Is patriarchy really dead?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/17/patriarchy-hanna-rosin

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Author Hanna Rosin last week asked us to gather in close and listen to her glib explanation of what she considered a little known reality – "patriarchy is dead". Rosin isn't one for pulling her punches and, I am sure, relished the criticisms that followed her central argument: that men are no longer "dominant"; in fact, they are "the aggrieved sex".

Putting aside for the moment the fact that Rosin has an incomplete view of patriarchy – it isn't solely about male economic power and influence – she argues that it is women who have brought about this demise of men. Her messianic mission to salvage a beleaguered western masculinity is based on this oft-touted argument, permutations of which I have had to endure many times: it is women who are to blame for taking men's work and thereby causing a crisis in masculinity that has led to all sorts – our appalling male suicide figures for one. And it is women who are to blame for rape and other gender-based violence.

Lest we be shocked by such a sweeping generalisation, Rosin makes clear that it is a particular kind of woman that has brought about "the end of men" – the well-educated and confident middle-class woman. And it is this aspect of what she had to say that resonated with my experience as a black feminist.

A "new era of female dominance" occupied by well-educated ambitious women, is Rosin's chief concern. Now, I do not believe that we live in an era where women are the dominant force within our society. Too many saddening statistics abound: from violence against women and girls to our higher likelihood of living in poverty to the gender pay gap and our low political representation – women are not dominant. It is true that progress is taking place, but to call it dominance is a stretch.

Nevertheless, Rosin's description of "elite feminists", a group she sees as benefitting from this "new era", is striking. These feminists are characterised by their strong print and online presence and their ability to contribute to dominant discourse. To these women, Rosin asks: "Why should they feel reassured to be told that men are still on top, that the old order had not been shaken?" And in writing that, Rosin touched upon a raw nerve. Unwittingly she echoes the words of Alice Walker, who argued that, "the problem with western feminists is that they take after their brothers and their fathers ... the struggle for many of these women has just been to get what the men have and share it with them."

Implicit in Rosin's question is the critique many LGBTQ, undocumented, working-class, disabled and black feminists level at the wider movement. If feminism is only about the concerns of the privileged few who now, ostensibly, wield the same type of power as their fathers and brothers, it leaves itself open to criticisms such as hers. I often vacillate between boredom and continued frustration at the narrow focuses of the wider feminist movement. The success of #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen demonstrates how I am not the only one who feels this sustained sense of dissatisfaction.

However, Rosin's stance on what she considers the de facto death of patriarchy ignores the very women she believes she is speaking for, those that are marginalised. She suffers from the same blind-spot as the prominent white feminists she reserves much of her vitriol for. Her logic goes: feminists fight patriarchy, but patriarchy is dead because influential feminists and successful female graduates now have better prospects.

In this framework, the realities of existing under a male-dominated system closely aligned to a capitalist framework for LGBTQ/black/disabled/working-class/underclass/undocumented women can be neatly elided. She asserts that many single parents and working-class women, "yearn to bring back at least some aspects of patriarchy ... they long to have a man around who would pay the bills and take care of them and make a life for them in which they could work less."

Wanting another individual to help you manage the burden of your poverty is in effect lamenting the death of patriarchy. Indeed the struggle for single women with children to make ends meet becomes, for the purposes of her thesis, unrelated to our patriarchal society. Never mind that 52% of single parents are at an overall risk of poverty and that 92% of them are women, or that 22% of women as opposed to 14% of men have a persistent low income. Nope, patriarchy is dead and therefore not at fault.

I employ a flurry of statistics because some of Rosin's most dangerous remarks are delivered through the language of euphemism, rather than sobering, hard facts. For example, she writes that the "big picture" of life without patriarchy may not always be consistent with women's daily experiences; some women, she concedes, do have an "overbearing husband". This I take to be Rosin's code phrase for domestic violence. Overbearing sounds very far from the reality in which two women a week die at the hands of their partners or ex at the hands of their partners or ex. Nevertheless, if Rosin can lob some fair criticism at the feminist movement, it should be worried. It needs to ask itself if it truly reflects the diversity of our movement.

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