(By Immanuel James Ibe-Anyanwu) - There
are two ways to describe patriarchy. First, as a sociopolitical system marked
by the privileging of men over women. Second, as an unfair system with a
conscience which, without any real, palpable threats, admitted its own mistakes
and injustices and made amends. A system that refused to call the bluff of
feminine logic, that turned against its own gender and cut itself to size.
Feminism owes a large part of its success to the support of men.
A
trite remark, nonetheless it is necessary to help us avoid the danger of a
single story. Patriarchy has been so demonized you'd think it's all sour
grapes: a system that is, arguably, responsible for the glory of the developed
world as we see it. The skyscrapers, the physical developments, the moon
landings, the technological revolutions that make life easy today—all owe their
actualisation largely to patriarchy, to men who worked the dirt spreading bare
backs in the sun to build our infrastructures—but these are ignored by the single
story. To this point, we shall return later.
There
are at least three major areas of human empowerment: politics, economy, and
culture.
