All Anti-Woman Ideas and Attitudes Are Evil
By: Manas Kala
Tags: Womens Rights, Patriarchy, Equality, Gender Equality, Women

Social issues are challenging, especially issues related to women and women’s rights. There are countless point-of-views, numerous strong arguments, and equally potent counter-arguments. The debates are often unending, they often fail to create a consensus, yet they are vital because they facilitate an invaluable service — The exchange of ideas.

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The power of debate — women suffrage rights

Even in the most modern Western societies of the day, there was a time when women were not allowed to vote. The idea of women exercising their electoral privilege was chided and scoffed at. If it were entirely up to men, men alone would vote today.

But it was not. Women fought for their rights, and they were not alone in their rightful crusade. Men who believed in equality, in its truest sense and purest form, stood and fought the oppressive structure that denied women their most fundamental right to vote.

No equal and just society has ever overcome the treachery of human corruption.

There were numerous instances of violence by the state apparatus against women demanding electoral rights. From the Women’s Rights Convention being disrupted by mobs in the USA to women protestors in the UK being beaten up on Black Friday.

Yet, for the most part, this fight for women’s suffrage did not include clubs and knives and guns. These battles were not fought in open fields and dense jungles. There was no frontal war between the sexes.

Regressive patriarchal ideas were fought with ideas of equality. Arguments were nullified with even more brilliant counter-arguments. Fierce debates took place with fervent frequency and eventually the women won for themselves their fundamental rights to liberty and equality.

It wasn’t easy. It took over a century. It took sacrifices from countless nameless and faceless women and men. And it took discussions, debates, and speeches to create awareness against the injustice meted out to women and to shape public opinion in favor of women’s fundamental right to vote.

Debates facilitate a continuous exchange of ideas. That’s all it ever takes to bring about social-change sometimes. A sustained, prolonged, persistent, sincere, and relentless exchange of ideas.

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All anti-woman ideas are evil

The False Equivalence of Patriarchy, Sexism, and Misogyny” highlights the differences between the three major anti-woman ideas. The reason offered is simple — Patriarchy is made the scapegoat for all atrocities inflicted upon women, and this does little to solve the actual social problems.

First, the verbal or sexual violence perpetrated in private spaces, which is not visible and is easily shrouded by the mist of patriarchal norms, cannot be vociferously opposed and fought.

Second, given the socialization of people, especially men, in a societal envelope that accords an implicit approval to male supremacy, the fog of patriarchy offers a safe retreat to the sexist and the misogynist — for if coercing a woman to wear a headscarf and subjecting her to sexual abuse are placed in the same psycho-social category of male-dominance, a false-equivalence is established.

Patriarchy is not Sexism, and it is not Misogyny. It may surely pave the way for its more sinister cousins, but it is not them. It is more pervasive. It is more invisible. Unfortunately, it is also generally more acceptable as it comes packaged with religious, cultural, and traditional values.

However, in the pursuit of objectively categorizing these Anti-women attitudes, the article did not make something explicit. Oppression in all shapes and forms is oppression. Patriarchy is evil. Period.

To be fair, this message was implicit in the story. It had condemned a misogynist politician, criticized a sexist politician, and called out a politician with regressive patriarchal views.

Patriarchy is not Sexism, and it is not Misogyny. It may surely pave the way for its more sinister cousins, but it is not them. It is more pervasive. It is more invisible. Unfortunately, it is also generally more acceptable as it comes packaged with religious, cultural, and traditional values.

We are all equal. There should be no discrimination, no prejudice, no abuse, no violence. Not based on gender, race, tribe, ethnicity, or caste. However, as a student of the evolution of Society and Social theory, I know that has never been the case in entire human history.

No equal and just society has ever overcome the treachery of human corruption. We have never as the human-collective been able to live by these noble ideals for periods long enough to be recorded in our respective histories.

So when it is about women’s rights, how does one fight the oppression of one gender by another?

Simply put, it is a three-step process —

The first step is to delineate the nature, extent, and intent of the oppression.

The second step is appropriately labeling it.

The third is remedying it with corrective action — legal, structural, and societal.

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But some are worse than the others

“The False Equivalence of Patriarchy, Sexism, and Misogyny,” delineates and labels the anti-women attitudes. It does not intend to make the case that Patriarchy is somehow okay, or that since it can be “bargained with” it is acceptable. No, not at all. Even though it fails to explicitly state it.

I consider Patriarchy to be the genesis of all gender-based oppression.The point I tried to make in perhaps more words than were necessary is that not all oppression is the same. What is worse is that ideological motivations muddle the waters by mislabeling gendered oppressions to suit the narrative.

Let’s look at it through another example: violence. We all agree that all violence is bad, antisocial, and often criminal. Yet violence has different degrees — manhandling, assault, attempt to murder, and murder. All violence is not the same, and should not be treated as such.

Further, someone who has assaulted someone should not be accused of murder. Likewise, someone who has murdered someone, should not be let go on an assault charge. This is the fundamental tenet of Dicey’s “Rule of Law” — Like should be treated alike.

Coming back to Anti-woman attitudes, they are all evil. They are all to be fought and remedied. But they are all not the same. Some are bad and some downright horrific.

I come from a Patriarchal society, and yet there is no room for it in my home or in my relationships with women I love or work with.

In time, we will overcome it.

Until then, we fight it.

But first, we fight Patriarchy’s more evil cousins — Sexism and Misogyny.

Oppression in all shapes and form is oppression. Patriarchy is evil. Period.