Are patriarchal power structures inevitable in the Church?
pease
Tech Admin
in Epiphanies
On Sexism, misogyny and Church Membership,
In any case, there seems to be a more general assumption that a certain type of power structure is inevitable in a church context. Are patriarchal power structures inevitable in the Church, or just the dominant form?
Thinking about points raised on other threads, does someone have to stand down or leave to escape them?
I'm not sure what the relevance is of the concept of private power to the issue of church organisation. (My understanding is that the majority of established churches in the USA have now been disestablished. We've still got one here in the UK.)Power taken away must be given somewhere else, or you create a power vacuum. I always think of how the Anabaptists in the USA were originally some of the most free-thinking churches in the USA, but lacking organized power, the disorganization led to a "biggest bully on the block wins."
Established power structures exist, paradoxically, to check the abuse that comes from privatized power.
If you remove the power of priests, I fear you're going to have to establish another kind of priesthood or else something priest-like will emerge to fill the power vacuum.
I like to keep my priests where I can see them, maybe that's what the bright, shiny vestments are for.
In any case, there seems to be a more general assumption that a certain type of power structure is inevitable in a church context. Are patriarchal power structures inevitable in the Church, or just the dominant form?
Thinking about points raised on other threads, does someone have to stand down or leave to escape them?
Comments
I think "established" in the quote might be better read as "formal" or "institutional", and "privatized" as "informal" or "customary". I don't think it was meant in the sense of the establishment clause, nor the CofE "by law established".
I'm trying to think of contemporary power structures that aren't patriarchal. There are certainly women in positions of power, but men still dominate. Subject to later revision, my first stab at this is that patriarchal power structures are inevitable in the church because they're nearly inescapable in society.
My experience of working as church staff for a couple of decades -- albeit in just the one church, so this is obviously anecdotal -- is that the authority of male ministers was more widely and easily accepted than that of female ministers. Though the congregation is proud of how progressive it is -- and it truly is progressive by most measures -- the women I worked for had to work a lot harder to get people to listen to them than the men did. The members would never think of themselves as sexist, but they were. For a while we had a young man fresh out of seminary as the associate minister who told me that it wasn't unusual that the female senior minister would say something at a Church Council meeting and not really get a response, and then five minutes later he would say the same thing, and then they thought it was a good idea. The inspection of and comments on her appearance were shocking to me, as I had never heard people say a thing about how her male predecessor looked or dressed. There was less comment on the appearance of an older female minister, but the effort she had to put in to get the lay leaders to listen to her was remarkable in comparison to the effort I had seen a male senior minister exert.
But yes, I think @Arethosemyfeet is right; “established” in what you quoted seems to mean “well-recognized and accepted,” not legally established in the sense of an established church.
I've worked in education pretty much my whole career, first in schools and now in educational support. Throughout that, heading for 20 years now, I've encountered individual sexists. Not many, but some in senior positions. I've also encountered a lot of women in senior positions. In my current role the three rungs above me are all women, as is the head of the organisation. Is that enough to make the power structure no longer patriarchal, or is the very fact that education (particularly primary education) is still seen as "women's work" an indication that patriarchy is alive and well?
While the states in which the Church of England was established during colonial times (New York, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia) moved quickly after independence to disestablish the CofE, the Congregational Church remained established in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire into the 1820s and 1830s.
It wasn’t until the 1940s that the Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted and ratified after the Civil War, made the First Amendment’s provisions on establishment of religion applicable to state governments and not just the federal government.
/tangent
I think that "private power" means the power of private individuals to manipulate a public community without having any formal, publicly claimed positions of responsibility.
If there's a person who has no real office in the room but carries a lot of influence over the people who make the decisions, either by threat or bribery or persuasion or other means, then that's a form of private power that may not be publicly acknowledged or recognized by custom.
Not at the national level. Some states have, before and after independence, in the 18th century.
1. It’s embedded in the Traditions
2. It’s embedded in the minds of office holders in positions of power.
The church is not alone in these embeddednesses.
