NEW LITERARIA-

An International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities

Volume 4, No. 2, July-August, 2023, PP. 01-09
ISSN: 2582-7375
DOI: [Link]
[Link]

Feminist Perspective on Patriarchy: Its Impact on the Construction of

Femininity and Masculinity

Dr. Manjari Johri

Abstract

The concept of patriarchy has traditionally been used to analyze women's oppression,
subordination, and subjection in a social order where men are perceived as superior to women.
Gender inequality has been the chief area of feminist concern and protest since the first
movement of feminism. Subsequently, feminists demanded gender parity and resisted
discrimination based on sex, class, caste, race, and sexual orientation. It surfaced that roles
ascribed to men and women were an outcome of socialization that had been deeply internalized
leading to socially accepted notions of femininity and masculinity. I will explore the concept
of patriarchy and discuss how such a social template for men and women becomes an oppressive
injunction, that is subscribed to for seeking acceptability and validation. Perspectives of
sociologists, such as Max Weber, Sylvia Walby, Alan Johnson, and Anthony Giddens, will be
incorporated to explain the concept of Patriarchy, along with the writings of feminists such as
Simone De Beauvoir and Judith Butler.

Keywords: Patriarchy, Identity, Masculinity, Femininity, Waves of Feminism, Social Structure.

Introduction

The term ‘social structure’ was popularly used by the Sociologist Herbert Spencer (1850) in
his analysis of society. It had hitherto been widely used in anatomical studies but in Sociology,
it refers to an orderly and pattered relationship between elements of society. These constituent
elements are the human beings living at a point in time in any culture. Each culture displays
specific needs, which could be biological, social, economic, or psychological, and these, in
turn, impart an element of universality and acceptability to these structures. Such an
organization leads to certain general functions, which can be found in any society regardless
of its ethos, history, or cultural variability. (Rao, 2006). The nature of a specific structure may
vary; a family, for instance, may be polygamous or monogamous, and the economy may be
capitalist or socialist, but the basic need to have a particular structure is pervasive. Such an
organized society acquires a specific culture. Rao (2006) cites the definition of culture, given
by Edward B. Tylor, as a “complex whole that includes language, belief, art, morals, law, and
customs acquired by man as a member of the society” (p. 348). Culture is shared, social, learnt,
transmissive, continuous, cumulative, dynamic, and adaptive. It is a system of behaviour shared
by the members of society. Within each culture, the primary constituent is the family, the most
essential of all social groupings. Family as an institution is pervasive and universal, found in
all societies, primitive or civilized, ancient or modern. It has been taken from a Latin word,
Feminist Perspective on Patriarchy: Its Impact on the Construction of Femininity and
Masculinity

famulus, which means servant. Rao (2006) points out, “In Roman law, the word denoted a
group of producers and slaves and other servants, as well as members connected by common
descent or marriage. Thus originally, family constituted of a man and woman with child or
children and servants.” (p. 349) Its essential functions include reproduction, maintenance,
placement, and socialization. This category can further be classified as matriarchal or
patriarchal, each having a mother and father respectively as the head of the family, or it could
be a nuclear or a joint family. However, each family is invariably characterized by specific
roles performed by men and women, which reflect the social structure and is a microcosmic
representation of the larger society. Often, the male member holds the predominant position as
the provider of resources because of the structuring of the society. Accordingly, the woman
takes the subordinate position. For this paper, I will focus on patriarchy as a concept, and its
consequential dynamics in gender formation, in developing the notions of femininity and
masculinity, and existing gender inequality between men and women.

