What is Patriarchy?

Patriarchy is pretty-well universal in human societies so far. It is a regime of power and exploitation. We can describe this inequality using a theory of human nature. To explain this, I will begin with a well-known sociological study of ‘housewives’ of London in the seventies. I will go on to look at other aspects of patriarchy in current society. 

Transcript

Chapter 5: What is patriarchy?
Terry Leahy 2024

This is the second part of ‘System Change and the Riddles of History’. In this part B, I'm going to be talking about patriarchy. What is patriarchy? Also, to consider the feminist movement as it’s developed since the nineteenth century. How patriarchy and class society interact and the form this takes within capitalism. Whether any of this has anything to do with environmental politics. 
I will say that patriarchy is in fact cross-cultural and trans historical, meaning that it's occurred in different periods of history. Also, in different types of cultures, and in different class locations in class societies. Patriarchy is a regime of male power and exploitation of women. An inequality. It's socially constructed in the sense that men choose to create patriarchy and construct it by their actions. Whether these actions are consciously intended to create patriarchy — or not. Patriarchy is also socially constructed in the sense that it is quite different in different societies. So, we could probably talk about patriarchies in the plural.
As well as being socially constructed, patriarchy is also something which depends upon the biological differences between the sexes. It could not exist without them, and it constantly depends upon them. That is why patriarchy has been recreated in such different situations. It is close to universal in human societies. It may be debatable how universal it is, but it is extremely common. In which case you must ask yourself, the question, why is it so common, even if it's not totally universal?
Patriarchy is not inevitable at the present time. I think it can be defeated and is being rolled back as we speak. This process has been going on since the second half of the nineteenth century. That rollback has depended upon technological capacities linked to modernity and industrialism.
This is all controversial stuff. I will defend these views as I go along.
Mistaken views of the gender order
There are some common views about patriarchy, which I think are completely mistaken. 
The conservative line is there is no such thing as patriarchy. In other words, men don't have power. Women choose a different role from men and these roles are complementary. Another conservative theory is that differences in gender roles come from differences in temperament and intellect. Like that women are not good at maths or men are naturally more aggressive. Neither of these theories really fit the evidence. 
A view more common on the left is that gender is socially constructed completely without any reference to biology. I also think that's wrong. Often joined to this is the view that patriarchy comes out of class society. ‘It's all connected’ is a phrase often used to announce this point of view. Capitalism, patriarchy, racism, environmental destruction, they're all part of the same package. No, they're not. In fact, patriarchy is, to a large extent, an independent social regime, which grabs onto, and becomes part of other social structures.
 Another view more likely to be expressed in post-colonial theory or anthropology is that the feminist framework, including the concept of ‘patriarchy’ is not applicable to non-Western cultures. Cultures without liberalism, a feminist movement or the enlightenment. That the understanding of sex roles in relation to power and equality is something specific to Western thought. Consequently, it is epistemic imperialism to apply the term ‘patriarchy’ to other societies. I will defend the cross-cultural and trans-historical application of the term. At the same time, we need to recognize a multiplicity of gender regimes that are quite different in how they work and how they are understood locally.
Finally, there is the view that it is outdated to regard feminism as a project to secure equality between men and women. Talking about patriarchy as a form of inequality between men and women must be mistaken. Who wants to be like men? I will argue that the term ‘equality’ does not imply sameness. The goal is an equality of power, an end to exploitation. 
Of course, to make these claims depends on defining the concept of exploitation. 
Patriarchy as exploitation
While writers in the social sciences use the term ‘exploitation’ or other synonyms constantly, I worry that they take its meaning for granted. It is easy enough to see what it might mean when money is involved. It is an unfair exchange of monetary value. But it is not just used in those situations. What about slaves? No money changes hands. It looks like there is a broad notion of exploitation and unfair monetary deals are just one example. If we are going to use the concept of ‘exploitation’ in widely different cultural contexts, we must have some common yardstick. My suggestion is that this common yardstick is human nature. Naming a relationship as ‘exploitation’ hangs off assumptions about a common human nature, made up of basic desires, shared by people in very different cultural settings. A theory of the kind explained in Part A of this handbook. 
