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Topic: Is the concept of a “Patriarchy” in Western society a conspiracy theory?

Mike Hunt started this discussion 4 years ago #102,481

There is much discussion around common conspiracy theories referred to as “right wing” such as the Deep State, and the New World Order. This post explores whether a common “left wing” concept, the “Patriarchy” could be considered a conspiracy theory.

Defining Patriarchy

patriarchy (noun) - a social system in which power is held by men, through cultural norms and customs that favour men and withhold opportunity from women (Dictionary.com)

patriarchy (noun) Patriarchy is also the control by men, rather than women or both men and women, of most of the power and authority in a society (Cambridge dictionary)

While Merriam-Webster dictionary provides a suitable definition of conspiracy theory:

conspiracy theory (noun) - a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators

The question arises: are we living under a patriarchy, or is the argument that modern western society is a patriarchy a conspiracy theory?

The Arguments

We can break this into two arguments:

Modern Western societies have a social system in which power is held by men, through cultural norms and customers that favour men and withhold opportunity from women. (Patriarchy exists)

Or

There is a secret plot by men in modern Western societies to maintain power through cultural norms and customs and withhold opportunities from women. (Patriarchy as a conspiracy theory)

Feminist discourse on patriarchy mostly centre around what forms a patriarchy takes (such as controlling reproductive rights, control of capital and resources) however they don’t appear to clearly explain the how society actually is a patriarchy. How do men exert power and control over women to form a patriarchy to withhold opportunity from women?

For Anna Pollert[1] the term patriarchy is circular and in which the description and explanation are conflated. She concludes the discussion around patriarchy creates a "theoretical impasse ... imposing a structural label on what it is supposed to explain" and therefore impoverishes the possibility of explaining gender inequalities,

Therefore we need to ask, is power held by men and if so how do men work to maintain that power to withhold opportunity for women? In Western Societies power is mostly formed via political power and economic power.

Is political power held by men?

If we take a look at political power, we can see that yes men are in the majority. The US congress is made up of 539 people of whom 144 or 25% are women. Including the president there’s 540 politicians out of 330 million people that wield political power nationally in the US. Female representation in the US is at the lower end of the scale[2], New Zealand and Sweden have almost 50% women in their parliament, Australia and a number of major European countries the number sits around 40%.

In regards to political power, anyone can in theory run for office, however politics is generally controlled (especially in English speaking countries) by two parties, for which one must be pre-selected. Women’s share of political power has been growing year-on-year with the speaker of the house and Vice-President having been women. In fact the US is unusual among wealthy countries in that it hasn’t had a female head of state.

There doesn’t appear to be evidence of a plot by men to select men for political office and therefore control political power for the interests of men. The fact that women make up 50% of voters results in women’s issues being a deciding factor for many women (and some men) when they vote.

Any party, or candidate that ran on a platform that favoured men’s interest over women’s would quickly find themselves unelectable – that is unless you could argue that women lack autonomy and are not able to vote for their own interests. Which is clearly false.

Further in the US voting turnout is only around 50%, if there was a conspiracy by men to control political power, men would turn out to vote in greater numbers. If women as a group so chose they could turn out to vote at a higher rate than men and completely control political power, but they also do not.

Therefore it’s very difficult to argue there is a plot by men to control political power. Any argument for such a plot should be discarded as a conspiracy theory.

Is economic power held by men?

If we look at who leads in economic power, we can see this list is also dominated by men. Of US billionaires only 11% are women as at 2020. Therefore an argument can be made that men are over-represented in extreme economic power. However again billionaires only number around 600 people out of 330 million people in the US. This extreme wealth isn’t indicative that men as a group have favoured themselves and withheld economic power from women.

Then we must ask are women excluded from obtaining economic power? A major route to economic power is via inheritance. There doesn’t appear to be a great deal of evidence that sons are favoured for inheritance over daughters. There have been no laws or rights movements seeking to change any inheritance inequality.

In regards to employment opportunities women attend higher education at higher rates than men. From educational opportunity, where women dominate, comes employment opportunity. While there have been arguments for a “wage gap” studies have found that when comparing like for like roles this gap reduces to approximately 3% to 5% percent and is lower for younger generations[3]. Some occupations now have a pay gap that favours women. Therefore if women are dominating higher education and receiving more or less similar remuneration it’s difficult to argue there is a plot by men as a group to withhold opportunity from women.

When it comes to more senior roles such as CEO and boards of directors they are also dominated by men. However the number of women in these roles is increasing as the smaller number of women who started their careers in the 70s, 80s and 90s progress through to more senior roles. Family responsibilities often remove women from the workforce, however by its nature a women taking time from work for family would indicate she’s part of a family unit where economic opportunity is on average shared with a spouse, though inequality can exist – especially after divorce.

In summary, apart from the extremes of billionaires and CEOs there isn’t strong evidence that men dominate in economic opportunity or power. The existence of extremes isn’t representative of men as a group. The extremes of wealth among men only make up a tiny percentage of the 160 million plus males in the US which don’t hold particularly high economic power.

Summary

There doesn’t appear to be strong evidence that men are capable of controlling political power. Women control half of political power via their vote and if more women chose to vote in the US they have the ability to dominate the voting power of men.

In regards to economic power, women through education and employment remuneration have similar opportunities as men. Men dominate in extreme wealth and positions of power, however this may be a factor of past differences and factors other than a conspiracy to control wealth and power by men as a group. Regardless the tiny proportion of men that dominate the extremes do not confer any economic power to all men as a group, while men are also highly represented in extremes of poverty, such as homelessness and in prisons.

In fact those that control the wealth are just as liable to exploit their male employees as female employees. It could be argued that male employees as a group are more exploited as they tend to perform the most dangerous occupations and suffer the most injuries and deaths at work, while also having lower educational attainment. In summary extreme wealth doesn’t confer power to men as a group.

TLDR

There is no evidence of a secret plot by men to maintain power through cultural norms and customs and withhold opportunities from women.

Therefore the theory of a patriarchy in modern Western society could be considered a conspiracy theory.

We should talk of the “Patriarchy conspiracy theory” alongside the “Deep state conspiracy theory” and the “New World Order conspiracy theory”.

Sources

[1] Pollert, Anna (1996). "Gender and Class Revisited, or the Poverty of 'Patriarchy'". Sociology. 30 (4): 235. doi:10.1177/0038038596030004002. S2CID 145758809

[2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SG.GEN.PARL.ZS?end=2020&most_recent_value_desc=true&start=1997&view=chart

[3] https://www.glassdoor.com/research/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Gender-Pay-Gap-2019-Research-Report-1.pdf

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