Patriarchy

Patriarchy is a social construct which endorses the superiority of men over women. It has been
defined differently by sociologists and employed extensively by feminists as a tool to analyze
gender relations. Weber (1978) defined it as a system of government in which men rule over
society as the head of the household and dominate not only women but also men who are
younger in their years. Johnson (2005) emphasizes that the word cannot be used as a synonym
for men; instead, it refers to a society where men and women participate. He further asserts that
“society is patriarchal to the degree that it promotes male privilege by being male-dominated,
male-identified, and male-centred. It is also organized around an obsession with control and
involves as one of its key aspects the oppression of women” (p.5). In such a society, positions
of power and authority are wielded by men. Such dominance creates power differences between
men and women, and the core cultural idea about what is desirable and acceptable becomes
associated with men and masculinity (Johnson, 2005). Walby (1989) offers a candid, forthright
definition stating that patriarchy is a “system of social structure and practices in which men
dominate, oppress and exploit women” (p. 214). The term social structure is significant as it
underlines that patriarchy is not about an individual man or woman. However, it is about the
society which involves groups of men and women. It is not an outcome of biological
determinism, which endows men with superlative power; it is instead, manufactured by society
so that men enjoy more privilege than women in the public and private spheres of life. Becker
(1999) observes that it is not only women who are in the oppressed section. Instead, it is also
men, not only those who are younger, but men of all ages who are ‘different’, who do not
display hyper-masculine traits, and are therefore rejected as being ‘sissy’ or ‘feeble’, as being
‘not men enough’. Becker states:

Human beings, whether men, women, or children, do not flourish when hyper-
masculinity is glorified and traditional feminine qualities… are denigrated. Nor do
human beings flourish when all males are pressured to adopt hyper–masculine
attributes and repress feminine ones, and all females are pressured to adopt traditionally
feminine attributes and press masculine ones. (p. 22)

Patriarchy has been employed in feminist studies and in sociology and anthropology as
a category through which the social structure involving the relationship between men and
women could be understood and analyzed. Across cultures, men have enjoyed a superior status,
further reinforced through religious practices, rituals, narratives, myths, and mythology. It has
become deeply internalized and ingrained in human consciousness. Even in the present times,
in our country, it is not uncommon to see the premium that is given to the institution of
 3 NEW LITERARIA, Vol 4, No. 2, 2023

marriage, which is ‘arranged’ by the family, in which the girl is ‘shown’ to the prospective
groom. The decision to select or reject rests with the prospective groom or his family members.
The ritual of ‘kanyadaan' is an integral part of Hindu marriages, which suggests giving away
the daughter to the groom. Similarly, men are evaluated based on their masculine traits, earning
capacity, and societal position. The idea of femininity and masculinity, and the respective roles
attributed to each, is predefined and unquestioningly subscribed to by most of the men and
women.

In Gender Knot, Johnson (2005) maintains that “control and domination” are the core
principles of Patriarchy. He observes:

Patriarchy encourages men to seek security, status, and other rewards through control;
to fear other men's ability to control and harm them; and to identify being in control as
their best defence against loss and humiliation and the surest route to what they need
and desire. In this sense, although we usually think of Patriarchy in terms of women
and men, it is more about what happens among men. The oppression of women is
undoubtedly an essential part of Patriarchy, but paradoxically, it may not be the point
of Patriarchy. (p. 28)

Women, as well as men, bear the brunt of the patriarchal order. The image of a poor male
farmer, a labourer, or a man in a subordinate position in an office setting being bullied by his
superior is familiar enough in films and social media. Power dynamics are at play here; the
social structure that invests authority in a hierarchal order invariably evinces exploitation of
those with lesser agency and control. Attributes of maleness, like “competitiveness, toughness,
coolness under pressure, logic, forcefulness, decisiveness, rationality, autonomy, self-
sufficiency, and control over any emotion that interferes with other core values (such as
vulnerability)” (Johnson, 2005, p. 7), are acquired through socialization. Johnson continues to
assert that, “In contrast, qualities such as cooperation, mutuality, equality, sharing, compassion,
caring, vulnerability, a readiness to negotiate and compromise, emotional expressiveness, and
intuitive and other nonlinear ways of thinking are all devalued and culturally associated with
femininity and femaleness” (p. 7). Identities are not an outcome of biological determinism.
Some men do not subscribe to such formulations of gendered identity, while others pattern
themselves after the socially constructed notions of gender. Johnson (2005) elaborates on the
same idea:

Note that male dominance does not mean that all men are powerful. Most men in
patriarchies are not influential individuals and spend their days doing what other men
tell them to do, whether they want to or not. Male dominance does mean that where
there is a concentration of power, men are the ones most likely to have it—they are the
default. (p. 6)

Patriarchy has an impact on the behaviour of both men and women, it shapes and
constructs their identities, which is most cases also detrimental to their wellbeing as a person.