So, this is my definition. Exploitation happens when one person is getting their basic desires satisfied at the expense of another person. What they're doing frustrates the basic desires of that other person. Using philosopher's language, A is getting more out of this transaction than B is getting out of it. B is getting frustrations of their basic desires and A is getting their basic desires satisfied. So as explained in an earlier chapter, I am taking it that there are six basic desires. This is the list.
1. Hunger and appetite. 
2. Health and physical comfort. 
3. Sociability. 
4. Creativity. 
5. Sexuality. 
6. Autonomy
Patriarchy is a social regime where men exploit women. In interactions that involve both men and women, men get more of their basic desires met than women. 
One might well wonder how you can possibly get this definition to work in any real situation. The expression of all these six key desires is unique to situations, culturally constructed and varies between one person and another. How do we compare the satisfaction of one key desire with the frustration of another — when both have to be considered in relationship to very particular local circumstances and understandings. One answer is to say that this is what the term exploitation implies, even if it's very hard to nail down. We cannot escape from considering these issues when we name a relationship as fair or as an exploitation. A second answer is to say that when we are thinking about large scale, persistent social structures of exploitation, these comparisons are not so hard to make. For example, racism, gender oppression, social class. In cases like this the ruling groups get more of their desires met across a whole panel of basic desires, in a great range of instances and through readily observable mechanisms. It may be impossible to quantify this exploitation, but it's not that hard to describe it. 
Oakley’s sociology of housework
Ann Oakley was a leading writer in the new wave of feminist sociology that swept in during the early seventies. Her study of forty London housewives is a great example of this close ethnography of daily life. She interviewed forty housewives whose husbands were working in full time jobs.  The wives were staying at home caring for children under five years of age and seeing to most of the domestic work. By a close analysis of their daily rosters, she discovered that on average they were doing 70 hours of work while their husbands were in paid jobs that averaged out at a forty-hour week with another ten hours for commuting.  
To get started, they are working longer hours than their husbands. They are the full-time carers for children under five — the most demanding age bracket. There was no state subsidized childcare at this time. They are living in separated family units with nobody else at home during the daytime. Not an extended family living under the one roof. So let us look at this in relation to the six basic desires. How are these basic desires being met or frustrated in this situation? I will look at three basic desires that are implied in the interviews. 
Creativity. The housewives interviewed for this study saw housework as boring in the extreme. They noted the long hours they were putting in compared to their husbands. They were particularly trenchant on the topic of ironing and folding the laundry. They were annoyed by the way housework must be endlessly renewed. You clean up the house one day and then everyone messes it up — and you start again the next day. The sample included a range of class positions. Most of the interviewees had previous experience of paid work. They counted even the most mundane paid work as more interesting than housework. They compared their boring domestic work with the paid work their husbands were doing. They saw their husbands’ work as more interesting.
Sociability. The interviewees talked about the low status of housework and of the housewife. One said that people looked on the housewife as a cabbage. Many said that their work was not appreciated by their husbands. The husband would come home and not even notice what had been done. Interviewees experienced intense loneliness and isolation. It was an event if someone came around to deliver the milk. Friends and extended family were inaccessible. One arranged to visit her mother once a week and that was a high point. 
Autonomy. Interviewees were aware that one advantage of housework is that you do not have a line manager standing behind you telling you what to do. Against this they had a sense that a set of tasks were obligatory. There was no choice but to vacuum on Tuesdays and Fridays. Tasks connected to childcare were also obligatory. You could not escape changing the baby’s nappy or providing a meal. Sometimes husbands would put pressure on their wives if they did not feel the housework was adequate. So, although to a degree this unpaid work was a sphere of autonomy it rarely felt like that. 
In relation to autonomy and the housewife role, the elephant in the room is the way money operates in a market economy. The housewife is not paid. Her husband is paid for his work. Access to money means that you have the autonomy to access the products of other people’s labour. You could say the family is sharing their income. But from a moral and legal point of view the husband has earned his money and has the right to allocate it. This plays out in decisions about money in the family, and in a balance of power that reflects the wife’s dependency. To give an example, the husband may spend money on a boat for fishing that he rarely uses — while the wife makes do with an unreliable car to ferry the children to school and do the shopping. If the couple splits up, the wife is more likely to take responsibility for the children. To experience poverty on a low (women’s job) income, juggling paid work and childcare responsibilities. In other words, a built-in incentive to make the marriage work by doing what the husband wants. Averaging it out over the whole life course, women are getting about 45% of the income of men. A vast difference in autonomy. 
