Patriarchy is a Human Construct That Works Against Women
by The rule of the fathers is the common social order that is predominantly cross-cutting in all te major continents of the world.
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The way the world is dominated by men is called Patriarchy, which literally means the rule of the fathers. It has been argued that this situation was not always the case in many of the earliest human societies. In fact in some societies, especially in West Africa, there were different kinds of social set ups where the rule by the mothers or matriarchy dominated.
In ancient hunter-gatherer societies, gender relations and gender roles were less differentiated. Some theorists have argued that it was until human beings discovered fire and the taste for meat that men took on the job of going outside the homestead to hunt because a heavily pregnant woman could not run fast. Thereafter, women began to stay at home, cultivating herbs and vegetables nearby and domesticating smaller animals for food and other uses. This is evidence that patriarchy is a learned constructs and as a historical and a learned way of being, it can as well be unlearned.
One area where this unlearning is very much desired is in the belief that men are public creatures while women are private creatures who should ordinarily be domesticated. It is time the world stopped forthwith, to regard male attributes as assets for human beings, namely brave, active,rational and as a norm. In my own culture, women’s attributes are seen as defects: timid, passive, emotional, weak. For example, in Africa generally, men who often cannot coupulate due impotency and other infirmities are called “women” This is how deeply entreched patriarchy has become and the more our societies take on this world view, the more we shall continue to regard the women’s ways of seeing, understanding and defining as inadequate.
It is true, that partiarchy goes so deep in human cultures. It is also a truism that Patriarchy is very difficult to dislodge. However, the main point here is that if it had a beginning in human history, then it can have an end and that end must come very soon so that women take an equal positions in the our society where the men seem to assume, they are the Masters appointed naturally.
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