Is it inevitable?Not for ever.
Is it commonplace? Far too much.
Is it a bugger to get rid of? Undoubtedly.
Is this common in churches? The vast majority of influential people I can think of in the church contexts with which I was familiar occupied recognised positions - whether elder or member of the PCC, church warden, serving on one or more committees, treasurer, organist, choir master or patron.
But I'm not reaching a different conclusion from yours - I can't think of any power structures (some of which were pretty informal) that weren't patriarchal.
Just in terms of whose voices I can remember in decision-making discussions, they were either mostly male or overwhelmingly male. There's only a couple of contexts that come to mind where that wasn't so obviously the case - and that leaves aside other effects of patriarchy.
3. It exists in wider society and the church reflects society.
I thought 2 also implied 3 but your addition is clearer.
That's one question to consider. I'd also look at whether it's a small enough organization in a small enough place and/or independent enough that it isn't part of a larger patriarchal structure. I'd look at whether those women are treated with respect and paid as well as men in similar positions. I'd look at whether patriarchal attitudes and assumptions are still being promulgated. For instance, what's in the children's books -- are there just as many with girls as protagonists? Do the boys read them as much as the girls read books with boys as protagonists? If a kid needs to be picked up early because they're sick, are they as likely to call the father as the mother?
In the 90s I was for five years an assistant English professor at a small state university. One of my colleagues, the only one sort of close to me in age and my only real friend in the department since nearly everyone else was my parents' age, swore me to secrecy and confided that he was collecting porn a former girlfriend had done before she went back to school; she now had her doctorate. She had broken off their short relationship to take an academic job out of state. He fantasized about destroying her career by sending copies to her dept chair and dean and to hiring committees at other schools that might hire her. When he started fantasizing about killing her, I wrote to her. Long story short, she got a lawyer who yelled at him, and that took care of the immediate issue for her. The university did nothing -- this was all private activity on his own time in his own home (though he had first met this woman when she was his student, he didn't date her till after she had graduated). I was closely questioned by a sheriff's deputy who decided "wanting" to kill someone was not a problem because he hadn't said he was "going to" kill her. And then he showed me one of the pornographic pictures the guy had collected and asked if I thought the very young woman looked underage, as there was some question about whether his collection included such things (look up Traci Lords on Wikipedia, totally safe for work, if you're curious how this could happen to someone not intending to collect child porn).
The department was exactly 50/50 men and women, and the department chair was a woman; there were women up and down the power structure. But this guy was popular; he threw the department parties. He had told several men on campus about it, including a couple of grad students, who had thought the whole thing was amusing. This all went down at the beginning of the school year, and I was ostracized for most of the academic year. Groups of my colleagues went silent when I passed them in the hall. No one spoke to me outside of necessity until April, when the chair quietly told me that she thought I had done the right thing. My ex-friend kept his tenured position. I wasn't good enough to get a job at another school; I'd been fortunate to get that job. This whole thing wasn't the only reason I left academia, but it was a big part of it. That guy is still working at that school -- I could have had to face him at work for another 30 years. Several of his friends saw me a few years later at a minor league baseball game and came up to me, leered at me, and took my picture. (I never saw that picture online, so I don't know what that was about.)
Women's presence and strong representation in power structures is not enough.
What they should do is to call the people listed on the emergency contact form in the order in which they are listed. That's what the order is for. If they do anything other than that, then they are wrong.
Far as churches, yes. Though I think it varies by church and by polity. In healthier congregations, there should be a lot less informal influence, but I have seen it happen. Some people are very charismatic, or build power around themselves, or take on many responsibilities so that they become indispensable, etc. There are many informal ways to influence decisions if you're in the right place. And they're not even necessarily bad, depending on the circumstance. Sometimes they're anti-patriarchal in churches where that's the only way women can exercise power when men are granted the official reins.
I don't think informal power is necessarily malicious or malevolent, it's just something to be mindful of in an organization.
It's what should happen but lots of working mothers can't tell you that it usually isn't!
