Patriarchy, Religion, and Society

Societies across the globe have long-established binary gender identities based on biological sex, assigning gender roles based on external sexual attributes. These gender identities correspond to religious, moral, and political norms in these societies, which usually establish preferential leadership roles to biological males. Such roles are then limited to men that exhibit strong masculine traits and characteristics, principle among them the fathering of children and successfully raising them within and according to the norms of the society. The result is a generalized “rule of fathers” wherein religious, moral, and political power is exercised exclusively by those men to whom the attributes of successful fatherhood are attributed or assumed. Despite the predominance of this practice, patriarchy has not been without contestation by rival forms of leadership emanating from different qualifications (for example in matriarchy), from women who demonstrate the requisite masculine traits and strive for power on those bases, or from biological men who are not fathers or do not exhibit the typical traits of paternal leadership. The historical ways in which religious, moral, and political values have thus influenced the predominance of patriarchy and its several challenges illuminate and inform a consideration of the continuing power of, and the ongoing legacy of, patriarchy in the contemporary world.