Is patriarchy natural or artificial? Patriarchy is artificial. It is one specifically created environmental condition for humans built on a specific way of thinking and beliefs. It is not natural, because it restricts human functioning in a specific distortion of what is humanly possible on the planet. It is just one way of being that reduces life’s diversity and is not in harmony with nature’s design of human life on the planet. It is artificial, created by man (men) with profound limitations for specific purposes. It was created historically by men by force. You did not and do not survive in direct opposition to it. It is not a choice. Understanding it, however, is limited by the experience of living within it. Essentially, it is a mental trap. Attempts to get understandings of it or be outside of it are hindered by the very confusion, teachings and rules that patriarchy creates to keep humans within it. Experiences within it are restricted in such a way that differing experiences within it also add to the confusion.
In a child’s MacMillian’s dictionary, artificial at one time had the definition 1) made by people, not nature. 2) not sincere or true. Where’s the obvious? In Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, artificial is at once synonymous with Man Made. Is Artificial then Patriarchy? The 4 definitions for adults seem to obscure the artificial of artificial. 1) humanly contrived from a natural model, 2) having existence in legal, economic, or political theory and caused by a human agency, 3) lacking natural or spontaneous quality; imitation, sham, 4) not indicative of natural relationships.
The question of artificiality actually has embedded within it a foundational assumption of an old, worn out discussion that what humans do is somehow innate and thus part of human being. Everything humans do is natural human functioning is one assertion. In contrast, it is also assumed that part of our existence is not being human akin to snakes with legs are not being a snake’s natural existence. A dolphin with feet isn’t a natural dolphin. Giraffes with short necks do not exist. Tigers that are docile are not a tiger’s known character. Humans can create the surreal. It is obvious outside ourselves what exists for creatures on the planet as we observe when humans do not interfere. We value observation. Our beliefs and experiences in life however, need to be questioned and articulated in endless details to search for underlying truth about ourselves because patriarchy causes confusion about who we are and ways of being. In patriarchy, nothing can be obvious because if it is than patriarchy’s power crumbles. Patriarchy exists on illusions about who we are.
Patriarchy Creates the Questions
Patriarchy also questions whether human functioning is natural based on which humans do, and can do, what particular things in how it divides and categorizes all humans into partial human characteristics in a value hierarchy and thus makes it even more complicated.
Patriarchy demands endless mental work of articulation – on and on and over and over – forever more; only for such articulation to be coopted and used for differing purposes including patriarchal goals. That is, as they change to maintain the unsustainable system, thus requiring new articulations with each step that naturally undoes patriarchy control because patriarchal control does not happen naturally. This articulation activity maintains patriarchal power in numerous ways. One is of being a distraction from directly confronting patriarchal power in action. The intellectual discussions slow action to a halt. Endless, repeated discussions are one example of how a functioning to work out understandings to remove patriarchy actually ends up, in the long run, sometimes maintaining it. There is a pattern for many behaviors meant to free people only to lead them to entrapment. Why?
The question of patriarchy, thus far, holds the denial of patriarchy within it. When patriarchy is not denied, the question doesn’t need existence. But here we are asking the question... Is everything humans do part of being human? Does patriarchy exist? And if it does, what is the difference between patriarchy and just normal human functioning? The questions create the confusion. Many confusions. One confusion is between what is universal and whole and what is specific and part of. Two distinct elements of life. Two things like the body is whole, the eye is a part of – and it is clear what part is what. In patriarchal language, however, the two elements are made into one. Or sometimes into many. It is the blending of individual characteristics into prejudices about humans. Adult White Man as the whole and superior of being human; other people and other non-man humans as only part or subhuman. White man as the universal standard for all humans.
The confusion about who we all are as humans actually exists for maintaining the power of patriarchy’s functioning. And that confusion is not just an after effect. It is a fundamental foundation that is absolutely necessary. The confusion is so huge and the misunderstandings so pervasive that they trap reality. Language is used for the purpose of power. The language does not match the factual reality. Patriarchal myths and practices obscure the reality of itself. Names of things shift easily for purpose of control.
None of it is based on the integrity of actual environmental facts and functioning. The science needed has not been accomplished. Too much myth and ancient stories still run, and taints science, about humans on the planet. Patriarchal science, sexist, racist, white, upper class tainted science that has no objectivity about patriarchy at this point cannot identify itself. So in essence, patriarchal facts that exist out of the functioning of patriarchy are used as universal ‘scientific proof’ perpetuating its own myths. Only proportional time and space within specific locations, outside of man’s creation, can bring clarity out of that confusion.
There should not be a denial of what is obvious but a broad stroke of patriarchy is denial itself. Denial of humanity as it actually exists on the planet is basic to patriarchy. Get rid of massive denial of patriarchy, and patriarchy as denial ceases to exist. Ridding ourselves of the denial of patriarchal existence is a task. It is, at present, an irrational stance and contradiction to maintain the denial that patriarchy exists. Of course it exists. Of course it is not natural.