But on the other there's the deep structural way that misogeny is entrenched in various ways. In academia this absolutely means that men and male norms dominate.
I remember very well several occasions where men insulted my wife's intelligence, belittled her work and so on. At one academic meeting one man (who has a rank at his university lower than hers) made a point of talking over her on a panel.
It seems like many men lack the social growth to develop emotional intelligence and seem to think that they are brilliant and every women is both a competitor for limited jobs and only got those jobs because of DEI.
It took us a couple of goes to get the message across to Little Miss Feet's school that I'm the first phone call. In fairness, Mrs Feet was the first contact when LMF started, but my change of job and Mrs Feet's health meant a change was in order.
This is not anti-patriarchal! The behaviour you're describing isn't just compatible with patriarchy, it is consistent with patriarchy and the perpetuation of patriarchy.
If the only way for a woman to influence policy and decision-making is by leveraging whatever unseen, informal, influence she has with a person with formal power, such as by virtue of a personal relationship, then what matters isn't that woman's decision-making skills and abilities, it's her ability and willingness to exercise power covertly, her ability to form (or fake) a personal relationship with a man who is in a position, or can be persuaded to attain a position, in which he is able to wield power.
Can you see the problem here?
I would say it goes rather further than that.
Many of us do not put these things into separate compartments. We see them as being related - that people's religious or superstitious beliefs have a strong influence on the way that misogyny is structurally entrenched in our institutions and societies, as it has been for generations.
Whether you or I, as individuals of a particular generation, consciously share those religious or superstitious beliefs isn't very significant.
I think I would say that social growth occurs across generations, and not just within generations. Putting it another way, if many men don't develop emotional intelligence, could one reason be that patriarchal societies do not encourage them to do so?
It's not hard to "hide in plain sight" if you know what you're doing. People just get used to "well, that's how we have always done things!" In churches that are afraid of institutional power, I think this happens a lot. There's that one person who just does everything, or that family that sits on all the committees, etc. It's not even a bad thing necessarily.
And yes, of course it's a huge problem is the only avenue to power given to a person is informal channels, especially if it's tied up with sexism!
On the other hand, there are only so many real seats of power that can go around, so informal channels are inevitable if there are people who have ambitions and no way to fulfill them. Sexism certainly exacerbates that problem, which is revolting. But I think there are also non-sexist cases where people who are qualified to exercise power are never granted the opportunity and turn to alternate means.
So it goes.
I think several things are going on at the same time, but in general I would say the following; those who are now in senior academic roles tend to have grown up in the 1970s and 1980s. They tend to have had much of their lives working in masculine environments which did not promote emotional intelligence. Senior women in these positions tend to be there because they exhibit similar behavioural characteristics.
The 2005 Harvard remarks by Larry Summers was a brutal summary of this: that women lack aptitude and commitment. All total lies, but it says something when this kind of thing becomes common currency.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/science-jan-june05-summersremarks_2-22
I run a folk club and attend 2 or 3 others; there are no 'power structures' as far as I can see, and certainly no misogyny.
People 'come and go' with their attendance at various folk clubs. Numbers go up and down. Some clubs wither on the vine only to rise phoenix-like in a different venue. It's all sort of organic with nothing really important apart from the music and the camaraderie.
Can churches be more like that?
I think it's also possible for churches to go through phases, often very quickly in some instances. Back in my full-on charismatic days the church I was in went through cycles of heavy control followed by a more relaxed regime followed by heavy control followed by ...
As a rule of thumb I'd suggest that more formal and hierarchical looking churches can be less formal and hierarchical than they initially appear.
Conversely, some less formal and less hierarchical looking churches turn out to be more formal and more hierarchical than they appear at first sight.
There are many more people who have ambitions to be astronauts than there are seats available on rockets. The number of seats available on rockets is likely to remain limited for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, NASA works towards increasing diversity and inclusion, because “diversity drives innovation” and in order to “always to select a crew that is representative of our nation”.
Who died?
