Patriarchy and Its Pillars How We Can Crumble the System
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my professor back in grad school used to
say
if women were to stop supporting the
patriarchy it would crumble in a day
just like every structure of systemic
oppression the patriarchy is founded
on various pillars which are needed to
keep the structure intact
we have been told that if men and only
men
an essential pillar in supporting the
patriarchy
were to alter their behavior the
patriarchy would collapse
even though men need to be held
accountable for their behaviors
i want to shift the narrative today from
waiting for men to dismantle the
patriarchy
to what we as women can do to crumble it
through socialization young girls are
taught to follow patriarchal rules and
enforce them
as they grow up this is a never-ending
cycle
which has made women one of the main
pillars in supporting the patriarchy
if we as women stop supporting this
system
that stands upon our shoulders we can
begin
to bring down the patriarchy from the
bottom up
for two decades growing up in india i
was a full believer of the patriarchy
that taught me to place others before
myself and fall in line
in my all-girls school classes on
chastity and moral science were
emphasized
whereas there wasn’t any form of moral
policing
when it came to boys because boys will
be boys
when i went to law school i knew that if
i wanted to be married
and have children by the age of 25 i
might have to put my career
on the side it wasn’t until
i left my culture and stayed away from
its pressures
that i realized that if i wanted to be
the woman that i always wanted to become
i had to defy the system that had held
me down
for years altogether now at 27
i’m an international lawyer where i
advocate for women
through my work in the field of
gender-based violence asylum
and help them unlearn the very rules of
patriarchy
that i was taught growing up but what
are the rules of the patriarchy in south
asia
women are given the choice to either be
a good girl or a bad one
a good girl is someone who follows the
rules to a t
and a bad girl is someone who chooses to
express herself
however she pleases upon reflecting on
my time in india
i have boiled down the patriarchy’s
guidelines to girls
into three simple rules rule one
don’t be a bad girl rule two
don’t associate with bad girls and rule
3
make sure that bad girls know that they
are bad girls
in a sense these three rules and the
willingness
to follow these rules make up an entire
pillar
supporting systemic patriarchy in south
asia
the pressure to judge other women and
ourselves
is what the patriarchy relies upon in
order to stay standing
and this begs the question how are these
rules
upheld in early childhood these rules
are instilled in girls
through methods of reward and punishment
by parents
relatives or teachers this can look
anything from you will get the doll or
the tea set that you want
only when you behave like a good girl to
using a wide range of
emotional and physical abuse like
pinching
slapping or calling names in order to
discourage
unwanted behaviors south asian girls are
instilled with fear to conform to these
patriarchal demands
by accepting gender roles in order to
escape
survive or just get ahead in their life
the decision to comply or oppose these
rules is called the patriarchal bargain
the choice offered to south asian women
is simple
either accept the patriarchal bargain
and be a good girl
or defy the patriarchal bargain and be
also sized by the entire society and be
considered
as a bad girl another way south asian
culture trains
women to act like good girls is by
placing the reputation of a family
on them if you deviate from the
prescribed expectations placed
on women of your age the family name is
brought down
women who are raped come home to ashamed
families
women who are unable to make their
marriage work
are looked down upon the same benchmark
is not placed on men often times this
shame
is met with rumors and gossip which
spread throughout the community
and once that starts other women are
quick to distance themselves
from the perceived bad girl this is how
the second rule operates where other
women are quick to distance themselves
from the woman in question this is one
of the primary ways in which women
uphold the patriarchy
i experienced a crippling impact of this
when i was 14 years old and was caught
having a boyfriend
even though i was teased and talked
about for my actions by boys
the feedback that hurt the most came
from the females in my life
the women i had called my best friends
just days before
failed to stand up for me i was bullied
i was ostracized and was called a
by my peers
and for my teachers i was a troublemaker
all of this led me to believe that at my
core i was a terrible person
for enacting this singular behavior
here the third rule of patriarchy
was enacted as i was clearly made to
made aware
by others that i was being a bad girl
for my actions after this scarring
incident
i fell back in line in hindsight
even if some women would have supported
me other women would have judged them
simply because of their affiliation to
me what this cycle of judgment proves
is that the patriarchy is actually made
