Dismantle White Patriarchy with Emotional Courage
I wrote this in my journal last year, to myself and the women in my life: "Propping up emotionally immature men is more important than holding space for those who disturb the men, because disturbing the men is too disruptive for us." This is an insight I ran away from for a time, but it’s time to look closer.
“Propping up emotionally immature men is more important than holding space for those who disturb the men, because disturbing the men is too disruptive for us.”
Patriarchy, as defined by Wikipedia, is as "a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property." I add the word “white” because my personal and professional experience of the world is with my white skin and largely with other white people. (I use gender binary language below; I’ve made this choice to hone in on the roles white cis-gendered men and women play in upholding the power of white cis-gendered men.)
Patriarchy is a power structure and system that places cis-gendered men in superior positions. It is a system that will use its power to maintain itself; and it will use all players in the system to maintain itself, both men and women.
People with power, and those who benefit from being associated with power, are accustomed to the world giving them what they want when they want it. They don’t have much practice in not getting what they want, or being challenged; they often don’t have the emotional maturity that comes with making space for others and their needs. In addition, the often don’t have the emotional maturity to handle challenges to their sense of identity attached to power and status. People with little power, but understand and benefit from the rules of the game, don't want any changes that would result in a perceived loss of power and status. They too will protect the white patriarchy.
I recognize four behaviours, within myself and others, that serve as indicators for me that white patriarchy is being challenged:
White men get upset, even furious, when their actions are questioned without attempts to understand how their actions have affected another person, or people.
White women help men avoid any questioning of their actions by arranging for the men in question to be absent or excusing their behaviour. ("You know, that's just how he is." "He couldn't make it.")
White women protect and defend white men from any questioning of their actions. Women will, and some men will too, defend the men under scrutiny because if those men lose their power, they lose their power by association.
White men and women are defensive and dismissive of the questioning and the questioner. This can be mild or a full-on attack of the character of the people questioning those in power.
The hallmark of these indicators is emotional upset and the avoidance of emotional upset; this serves as a significant protection mechanism for white patriarchy.
Risking emotional upset in those with power, by challenging them, can be emotionally dangerous. It can also be physically dangerous. And so the primary way we protect white patriarchy is to not upset it.
Not upsetting the white patriarchy means the emotional work of having needs met and unmet in life is shunted off to others with less power. Those with power don’t need to do emotional work; they protect themselves from having to do it, and others protect them from having to do it.
And people with less power have two areas of emotional work to do: in “making do” with not challenging, or in having to handle the emotional (at least) aftermath of challenging white patriarchy. The success of white patriarchy relies on me choosing the “making do” option.
(NOTE: For safety, it is necessary to keep your head down in some circumstances. Choose safety as necessary.)
“If I put my experience to the side, to avoid upset and backlash, I protect the power system that wants me to keep my head down and leave things as they are.”
A constant reminder to myself: I play a role in maintaining the supremacy of white patriarchy. Always. Even when I think I am not, for two reasons:
To avoid upset in self and other
To benefit from the power structure, even if I am not at the “top”
Challenging white patriarchy involves both being emotionally uncomfortable and making the patriarchy emotionally uncomfortable. As always, discomfort is a required condition for improvement.
“Challenging white patriarchy involves both being emotionally uncomfortable and making the patriarchy emotionally uncomfortable.”
We have been lulled into thinking that white patriarchy is not in full force because it is too disruptive to think otherwise. Yet when we don't challenge white patriarchy we uphold it. We do this in our homes, organizations and businesses, and governments.
In the most simplest of ways, here's how it shows up in our cities:
We pay white men more for equivalent work performed by others
White men continue to harass and assault women
We put mostly white men in power in our businesses
We put financial wealth in the hands of white men (the richest of the rich are white-presenting men Business Insider)
We elect mostly white men to our governments
We use police to protect white patriarchy (and harm Indigenous women and men and Black men)
Both white men and white women maintain white patriarchy. Those who enjoy power work to keep it and those who benefit from power work to keep those benefits. Those who know how to navigate power, even if they don't have power, work to keep the system the same because a new game takes effort to learn anew how to navigate the power systems. For millennia, white women, with little to no power, learned how to navigate the patriarchy for their safety. White women learned how to not upset and aggravate men because if they did their lives, and their children's lives, would be at stake. This is a well-worn pattern that continues to maintain the power structures.
“If your life is comfortable, assume that you are enjoying the benefits of either having power, or having a good relationship with someone with power.”
