Patriarchy Schmatriarchy

This past Father’s Day, in addition to being inundated by touching “Dad” stories from media personalities, I listened to an Honestly podcast about fatherhood:

How To Dad in 2023: A Roundtable With Our Favorite Fathers

Hosted by Eli Lake, it was a roundtable discussion with Richard Reeves, Ryan Holiday, and Ian Rowe. I recommend it. The participants are informed and thoughtful.

Their premise aligns with the lexicon of feminism that I was raised with. The underlying idea is that, until recently, human society has been dominated by men who subjugated women to their whims. In the 20^th century women were empowered based on advancing social norms and technology. Now, it is supposed, men are adrift, seeking new purpose in the absence of the masculine-dominant hierarchy that benefitted them until the awakening. Thus, being Dad now is much more complex.

I’m not an anthropologist, but I think the premise misses something fundamental. The idea that a patriarchy has been overthrown, so men must accept their lack of privilege, assumes they had privilege to begin with. But did they?

I suggest there never was a patriarchy. There never was a gathering of men from across the globe thousands of years ago whose agenda was to assure their dominance, and that women would never get to vote. To the contrary, men were invested in and dependent on the women around them for reproductive success and infant care, which abilities were and remain immutably female. Men were never more, but sometimes less, than what women needed them to be.

Common sense suggests that as human societies developed, reproductive success was an acknowledged goal, if not the principal goal, of communities. Gender roles were constrained by the time women spent bearing and nurturing children. Given the shorter life spans and higher fertility of ancient times, this dominated the adult years of women. With only a momentary contribution to the process of reproduction, men were relegated to satisfying the unique needs of their households, extended families, or tribes. Contrary to convention, I suggest those roles were never common, simple, or obvious. Men came in all shapes and sizes with differing levels of strength, dexterity, and intellect. What function was he best suited to perform? Did his household need a protector? Did his tribe need a spiritual leader? Did his village need a well? Sorting himself into his most effective role was always a struggle for every man.

While reproductive success was the acknowledged goal of communities, men had to attend to the broader community issues. Their skills were exchanged between households and communities, which is why they had wages. For similar reasons they became principals among those trades, which is why they emerged as community and business leaders.

I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, the era of feminine mystique, women’s liberation, and the sexual revolution. At the time, the disparity of equal pay for equal work was real. The war between the sexes raged, if you believed the reporting, as if there was rampant and widespread animosity between men and women. But, of the people I knew, the women didn’t resent the men, and the men were not pushing back against that basic inequity. If it was a war, where was the battlefield? Those with sense never disputed that women were equal, if not a little more than equal, to men. The adults I knew, both men and women, found the braless shriekers more amusing than insightful. People knew instinctively that wage-for-work was just one dimension of a very complex equality equation.

In the household I grew up in, there was no doubt that Mom was the head. Sure, Dad was bigger. But he wasn’t louder. Dad was stronger. But he was more docile. Dad maintained stable employment and earnings, but the living tones of our days were established and sustained by Mom. Mom was in charge; Dad filled in the gaps. (As an aside, I guarantee Mom was not hoping Dad’s job would be replaced by a more competent woman to prove a point.) I suspect many people have similar impressions of their home life, and even more notably in divided families.

So why the patriarchy myth? I blame Maslow and his ilk. The idea of self-actualization as the highest calling of human accomplishment.

Once our society was rich enough to pay attention to how rich we were, our influencers (academics and pundits) obsessed over Maslow’s idea of self-involvement. Atomistic, economic performance of individuals, both men and women, replaced reproductive success as the goal of communities. Wages and position power became the dominant, if not only, measure of accomplishment. Against that metric, women were clearly disadvantaged; and because it was true, it became common cause for those who fancy cultural revolution. Overthrow the patriarchy!

Even today, analysts focus on this ever-diminishing disparity as evidence of social progress, or lack thereof. Less reported as a measure of success is how many of our offspring reach a healthy, reproductive age. The trend is not good. Western society is not replacing itself. Instead, we applaud the absence of unplanned pregnancies and unwanted children. Understood. And there is no shame in childlessness. People who can’t have or decide against children are contributing members of our human community and equally deserving of our love. But if living for the next generation is our divine calling, it requires there to be one.

There is innate nobility in any woman’s choice to bear and nurture children that goes beyond the joy and sacrifice of having them. Increasingly, that choice is most honored in women whose motherhood is integrated with career success. Noble and self-actualized, independent of men except by their choice to involve them at all. The displaced men are adrift, thus the complexities highlighted by Eli Lake and his roundtable. I applaud their recognition.

But is that really a new norm? To me, it seems like an expanded continuum that still includes every other situation. It describes men among highly accomplished women. Again, the premise presumes too much. Just like the war-with-no-battlefield between the sexes in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, this disparity seems oversold. Out here among us hoi polloi, things seem easier. Albeit somewhat later in life than my generation, most young women I know seek companionable young men to share their lives, and to raise children if they are so blessed. These women are no less noble for responding to that inner sense.

Blissfully unaware of any lost patriarchy, the young men I know are just trying to figure out how to be that companion. (I love the unattributed quote, “Nobody will ever win the battle between the sexes. There is too much fraternizing with the enemy.”) They will figure it out, probably clumsily, just like we did. Just like our fathers and grandfathers have throughout eternity. In fifty years, the world will belong to the offspring of those who succeed. The faithful among us are confident it will be a good world.