Limiting your analysis to the current generation continues to be curious - male academics have been making this kind of unsubstantiated claim for centuries. It's an ancient currency.
One aspect of the question being addressed in this thread is whether your analysis is the right way round. Maybe the patriarchy in our societies comes from the church.
And if patriarchy continues to provide the stagnant waters in which sexism and misogyny breed, the barriers will continue to be re-erected in different forms even as they are being broken down.
Doublethink, Admin
This thread was originally in Purgatory and so wasn't framed for Epiphanies. Male contributors have vastly outnumbered female and minority gender people on it and that now needs to change so the thread doesn't continue to be lots of men talking about patriarchal power structures which most directly affect women and minority genders.
There are however some very pertinent and powerful own voice posts on the thread which could be picked up on.
Can I put in a plea to male allies to remember that, even with the best of intentions, you too can end up swamping women and other gender's voices by posting a lot without linking to and citing and centering those voices?
Thanks very much
Louise
Epiphanies Host
https://www.dukeupress.edu/complaint
which is about how when women complain about male abuse in the academic workplace they effectively get put on trial and driven out and not the men who harass them - as @Ruth 's very powerful post exemplifies. It also looks at intersectional issues where sexism and racism combine.
I think the same problems with patriarchal power structures are endemic throughout our society not just in churches. Academia was once exclusively male, just as church clerical structures were and still are in some quarters, and it still hasnt grappled effectively with deep rooted problems of hierarchical abuse of power by men.
Professor Ahmed felt she had to stand down as the university she taught at wasn't addressing the issue of staff harassment of female students properly - so she resigned from the University of London
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/london-university-goldsmiths-professor-quits-sexual-harassment-female-students-staff-a7072131.html
Her blog on it is here
https://feministkilljoys.com/2016/05/30/resignation/
There's a good interview with her here
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2022/01/14/you-pose-a-problem-a-conversation-with-sara-ahmed/
Interviewer Maya Binyam on the book:
Ahmed on how those who complain are treated:
She looks in the book about how collectives can be formed to resist this but it's uphill work, and if you're alone you cant form a collective.
I dont think patriarchal power structures are inevitable but when they have been in place for hundreds, if not thousands of years, they are very hard to undo. Representation is not enough because internalised misogyny and embracing misogynistic social norms to keep other sorts of privilege by women play their part.
Another feminist academic Kate Manne in her books like Down Girl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_Girl:_The_Logic_of_Misogyny
has looked at 'Himpathy' the way male abusers are sympathised with and excused and the way misogyny is about maintaining patriarchal hierarchy - not about whether men hate women - it's the women who step out of gender roles that maintain the patriarchy who are disproportionately attacked - not so much those who praise it and shore it up (though their faces will get eaten too when it suits).
So it's a lot of work to make people aware of ingrained attitudes like this and of the role pro-patriarchal women also play in supporting the hierarchy. It's not inevitable but it's a lot of work because it involves people becoming aware of and addressing very ingrained normalised biases. Sometimes as Professor Ahmed says 'it's really hard to challenge them without challenging everything. And so, everything can begin to fall apart' - sometimes the only way is to get out and start from scratch and do things differently.
Which is why I don't think schism is terrible. Yay for the Protestant Reformation! There is no women's ordination without it. I'm fine with people who insist on the patriarchy maintaining its power splintering off of Anglicanism (or whatever) to do their own retrograde thing, and I'll stand up and cheer for a group that breaks away from a patriarchal structure to put together something different and better.
Thanks for the references, @Louise -- going toward the top of my "to be read" list.
The Old Catholics might dispute that, but I suppose one would have to imagine a large counterfactual timeline to get to the First Vatican Council and that particular schism.
One uncomfortable conclusion isn't just that you blowing the whistle had no discernible effect on the patriarchal power structure, it might even have led to it being reinforced. I suspect patriarchal power structures only start to topple when men who are confided in by other men are prepared to blow the whistle on them.
Yes, you're right - it's just the pedant in me.
Which I can totally respect!
