The Road Less Traveled

Check out this excellent discussion of patriarchy by Maggie Hays.

Hays discusses her “awakening” to the harsh realities of patriarchy and how it radically changed her view of the world. Referring to pornography, Hays explains,

“most men are watching a certain kind of images to which they masturbate. And those images are mainstream, popular in male culture. In those images, women are portrayed as being worthless “fuck-objects” who are being degraded, humiliated, roughly penetrated in every possible way, choked, bruised, slapped, handled callously, hurt, ejaculated upon, etc (the list goes on).”

Pornography, as well as other examples of patriarchy’s firm grip on our culture, opened her eyes to the realities of patriarchy. And as Hays points out, she refuses to turn away, to shield her eyes, and to pretend that nothing is wrong. She refuses to “play dead,” and instead has made the courageous decision to fight back with every ounce of her being.

By asserting a radical feminist position, Hays has accepted a difficult mission. This movement demands, in part, a widespread awakening to the pervasiveness of patriarchy and its effects on our lives, but the job does not end with mere consciousness-raising. Ultimately, radical feminism demands tearing down the systems that make inequality possible (and of course, those that commercialize, sexualize, and militarize it). As Hays argues, “radical feminism is so revolutionary and progressive that it is threatening not only to the patriarchal status quo but also to every single other political faction that calls itself revolutionary or progressive while expecting to preserve the same basic unfair hierarchies.”

Not exactly an easy gig.

Excellent post, Maggie. Looking forward to Part II.

“The Revolution is not an event that takes two or three days, in which there is shooting and hanging. It is a long drawn out process in which new people are created, capable of renovating society so that the revolution does not replace one elite with another, but so that the revolution creates a new anti-authoritarian structure with anti-authoritarian people who in their turn re-organize society so that it becomes a non-alienated human society, free from war, hunger, and exploitation.”
– Rudi Dutschke, March 7, 1968.