to pit women against each other
it discourages allyship and it
encourages women to push down others
especially the ones
who do not conform to the strict mode
that we’re all given to follow
what is more interesting is that we are
taught these methods of
self-restriction self-judgment and peer
punishment
by our mothers in my field
where i deal with gender-based violence
asylum claims
i’ve asked women fleeing their countries
because they were persecuted on the
basis of their gender
as to who convinced them when they went
back
the first time after they left their
abuser
more often than not my women clients
have told me that it was either their
mother
or mother-in-law that had a conversation
with them explaining to them
that some adjustment was required in
every marriage
and that some form of abuse is a part of
the urban flow of every marriage
when i was caught having a boyfriend it
was my mother that punished me why would
our mothers
people who love us the most in the world
actually make sure
that we learn the rules of a system that
oppresses our free will
for generations altogether the idea that
you can
only be a good mother if you uphold the
patriarchal bargain
and teach the rules of the patriarchy to
your daughters has been perpetuated
south asian mothers derive validation
praise
and status in the community and also
from the men of their family
if they’re able to keep their daughters
in line
nothing can top raising a quiet sober
decent and a self-sacrificing daughter
enforcement of the patriarchy goes
beyond the domestic front and can also
be seen
in the professional field women face a
lack of resources
and opportunity and because of this they
are forced to compete against
each other rather than collaborate when
a woman comes to you to see
professional guidance do you think i had
it rough
and so she should as well or do you
think
that i had it rough and i want to make
sure that i help her in the best way
possible
one mindset will continue to divide us
and the other
will foster our empowerment we need an
empowering mindset
because for a woman to be successful in
her career she must have taken a detour
from the good girl path
she must have confronted questions like
who takes care of the kids when you’re
at work
and must have been made to feel guilty
for choosing herself
now i’m not saying that the patriarchy
will be crumbled in a day
however living in a patriarchal system
all throughout my life
i have been able to see that the very
rules that sustain the system
are actually its weakest link the first
rule
which expects us to not be bad girls
can be addressed by shunning the good
girl versus bad girl narrative
we should try and stop looking at our
actions through the lens of
what will people say and look at our
actions through the lens of
what’s best for us this metric negates
the good girl versus bad girl narrative
and actually lets women choose
unapologetically for themselves
we also need to pause and acknowledge
that attaching our value to our
reputation
is not only flawed but is also toxic
we need to remember that the first step
towards collective healing
is actually fostering our own growth and
personal healing
only if we stop judging ourselves can we
stop judging others
the second rule expects us to not
associate with bad girls
to foster female friendships we need to
create a judgment-free zone not just for
ourselves
but also for others we need to invest in
female friendships especially because as
brown girls
were only trained to invest in either
marital
or familial relationships the stronger
your female friendships are
the more support you’ll have when you
finally choose to defy the patriarchal
expectations
from you apart from that be generous
in reassuring your fellow women in
telling them that they’re doing the
right thing
by prioritizing themselves personally
for me
the only reason i could pursue my
master’s program in the united states
was because my mother reassured my
dreams and i can’t thank her enough
the final rule emphasizes on women
morally policing each other through
judgments
gossip and peer punishment start bonding
with each other
through perpetuating the judgment cycle
consciously choose to not participate in
gossip that tears other women down
only because they’re behaving like bad
girls
we’re at a position where the baton
would soon be passed from our mothers to
us
and if we want to raise a generation of
young women that support each other
we need to make sure that we stop using
judgments as a way
of controlling women’s behaviors we are
the link
that allows these behaviors to be
ingrained in future generations
turning against each other will not
protect anyone
from the patriarchy
we don’t have to wait for the future to
be female if we as women recognize our
own role in upholding the system
we recognize the power we have over it
we can break away from the rules forced
upon us not just in south asia
but across all systems of patriarchy
and we can begin to slowly crumble one
of the most fundamental pillars
upholding the patriarchy and change the
power it has over us
this change starts from you and me and
it can start
now thank you
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