But not impossible.
See, I would argue sexism is not genetically hard wired. While we do have tendencies that can be expressed in sexist ways, sexism itself is cultural, not a genetic inevitability.
I would even go so far as to argue earlier societies were far more egalitarian than modern patriarchies.
Point is if sexism were genetic we would have the same gender hierarchy everywhere. We don't. We would have the same gender roles everywhere. We don't. We would have the same power structures everywhere. You guessed it, we don't
Clan of the Cave Bear
San (Southern Africa)
BaYaka, Batwa, Mbuti (Central Africa)
Maniq (Thailand)
Agta (Philippines)
Batek, Chewong (Malaysia)
Buid (Philippines)
https://solidarity.net.au/marxist-theory/the-original-egalitarian-societies-what-human-history-tells-us-about-human-nature/
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-women-equal-scientists
https://enrouteindianhistory.com/breaking-hierarchies-egalitarian-practices-in-early-neolithic-catalhoyuk/
I can go on
Tangent:
I would point out that the titular clan is very patriarchal [upsetting content]
I accept of course that ubiquitous doesn’t mean universal. But why do you think the deaire to dominate is so predominant? The powerful seeking to, and succeeding in, control and exploitation of the less powerful. There’s a heck of a lot of that about.
In the discussion time that followed, the question arose as to whether racism was innate or culturally conditioned.
Both the South African speaker and the British bloke who led the meeting insisted that it was innate and a result of Original Sin / our inherent fallen nature.
To the approval of the black Pentecostal guy sat next to me, I pointed out his young son who had been happily playing with a white boy he'd met that evening and who was continuing to do so as we spoke.
'These two boys, they are playing happily together and have been doing so all this time. Neither has shown any indication of racism towards the other, they are oblivious to the concept and would only form a bad opinion of each other based on race if someone were to encourage them to do so. It's nurture not nature.'
The speaker and the guy who'd convened the meeting strongly disagreed, without giving any evidence for their assertion.
Now, in broad terms I'm prepared to accept that in a 'fallen' world we have inherited ways of thinking and doing that can encourage people to 'lord it' over one another based on assumptions about race, gender, social status etc.
We live with the consequences of 'ancestral sin' as it were rather than sharing in the guilt and culpability of it. That doesn't mean that we are necessarily free of racist, sexist or classist attitudes ourselves nor free of the propensity to assert ourselves in some way over other people.
Sin is lurking at our door and we must master it.
How we do that is going to vary according to a whole range of factors. The Dutch Reformed minister had been the pastor of a predominantly black congregation yet when he attended denominational conferences he would always eat on a separate table as he couldn't bring himself to sit alongside black people at meal times.
He repented of that to the extent that he publicly opposed Apartheid and worked for reform within his own church as well as in wider society.
Good for him. I applaud him for it. Yet I suspect there were other areas where he and I might have disagreed theologically or sociologically as it were.
The same will apply here, of course, on other issues such as sexism - which is why we need 'own voice' contributions and not just people like me sounding off.
I guess I am not clear what your question is. Is it in regards to male dominance?
I believe there are four areas that contributed to male dominance. First is the development of agriculture and the need to pass property from one generation to another. Since most farmers were male, the passing of property went through the male line. Second was warfare. Again, a mostly male activity, though there are instances of female warriors as well. Third was Roman-Greco philosophy. Aristotle felt women were inferior, but I do not think he was the first to come up with that (disproven) philosophy. Then there was the church. When you think God is always considered Father, Jesus as Son, and most of the biblical writers were male, there is a certain bias developing there.
Those four areas have been weakened very recently. We now allow property to pass through either sex, Women and transgender are now full members in Western militaries. Can't do much about past philosophical mistakes either than showing where they were wrong and developing more egalitarian philosophies. Many denominations are re-evaluating their stance on the role of women in their faith communities.
Have I answered the question?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/
I would note that the feminist criticism of the history of science, for example of agriculture, is that scholars have long considered it to be a case of "it was done by men or it did not happen.."