Oakley’s interviews revealed these power dynamics in several ways. Husbands would come home and complain if the housework was not up to their standards. In an incident typical of this dynamic, the husband was not happy with the dinner and threw the plate against the wall in a fit of anger and entitlement. Several interviewees spoke about decisions on family planning that husbands dominated. I would like another child, but he thinks we should not have any more. 
Summing up. The housewives of Oakley’s study are contributing 70 hours per week of obligatory work. This work enables the lifestyle that the couple enjoy. The husband is doing less hours of obligatory work to fund their lifestyle. Given his control over income, the work he does may go to the household as a whole — but may not. Some of it may end up supporting his own hobbies. Exacerbating the difference in hours of work put in. 
When we look at the work she is doing, it makes sense to call it work because of a variety of factors that frustrate basic desires. Creativity, sociability and autonomy. Although the hours of paid work he is doing are no picnic, the interviewees make the case that housework is more frustrating. A key factor of comparison is the autonomy allowed by a wage versus the dependency of the housewife role. 
Power and choice
Conservative defenders of patriarchy usually argue that women cannot be oppressed because they choose to take on these gendered roles. We live in a liberal political regime. There are no legal barriers to women getting paid work, nothing in the law to say they must have children. Nothing to prevent them doing less housework. Following equal pay legislation, they can educate themselves to take on well paid jobs that are usually the preserve of men. They can divorce husbands who are not doing their fair share of the domestic work. They could walk off with a settlement that gives them half the family assets and custody. If women are choosing to stay home without a paid job, and to do the lion’s share of the domestic work, they must want this option. How dare you come in and tell them they are oppressed?  
There are a variety of ways of answering these arguments. Here, I want to consider how a definition of inequality in terms of basic drives tackles this issue. 
Oakley certainly found a lot of evidence to back up this liberal argument. Most of her interviewees regarded the role of the housewife as biologically ordained, the natural order of things. They rejected the suggestion that men and women might swap roles. They would say that they did not want their husbands to be doing housework. For example, I do not like to see a man hen pecked. I like a man to be a man. 
Accordingly, it's fair to say, as in the liberal argument, that the housewives she interviewed wanted their housewife role. In terms of autonomy, women were exercising their autonomy by choosing this role. 
Within the framework for inequality being explained here, this exercise of autonomy is just one factor to be considered in relation to the six basic desires. For a start there are all the other issues to do with autonomy that I have considered. The sense of housework as obligatory, the control of housework by husbands, the dependency of wives, power to make decisions for the family. Then there are the issues of creativity and sociability. Along with the balance between hours of obligatory family work by wives and by their husbands. It is all these things combined that make it sensible to talk about exploitation and inequality. Even when this exploited role is at least partly a choice. A chosen life strategy for the exploited party. 
Other studies in this period
Ann Oakley’s study was one of several second wave feminist ethnographies in this period. In sociology, these studies were mostly in the global North countries. They were cross class studies and included working class and middle-class women. For example,
• Mobility, authority and status in paid work.
• Sexual pleasure in heterosexual relationships.
• The gender dynamics of assault and violence.
• Gender in political life.
• The way gender is portrayed in popular media, advertisements, pornography.
• Gendered body language emblematic of gendered power.
In all these studies, feminist scholars developed a multi-faceted picture of gender inequality. This new understanding of exploitation did not readily fit with existing frameworks used to understand class inequality and political power. For example, Weber’s account of power in terms of a conflict of will. There is an inequality of power when one party gets what they want at the expense of the other party. Marx’s account of class. A ruling class extracts a surplus from the labour of a dominated class. With the surplus conceived as a physical product, with a use value, that is literally transferred from one party (the producers) to the other (the ruling class). These concepts are not entirely useless in describing gender inequality. But as this chapter suggests, feminist ethnography went beyond this to develop a much broader analysis of inequality. This broadening is based on a concept of exploitation that can best be related to human nature as a set of basic drives.