The real poison of patriarchy that is fed intravenously into all children growing up today is the mystical feeling that patriarchal perspectives are always and inevitably transcendent perspectives. In relation to women, that is, they are "The Perspectives" that offer a birds-eye view on everything.
What that means, in practice, is that whenever there is a patriarchal perspective to be offered, women's perspectives are automatically wrong. One has to remember that women's perspectives are by definition NOT patriarchal perspectives, no matter how much the right wing has worked to make it seem like unusual intelligence in a woman will make her see the world in a patriarchal way. The metaphor of transcendence is employed here quite implicitly, but it remains only a concept, without any relation to social and cultural dynamics as they actually are.
Let me explain how the idea that patriarchal perspectives are the transcendent ones actually works. This concept CREATES the social dynamics that relegate women into a position of inferiority -- the set of gender relations that it would appear merely to "interpret". But this is not at all possible without a lot of faith. Therefore, a man must believe in himself and never come to doubt his own perceptions. It is out of this attitude of faith that his "transcendence" pours. (This faith is henceforth known as "self confidence" and/or "virility").
But let us refer to the attitude that claims transcendence as its own (as"faith"), for that it the function that enables all patriarchal perspectives.
The man of faith confronts a world in which there are many opposing perspectives. He notices women's perspectives are often in opposition to his own, and this puts him into a state of self-doubt. "Maybe my transcendence is not all that it seems to be?" echoes a constantly nagging doubt. At that moment, he calls on faith to help him to resolve the issue of epistemological discrepancy.
"After all, I have the Transcendent View," he says. "All patriarchal texts affirm so."
What of women and their points of views -- the ones that are genuine and therefore necessarily anti-patriarchal?
"Women are inherently manipulative, and exhaust all their energies in trying to make higher individuals lose their ways," he affirms to himself. "All patriarchal texts assume so."
HAZCHEM!
What that means, in practice, is that whenever there is a patriarchal perspective to be offered, women's perspectives are automatically wrong. One has to remember that women's perspectives are by definition NOT patriarchal perspectives, no matter how much the right wing has worked to make it seem like unusual intelligence in a woman will make her see the world in a patriarchal way. The metaphor of transcendence is employed here quite implicitly, but it remains only a concept, without any relation to social and cultural dynamics as they actually are.
Let me explain how the idea that patriarchal perspectives are the transcendent ones actually works. This concept CREATES the social dynamics that relegate women into a position of inferiority -- the set of gender relations that it would appear merely to "interpret". But this is not at all possible without a lot of faith. Therefore, a man must believe in himself and never come to doubt his own perceptions. It is out of this attitude of faith that his "transcendence" pours. (This faith is henceforth known as "self confidence" and/or "virility").
But let us refer to the attitude that claims transcendence as its own (as"faith"), for that it the function that enables all patriarchal perspectives.
The man of faith confronts a world in which there are many opposing perspectives. He notices women's perspectives are often in opposition to his own, and this puts him into a state of self-doubt. "Maybe my transcendence is not all that it seems to be?" echoes a constantly nagging doubt. At that moment, he calls on faith to help him to resolve the issue of epistemological discrepancy.
"After all, I have the Transcendent View," he says. "All patriarchal texts affirm so."
What of women and their points of views -- the ones that are genuine and therefore necessarily anti-patriarchal?
"Women are inherently manipulative, and exhaust all their energies in trying to make higher individuals lose their ways," he affirms to himself. "All patriarchal texts assume so."
HAZCHEM!
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