The Four Waves of Feminism

Feminist studies generally include the trajectory of the women’s movement since the first wave
of feminism. The ‘wave’ metaphor is generally used to identify the phases of the feminist
movement and helps offer a framework of periodization. The Seneca Falls Convention in 1848
in New York, when hundreds of men and women rallied for women’s equality, is marked as
the beginning of the first wave. Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted the Declaration of Rights and
Feminist Perspective on Patriarchy: Its Impact on the Construction of Femininity and
Masculinity

Sentiments (1848), for which she used Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence as a
model and employed language like that of colonial revolutionaries. She demanded why the
treatment of women was at variance from that outlined in the official manifesto of the
Declaration of Independence. The primary demand outlined in the manifesto was to win
electoral rights so that women could have representation in the halls of justice. Marriage
implied the man had irrefutable rights over his wife’s property and wages. Divorce laws, too,
were in the favour of men. Women had little access to education, and all other ‘avenues to
wealth and distinction’ were also curtailed. Stanton puts down the demand for women in
Declaration of Rights and Sentiments (1848) as:

We are told these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal:
that their creator endows them with certain inalienable rights, that among them are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that governments are instituted deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed to secure these rights. (par. 2)

The wave metaphor was first used on March 10, 1968, when an article by Martha
Weinman Lear in New York Times came under the headline “The Second Feminist Wave”.
Lear announced that feminism was still pertinent and used the metaphor ‘wave’ to refer to the
resurgence of women's power after the first wave had ebbed with the glorious victory of the
suffragettes. The metaphor caught on and linked the 1960s and 1970s movement with that of
the suffragettes in the early twentieth century. It suggested that women's struggle was not about
specific individuals but about universal issues, initiating the idea of ‘sisterhood’. It moved
further towards seeking social equality. The momentum also responded to the contemporary
social milieu when representations were being made against the Vietnam War, Black Civil
Rights, and Gay and Lesbian rights. It proclaimed the slogan, ‘personal is political’, and sought
to do away with casual sexism in society, harassment at the workplace, discrimination in wages
on the grounds of gender, unpaid household work and objectification of women as sexual
objects.

Some of the most significant texts associated with the second wave are Beauvoir’s The
Second Sex (1949), Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963), and Millet's Sexual Politics
(1969). Beauvoir’s contention that one is not ‘born a woman but is made one’ implies the role
of society and culture in forming women’s identity. Friedan dwells on the ‘unnamed problem’
faced by the suburban American women who enjoyed all facilities of modern society yet were
unhappy, as they were restricted from enjoying certain rights over self and body. The second
wave brought forth demands over reproductive rights, body issues, and domestic violence and
dwelt over the essential nature of women and its associated discourses. It was realized that
women’s individual experiences were a part of the standard narrative of women.
Consciousness-raising activities were organized to address the systemic nature of the discursive
construction of women. Objectification of women and stereotyping of social roles were
resisted. The second wave also witnessed issues about race, class, and ethnicity.
Intersectionality became an integral part as it was realized that the travails of the white upper
class could not be seen as homogeneous experiences of all women. The white, middle-class,
heterosexual agenda was gradually replaced by a call for giving space to differentiated identity
politics based on the intersections of gender, class, race, and sexuality. The second wave
witnessed a critique of patriarchy, capitalism, normative heterosexuality, and the limiting role
assigned to women as wives and mothers.

