Tackling Patriarchy

Owning it to move beyond it

My goal in writing Brave New School is to begin a conversation that might lead to some much needed changes in our definition of education and in the experience of children in school. This in turn can lead to a more peaceful and less divided society. We cannot change our present reality without first having an understanding of our history from the perspectives of all those who lived it. This piece might be hard for some to read but my desire is for our younger generation to gain the skills, confidence and courage to create the changes necessary to avoid the escalating path to global and human disaster.

It is clear to me that our shared history of oppression, patriarchy and white supremacy has played out in the world of schooling. It has been mind opening to discover how many visions of equality, transparency, autonomy and inclusion  in both our system of schooling and our society, have shone brightly on the horizon, only to be systematically extinguished.  I’d like to give an example of one such light. Margaret Haley was born in 1861, Haley was a teacher who devoted her life to the struggle for the right to organize and receive equal pay to men.  She led the Chicago Teachers Federation, an organization of women elementary school teachers founded in 1897. In its first few years, it ran a successful campaign to increase teacher pay, and its membership grew to 2500. However, the Chicago Board of Education, led by Jacob Loeb, passed a rule against teacher unions, prohibiting teachers to affiliate with any organized labor movements. Teachers were forced to state in writing that they did not belong to any such organization in order to keep their jobs and the city fired 68 teachers who refused to leave the union.  Such was, and continues to be, the impact of patriarchy and the rejection of the inclusion of women’s and working people’s perspectives and rights. We are still engaged in the same struggle; Margaret Haley is just one of the many bright lights that have helped to point the way to true justice and equality. There are many others, both men and women. History cannot extinguish those voices. That is hopeful. In my book I hope to shine a light on those inspiring voices from the past that rarely get a mention in our history, which is most often told from the perspective of white people of economic and social standing, in the hopes that the struggle for true equality gains traction and leads to a more creatively and intellectually challenging and inclusive education system and society.

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

In the United States patriarchy permeates every institution in our society. Of course it does. We’ve inherited a system created by wealthy, white, Christian men. The voices of women, people of color and working-class people are absent from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Their voices played no role in the construction of our governing bodies or our corporate institutions. The voices of wealthy white men have prevailed in our society, and their supremacy is protected by gun-carrying men in uniforms. Look at who is filling our prisons, petty criminals, drug addicts and people with mental health disabilities. The crimes of corruption, extortion and worker abuse go unchecked. So we shouldn’t be surprised to find that patriarchy is alive and well. And women, as well as men, play by society’s patriarchal rules.  Let’s not shy away from calling it what it is.  We can’t change something without first naming it. And then let’s change it.

Men and women bring different qualities to leadership. Whether this is a matter of nature or of nurture is still debated but there is clear scientific evidence that the brains of men and women are different. It is often easy to recognize that in most cases, feminine qualities of leadership usually look very different from those traditionally attributed to men. Among the people I know, women tend to be more invested than are men in maintaining the quality of their relationships. And research (click here) shows unequivocally that the brains of men and women are wired differently meaning that each sex has differing mental potential. And yet our governing bodies have always been largely run by men. Is it not high time we recognized how much the leadership of our government and our institutions would benefit from a stiffer dose of feminine qualities?

Throughout history, men have resorted to violence and war to resolve their conflicts. Men have created laws to  imprison people when they disobey society’s rules, rather than teaching them how to live within those rules. Wealthy corporations are allowed to treat workers like slaves, paying them so little they are unable to adequately support themselves and their families and have little time outside of work to devote to family life; and we tolerate far too much poverty, homelessness and hunger in a country that could well afford to feed and house all its citizens, if it had different priorities. What would women do if they were given the reins of power? Would their focus on collaboration, relationship, creativity and intuition bring a new energy and direction for us as a people? As a society, it is high time we asked that question.  In my book I hope to ask this and other questions with the hope that we can bring new ideas to the table and begin the work of shifting the paradigm.