Surviving Patriarchy

As I begin this essay, I must admit that I’m ambivalent about the title. Part of me thinks it is too declarative. Perhaps it should be “Surviving Patriarchy?” Or maybe, “This Patriarchy is F***ing Killing Me” would be more apt. I feel all of it. But let’s be optimistic, shall we, and discuss survival. At least the word survival doesn’t diminish the struggle. It feels like life and death only because it is.
Today, the battle for dignity and respect as a woman — much less equality — is mundane and quotidian, and grand and desperate. I feel simultaneously that I am fighting ferociously for the most basic recognition every day and that I am not doing enough.
I’ll start with the grand: the Kavanaugh hearings. I follow these with the dread that comes from knowing that his confirmation will lead to the deaths of women. Can we not pretend that he is somehow neutral on Roe v. Wade? Can we just acknowledge that whatever charade these hearings may be, the truth is that he was chosen because of his dispositions regarding abortion and gun rights and presidential power? What haunts me most are the completely preventable deaths that will follow. We KNOW that women will still need abortions, but they will not be able to access safe procedures and drugs. Poor women and women of color will die more often than wealthy white ones. And as much as people cajole me to call my senators, my Arkansas senators are absolutely immovable. They already know they will vote to confirm. At this moment, my voice doesn’t matter one bit.
I do watch the disrupters of the hearings with a sense of solidarity and a grateful heart. But on NPR today, I heard a Democratic senator declare that he thinks these women are hurting Democrats in the midterms. Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said, “I think that the average independent voter — the labor family that voted for Trump last time but is now reconsidering — people like that don’t think that screaming in a hearing room is a particularly effective strategy or a signal of a party that they much want to belong to. So I think it’s been not helpful to any cause that I can see.”
Hear that, ladies? Sit down! Stop screaming in your voices that are too high! Linda Sarsour is alienating the “labor families” (Psst! That’s working-class, white people.)
Just in case you were wondering, that right there is the patriarchy. Women who are afraid for their lives and the lives of their sisters are accused of protesting IN THE WRONG WAY. Sheldon, I need to tell you something. Those fantasy independent voters are not coming home to you. The people who are showing you the way are Sarsour, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley. Women of color who are activating disenfranchised voters. They are the cause that you cannot see. Sheldon, you are not helping me to survive patriarchy by attacking these women, even if you are objecting to the Kavanaugh nomination.
The grand patriarchy eats at me, but the mundane patriarchy weighs me down just as much. Maybe more. On Friday, my 10-year-old daughter was sent to the principal’s office, missing class time, because the sleeves on her dress were 1.5” wide, not 2” wide. She was given a t-shirt to wear over the dress for the rest of the day. She was embarrassed in front of her friends and brand new classmates when a teacher she will have for the rest of the year confronted her in the hallway. Never mind that sleeves any wider would slip down off her shoulders because the dress would be too big for her small frame. Never mind that it was 90 degrees and humid, and that exactly none of her shorts are long enough for dress code because they just don’t make them that long for someone with her waist size. They are “just” enforcing their well-explained dress code, which sexualizes young girls and NOT boys, that will make her think about herself as a body first and a student second. This right here is patriarchy.
Again, can we stop pretending that these rules only impact the clothes that students wear? The fact that enforcement of dress codes begins in earnest at the beginning of middle school is related to the fact that this is the moment when GIRL bodies begin to change. And can we stop being surprised that when girls start being sexualized and disciplined because of their gender by their TEACHERS, they start disengaging with subjects and roles that are seen as inappropriate for girls: science, math, leadership positions? When do they disengage, again, according to all social science research? IT IS IN MIDDLE SCHOOL. And I will add again that dress codes are enforced along racial and class lines as well, so let’s just sit with that for a moment.
A teacher told my rule-following, school-loving child that her perfectly appropriate outfit was so offensive that she needed to miss class time to correct it. And the principal, when contacted, told me that next time they’d be sure to send her to the office during study hall. Because that will address the problem. Not that the teacher is more concerned about ½ an inch of her 10-year-old shoulder than with her work in class. That’s not a problem.
So here is a fight I can wage, but I’ll likely do it without much help. Few parents I know will object to this policy. It’s just easier to wear different clothes. Why would you want to make a fight with a teacher who will grade your child, or with the school that will provide or deny countless opportunities? And the voices of outsiders, people without kids in the district, won’t be given much weight.
Later, there will be committees and programs set up to worry over how to keep girls in STEM. These programs routinely target middle school. How about this novel idea: let them be GIRLS in the classroom. Don’t try to force them out of becoming gendered. Don’t act like their changing bodies are a threat to classroom order.
And may I just add that this “problem” doesn’t end? I have a large bust. If you’ve seen me, you’ve noticed. I come by it naturally. I spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about whether my enormous bras and bra straps will show with my work clothes. About whether a button pulls on my shirt. About whether the V-neck shirts that are most comfortable will have too much cleavage revealed. Will there ever be a day when the body that I have will be safe for work? Imagine if your height made people think that you might not be taking your job seriously. Could you just dress a little shorter to show respect for your coworkers or students? Women’s bodies are not appropriate for work, and we start teaching girls this rule mighty early.
The toll of noticing patriarchy, much less fighting against it, is substantial. You lose opportunities at work. You are too strident. You worry about putting your kid in a tough position. You worry about her future as a woman in this world. You worry about your students and who will support them as they fight their own battles against the ideas that blame them for being harmed by sexual assaulters. As they fight against sexual assault and harassment, period. All this worry impacts your health. We know that stress does that. We know that being oppressed has health consequences, just from enduring the stress of that oppression.
As I battle patriarchy, I’m thinking about these consequences. How much will being silent cost me? How much will speaking out? I’m making deals with my health. I’m making bets with my future and the future of my child. I’m hoping to survive patriarchy, but I’m not loving my odds these days.