I wonder how many times we come across the words “hierarchy” and “patriarchy,” often mentioned in the same sentence, without truly knowing the definitions. It’s easy to keep our eyes lowered, our consciousness lowered.
In his pre-war memoir Bugles and a Tiger, a young peach fuzzed lieutenant, (subaltern), Robert Masters, learned not to complain about his superior of one rank higher, not to an officer of two ranks higher. To never be, as the Soprano family would say, a rat or stool pigeon or dirty dog. Without using crude words, the senior officer gently asks the new lieutenant something like, “Would you tell on a classmate in school? Why not?”
“Because that would be sneaking” says the younger man, who then blushes at using schoolboy slang. The senior explains that he would rather find out his subordinate’s shortcomings on his own.
The point is the army has a hierarchy, a ladder of rank, and you must never offend against that ladder.…lest you offend against the very existence of hierarchy. Like civilians in a corporate-wide hierarchy: There you can “tattle tale” against an executive only if he has his hand in the cookie jar, but for no other reason, lest the boom fall on you for offending against the hierarchy… while the superior, an offensive jerk, “totally gets away with it.”
My own corporation, as it happens, is a post Silicon Valley company, “based on a matrix” according to my Vice President. Meanwhile, our competitors in town are based on the same “rank pyramid” that for hundreds of years has served the Catholic Church, the Roman Legions, and no doubt the Pharaoh and his kingdom too. I can see this plainly whenever we hire an executive from outside our company. Ooh, culture shock!
Our culture is reflected in television programs, like Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners: Which led to a cartoon TV version, The Flintstones. Fred Flintstone will never be the equal of Mr. Slate, at least, not on the job. But Fred can join the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes and then who knows? Become the Grand Pooh Bah—and be listed in the telephone book with bold lettering.
America is a nation of joiners and organizations. That’s what a Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville reported in 1835 in his still-in-print classic, Democracy in America. I agree with his common sense view that volunteers are the backbone of democracy, ensuring that we commoners don’t need the “federales” to do everything for us. Still, I wonder if clubs for things like rural firefighting, county fairs and city park improvements also gave the common man a chance to feel uncommon. Just a thought.
Did I say common man?
Decades after The Flintstones aired… Joxer is a clumsy swordsman, silly and deluded as to his own importance. He often guest stars on Xena Warrior Princess. Xena is a legendary warrior; she rides into town to fight for justice; she leads Greeks and Amazons in battle. And Joxer follows like a sidekick.
How could such a show, not racist, not sexist, be possible? No doubt because it was made in New Zealand, not Arabia; in the 21st century, not in Fred’s time. Besides, I suspect the show’s biggest fans, who love seeing female empowerment, are of the female gender—even if all the Amazons are young and barely clothed. Ooh la la.
New Zealand has a female prime minister; meanwhile, over in Iran and Iraq, they won’t have a woman PM. That’s because they have a nation-wide hierarchy where the all of the men are above all of the women. Well. Maybe I won’t major in Arab studies, after all.
When the entire top half of the hierarchy is male, then that is called a “patriarchy.” —Whereby the males, invested in hierarchy, suffer their own rank pyramids—
Having all males uncaring towards all females is as ancient as the Bible, where one reads a blatant example of patriarchy: It says if you are a wife, and if your husband and another man are fighting, and your husband is losing, then you cannot go help your husband by grabbing the other man’s testicles… I am saying the issue is not which man is “in the right” —your husband could be lily white innocent— the issue is you have offended against the the patriarchy.
Today in Iran it’s not the men who are whipped, by males, on the sidewalk, when their headdress is imperfect. Patriarchy. Naturally I’m not prejudiced against Arabs, I realize “Islam means peace,” I’m just saying Iran is a non-democracy, complete with an infamous Evin torture prison, in part because it is a patriarchy. A lack of equality for women leads to torture for men and women both, but Iranians don’t see it.
Turning from Arabs, today in America, in certain communities, when women are devalued, when uncaring young males turn their heads from crimes of assault and battery, uttering the slogan, “Never come between a man and his woman” —his?— that is patriarchy. Americans don’t see it.
Patriarchy can mean loneliness, feeling abandoned by all men.
Equality can mean humanity.
Three cheers for equality: Hip hip hooray!
“All the world’s a stage…” and Mister Patriarchy will get off the stage faster if good people give him a good parting kick in the pants.
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Postscript: It seems that male city planners have never asked women what they want a city to be like. The day I posted this, today, I found a BBC video feature that showed how a city is different if women are asked for their opinion. Link
On politico, another women-influenced city piece. Link
Japan won’t allow a same sex couple with a baby to be legally married. Why? Not family values: From the BBC:
There is room for progress, Ms Nishiyama says, but those in power are strongly resistant to change: “Conservative politicians who want to protect the idea of traditional family… or the patriarchy.”
Ashamed: Canada is vast, with five and a half timezones. Five days travel from here is Toronto where, according to newspaper columns, women who don’t believe in Islam are wearing hijabs, and saying that to oppose the regime in Iran is to have “Islamaphobia.” I am ashamed, because in the European Union, which includes Balkan states full of Muslims, (including former Yugoslavia) people are daring to oppose and feel solidarity for women and men in Iran. (link) But not in my native Canada. Hence my shame. I think that opposing an autocracy, even if autocrat is clothed in religion, is the right thing to do, never a phobia. God help Iran and Ukraine.
Autocracies and fascist states and the old Soviet Union always start by embracing patriarchy, denying equal rights to women. (Yes, I know Russia supposedly had women (plural) in space. But after the first one, for propaganda purposes, guess how long it took for the second woman to go up?)
Religious post script: The patriarch of Russia was in a photo at a shiny table with Putin. While the propagandists had airbrushed away the expensive watch on the patriarch’s wrist, they forgot to airbrush its reflection on the table. Sometimes a hierarchy serves man, not God. (As in endorsing war in Ukraine)
Is God male? I daresay that the more hierarchical and strict with members a religion is, the more likely it is to insist that God is male. The first 12-step program, being “spiritual not religious” (no priests or scriptures) gave individual members a chance to see “God as we understand him,” later programs write in their steps “God as we understand God” in order to leave out gender. The ever-more-popular concept of “spirituality” has been very nonhierarchical, with a “higher power” being very individual and not prescriptive/compulsive for others. In other words, gentle.
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Sean Crawford my sister leaves comments of equal value,
North of Montana,
December 2020
Inspired by: Eloquent Rage by Britney Cooper.
Your comments: Are not just for me, but for your fellow readers: There are new babies being born every minute who do not know certain concepts, which I kept in mind as a wrote.
Cultural Footnote:
Yes, I freely reference television shows. No, I don’t think I’m committing genocide against my university culture (class of 2000) by watching popular culture.
Rather, I am showing solidarity for folks in my other community, including my school drop-out father, and my lucky-to-finish-high school mother. Call it being bi-cultural, or better yet, living within several diverse simultaneous communities… Next week, respecting my individual diversity, I can post a long poem.
With due respect to lawyers, I refuse to dumb down my culture by adding needless words: The word “including” means ‘but not limited to.’
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