#32. False patriarchy

This essay will take you 8 minutes to read

I normally avoid political topics, lines of cultural clash, ideological stances. But that’s because normally it’s outside of my area of expertise. I’m a psychologist, not an economist, a sociologist, or a lawyer. I might have an opinion on progressive vs flat taxation, and I might think highly of my opinion, but that’s not a professional opinion, and this is my professional blog. But sometimes the psychology of relationships, which is my domain of expertise, runs into political or seemingly political issues, and this is where I have to push my two cents.

I’m not going to be talking about the problems or the virtues of patriarchy in this text. Honestly, I think it’s a complex topic in which both extremes are, fitting for them being extremes, wrong. But today that’s not even important. Whether you think that patriarchy is the sole reason we don’t live in paradise, and the world has to unite to combat that evil, or if you think patriarchy is the only natural, god-approved, evolutionary consistent way of organizing society and relationships, or if you’re anywhere in between, this text has nothing to do with your stance on that topic. Because, as is mentioned in the title, it’s not about true patriarchy, it’s about a false one.

The last thing we need to dig into is to establish what patriarchy is, or what we will understand by this word in this text. Now, this could be a PhD dissertation worth of deliberations, but I’ll just offer this working definition: a patriarchy is a psychological or social paradigm in which gender roles are perceived as fixed and different, where the male role in a romantic relationship is seen as external to the relationship, and the female role as internal. Meaning, in patriarchy, everything that has to do with the world outside the family—earning money, setting boundaries, being agressive, protecting from threats is the male role; and everything that has to do with the internal life of the family—the home, the children, the food, the chores, often—sex, is seen as the female role and responsibility. Once again, so far—no judgment, we’re not discussing whether it’s a good or a bad thing, we just establish what we mean by “true” patriarchy. So what do I mean by a “false” one?

Jack and Jill have been dating for a while. Jill is a feminist who thinks that patriarchy is a bad thing. Jack claims to agree. At first, and in small things, his actions line up with his words. He does the dishes, he doesn’t insist on paying the bill, he condemns some macho behavior of those around, and shows support for Jill’s career ambitions. But time goes on, and some time later, Jack has a bone to pick with Jill—she didn’t clean the apartment while he was at work. He wants her to cook him a dinner, he doesn’t want her to take extra hours, and when confronted about it, he explains that he earns more than Jill and she shouldn’t waste her time doing overtime if she can instead use it to support him by making a home-cooked meal. Slowly, but surely, Jill comes to an inevitable conclusion: Jack is just like all of them. Despite all he says, despite the initial impression, he, too, is steeped in patriarchy and can’t tolerate a strong and independent woman by his side. Or is he?

Let’s see what this situation looks like from Jill’s point of view, which will undoubtedly be supported by her friends, social media, and—highly likely—even her counselor, especially if it’s a counselor with “feminist optics”. Jack claimed to be different. He claimed to value Jill’s work, accepted that she earns her own income, and conceded that home chores aren’t uniquely a female thing to do. But then he does what seems to disprove his previous words. Actions speak louder than words (which is a sentiment I wholeheartedly share), so we need to look at the actions and ask ourselves—why does he behave that way? Why does he suddenly express a desire for Jill to do the cooking, while he does the earning? There are two ways to go about that question. Option one is to see it as a complex one, worthy of in-depth discussion, and an unbiased search for an answer. Option two is to do simple pattern-matching: this looks like what a patriarchal man would do, so why bother looking further? A lot of times out of ten, Jill, her friends, her social media feed, and—once again, even her counselor, will go the simple pattern-matching route. If it walks like a duck, even if it doesn’t quack like a duck—ah, good enough.

But what does the situation look like from Jack’s point of view? Well, there are two options as well. Option one is that Jill is exactly right, and Jack is just that—a man, whose views are rooted in patriarchal culture, and who, even having tried to deny it (maliciously or sincerely), fails, and over time drops back to his factory settings of “woman, know your place”. That is an entirely possible thing. There is, however, another option. Imagine Jack, who isn’t patriarchal, who’s as liberal as they come, whose honest, sincere Boy Scouts’ honor promise view is that men and women are equal, there are no gender roles that have to be followed, and everyone should just live their lives to the best of their abilities. But if that’s the case, why on Earth did Jack demand that Jill sit at home and cook while he is out there working? If that’s not patriarchy, then what is it? It’s pragmatism.

Imagine you and I are in a Russian restaurant. You don’t speak Russian, but I do, and the menu is only in Russian, and the waiters only speak Russian. A waiter comes to our table, and I offer to explain your order, as well as mine, with all the details, preferences, allergies, and modifications, while you look for movie tickets for us after dinner. Does that sound like I’m being chauvinistic? Am I denying you the right to use Russian? That even sounds absurd as a question, does it not? In fact, if it were the opposite—if I were sitting there, perfectly capable of talking to the waiter in my native language, silently looking for a movie, having left you to explain our orders through Google Translate—that would be weird, and one could even say inconsiderate. In that example, I’m taking the functions I’m best suited for and leaving you to do the other thing. Not because I have a historically-rooted bias that people like you are no good at talking to waiters, but have an identity-tied obligation to buy tickets online. It’s just the most efficient use of resources for the two of us as a whole.

