Sudy at My Ecdysis writes:
Let me break this down for you. When people talk about patriarchy and then it divulges into a complex conversation about the shifting circles of privilege, power, and domination — they’re talking about kyriarchy. When you talk about power assertion of a White woman over a Brown man, that’s kyriarchy. When you talk about a Black man dominating a Brown womyn, that’s kyriarchy. It’s about the human tendency for everyone trying to take the role of lord/master within a pyramid. At it best heights, studying kyriarchy displays that it’s more than just rich, white Christian men at the tip top and, personally, they’re not the ones I find most dangerous. There’s a helluva lot more people a few levels down the pyramid who are more interested in keeping their place in the structure than to turning the pyramid upside down.
Who’s at the bottom of the pyramid? Who do you think are at the bottom of the pyramid who are less likely to scheme and spend extravagant resources to further perpetuate oppression? I think of poor children with no roads out of hell, the mentally ill who are never “credible,” un-gendered or non-gender identified people, farm workers, modern day slaves…But, the pyramid stratifies itself from top to bottom. And before you start making a checklist of who is at the top and bottom – here’s my advice: don’t bother. The pyramid shifts with context. The point is not to rank. The point is to learn.
It’s about recognizing the power-over relationships that exist because of property, religion, security, economics, citizenship, and geography. Let’s not pretend that just because there are not many propertied males mucking around the fem blogosphere, there aren’t queen bees and wanna bees exercising the same kind of behavior. So when we talk about woman asserting power over other womyn, we’re talking kyriarchy. When you witness woman trying to dominate, define, outline the “movement” or even what an ally should be – that’s the kyriarchal ethos strong at work.
Via Daisy’s Dead Air, which is also a post well worth reading.
UPDATE: Only feminists may comment on this post, please. Non-feminists who want to comment are welcome to do so at the cross-post on Blog By Barry.
As the survivor of some vile cruelties from women as well as men, I can only say
“Riiiiiiiiiiiight”.
I think we all have the urge to tell others how to do something better. Sometimes we are right, sometimes not. The kyriarchy you speak of happens when we don’t fully reason it out, when we open our mouths from a desire to show off or get back at someone or just get them out of the way or indulge whatever bizarre obsession we have or just vent some frustration, instead of from reason. At least that’s the case for the scenes I’ve observed, suffered from or even been guilty in at times.
Still, it seems there are some group situations where somebody has to take the lead. How can they make sure they do so rationally instead of just throwing their weight around? I don’t claim to have the answer.
How can one organize others without overstepping the line and harming innocent people, even (or especially) unknowingly? I’m not a people person, so maybe some great minds out there can help.
So am I right in thinking that the term Kyriarchy is being offered as an alternative to Patriarchy because the latter term implies that power lies in the hands of men – so that women are, so to speak, categorically exonerated from active participation in it? The “kyr” element, by contrast, could equally refer to master or mistress?
For my part, I thoroughly agree that we must actually examine a given situation and its agents before deciding who has power over whom, and that such an examination should not be pre-empted by a priori adjudications. And I also agree with what Sudy seems to be driving at – that the term Patriarchy is used by some feminists to shore up such categorical thinking. (If that isn’t what she’s driving at here, somebody put me right.)
The only thing I feel inclined to disagree with is
I think I can guess who Sudy has in mind here, but what has real-world power and privilege got to do with power and influence in the feminist (or other, for that matter) online commentariat? It is possible to be a highly successful queen bee (or silver-back gorilla), to dominate, bully and generally command a small army of online acolytes, without having anything more at one’s disposal than a laptop, an abundance of time and a certain ruthlessness.
Angiportus:
Still, it seems there are some group situations where somebody has to take the lead. How can they make sure they do so rationally instead of just throwing their weight around? I don’t claim to have the answer.
How can one organize others without overstepping the line and harming innocent people, even (or especially) unknowingly?
Like you say in group situations sometimes there must be a leader but there are things said leader can do that would at least help prevent kyiarchal things. First off even if one person is the leader they should still take into account everyone involved (and this includes those who may not be in on the decision making but are affected by the decision). Don’t try to shut people out under the premise that you know what’s best for them. As for rationality, this is where that inclusiveness of everyone involved comes in. They would be there to keep the leader in check and keep him/her from going overboard. I think the best way to avoid overstepping lines and keeping people from getting hurt is the rationality gained from being as inclusive as possible (checks and balances at work again.) Now these aren’t perfect answers (and I feel like I’m rambling) but I think they would be a good start.
Tom Nolan:
So am I right in thinking that the term Kyriarchy is being offered as an alternative to Patriarchy because the latter term implies that power lies in the hands of men – so that women are, so to speak, categorically exonerated from active participation in it? The “kyr” element, by contrast, could equally refer to master or mistress?
So I wasn’t the only one thinking this?
I should have made this post feminists-only; I’m worried that the comments here from non-feminists may discourage feminist comments.
So I’m making this comment thread feminists-only, from now on. Non-feminists are welcome to post comments over at Blog By Barry.
I think it’s wise to seek a new term, but I’m not sure kyriarchy is going to work from a purely common-usage standpoint. I have no idea what a “kyr” is, or what its etymological root might be/mean, so I would find this term hard to remember and hard to spell. I would hate having to stop every time I use it outside of the feminist blogosphere (and probably pretty often *within* it) to explain what the hell it means. And there’s the risk of making myself sound like a pretentious snob by using it, which would weaken any argument I was making at the time.
From a logistical and philosophical standpoint, the word makes perfect sense, but I can’t see it catching on.
I’ve seen it used since 2006 or 2007 or thereabouts. It’s not used as widely as patriarchy, but it certainly would at least not sound so alien people would go “Wut?” in the feminist blogosphere.
How is kyriarchy different from action based on self-interest? Or is it the same thing? I am not sure I am getting the distinction; both are based on a tendency to do what’s best for you without regard for others, right?
This way of looking at things seems very accurate to me, although I have to wish they’d named it something else.
Sailorman—I think it is a combination of self-interest with opportunity, the latter of which is provided by patriarchy and its policy of divide-and-conquer, and its multiple (and sometimes crossing or conflicting) avenues of oppression.
It is extension of the values and core concepts of patriarchy—power over others, oneself (if one is a worthy person) as a sun around which other people are expected to orbit, a social system that enforces this—over relationships in which both people have both oppression and privilege, potentially over the other, due to different categories of hierarchy.
The patriarchy has rankings for many different characteristics—gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, economic class, physical ability (both in terms of presence/absence of disability and in physical strength in some contexts), and most of the human race is at differing levels of rank in different characteristics, and thus their privilege and their oppression is different based on which characteristics are dominant in a given situation.
A white man can be at the top of the heap when race and sex/gender are the important characteristics, and yet be oppressed in certain situations if he is gay, when sexual orientation becomes the measure of worth.
A wealthy black man can escape some of the troubles of racism by making his economic class the dominant measure of worth—such is the case with many sports stars.
A woman can escape some limiting aspects of sexism by using religion or other social status to gain approval—Sarah Palin did this, capturing the vice-presidential nomination by her social/religious status as Good Christian Woman/Mother, which calmed conservative dislikes of having a woman in high office.
Et cetera. There are multiple conflicting avenues of oppression, and who is oppressed and how much are determined by which avenues are in play.
Ha! I got the gist of “kyriarchy”s etymology because of the Latin chants I had to do at Catholic mass all my childhood!
People living with psychiatric disabilities are not immune from kyriarchy, especially in the divide and conquer environment of employment paid for by the mental health system. Some are immune, but many are not.
The part about the pyramid being contextual seems related to what I often say about privilege: you can’t simply say that one person is more privileged than a second person, it’s not a point system. Privilege is a way of analyzing differentials of power and perceived normality in the aggregate.
(Sorry if this is a point that’s been made recently; I don’t normally blog and got referred here.)
Rather than the creation of a new word, people should look into HER-story and compare it to the HIS-story that has been shoved down our throats. VERY FEW even have a tiny clue about HER-story. Creation of a new word just sweeps all we can learn from the past…under the carpet.
Bottom line: MATRIARCHY existed LONG before patriarchy. Patriarchy destroyed Matriarchy and the Sacred Feminine. MATRIARCHY was NOT about competition or a power heirarchy or this kryriarchy foolishness. K-archy is a part of patriarchy. When all our 3 global religions have males birthing Life, one would think that would be the first clue that we are being brainwashed/mindcontrolled…. OR am I the only one who has noted that it is Females/Mothers who birth Life?
ps, I am NOT a feminist per se, I am a Matriarchist. Those who are clueless as to what that is, view Russell Means, Lakota Elder, on youtube. He knows as he and his people have lived it before it was destroyed by kryarchical patriarchal christian whitemen. TRUTH!!! sorry for those who dont like the truth.
Sailorman says:
1/9/2009 at 12:31 pm
How is kyriarchy different from action based on self-interest? Or is it the same thing? I am not sure I am getting the distinction; both are based on a tendency to do what’s best for you without regard for others, right?
WELL said Sailorman, you are totally right. Interestingly, there is no such thing as ‘self-interest’ in Matriarchy as it is the whole family, unit, community etc that counts. This ‘new word’ game is just a basic tenant of patriarchal politics… using rhetoric to fool the masses…
Speaking of kyriarchy! Identification as feminist is not prerequisite to having personal investment in the language of social justice. Mainstream feminism is white, cis and straight, so discounting the contributions to this space of everyone who does not identify as a feminist is really not okay, and automatically excludes plenty of womanist POC, trans* activists, among others. I don’t think it’s so impossible to expand your categories just a bit, while still communicating to the privilege-denying assholes that they’re not invited.