The Tyranny of the Patriarchy
What is it about the patriarchy that emboldens men to feel they have the right to regulate a woman's body, to decide how the body should be clothed, to control the decisions that body has the right to make or how the body chooses to express its multiple facets of being?
Whether it be in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the United States, Hungary, Russia, India or France, the common thread that runs through this sense of entitlement to dominate is a patriarchal system. A system that allies itself with authoritarianism and tyranny and then proceeds to manipulate various religious teachings and scripture to maintain male dominance in society.
In doing so, these states and institutions utilize religion as a tool for oppression when in reality, faith and spirituality are supposed to be liberating not oppressive. The power in the liberation that religion can offer is that these freedoms are all encompassing, rather than limited to certain aspects of a person’s life like the freedom the patriarchy likes offers to as a symbolic display of progressivism. Tyrants that utilize religion as a tool of oppression have long sought to discourage the recognition of the various freedoms actually enshrined in religious teachings.
For example, very few people understand that bodily autonomy and expression is at the core of so many of Islam's teachings and the concepts enshrined in Islamic philosophy. Islam teaches us that to violate a person's bodily autonomy - or their right to govern what happens to their body without external influence, pressure, or coercion - is also to violate fundamental teachings of Islam. Therefore, a government with policies and institutions that seek to undermine an individual's bodily autonomy has no business calling itself Islamic or associating itself with the teachings and influence of Islam.
We know nothing will change in Muslim societies (or any society for that matter because we know that patriarchy is pervasive) until the people themselves are moved to change their communities and the government that represents them. Yes, it is a long haul, but grassroots, community based change is the only sustainable and permanent way for a society to move beyond the constraints of the patriarchy. We know it is doable because we’ve succeeded with our #ImamsForShe program.
If you would like to learn how we do it, please join me on October 3rd as I present my paper titled “Engaging #ImamsForShe Champions to Catalyze Sustainable Social and Cultural Change towards Fully Achieving Women’s and Girls’ Rights in Muslim Communities”, organized by Al-Azhar University, Muhammadiyah, and Faith to Action Network. Please see registration details below.
In a final moment of reflection, we have come a long way when Al-Azhar University and MPV’s logos are on the same page!
Onward and upward…
Ani Zonneveld
Founder, President