Now apply the same logic to Jack’s story. Jack the liberal, who doesn’t support patriarchy for one bit, might still offer Jill to cook while he earns without him betraying his previous stance for a very different, and much less ideologically-charged reason: it’s just the best use of their time. Mind you, I’m not saying that’s always the case. Nor am I saying that men in general are better suited for earning, and women for cooking. What I am saying, however, is that couples where that’s true exist. Particularly, they exist among my clients, who are often very financially successful men. And when Jack earns 500 dollars per hour, and Jill earns 30, and they have a common budget, the value, for both of them, from a purely mathematical point of view, of Jack’s work is significantly higher than that of Jill’s. If Jack spends his evening cooking, while Jill works, and the next day he’s tired instead of being productive, they’ll both, as a whole, as a holistic system, lose much more than the other way around. From Jack’s perspective, not only is he not dominating over Jill in this situation, but he’s actually doing the hard part here—he’s responsible for the harder-to-get thing: the high income. He expects Jill to appreciate his time-management maneuver the same way a rational driver matches your obvious movement on a road. In fact, it’s even annoying that he has to ask, because from his point of view, it’s so blatantly obvious Jill should’ve offered that to begin with herself. And not because “I’m a girl, I’m going to cook”, but because that’s what people do in Jack’s world. If there’s an asset that’s bringing you big profits, you don’t throw it out because on top of bringing in money, it didn’t polish your shoes—you care for it, support it, and run laps around looking for a way to shove in more resources into it, to get an even better yield. That’s what Jack does to the companies he’s investing in, to the employees he’s hiring, to the systems he installs, and that’s what Jack expects Jill to do to him, for purely pragmatic, rational reasons. Needless to say, Jill doesn’t exactly see the situation that way.

And that isn’t a theoretical analysis. Although I’m not bringing in any specific case from my practice due to confidentiality, I’ve seen this play out numerous times: a financially successful man, busy with his career, meets a woman, starts seeing them as a single unit and optimizes for the well-being of that unit as a whole, which looks like patriarchy from the outside—gets blamed for having caveman mentality and dumped by a woman who just saw his behavior as basic sexism and didn’t dig further.

Why does that happen, though? Is Jill just not sharp enough to see through her biases and stereotypes? Well, that might be, but once again, there is another option. See, patriarchy, as any social norm, was designed for specific conditions. You can argue whether it was a good or a bad design, but in either case, it still has its area of application. Like eastern martial arts are suited for people wearing light kimonos, and not 10kg fur coats, like the vegan diet is suited for people living in the tropics, and not north of the polar circle, like the custom of having 16 children is fitted for living in a village, and even there—with a discount for half of them dying before five, patriarchy was built for ever-lasting relationships. If Jack and Jill lived just 500 years ago, and their relationships would’ve effectively begun with marriage, and that marriage would’ve been for life—that’s where Jack’s logic applies fully. If Jill knew that Jack’s income is forever their common income, and, what’s more important—that’s she isn’t getting another man with another income, then even barring all the other aspects of life 500 years ago—the children, the lack of woman rights, the lack of washing machines and chinese food delivery joints, just the switching to perpetual prisoner’s dillema changes the whole math. Because in that situation, Jill abandoning her job to help Jack maintain or raise his earnings is a strictly positive investment in her own future. We, however, do not live 500 years ago, or by 500-year-old customs of relationships. Jill lives in a world where relationships, even officiated ones, even with children, fall apart like it’s Tuesday. Upon which event all the investments Jill would’ve made into Jack’s career become losses. So you see, Jill is also doing some background math here. And the reason her answer doesn’t click with Jack’s isn’t that they’re calculating different things. It’s that they’re calculating for a different outcome tree. For Jack, having Jill invest in his career is an unconditional win. There is no scenario in which he’ll regret not having made a dinner years ago. Jill, however, very much might regret not having built a career, so for her, this isn’t a safe investment; it’s a risky bet on her relationships with Jack. So her degree of alignment with what Jack perceives as obvious efficiency adaptation depends not just on how indoctrinated she is, but on how much she trusts that bet.

The problem here, on top of communication, especially communication about something that both sides see wildly differently, but both feel like their view is obvious, being hard to begin with, is that this is a politically charged issue. It’s one thing when a man wants the woman to wear red stockings, or cite French poetry to him—it’s not obviously clear what’s behind it, but it’s obvious that it’s not obvious. It’s obvious that this is something that warrants a discussion, a study, or at least a question. But when a man wants the woman to cook, it’s often not obvious that it’s not obvious why he wants it. Often it looks like the answer is written on the wall—take a hint, girl, and run away from this brute.

There are no easy solutions to this, but two things help. One—talking through things from the jump. Talk about things before doing things. Talk about boundaries, responsibilities, and values, and the exact application of those values very early on in the relationships. If you’re already not early on, still talk, better late than never. And two—don’t presume obviousness. Most Jacks in that situation think their motivation is obvious. It is not. Talking to your partner like you’re explaining the world to a three-year-old, commenting on what and why you do, choose, ask for, or refuse might be a nuisance, but it can save you from a world of hurt.

Until next week,
Konstantin Kunakh

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