Refuges, children's centres, community centres, respite services, rape crisis services, youth centres and elderly care provisions are being destroyed by ideological Tory cuts. We are losing vital services in our communities on which women depend disproportionately. ![]() The rise of the right, the pervasive grip of neo-liberal economics and ideology are clear threats to gender equality, and indeed are threats to the hard-won steps towards equality that tireless women have secured over the decades. Nevertheless, it is in all of our best interests to create a more just and equitable world where women are no longer second class.Įnding patriarchy is a rather broad goal! Within that there are other key identifiable threats to gender equality currently. ![]() Such an understanding will not come easily, nor guarantee easy passage of any such revolution however. Men need to accept that elements of their power have been gained at the expense of women, at the expense of young people, at the expense of marginalised men. This means men, as a group, as a social class, will have to give up some of their power and privilege and women, as a group, as a social class, must take it back. To achieve gender equality patriarchy must end. Patriarchy is the enemy of gender equality, by which I mean male dominance and male supremacy. What do you see as being the biggest threat to gender equality? A more caring society has to be built by both women and men, and we certainly won't get there under the selfish male supremacy that governs us currently – which is why it must be changed. Starting where we are at, with immediate legislation enshrining, for example, the equal representation of women in parliament, in law, policing, military, education and all the rest, would drastically change the form of those institutions and that in itself would begin a shift towards changing such institutions themselves, for the benefit of all of us. It would be revolutionary to ensure parity in all arenas of life therefore, even now, within our imperfect world. However, due to stereotyped socialisation, these values are all too often instilled in girls and women more than in boys and men, these values are deemed 'feminine' and demeaned because of that. I believe an equal world would be fairer, not because I am a biological determinist, but because I believe all human beings have within them the potential to change and grow.Ĭaring, justice, cooperation and sharing are not gendered, they are not women's values or men's values, they are human values essential to the building of any family, any community, any society, any nation. The world is in crisis environmentally, and all around we see the brutal symptoms of exploitation, hierarchy, prejudice, imperialism and greed. ![]() Patriarchy, as in male dominance and male supremacy, has clearly failed. I think a fairer and representative world, where women play an equal role with men in all arenas would indeed be a more caring society. Would a world run by women be a more caring society? As a feminist, and a socialist, this is the better world I would like to advance rather than a simplistic and flawed image of a matriarchal inversion. Likewise other socially constructed fractures, such as race, social class, disability or sexuality should not be grounds for discrimination or second-class status. We live in a world scarred by the masculinisation of wealth and power and we can no longer afford to pay the price of patriarchy.īut rather than a matriarchal society, I would like to see a just, equitable and socialist society where the sex one is born into does not confer status and privilege above those of any other sex. The aim of feminism as a global social movement is to challenge and end patriarchy, by which I mean a system of male supremacy, a system of social governance where men overwhelmingly dominate mainstream positions of power, authority and influence. The whole point of feminism is not to retain the status-quo, and change the leadership the point of feminism is to radically alter the status-quo and build a new society altogether, one that is better for women, men, children and young people, non-human animals and the environment. ![]() If we take the term 'matriarchy' to mean a mirror image of patriarchy, but with women in charge instead of men then I don't think society would necessarily be very different from the one we are in now. What would a matriarchal society look like? How would it be different from the way we live now? Here, Mackay discusses gender equality, the need to radically rethink society and why feminism doesn’t simply mean replacing a patriarchal society with a matriarchal one. In 2004 she founded the London Feminist Network, one of the largest grassroots feminist activist organisations in the country. Dr Finn Mackay specialises in feminist activism at the University of Bristol’s School for Policy Studies.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |