Gender determination of a foetus via sonography is banned in India—no blue or pink gender reveals in our country for fear of termination of pregnancy to abort a female baby. In less gory terms, everyone knows that men and women are not equal. For, superiority or dominance is usually an inheritance of the male of our species. This is how it has been since time immemorial and this is how it must be, women are told. We may live in any country on the planet, yet patriarchy is universal.
Some women like Angela Saini, however, ask questions about the veracity of these notions that float about untethered and yet seem irrefutable. The result is The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule—a book that seeks to return to first principles by asking basic questions and seeking answers in history and the current-day realities of humanity. Like, has the unquestioned priority for males always been so? Or biologically, is physical strength, size and musculature really a factor in choosing a leader and/or the dominant figure? In the wild, elephants and lions think otherwise. Are there current cultures or historic ones, which are gender-neutral or disposed more towards women than men?
Using source material from a bewildering range of verifiable sources––from fields as diverse as history, anthropology, current events, literature, the Suffragette movement, articles by essayists of yore, law and jurisprudence––the author sets about busting myths and revealing much about the foundations and the proliferation of patriarchy.
Fifty-two pages of references and a bibliography are impressive and give away the diligence a book of this quality demands. It boasts impeccable, and honestly breathtaking, academic rigour, but it is the presentation as much as the subject matter that makes this a book that could own every shelf. The chapter scheme, the arrangement of vast varied material into an array that segues into an overarching theory, the easy parsing of undiluted specialised concepts into limpid prose and, most importantly, citing and crediting the sources from which each idea is taken makes this unique. Many wildly popular books miss this step, yet this builds up the narrative even more vividly. "History is a story Western culture buffs tell each other,’ writes feminist scholar Donna Haraway."
Thorough research is usually synonymous with boring or incomprehensible details, though here the easy facility of the writing and the expertise make it accessible to readers of all ages, 14 and up. Besides, the ideas are powerful and fill the reader with an alternate vision of humanity. “Men and women are framed as opposites, or as possibly complementing each other, but never as varied individuals who might possess overlapping traits. Western goddess-worshipping myths leave little room for bloodthirsty, violent goddesses like Kali, the Hindu deity depicted slaying demons and wearing their heads around her neck. Instead, the strength of female-led societies is pinned on women having virtues that men don’t, and men having violent natures that women don’t.”
Balancing between academic disciplines and drawing deeply from varied scholars, Saini pieces together an alternate theory of womanhood, both thought-provoking and the closest to the truth plausible. “To the end, she (Marija Gimbutas, Lithuanian archaeologist) clung to her belief that Europe and parts of Asia had once been home to female-centred, goddess-worshipping cultures before being turned upside down by the arrival of violent, warrior cultures from the Eurasian Steppes roughly 5,000-6,000 years ago. These Kurgan or early Indo-European speaking, incomers were for her, and her followers, the original patriarchs.”
Also woven deftly into the narrative are the thought leaders and the highlights of varied feminist movements from around the world: whether at Seneca Falls (US), former Soviet nations, Turkey or Iran. The author posits that this has been a pattern throughout history. “Women’s rights and freedoms weren’t missing in deep time. Just like in the present, they had to have been destroyed.”
As to the role of women in STEM and how it has come to be riddled with stereotypes of incompatibility with femininity, the author writes, “Male scientists and engineers had cultivated cultures that sought to associate ingenuity, rationality and skill with masculinity, further marginalising women who tried to break into their ranks. Gendered stereotypes were arguably as strong as they had ever been.” By these instruments of patriarchy, emerging job markets are alienated from a whole gender.
While this is most certainly a feminist text, if not a handbook, men may learn even more about their historical roles and progression, defining characteristics and realities as they learn about how the male myth came to be created. And why.