Programming and the patriarchy

My friends and I talk about the patriarchy a lot, now. Other women say that they do as well. It’s something ubiquitous and concrete in our conversations and it arrived, like a lot of ideas, without announcing itself.

We talk about the patriarchy because we’re tired of fixing the problems other people created, just to live. 

It’s very much not the only problem. But it’s up there. It’s not just us: when it comes to the problem of racism, for example, I’m caucasian and I don’t see my privilege so I’m part of the problem.

I often feel guilty when I talk about The Patriarchy. When I realise that I’m feeling guilty about it, sometimes I think about that old quote, ‘the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.’ It’s part of the MO of Patriarchy that women, I think, feel guilty about talking about it - surely it doesn’t exist any longer.

The concept of the patriarchy is so not new that it’s laughable. It was almost the the first idea. The first problem. (And if prostitution was the first profession, I doubt the woman felt complete autonomy in her choice of business.)

I remember what one of the pastors said at an Annual Church Conference - yes, that Annual Church Conference, the one I used to attend when I was conservative, Hillsong - about evil arriving quietly and leaving dramatically, and with great noise. That it sneaks in, and you have to be careful of it. And when it leaves, you notice. That idea was presented with such an air of truth. 

The concept in and of itself is important. They are the things that I believed, that were presented to me with such and air of truth - like the fact that I was naturally second to men - that I have to pay attention to when I learn about my programming, and how to live my life better.

I told a friend the other day that I stopped going to church - about ten years ago now - because I felt that getting a dopamine hit from doing the right thing, and getting together weekly with people who were doing the right thing, was cheating. In terms of understanding god. I left because if god was real, then god would still be real without the dopamine.

Things can enter quietly, and leave loudly. But also sometimes they leave quietly. 

Something else from another church, that another pastor said to me. Talking about sex, and what it does when you have sex with someone and then you break up because you aren’t married.

‘It’s like two pieces of cardboard that have been glued together. When you pull them apart, they don’t come apart cleanly - each clings to pieces of the other.’

That’s not sex. That’s love. Love is just like that, when it leaves. It has nothing to do with sex. And I knew it at the time. But I was too worried about being an obedient girl that I didn’t trust my own intelligence.

When I think about the Patriartchy, I think about the cattle pens designed by Temple Grandin, who was autistic, and spend time in a cow crush because it made her feel safe and held when she was overstimulated. (It is weird that I thought this way and felt such an affinity for Grandin before I considered that I might be autistic.) She designed cattle systems because she’s a genius and studied cattle, not because she spent time in the crush. But she spent time in the crush. There was no precedent for it. It was such a woman thing to do. So autistic. She spent time in the cattle crush because it made her feel safe, restricted.

Her designs are now standard. They make sense. And all they had to do was make the cow feel comfortable.

I don’t know whether the systems we are looking for, outside the patriarchy, are currently just about making us feel comfortable before we die. Women, and abuse and trauma survivors, and neuro-atypicals. I try not to think about it. That I am 40, and the solutions will be found around the time I am old. It’s not resentment; we have better things now than the people before us. That’s how it goes. And I know some of the women who will have it better. It makes me happy.

One of my best friends was diagnosed with ADHD recently, and it has made a big difference to her life.

She asked me how I was. I was good; I had consistently done good work on my business for weeks and I was finishing jobs I had thought too frightening to begin. I was able to pay rent and my bills. But everything else was… a neutral landscape, through which walking was both the goal and the strategy.

‘To be honest,’ I said, ‘I’m tired of figuring out what I need to do to become secure. I feel like it’s a constant gaslighting situation where the onus is always on me. You’re living your life OK, and striving to be better on so many fronts, and people shit on you. And then you sort of figure out what YOU can do about it.’

‘Yep,’ she said. ‘Hashtag patriarchy.’

I told her that I feel like everything I feel, the bad stuff in particular, I deserve. 

‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s not deserved - what you deserve is to flourish and be happy. And I think you can get there.’

Sources

Temple Grandin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin