The Psychological Roots of Patriarchy

Photo by Andrey Kiselev

In listening to a talk by Jordan Peterson I found myself once again thinking over the disagreement he has with feminists over whether our society is a patriarchy. It seems to me that this a disagreement which can only be resolved through an acknowledgement of what I have called the human neurosis and the phenomena of the character armour to which it gives rise.

Patriarchy is defined as “a society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.” This has clearly been the case throughout much of our history, but in all areas of our society and government women now play a large role, so one could reasonably argue that our society is either no longer patriarchal or that the patriarchy is on its death bed.

I have also seen patriarchy defined as a “male-role orientated” society. Jeremy Griffith of the World Transformation Movement uses that definition, though I haven’t seen it used elsewhere. If we were to take this definition then I would say that we do live in a patriarchal society and that feminism is doing nothing to change this. Historically the female roles have been nurturing roles arising from the biological fact that women give birth to children. Business, politics, science, medicine, the military, the clergy - all of these have been fields historically dominated by men. Those who fill roles in these disciplines continue to be the individuals who have the most power and respect given to them by society, even if “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” Feminism has allowed more women to enter these fields, but it has not changed the dominant nature of these roles. Now I’m not trying to say what should be. Clearly science, medicine, business, etc., are crucial and I’m not suggesting we somehow try to reduce that importance in order to achieve some kind of balance with the nurturing role. I’m just trying to acknowledge that things are not so clear if one uses this alternative definition.

Some aspects of patriarchal organisation arise for practical reasons. Think back to the time of our hunter/gatherer ancestors. In a time of peace between tribes, the nurturers would call the shots, but, in time of conflict, authority would have to be transferred to the defenders of the group. Wherever a task which was performed by males became temporarily more important to the group than the nurturing role, power would shift to the males.

But then we have the neurotic element. When our developing intellects arrived at the concept of idealism, i.e. that it is meaningful to distinguish between forms of behaviour which promote the integrity of the group and forms of behaviour which work against the integrity of the group and to strive to promote the former and discourage the latter through self-discipline and group imposed discipline, our self-acceptance began to be undermined. Unable to fully meet our new-found ideals, we began to feel guilty. This is what is symbolised in the Bible in the story of Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and being cursed by God, excluded from Paradise (a state of blissful unity with each other and the natural world) because of “sin”, i.e. non-ideal behaviour. Ironically it was not our behaviour which continued to curse us, but our habit of self-condemnation in the face of that behaviour.

We became deeply insecure about our own worth and this is what made us ego-embattled. Our propensity for selfishness, aggression, delusional thinking, etc., all arose from this pervasive sense of insecurity.

Because women tended to stay closer to the nurturing role and thus could more easily view themselves as “the good guys” engaging in behaviour which promoted the integrity of the group, it was the males who tended to become more insecure about their own worth. The role as group protector was essential, but their newly acquired conscience could tell them that killing people was wrong. They tended to fulfil roles which were more likely to lead to a guilty conscience and thus a greater insecurity about their self worth.

One of the symptoms of this insecurity was the need to control others and to suppress the critical voice. The outer had to match the inner. In the severely armoured man, the critical voice of the conscience is deeply repressed, and this is achieved through inflexible controlled habits of thought. The freedom of others is felt as a threat, partly because it calls out to that which is repressed in the armoured individual, making the maintenance of discipline more difficult, and partly because they may use their freedom to criticise the armoured individual. They are a potential ally to the individual’s own repressed critical conscience.

The patriarchal structure of society historically has been shaped by this psychological condition. There have no doubt been other practical factors, for example it makes sense that, when military conflict arose, men would generally be the fighters, because women, as the producers of children, are too precious to sacrifice, and also men tend to be bigger and stronger. But we can’t understand the way that female voices were excluded unless we acknowledge the fragility of the male ego as a result of the negative feedback loop between egoistical behaviour and the very insecurity driving that behaviour.

Understanding the human neurosis brings a sympathetic understanding to our assessment of our history and to our response to current circumstances.

Our history, horrendous as it has often been, could not have been other than it was. We made the best of a bad lot. It was in the best interests of all that society hang together in a way which allowed us to make progress in our understanding of ourselves.

So where are we now. We still suffer from our neurosis. The fact that women can fill more positions which were once filled by men also means that, if filling those roles makes the individual more prone to the human neurosis, our society probably has an even less healthy base.

The other side of this neurosis is that those who have been controlled, excluded or abused by the most armoured of individuals, are liable, understandably, to build up feelings of retaliatory hostility. And, sometimes, the power of these feelings can obscure the distinctions between the individual responsible and the group to which they belong. So it is not surprising that some will cling to the perception that our society is an oppressive patriarchy, seeing in the complex pattern only that which reflects the shape of their own trauma.

The solution is to open up understanding of this psychological substructure of our society and promote paths to healing for all. Political change on its own can’t assure us a healthy free and productive society. To the degree that we manifest psychological security as individuals, so will our society be characterised by freedom, respect and appreciation for all its members.