But not so fast. Such a quick answer doesn’t satisfy patriarchal needs within patriarchy. The obvious in patriarchy is not acceptable because it would just blow the illusions of patriarchy apart quickly and completely. It can’t be that simple or quick. We have to be ready for that.
We need elaborate explanation, and deep research. Scientific research and dismantling….. and understanding to explain the truth of patriarchy’s existence to make it real and show it exists to others in denial and especially for patriarchal authoritarian truth to embrace it. More explanation to remove the denial but also to keep comfortably within it, to get out of it…... and to find out whether it is indeed artificial or natural. Expose the contradictions. One’s proclamation isn’t enough. Patriarchy has so confused our experiences that we can’t trust ourselves. Only certain places and people can declare a truth and reality in a hierarchy that bestows truth telling functions through certain patriarchal social powerful positions. Reality is a controlled substance created by men in power through language, actions, image and text. Others who have less power have to go through rigorous examination. Besides, such a quick answer has to be questioned to maintain patriarchy. The question serves to maintain it. To eliminate the complete cycle of explanation would bring the obvious front and center. It speaks for itself.
So I’ll go back to the original question to give an in depth articulated answer we can use against the massive denial of patriarchy which does indeed exist and which people have profound and irrational responses when that denial is stripped away.
Seeing Through Space by Karen Henninger
Is Patriarchy Natural or Artificial?
We humans do things that are beyond the design of who we are, particularly with man-made creations and inventions such as put ourselves in metal boxes that go to speeds and heights that otherwise our human bodies cannot do. Demand ways of being and situations that are inhumane go along with that. We build for ourselves, erect environmental situations and put ourselves in precarious conditions that are beyond the human body’s tolerance and normal, comfortable livable state. We create this for others and deny it is happening in our relationships. We have human limitations. Patriarchy, at once, demands we live beyond them and deny them. Patriarchal thinking in its particulars creates in specific ways. We abuse the environment we live in to the extent where we put our own survival in question. We can only withstand certain temperatures and other environmental conditions, including toxic conditions but patriarchy adjusts our environment to accommodate our limitations and then adjusts our bodies to accommodate unnatural environmental elaborations thus creating complex designs, and distortions, pursuant to human power and control. It makes a King and slaves. It creates inequality. It creates imbalance. It groups and draws lines. It makes rules. It destroys, controls, and manipulates.
We then unfortunately are asked to sort out which of these activities are within the patriarchal design as opposed to what is human nature and planet design and function. We see in living things of the earth by observation and create scientific explanations of nature’s designs. We see caterpillars turn into cocoons and then butterflies. We see how birds migrate, fly in formations, build their nests and eat insects or how sheep graze, and herd or how water evaporates. All these things we accept as truths because we value objective observation beyond ancient belief systems.
Observing ourselves isn’t so easy when we are already altered from natural design for human on the planet and still live under ancient belief systems. The patriarchal belief system of our place on the planet has long been incorrect. The glory, honor and exalting of Man as God and above all of earth has caused disrespect for what is basic to human survival. Systems are deeply rooted in which we have alienated ourselves from natural designs of planet functioning and even our body and relationship functioning. Manipulating and complexity of this has increased not decreased. This alteration has been a well-known, repeated human error. We have got it wrong. Massively wrong. Repeatedly wrong. Patriarchal scientific “truths” operate in the same manner as authority of truth once did as dominant religious truth. We laugh at false beliefs of the past. We declare independence from religious tyranny yet have before us a similar scientific tyranny. We live in between and within the mistakes of declared truth. This is only done by a larger denial about our intelligence and ways of being. Again, it’s about who we are.
How Do We Know What is Innately Human to Do?
In an attempt to provide a well thought out, simple, clear answer of what is natural for humans we are obstructed by patriarchal thinking itself. Not just denial. We are faced with not just one patriarchal mistaken concept, but a system of mistaken ideas, one built on top of another that is rooted in human behavior over a long period of time. The roots of this behavior manifest into present day situations across the whole spectrum of social society. Patriarchal stories exist that are so normal and pervasive that writers who write beyond our acceptable cultural norms are profoundly marginalized and not understood. Information pollution and explosion exists….. yet real basic, simple quality information is hard to find.
There is no question, for most of us, that we have already been dismantling and eliminating many mistaken ideas from past generations, and more recent, patriarchy. Yet fashions and new trends abound each year in multiplicity. How is this possible?
An answer requires us to deconstruct patriarchy farther than has been deconstructed before.
We need to better describe where we are now. We have blind spots helped along by our lenses that distort sizes of what we observe and how we misplace information out of context. Yet we still live in a time of such heavy denial that finding a common starting point on something that is universally agreed upon is near impossible right now but is indispensable for the future. That so much articulation and conflicting views exist just illuminates the depth of the patriarchal problems and shortsightedness we are in.
