Yale philosopher Robin Dembroff’s new book, “Real Men on Top,” illustrates how the patriarchy is a system of male dominance “that concentrates power and wealth in the hands of a vanishing few, at enormous cost to women, children, animals, and the vast majority of men.”
The patriarchy does this by accomplishing two things: It puts men at the top of a mythology, which is maintained by feminizing, dehumanizing, and infantilizing the opponent. In addition, “This mythology historically has been used, with remarkable consistency, to funnel wealth and power upward while offering most men only the mirage of dignity in return.”
It works like this: whenever the livelihood of men is threatened, “they become susceptible to politicians who promise to restore their manhood — not by redistributing wealth or protecting workers, but by identifying enemies: immigrants who have stolen what’s theirs, queer and trans people who have confused the natural order, women who have taken too much.”
I know about these effects from personal experience.
I grew up in the 1950s when the patriarchy was in full bloom in a family ruled by a strong, stone-faced father, a World War II veteran who couldn’t express his emotions with words. When things went south for me in middle school, I didn’t dare confess my dilemma to my father because I feared he would consider me a wimp. My problem was that I was being bullied by my male peers because I was shy, spindly, nonathletic, and wore my mother’s homemade clothes.
To escape the scapegoating, I took matters into my own hands by attending a neighboring high school where I wasn’t known. I reinvented myself as someone who was tough; I lifted weights, got stronger, and played sports. It worked. Although I was still shy, I became popular.
When I got my driver’s license, I started hanging out with the wild crowd, carousing, driving fast, and drinking too much. It made me feel like a man. Alcohol became a crutch, releasing my inhibitions: I had a blast. Despite two total demolishing car accidents and scrapes with the law, I still earned good enough grades to get into Columbia.
When college didn’t scratch my itch (which I have written about before), I dropped out. It was 1965, and my country had just begun sending troops to Vietnam. It looked like it would be only a short skirmish, like our invasion of the Dominican Republic. Still, I opposed the conflict; I considered Ho Chi Minh, who modeled his Declaration of Independence on ours, to be his country’s George Washington.
That’s when the patriarchy reared its head in two ways. I was afraid to tell my father I didn’t want to fight in my war the way he did in his. In addition, like the narrator in “The Red Badge of Courage,” I harbored that perennial macho need to prove my courage by fighting in a war. As it turned out, the war was more frightening, cruel, and immoral than anything I could have imagined:
I saw things I never wanted to see.
But there was an upside: the war exposed the deceit of my macho ways, unshackling me to assertively protest it as a Vietnam Veteran Against the War (VVAW). And, on the domestic front, to join in solidarity with my fellow protesters of every creed, color, and gender.
I am on the same page with what Brian Wilson, a veteran protesting U.S. intervention in Central America, once said: “I think of myself as a recovering white male, recovering from my early conditioning about how to be successful.”
I started to make amends for my patriarchal upbringing – where boys were considered so privileged that they didn’t need to make their beds or wash the dishes, while women, who did the work, were relegated to being seen but not heard.
Every woman I have lived with has helped me recover from my patriarchal training by modeling how to access my feelings, be more empathetic, and treat others with compassion. While we are hardwired to cling to our identities and everything that comes with them, that only goes so far.
Back when I was being bullied in grammar school, there was no way I could have foreseen who I would become at 80. And my world still continues to evolve: Life is now more of a mystery than it has ever been, and I am glad for it.
Perhaps that’s why I am drawn to Buddhism, which teaches that the solid, enduring self is a fallacy because all phenomena, including our selves, are interdependent and impermanent.
Jean Stimmell, retired stone mason and psychotherapist, lives in Northwood and blogs at jstim.substack.com.