The third wave is usually associated with the 1990s and is deeply influenced by
postcolonial and post-structural outlook. The accepted notions of womanhood,
heteronormativity, sexuality, body, and gender were destabilized. It was also marked by a
 5 NEW LITERARIA, Vol 4, No. 2, 2023

celebration of femininity and the female body. These ‘girls’ came across as empowered agents
who rejected victimization by men and defined feminine beauty as subjects and owners of their
bodies, not as objects seeking male endorsement. Martha Rampton (2015), in her article Four
Waves of Feminism, notes:

Most third-wavers refuse to identify as “feminists” and reject the word they find
limiting and exclusionary. Grrl-feminism tends to be global and multicultural, and it
shuns simple answers or artificial categories of identity, gender, and sexuality. Its
transversal politics means that differences such as ethnicity, class, sexual orientation,
etc., are celebrated and recognized as dynamic, situational, and provisional. (par. 12)

The third wave critiques Eurocentric feminism and has a more global approach. It
concerns the effects of colonialism and neo-colonialism on women of colour and third-world
countries. It is primarily centred around ways to think about gender and its consequences.
Butler’s Gender Trouble(1990), Woolf's The Beauty Myth (1990), and Hook's Feminism is for
Everybody (2000) are significant contributions associated with the third wave, which bring out
the ideas about gender performativity, perception of beauty in the capitalist market, and black
identity.

The fourth wave of feminism is hugely defined by technology and social media. Kira
Cochrane (2013) explains how the new age movement has gone to the streets and the web. In
her article in The Guardian, she recounts how activists like Laura Bates started a web page,
“Everyday sexism project” (par. 2), which had participation from 17 countries worldwide.
Bates believes that feminism is defined by “pragmatism, inclusion and humor” (par. 3). Online
campaigns are held against sexism, racism and sexist stereotyping, rape, and sexual
exploitation. The “me too” movement and the ‘Nirbhaya’ case are examples of such
consciousness-raising, which has become possible in the technology-driven world. The term
‘intersectionality’, coined by Kimberle Cranshaw in 1989, was intended to show how multiple
oppressions intersect, but “today's feminists generally seem to see it as an attempt to elevate
and make space for the voices and issues of those who are marginalized, and a framework for
recognizing how class, race, age, ability, sexuality, gender and other issues combine to affect
women's experience of discrimination” (Cochrane, 2013, par. 17)

The discourse around gender identity has been dynamic. While it was subjected to
biological determinism in the initial stages of the movement, it gradually acquired multiple
meanings, which will be elaborated upon in the following section of the paper.

Femininity and Masculinity

In The Second Sex (1949), Simone De Beauvoir challenged the deterministic essentialism
attributed to gender based on biological sex. The idea that ‘one is not born a woman but
becomes one’ emphasizes the role of the environment in the construction of identity.
Sociologist Giddens also underscores the function of society and culture in gender formation.
While sex refers to physiological markers of male and female anatomy, “gender is linked to
socially constructed notions of masculinity and femininity; it is not necessarily a direct product
of an individual’s biological sex” (Giddens, 2006, p. 458). He further elaborates on gender
socialization which is the “learning of gender roles with the help of social agencies such as the
family and the media” (Giddens, 2006, p. 459). Children internalize the norms which
correspond with their sex. Gender differences are culturally produced rather than biologically
determined and inequalities between men and women are a result of socialization into different
roles. Social forces reward or restrain behaviour through positive and negative sanctions. This
kind of behaviour formation is propounded by the functionalist approach, which has been
Feminist Perspective on Patriarchy: Its Impact on the Construction of Femininity and
Masculinity

contradicted by sociologists and feminists who opine that, like gender lacks a fixed essence,
sex too is subject to social forces which “shape and alter it in many ways” (Giddens, 2006, p.
461).

While women’s studies and feminists have been interested in femininity and the female
identity, sociologists have also been intrigued by the changing notions of masculinity, how
male identities are constructed and what impact socially prescribed roles have on men's
behaviour. In Masculinities (2005), Cornell integrated the concepts of masculinity and
femininity with patriarchy. Giddens (2006) elaborates on the idea of Cornell that patriarchal
powers define gender relations; from the individual to the institutional level, masculinity and
femininity are all arranged around patriarchy. According to Cornell, labor (both at home and
in the capitalist market), power (authority, position), and sexual relations are the three realms
within which gender relations are constituted. Giddens (2006) describes how Cornell has
identified ‘gender hierarchy’, which comprises ‘hegemonic masculinity’ at the top. It exercises
its hegemony not through brute force but through cultural representation, such as through
media. It is associated with power, wealth, physical toughness, authority, and heterosexuality
and is perceived as the ideal type of masculinity that few men can display. Those men who do
not possess it but benefit from it embody ‘complicit masculinity’. Next in the hierarchy are
‘subordinated masculinities and femininities, ‘homosexual masculinity’, ‘emphasized
femininity’ and ‘resistant femininity’ (Giddens, 2006, p. 466). Emphasized femininity is
oriented to accommodate the interests of men through compliance and nurturance; young
women do so through sexual receptivity, and older women through notions of motherhood.

