I have often found myself thinking, Who exactly is a woman? A Female who is born with an XX chromosome composition? If it’s actually that simple, statements to females that tell a female to behave like a woman should perhaps not exist.
Speak less ! Laugh softly ! Walk a certain way….and what not !
So what exactly a woman is – To me a better perception of it is GENDER. Let’s not confuse gender with sex. Sex is how you are biologically born. Gender is more of how the patriarchal society expects you to manifest your identity being born a certain way, so putting it forward simply, gender is a socially constructed connotation.
Simone de Beauvoir’s statement, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’’ emphasizes the same idea.
In this article we will delve into the psychological impact that patriarchy through ages has left on women.
This brings us to the next possible question – What exactly is Patriarchy ?
Sylvia Walby defines patriarchy as a system of Social structure and practices in which men oppress, dominate and exploit women. What’s even more ironic is that not only men perpetuate patriarchy, women do that too. Now, if that feels surprising, stay along and you will get the clarity by the end of this article.
How does Patriarchy manifest itself ?
Patriarchy in its core believes that this world belongs to men and that women are kind of secondary citizens whose sole function is to be there for the ease of existence of the men. Sounds problematic ? That it is.
Although the core idea of patriarchy remains constant, the periphery of it changes. There are variant forms and ways of subjugation, with which it manifests itself across different nations, cultures, communities and even spaces. Ever felt curious about how women were made to accept this. Well, they were forced !
Forced, not just physically but psychologically too. The physical vulnerabilities of women were exploited and in exchange it was demanded obedience to the patriarchal authority.
To study the psychological impact of patriarchy on women, we will take up a hypothetical story.
A girl Diya is born in a middle class family. However the family was looking forward to welcoming a baby boy. They validated their want for a boy with an argument that wanted them to have a better secured future with someone to stay with them and care for them, a lineage to their family to carry forward their family’s legacy and that they didn’t have a lot of money to be spent on a girl’s marriage and why should they even trouble themselves to invest on a girl’s upbringing when she is destined to go to some other house after marriage.
Undoubtedly, patrilineality and patrilocality are the biggest propagators of patriarchy.
Our protagonist “Diya” was born an unwanted girl child.
How are you treated at places you are not wanted ? You are ignored, belittled, made to feel useless and bad about yourself and even blamed for various discomfort, Right? So a child in her early stage of socialisation goes through all of it,
It makes her feel,
- Insecure, She has grown thinking bad about herself as a reflection of what people around her think of her. She is made to believe that she is inferior and that she lacks something that denies her the basic compassion and love she could have received.
- Burdene, With the constant environment of unhappiness surrounding her birth in the family, she has subconsciously taken the blame of everyone’s unhappiness on herself. She feels she is a burden and will keep going the extra mile forever in her life to prove she is not.
- Declined self worth, She has probably never been appreciated for the achievements she has ever had. At a younger stage of socialisation, it’s often the external validations that shapes our identity, something she
never got. - The feeling of being dependent, Since she was not taught to be independent out of fear that her being independent would make her exercise herself autonomously and this would bring the family a lot of disgrace. She was conditioned to believe that she will always have to depend on a male member – father, brother or husband for whatever she required.
- The internalisation of the belief that the other gender is superior, An addition to the story, she gets a younger brother. A wave of happiness and contentment comes along in the family. Everything that she was denied, is not given to the younger brother. He is not restricted, he is treated as an asset and not a burden. She feels the ifference, and she internalizes the superiority that one gender constantly holds over the other.
She grows into a young girl, gets married, the conditioning she grew with brings her inferiority and low self esteem. She is once again restricted to the households with immense unpaid care work which yet remains unrecognized. Once again she is dominated by the new family. Once again she feels worthless. She gives birth to a girl, the patriarchal family makes her feel worthless, her second child is a boy, this changes things in the family. Being the mother of a boy increases the respect and attention she gets, not at par with the male counterpart but better than she ever got.
Psychologically what’s this ? She has now internalised the patriarchy herself. Opting for a male child to improve her situation in the family is exactly what patriarchal bargain is.
With acceptance of the patriarchal norms and non questioning of the system. She becomes a perfect WOMAN ! Sacrificing – Submissive – Submitting Congratulations ! Patriarchy made a WOMAN and killed a FEMALE.
