WHAT IS PATRIARCHY ?
Concept of gender draws its legitimacy from the patriarchal society. Patriarchy is defined as a system of social, structure and practices in which men dominate, discriminate and exploit women. Although patriarchy refers to domination of men but women also play equal role in perpetuating the patriarchy and this concept is known as patriarchal bargain.
In this setup women bargains with patriarchy to support male dominance to gain protection, status and resources inside the system which she thinks she might loose if she challenges the system. Patriarchy as a concept is not constant and gender relations have changed over time and space. Although control and subjugation of women is a pan world feature, but how it exercised varies differently over different regions of the world.
STRUCTURE OF PATRIARCHY
- The first lesson of men domination is learnt at family where from childhood difference is created among the siblings on the basis of gender.
- Then comes gender stereotyping for example males are capable of doing tough jobs and females are for easy. Pink colored jobs for female and red color jobs for males etc.
- Nature of society in which we live which includes patrilocal and patriarchal nature of the families. This norm has reduced the status of girl child in the family. In some of society boys are regarded as the real inheritor of the family property after parents etc.
- Knowledge system of the region has also impact the patriarchal nature of the country. The ideology promoted from mass media and education system in the region.
- The symbolic system for example women showing in commercial ads, movies as the inferior personality and often treated as commodity and object of pleasure.
- Religion also plays a significant role in promoting patriarchy. We can see through the customs and practices involved in particular region. We take example of polygamy which are often seen as norm in some of the religion around the world.
- The class and caste of region also differentiate on the basis of the gender and promote the one over the others. For example most of the countries given right of voting to women after later half of twentieth century.
WAY FORWRD:
- Equal pay for equal work, not discriminating solely on the basis of the person belonging to certain gender. Implement proper mechanism to address this issue. As most of the first world countries are also unable to end this issue, so are the second world are far away from removing this barrier.
- Muti-variate areas needs to be promoted among the girls such as sports, army, mechanics etc. With this exposure there will be significant improvement in providing the level playing field among the females.
- Good financial facilities should be provided to the women which could be utilized by them for self empowerment. This will help in closing the gap between the two gender of the society.
CONCLUSION:
