Patriarchy, The System: An It, Not A He, A Them, Or An Us (1997) PDF

ALLAN G. JOHNSON ---- --·-·. - -- Y, T}fE-SY ST ---: ------ ---EM AN T' NOT A HE 1______...

ALLAN G. JOHNSON ---- --·-·. - -- Y, T}fE-SY ST ---: ------ ---EM AN T' NOT A HE 1______ iPA'fR1ARCH N US (1 9rL_ - --· - --- -- -·- - -. '_ : A THEM I OR A ·- --- -. - -.. speaker with thirty years of teaching experience Allan G. Johnson (1946-2017) was a soc1olog. 1st, au th or, an d p u blic Forest and the Trees: Sociology.. 1 books i.nc1 u d e The exploring issues of privilege, oppression, and social 1neq ua I"ity. H·s Patn.archaI Legacy (1997). as Life, Practice, and Promise (1997), and The Gender Knot: Unraver,n9 Our dominate women and ac t out "When you say patriarchy," a man complained men want and like to re is pover ty and class from the rear of the audience, "I know what hostility toward them. The in the u per classes are you really mean-me!" A lot of people hear "men" oppression because people _ The fhp side f this whenever someone says "patriarchy," so that criti­ greedy, heartless, and cruel._ and blame 1s that cism of male privilege and the oppression of women individualistic model of gmlt a tu is taken to mean that all men-each and every one race, gender, and class oppression are ll! not of them-are oppressive people. It's enough to oppression at all, but merely the sum of md1V1dual prompt many men to take it personally, bristling failings on the part of Blacks, women, and the poor, at what they often see as a way to make them feel who lack the right stuff to compete successfully guilty. And some women feel free to blame individ­ with whites, men, and others who know how to ual men for patriarchy simply because they're men. make something of themselves. Some of the time, men feel defensive because they What this kind of thinking ignores is that we identify with patriarchy and its values and don't are all participating in something larger than want to face the consequences these produce or the ourselves or any collection of us. On some level, prospect of giving up male privilege. But defensive­ most people are familiar with the idea that social ness can also reflect a common confusion about the life involves us in something larger than our­ difference between· patriarchy as a kind of society selves, but few seem to know what to do with and the people who participate in it. If we're ever that idea. Blaming everything on "the system going to work toward real change, it's a confusion strikes a deep chord in many people. But it also we'll have to clear up. touches on a basic misunderstanding of social life, To do this, we have to realize that we're stuck because blaming "the system" (presumably soci­ in a model of social life that views everything as ety) for our problems, doesn't take the next step beginning and ending with individuals. Looking at to understanding what that might mean. What things in this way, the tendency is to think that if exactly is a system, for example, and how could bad things happen in the world, it's only because it run our lives? Do we have anything to do with there are bad people who have entered into some shaping it, and if so, how? How, for example, do kind of conspiracy. Racism exists, then, because we participate in patriarchy, and how does that white people are racist bigots who hate members of link us to the consequences? How is what we racial and ethnic minorities and want to do them think of as "normal" life related to male privi­ harm. The oppression of women happens because lege, women's oppression, and the hierarchical, Source: MPatriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us" from The Gender Knoc-· Um:we ' r·mg 0 ur,natnarc. 1wl Legacy 3rd edition by Allan G. Johnson. Used by permission ofTemple University Prcss.