However, Johnson (2005) is at variance with this understanding of gender roles. He

maintains that femininity and masculinity are relational and subject to change. A passive wife
who is subservient to her husband could be an assertive mother, like an authoritative husband,
and a father could be a compliant employee in his workplace. Humans are not self-contained,
autonomous personalities but relational beings who respond to the social environment as the
moment demands. However, “cultural magic” propagates certain male and female traits
through its myths and ideology (p. 87). Johnson (2005) elaborates:

What is culturally valued is associated with masculinity and maleness, and what is
devalued is associated with femininity and femaleness, regardless of the reality of men’s
and women’s lives. Courage and heroism, for example, are culturally associated with
masculinity…Since courage is valued in a patriarchal culture, it is identified with men
in expressions such as “having balls.” At the same time, cowardice is routinely
associated with being female, as reflected in the practice of insulting a man by calling
him a “girl,” a “sissy,” or a “pussy.” There are no equivalent female images for
courage— “having ovaries” has yet to catch on, but it is not that unusual to hear brave
women described as “having balls.” (p. 89)

It is believed that masculinity and femininity are ‘tools’ used to maintain social control and
perpetuate patriarchy. Johnson (2005) further states:

In patriarchal ideology, each gender is assigned an immutable nature fixed in the body
and permanently set apart from the other.… The patriarchal vision of men and women
as different types of human beings whose differences assume cosmic importance in
social life has little to do with the differences themselves. It has a lot to do with
perpetuating Patriarchy, its core values, and the consequences they produce. (pp. 96-97)
 7 NEW LITERARIA, Vol 4, No. 2, 2023

The very notions of femininity and masculinity have little to do with our identity as
human beings and the meaning we invest in our lives. Instead, it is a mechanism to disseminate
and propagate the patriarchal social order.

Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (1969) is a path breaking work on the concept of
gender construction and gender identity. She problematizes the essentialism attributed to
biological sex. While Beauvoir stated that gender is socially formed, Butler asserts that even
sex is not a fixed category. She rejects the universalism and the essentialism attached to gender
and maintains that identities are fluid and that spatial and temporal factors determine the
notions of masculinity and femininity. Butler employs post-structural and post-modernist ideas
in her approach as she develops the ideas of ‘performativity’. Gender, she asserts, is a cultural
process that involves the production and reproduction of identities—she ‘troubles’ the accepted
ideas about gender formation by deconstructing the normative representation of the concept.
An individual responds to specific codes that are embedded in the society, in the form of
politics, economy, religion, race, and language, that is, to the culture, which is an asymmetric
entanglement between abstraction (a discursive design that is operational) and materiality
(body as a site, language etc.). Butler elaborates on the politics of representation and believes
that dominant gender production merges seamlessly with construction through cultural codes,
which are so naturalized that they become deeply ingrained in human consciousness. She gives
the example of heteronormativity, which presents heterosexuality as normative and any other
form as deviant. She even questions the essential nature of womanhood:

The political assumption that there must be a universal basis of feminism, one which
must be found in an identity assumed to exist cross-culturally, often accompanies the
notion that the oppression of women has some singular form discernible in the universal
or hegemonic structure of Patriarchy or masculine domination. (p. 5)

The idea of universal patriarchy has been criticized for its inability to account for the
workings of gender oppression in concrete cultural contexts. She also rejects her idea of the
gender/sex binary because such an analysis retains the gender/sex mimetic relation, which
establishes that gender is determined by biological sex alone.