For white women and men for whom this dynamic is less clear or explicit, do not assume it is not in play. If your life is comfortable, assume that you are enjoying the benefits of either having power, or having a good relationship with someone with power.
You don’t have to be a billionaire to have power to wield. All you need is a position of power over others that you use to your benefit at the expense of others; being conscious of that power is not relevant.
Dismantling White Patriarchy Within
As I observe the events of our times, and events closer in to my direct life experience, I see us (white women and men) challenging ourselves to disinvest from the power of white men. We challenge the power of white patriarchy when we allow the sovereignty and autonomy of others (as well as ourselves) to make choices for themselves.
“We challenge the power of white patriarchy when we allow the sovereignty and autonomy of others to make choices for themselves.”
Ask simple questions for a window in to where the power lays: Who has the ability to make and borrow money? Who has control of the land? Who has control of bodies and lives? Who has control of the rules? Who has control of enforcement of the rules? Who is privileged by the rules, whether they are conscious of it or not? Who protects the rules? The beneficiaries, both men and women, protect patriarchy in explicit and subtle ways.
The challenges we issue to white patriarchy can be explicit (to name a few):
Acknowledge, investigate and address inequities experienced in our communities and cities
Acknowledge, investigate and prosecute charges of sexual assault and ensure appropriate consequences
Acknowledge the findings of human rights violations and genocide against Canada’s Indigenous people and take action (Canada’s national inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission).
Acknowledge the power of white patriarchy in the racism embedded in our police systems
The challenges we issue to white patriarchy can be subtle and implicit too, embedded in the living a life of sovereignty. It can involve telling my partner our marriage isn’t working, or speaking up to tell family, colleagues, clients or my boss that their actions cause harm. If I put my experience to the side, to avoid upset and backlash, I protect the power system that wants me to keep my head down and leave things as they are. When I sideline my sovereignty, I protect white patriarchy.
Sovereignty—mine and yours and ours—challenges white patriarchy because it means people with power have to make space in their lives to accommodate the needs of others. This may involve a perceived or real loss of power for the power holder. When I am that power holder, I recognize two possible reactions within myself:
Discomfort with anger and resistance so I can maintain control and power (the autonomy of the other is not tolerable)
Discomfort with curiosity and opening (the autonomy of the other is tolerable
If I choose anger and resistance, the result is that I do not acknowledge, integrate and accommodate the experience of the other. I am too uncomfortable to do the emotional work of listening and changing. It is easier to flex my power, or do nothing, to maintain the status quo. In this reaction I avoid and mask the experience of my discomfort.
If I choose curiosity and opening, I allow the experience of the other and I am open to being affected by that experience. I may feel guilt or shame, sadness or anger with myself. I may find it hard to hear that my beliefs and actions, whether intentional or not, hurt other, but I do it with the express purpose of allowing my view of my world and myself to change. In this reaction, I welcome the experience of my discomfort.
It is not possible to avoid discomfort, but it is possible to use the discomfort as a signal that there’s something for me to explore, and to learn from. And I have to muster the emotional courage to do this.
It takes emotional courage to hear our actions—and beliefs embedded in those actions—are harmful. It takes emotional courage to detach from unearned privilege to share what we have. It takes emotional courage to tell others that their actions invade the sovereignty of others, and tell them over and over again.
Challenging white patriarchy is dangerous.
White men: It takes emotional courage to not get upset when your beliefs and actions are questioned and not attack the questioner.
White women: It takes emotional courage to allow the beliefs and actions of men to be questioned, to not help them avoid questions or defend or rescue them.
It takes emotional courage to welcome being questioned.
It takes emotional courage to stop and listen to the experience of the other and allow ourselves to be moved by that experience. Dismantling white patriarchy within ourselves means allowing the experience of the other to true and honest, and trustworthy: not inferior, discreditable, invisible or erasable, unreliable or meaningless.
It takes emotional courage to put defensiveness aside. If I am defensive, I can't hear the honesty in the other. If I am defensive, I resist.
It takes emotional courage to stop and listen to myself, ourselves. In myself, recognize that when I am defensive I do not want anything to change. The benefits of the status quo power structure suit me and I don’t want to do the emotional work to acknowledge that the power I benefit from is on the backs of others.
It takes emotional courage to allow emotional discomfort. And yet this seems to be the way to dismantle white patriarchy from the inside. Within each of us.
This is a citizenship responsibility. And it is a survival skill for our ourselves and our cities.
REFLECTION:
Who around you, near or far, has less power than you do?
In what ways are you being challenged to improve by people who have less power than you?
How do you practise being open to being challenged?