffuse the conflict in order to prevent an escalation of the situation. In the same way if there is a dispute between or among community members, “it is solved by the community to prevent fights… the community leads by example”(Joy/Melba interviews, 2007). While alcohol may be abused by men, there is no evidence of the abuse of any other substance. Substance abuse among women is virtually absent. What is also worthy of note is that the community is crime free. Its crime-free status is easily recognisable because there is no police station and there is no patrolling police presence in the community.
In terms of their relationship with their husbands and partners, the women inform that “it is good”, and “jealously and suspicion do not exist in the community…our men go out by themselves and we go out by ourselves”(Joy/Melba interviews, 2007). Husbands and partners show an interest in their women’s community development activities and do not question their absence from the home. It is a community in which both women and men work together for their own good and for the good of the community as a whole.
‘Patriarchy’ is Transformed