Essential Understanding of How Women Can Support Each Other

Getting men off of the sideline

Protection is social capital. The role of protector is the greatest status a society can offer because it feeds into our evolutionary instinct of survival. The ability to give life, defend it, or take it away is the power of the protector, not just physical life, but the quality of life.

When I speak about the patriarchy and the male dominance paradigm, I’m not interested in equal pay or whether a woman will ever be elected as president. I’m interested in removing the idea of men as protectors of women.

I’m interested in removing the idea of men as protectors of women.

The archaic concept is undeserved social capital that maintains the male dominance paradigm. For, as long as we deem men as protectors, equality can never exist, neither gender nor racial equality.

The R-word

The male dominance paradigm is a formula for rape culture and the absence of female body autonomy. This paradigm is the reason the conviction for rape is 1%.

Yet, statistics reveal one out of six women will be the victim of attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. Ninety percent of rape perpetrators are male, and 90% of victims are female. Domestic violence stats are similar.

Be pretty for men to observe; be safe for men’s egos; be approachable men for men to touch; be sexy for men to praise you.

The messages directed at women about their bodies yield vulnerability. The cultural scripts are contrary to the protection of self or others. Be pretty for men to observe; be safe for men’s egos; be available for men to touch; be sexy for men to praise you.

Of course, men get to define pretty, determine availability and set the terms for sexy. Exactly why do we continue the myth of men as protectors?

Cultural evolution

Rape has existed for as long as humans have kept track of history. It is contrary to natural selection. The intuition and insight women used for partner selection were obstructed when men began to rape at least 100,000 years ago. Rape changed the course of evolution in two ways that drive humanity today.

First, the few men who raped created a conflict for the majority of cooperative men who waited to be selected by women. Cooperative men had to protect women. Good men were forced into aggression to protect women, arguably, the most significant human conflict in evolution.

Second, once men took on the role of protector, the relationship between men and women could no longer be equal. The surest way to protect anything we value is to limit exposure. Strict gender roles evolved to keep women safe. But, the protection of women came at a grave cost.

Accommodation and the absence of autonomy

Between hiding from men who raped and accommodating men who protected, women lost all body, economic, and social autonomy. An entire world culture evolved largely absent from women’s voices, intellect, and intuition — in the name of protection.

Instead of women governing their bodies, fathers, brothers, and other male figures became responsible for women’s mate selection, economics, and social status. Eventually, the intuition that women once used for her selection of partners had to be applied to discerning which men were predators and which were protectors.

Women’s original alliance with good men evolved into a fear of all men as the lines between cooperative men and aggressive men became increasingly blurred. Meanwhile, the status of women was determined by her ability to sustain a permanent relationship with a man — marriage — for protection.

2020 Vision of Equality

Rape culture and male dominance must be adequately understood as a system of living that denies, first and foremost, the body autonomy of women. When we reconsider the evolutionary cultural influence of rape and rape culture on human experience, identifying men as protectors is imprudent.

There are plenty of good men around, and we should believe in good men enough to stop supporting bad men.

Instead of heralding men as protectors, we must invite them into the work of feminine justice. Together, men and women can work on restoring justice, which creates equal power, not a relationship of differential power.

We have to stop choosing men to lead just because they are male. There are plenty of good men around, and we should believe in good men enough to stop supporting bad men.

Good women

Women are coming into power with a male-dominated lens, a dangerous evolutionary position that makes women suspicious in any role outside of the lens. The female paradigm is sketchy and undefined. Its value is difficult to see in the crevices of the male dominance paradigm.

No wonder women have difficulty protecting one another. We are unsure about how to protect because that has not been our role in navigating society. Our role is to stay in the good graces of the protector. Herein lies the problem.

No wonder women have difficulty protecting one another. We are unsure about how to protect because that has not been our role in navigating society. Our role is to stay in the good graces of the protector.

As writer Julia E Hubbel wrote about in her recent article, women have to become supporters of women. However, we have to understand, first, the lens we use to operate in the world. We must open our hearts and our minds, and be willing to reassess, admit what is wrong and misguided, no matter how admirable the intentions.

I urge women to peel back the layers of familiarity and enlighten ourselves to all of the ways women yield to male-dominance and rape culture as the evolutionary social norm. Because the world evolved with women’s voices silenced, we must make room for the knowledge that was absent.

Good men

Not all men harm women, and not all women are subjected to direct harm. That fact does not nullify the benefits men incur from rape culture. Nor does the absence of harm qualify any man for the title of protector.

Men who are incredibly logical in every area of life willingly suspend logic to challenge women’s reality. Highly intelligent men of color cannot extrapolate from racism to sexism. They cannot see how negating sexism is similar to being “color-blind.”

As an African American woman, I’m expected to ignore the role that intercultural sexism plays in oppression. But, I insist that Black women are entitled to a meaningful existence outside of the context of elevating Black men.

Women Deserve

Women deserve more from men, as well as women. We must continue to hold men accountable for the obstacles, covert and overt, in the lives of women. The barriers have served men for over 100,000 years. Sexism is a stab in the back from men who, conveniently, refuse to see the paradigm.

Equality happens when men hold men accountable to stop harming women so that women don’t need protection. Equality starts with teaching females to protect themselves rather than expecting the protection of men.

Men who want to wear the title of protector must earn it by confronting women’s most dangerous adversary — the male dominance paradigm.

References

Associated Press (2019): Hundreds Protest Alabama Abortion Ban: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hundreds-protest-alabama-abortion-ban-my-body-my-choice-n1007561. Associated Press, May 19, 2019.

Bakari, R. (2016): Original Sin: Understanding the Movement toward Female Empowerment. Karibu Publishing, Des Moines, IA.

Catherine Waldby & Melinda Cooper (2008) The Biopolitics of Reproduction. Australian Feminist Studies,23:55, 57–73, DOI: 10.1080/08164640701816223

Julia E Hubbel (2020). The terrible cost of sister hate. Illumination on Medium. https://readmedium.com/the-terrible-cost-of-sister-hate-7381af81f54.

Mukwege, D. (n.d.): How gender inequalities fuel rape in war. https://www.mukwegefoundation.org/2017/03/gender-norms-rape-war-sexual-violence/.

National Research Tomsk State University. (2016). Cooperation, not struggle for survival, drives evolution, say researchers: Empirical experiment confirms new hypothesis on evolution of life.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily .

The 3 P’s of Manhood: A Review. https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-3-ps-of-manhood-a-review/

Thornhill, R. & Palmer, C. (2000): A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Wevorce (2016): Evolution of Marriage. https://www.wevorce.com/blog/evolution-of-marriage/, retrieved May 20, 2019.