Patriarchy or Male Supremacy?
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http://meetinggroundonline.org/patriarchy-or-male-supremacy/
26/02/2018, 15*49
THEORY, WOMEN'S LIBERATION / FEMINISM
Patriarchy or Male Supremacy?
by Editors • July 10, 2017 • 0 Comments
by Carol Hanisch
EDITORS NOTE: Patriarchy has all but replaced male supremacy and sexism as the preferred word for the
system of discrimination and multi-faceted oppression that women face. The term patriarchy wasn’t used
by most 1960s pioneers of the Women’s Liberation Movement and only came into popular usage as those
founders were disappeared from view. The liberal and academic takeover of women’s liberation by women
with access to the press and money led to the dropping of “liberation” from the name of our movement and
to the rise of the word patriarchy to describe what is wrong with “the system” or “society”. Some claim it
more accurately blames the system rather than individual men. We think it lets the class of men off the
hook and is not applicable to current late capitalist conditions. The short piece reprinted here is an earlier
argument against blaming a patriarchy for women’s oppression.
Originally published in the Hudson Valley Woman, October, 1993
• • •
Do we live in a patriarchy? Listening to many feminists today, one would think so. After 25 years of
consciousness raising, the fact that women are treated as second class citizens, discriminated against, violated
in numerous ways, and still generally oppressed—socially, politically, economically, sexually—is beyond debate.
But are we, in the United States in 1993 living in “a state of social development characterized by the supremacy
of the father in the clan or family?” I think not.
We are not liberated, but we no longer live in a patriarchy (though remnants still remain). The form—and to
some degree, the source—of our oppression has changed. To not be clear about this gets us fighting the ghosts
of the past rather than the realities of the present.
The great sweep of feminism—along with the end of feudal slavery in the South and the industrial revolution—
which began in the middle of the last century and more or less ended with women’s winning the vote in 1920,
gave patriarchy its final shove into its grave. Under patriarchy, women had few if any rights and did not exist as
a person under the law. Often she had no choice of a husband, and was sold to the highest bidder, covertly if
not overtly. As the old folksong put it:
Sad is the fortune of all womankind.
She’s always controlled and she’s always confined
Page 1 of 3
Patriarchy or Male Supremacy? | MEETING GROUND OnLine 26/02/2018, 15*49

April 2017 (1) Controlled by her father until she’s a wife

March 2017 (1)
February 2017 (2) A slave to her husband for the rest of her life.
January 2017 (2)
Her father (or brother) and later, her husband, held claim to any money she earned. Her husband could divorce
December 2016 (1)
her, taking everything from their children to the clothes on her back. He owned it all. There was no
November 2016 (3)
October 2016 (2) acknowledgment or legal recourse for retaining any of what her labor in the home had earned. If she turned raw
September 2016 (4) produce into consumable food, it was how she earned her right to live and she had no legal expectation to more
August 2016 (4) than subsistence. She could not divorce her husband; she belonged to him legally much as a slave belonged to
July 2016 (5) his/her master.
June 2016 (4)
May 2016 (4) The Property Rights Acts, which women began to win in the 1830s [in the U.S.], laid the groundwork for
April 2016 (5) women’s independence from this slavish arrangement. The right to divorce was landmark because it meant a
March 2016 (3) woman was no longer bound to a man for life, no matter what. More freedom of choice, in a boss or mate, did
February 2016 (4) not bring liberation, of course; it was more like moving from total slavery under feudalism to wage slavery under
November 2015 (2) capitalism.
October 2015 (1)
September 2015 (1) Today only about 20 per cent of women in the U.S. live in a family with a father at the head, bringing home the
August 2015 (1) bacon alone, and therefore in a position to wield that kind of power. In overthrowing the patriarchy, women
June 2015 (1) entered into a freer, but more anarchistic state of relationship with men. Where the personal law of one man
April 2015 (2) once circumscribed her life, she now must deal with many men bringing their (often conflicting) demands upon
March 2015 (1)
her. To confuse this with patriarchy can be a serious mistake.
February 2015 (1)
December 2014 (1) The other side of the coin is the equally loose use of the word “matriarchy.” There is, in recorded history, proof of
November 2014 (1) matrilineal society which fits the definition. Whether matriarchies where women actually ruled society ever
September 2014 (2) existed in some Golden Age or not is another question. Whether women really want to command total power is
August 2014 (3)
a more relevant question. It seems ironic to me that many women who most favor a matriarchal future are not
July 2014 (3)
interested in being mothers and often put down women who have children as “yielding to the patriarchy.” I’m not
June 2014 (2)
sure where the next generation of the society they wish to rule are supposed to come from.
May 2014 (3)
April 2014 (2)
One of the reasons why consciousness raising in the Women’s Liberation Movement was once so dynamic,
March 2014 (1)
productive and compelling was that we used our own lives as the basis for our analysis and understanding of
our current situation. We were more often on target then those who get caught in the quicksand of existing
academic (women’s studies included), psychological, social science theories about women. Such professionals
SITE ACTIONS
often have a big stake in the status quo. We used our own experience to challenge all assumptions and
attitudes, including our own. Difficult as it was at times, it saved us from the rote, sloppy thinking that
Register
characterizes much of what passes for feminist theory and fills the bookstores and media today.
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Entries RSS Women who say we live in a patriarchy, should examine their own lives and see how the word fits or doesn’t fit
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our current objective conditions.
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