The easiest analogy of our present situation would be to look back on Eurocentric history to the time when the world was thought to be flat with idea of Gods instead of science. When the idea that the world was round was proposed, it caused disruptions in all manner of thinking for everything. None of the old beliefs were applicable. To change one’s thinking in such a profound massive way takes human time. Those who got on a boat and traveled round the world would have an easier time with the new idea and adjusting through experience of the body first. Those that never got on a boat and traveled could go on living as if the world was flat as before for extended periods of time as long as there was no social pressure to see the world as round. It’s been reported that it took the dominant Catholic authority 300 years to apologize for their mistake in punishing Galileo for his truth. This is not good news. Changes that must come through the body and not the mind are slow if bodies do not move when the mind is entrapped in fiction.
Truth is hard to come by. It’s not easy to look back and see how baptism – a sacred ritual of European authority – was connected to a belief of the world being flat, but the entire belief systematic story was uprooted. Wars and conflicts and various beliefs were in abundance as a result of the story collapse. So much so that people were killing each other over differences of beliefs about baptism. Today we live in harmony as far as differences in baptism. Who cares? But we are in massive conflict over other deeply rooted social rituals and beliefs that structure our society for certain functions in existence for a considerable time. How do we get to a harmonious social state of ‘Who Cares’ rather than feeling threatened by other’s beliefs? How can people safely end patriarchy? How can underlying truth be managed?
What Can Be Agreed Upon and Obvious for Starters?
If we put a person in a metal box that goes 50 miles an hour and crashes into a brick wall, is that natural? Human bodies are not capable without the metal box. Human bodies are not designed to travel at 50 miles an hour let alone stop and slam themselves into something at that speed. That is clear and obvious. We already think to some degree that something that causes death unintentionally may be part of what is not innate functioning. Natural death is not written on the death certificate in such a case of a car accident fatality. Patriarchy itself claims what is and is not natural deaths. Are they correct?
It is called an accident because it was not the intention. Yet it is perceived as a mistake. Is the mistake the making of a car, risking oneself in driving or riding in it, or is it the mistake of simply driving into a wall? We are taught it is the latter. But what other mistakes come into play because of the invention of the car? It would require lots of data collecting to articulate how humans function as the result of the car. We usually understand that humans lived without a machine and car for all of history and from that understanding most believe that a car is not only not necessary but not normal for humans. The car then can be called a convenience, a luxury, a facilitation for transportation that allows humans to function better. Children who have known the car since birth may feel it is natural. Once humans are so use to a man-made invention and most of the community functions with it, then within that society, it becomes a necessity. Is the cell phone a necessity now for many people? Does familiarity make it natural? So many things come into such questioning.
What about the man-made periodic table of elements? How could that be anything but artificial? When chemicals do not work as man intends, he doesn’t call them an accident. They are called ‘side effects’. Chemical accidents and spills exist by the unintended results of mistaken actions, but chemical side effects are actually the direct result of chemical use as chemicals function with man’s actions. Yet we have a system that splits our perception of the reality of chemicals into categories of man’s use of chemicals based on the man’s desires. The harm from man-made chemicals is a direct result of use and some of it could be considered superstition when your belief overrides the reality of what is factual. It’s an ongoing question. We call some chemical use, drug addiction and overdose. We know there is harm, but like patriarchy in general, there is denial. Chemicals are mixed in environments in ways in our daily lives that are never tested in the conditions and places we experience them. Science experiments are isolated conditions as if the use of them is the universal. The oversights are based in the myths about patriarchy, and the unexamined self of man and what he creates. Our educational systems have been completely devoid of what is unknown to be missing in specific areas of life study.
What is a natural life study? The categories, known as disciplines are marked by specific (usually) men who questioned and explored known as fathers of such knowledge.
These are just a few illustrations but there are so many examples we are living in from man-made inventions and products created that come from a patriarchal mindset it is hard to experience much of anything that might be human functioning without man’s obstructions and dominant point of view. If a patriarchal mindset is built on errors about man that cause harm, then it seems logical that those errors exist in ways of living from that mindset.
Few people would deny at this point that humans engage in activities that damage the environment. It’s in the news all the time. The debate is not centered on whether or not this is happening. It is centered on what is and is not harmful, how much harm is permissible and for whom, and what is correct about the harms we are living in – and who is doing what. Again, denial of patriarchy asks the question as if there is harm that is naturally outside of patriarchy. But if that is so, most of us do not have the environmental conditions to observe what that is.
Patriarchy’s artificiality is mostly based on faulty beliefs about human intelligence and human ways of being. Volumes on this have yet to be written. But courage to face the patriarchy that defines us and has molded us and to make changes to live differently can show immediately what has been artificial.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Karen Henninger is a creative artist of life, a visionary visual published gifted artist and writer whose award- winning work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work defies common categorical dimensions and it is multidimensional. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Kutztown University and a 2 year Extended Letters, Arts, and Sciences degree from Penn State University. Her extensive, independent research and formal studies that crosses educational boundaries has no degree title. Her creative and activist work includes arts related research and activism, women studies community education work, women’s history activism, media literacy, violence prevention and cultural environmentalism.
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