The State as a Male Structure

[gothwalk]

I've just finished reading an interview on ideomancer.com with L. Timmel DuChamp about her writing. Much of the interview deals with feminism, which seems to be a theme of DuChamp's books (I've not read any of them, mind).

However, there's one question in the interview which seems, in part, to build on theories I'm not familiar with. It goes:

"As the vote is a tool of the state, and the state is largely a male structure or institution, is it possible for the United States as it is currently constructed to achieve some of feminism's goals?"

Vote as a tool of the state, I understand and agree with to a large extent. But "the state is largely a male structure", I have no understanding of. Can someone have a go at explaining that to me, or point me at an explanation?

(Posted with my "patriarchal" black-and-white bearded default userpic for free extra something.)

Comments

[elorie.livejournal.com]

I agree, that the answer is "yes", except that I think that in the current situation the gains women have made are too tenuous. Witness the recent Supreme Court decision that effectively guts the "equal pay for equal work" principle. So it's more of a qualified "yes", and I think it's a good question to ask because it provokes discussion. I think that real equality can't be achieved unless we change the society in profound ways....which makes me a radical feminist, though not a gender essentialist (ie, I don't think that men and women are inherently very different).

I also think that another way to interpret that remark is that the way that power is structured rewards traditionally masculine traits. It's self-perpetuating, because part of the way men are kept in line is by rewarding them with more power when they act like good little patriarchs.

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

I think hierarchy & status is patriarchical. Maybe.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I tend to think more that rigid and defined hierarchy and status are patriarchal. I mean, in any group of people who are trying to accomplish a task, some sort of structure will develop; if it doesn't, I don't see how the task can be done. However, that does not require the appointment of a leader, a second-in-command, all the way down to one or more designated peons. (Personal example: I was for a time in a pagan group that was supposed to be consensus-based... and I ended up as the only person in it without an Official Title. So I declared myself to be the Official Peon, which statement really pissed off the self-designated Official Leader. Ahem.) This is *a* way to structure a group; it is not the only way- although it might be the only practical way if a group exceeds some size limit, but anyway.

I think it's possible to have people who tend to lead in certain circumstances because they are good at both the leading and the task at hand. I think it is possible to have status rest on proven expertise. I do tend to think that both resting on things like birth, or wealth, or being male and of a given ethnicity, tends to be pretty typical of patriarchal structures. Not necessarily cause-and-effect, but that's probably the way to bet at this point.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I read her first book. Oh, my. I was very, very unimpressed.

Partly it was the style. The whole thing read to me like a first draft- which it apparently was. And "overwrought" only begins to describe it- plot, characters, everything.

Also, it amazes me that the same people who adored it tend to be down on Sheri Tepper for simplistic gender politics, when if anything Tepper is (even at her most cliched) far more nuanced than DuChamp. Not to mention a better writer.

Now, I do think that it is difficult to make progress via the political structure when most of the elected are men, and not men who are willing to "betray their sex" to make women's rights a priority (even when they profess to believe in such). Women's rights tend to get sold down the river in favor of other, "more important" issues, by the conservatives AND the supposed liberals. The current reverses in basic human rights for women tends to point this up.

So: I do think that THIS state is a male structure. I am not sure whether that's inevitable for any large state; I would tend to hope not.

[juanfandango.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that the current reverses (I'm assuming that you're meaning abortion and stem cell stuff) are seen as being anything to do with women's rights being seen as less important, particularly by those seeking to do away with them. More, they are to do with deliberately promoting anything (in this case, the rights of "unborn children") that will polarise opinion one way or the other, thus giving a solid and unwavering power base from which to exert mob rule. The current mobs in the White House and in Downing Street have got the right idea in exercising rule by mob, they just managed to pick the wrong side of the polarising views. Unfortunately, as in any mob rule, it takes a while for the principles to get cornered, and they're happily counting out their days until they're out and their successors have to deal with the shite.

[celemon.livejournal.com]

I would say (and please note that this is my personal and professional take on the subject - there are definitely others) that the state is patriarchal. Patriarchy involves a dualistic approach, where binaries are not just contrqasted against each other (male/female, white/black, straight/gay) but assigned different value with one always placed above the other. Furthermore, in a patriarchy power is perceived as limited, necessary to hoard, and exercised through domination and violence: I would say that this udnerstanding of power as a zero-sum game, and as power-over, not power-to, is an essential part of patriarchy.

[(Anonymous)]

Now, that's a wrong analogy if I ever saw one. You say "case law has declared that even forcing a man to vomit to produce swallowed drugs is an offense against his bodily integrity", but what if said "man" is in fact a woman? Or don't women ever do drugs? This has nothing to do with gender, and therefore cannot be compared to a medical intervention on behalf of the foetus, which by definition can only be performed on a female body.

So sorry, no cookie for you. This has everything to do with the asinine notion that unborn foetuses have rights (for which you can thank countless bigoted women), and nothing whatsoever with the Man trying to take you down...

Now, on the other hand, take a look at the suicide rate for men and women, or their respective life expectancy, and put it together with the calls for better medical care for *women*, and you'll see that feminists are now a very powerful force in the political arena. Women are not second-class citizen anymore, but it still pays politically to pretend so. And that's all I see in it.

[juanfandango.livejournal.com]

I'm not disagreeing about your dualistic approach with limited power, etc, but why does all of that mean that the state is a patriarchy? I can think of other forms of hierarchy/government/organisation with the dualistic value approach that aren't patriarchies.

[celemon.livejournal.com]

There are a number of defnitions of 'patriarchy', from the simple translation 'rule by fathers' to advanced power structure analyses. In the definition I use, the dualistic structure, the hierarchal view of that sualism, and the understanding of power as limited and built on dominance is how patriarchy is constructed, thus a culture/society/government containing those elements is, by definition, patriarchal.

It appears that when the world is perceived in a dualistic pattern, the two sides are always assigned different value: hierarchy follows on dualism (which is why I don't believe in 'separate but equal'). And I don't think I have ever seen or heard of a human society that isn't patriarchal, more's the pity. They are more or less patriarchal.