Contesting Patriarchy: From Discipline to Transgression

Patriarchy as an ideology is ubiquitous in manifold ways. From crude and overt manifestation to subtle and covert technique, patriarchy infuses within itself the cogent potentiality to inculcate its ideals into the survival system of human species. From societal mores to cultural beliefs, economic modes to political decision-making, spiritual consciousness to religious precepts, commodity-production to human procreation, patriarchy with its colossus presence induces its invincible spirit into the very psyche of life-existence. Even our thought-process is tailored along the line chalked out by patriarchy. It is an ideology based on power-relations and feeds on binaries – inclusion and exclusion, core and periphery, rational and emotional, nature and culture. Adjunct ideas are established and proliferated by it that further sustain patriarchal modes of reasoning. It is all pervasive. It circulates throughout the social body like capillaries, intensifying its universal aspect of hegemony. From force and coercion to consensual action and manipulation, patriarchy has survived through ages. As an ideology, it has been one of the most tenable yet contested arena of conflict – debate – subversion and narration. This paper aims to understand and re-locate patriarchy within the complex matrix of power-relations navigating through different feminist perspectives.

Keywords:
Patriarchy, Power, Sex, Gender, Body