Butler (1969) presents gender construction as being independent of sex, thereby making
it a free-flowing artifice. The notion of a male body embodying masculinity and a female body
embodying femininity is rejected by her, as she maintains that masculinity and femininity are
behavioural codes that are cultivated and developed by culture. This brings in the idea of gender
performativity. She defines gender as:

Gender is a complexity whose totality is permanently deferred, never fully what it is at

any given juncture of time. An open coalition, then, will affirm identities that are
alternately instituted and relinquished according to the purposes at hand; it will be an
open assemblage that permits multiple convergences and divergences without
obedience to normative telos of deferential closure. (p. 22)

Gender is an outcome of specific codes in the culture; it is at play and is fluid and
performative. She rejects essentializing tendencies towards womanhood and manhood. Butler
argues that identity categories of sex, gender, sexuality, desire, and body are structured by the
external environment and are products of heterosexuality and are phallogocentric. Identity
categories are ‘fictional’ and are products of the discursive regime of power/knowledge. These
categories are ‘performative’ as they produce the identity that is represented to be considered
as “intelligible genders” (Butler, 1969, p. 22). Jagger (2008) explains the concept as:
Feminist Perspective on Patriarchy: Its Impact on the Construction of Femininity and
Masculinity

Performance of gender produces the illusion of such a core or essence. As we shall see,
this becomes a cultural effect, a product of particular signifying practices. She also
argues that this performance has a temporal aspect as it involves the ‘ritualized
repetition of conventions’, which are also ‘shaped and compelled by compulsory
heterosexuality’. (p. 21)

Gender, masculinity, and femininity are impersonations of an ideal self, which no one
inhabits, and these concepts, too, are not stable but are fluid and dynamic. Performativity
entails the repetition of oppressive, naturalized gender norms of socially established meanings.
This ‘performativity’, or enactment of gender is thus, socially approved and politically
regulated rather than being dictated by some internal ‘self’. Not being stable, gender is
constituted in time through this ‘stylized’ repetition of acts. This repetition merely creates an
illusion of identity as a stable category. Butler (1969) further argues:

Because there is neither an 'essence,' that gender expresses or externalizes nor an

objective ideal to which gender aspires, and because gender is not a fact, the various
acts of gender create the idea of gender. Without those acts, there would be no gender
at all. (p. 140)

Through this repeated act, one becomes unbecomes and rebecomes, i.e., the identity
keeps transforming under social regulation emphasizing gender coherence. In this manner,
Butler disrupts the grand narratives of phallogocentrism, heteronormativity, patriarchy and its
associated notions of gender, masculinity, and femininity.

Conclusion

From the above arguments, drawn from sociology, feminist writings, and cultural studies, it
can be concluded that patriarchy is an organizing structure in a society which imparts primacy
to men over women, leading to gender inequality, disparity, exploitation, and oppression of
women. It is at the same time also detrimental to the well being of men, who are adversely
judged for not displaying hegemonic masculine traits. Initially gender was thought of as being
essentialist, a direct manifestation of biological sex. However, in the post-modern, post-
structuralist understanding, it is presented as not being stable; as not having a quintessential
form that can be replicated, but as being subjected to the notions of a meta-narrative that
encourages compliance and adherence to normative behaviour. This normativity is codified in
language, religion, and cultural practices, but is not a monolith and is liable to undergo constant
transformation through diverse permutations and combinations. Masculinity and femininity are
thus ‘performative’ acts through which men and women establish their identities. However,
such an expression of oneself is restrictive, conformist and culturally enforced that propels the
heterosexual project. It is disempowering as it does not allow conscious choice, lacks
voluntarism, and is oppressive – both to men and women.

References

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Bio-note

Manjari Johri is an Assistant Professor at Amity School of Languages, Amity University

Lucknow. She has an experience of over twenty-five years as a teacher. She earned her Ph.D.
from the University of Lucknow in 2009, and has been dedicated to her profession at the
University level for the past eighteen years. She is keenly interested in teaching drama and
poetry and is inclined towards feminist writing and theory.

Email id: mjohri@[Link]