Power and Control

"It would be pleasant, sir, to walk beside thee and hear thee condemn me for my sins." -- Lillian Gish in The Scarlet Letter, 1926

I happened to catch part of a television program a few weeks ago about a family with 16 children that was building a house for themselves. What struck me was a scene in which a friend who was helping the family meets a female interior designer who had agreed to help decorate the home. She wasn’t mean or overbearing, but she carried an air of self-confidence and proceeded to tell this man with authority the projects she wanted him to undertake. Here was this somewhat burley but well groomed guy in his plaid shirt and carpentry belt who later looks at the camera and says, “I think most men are afraid of women.” And referring to the designer he added, “I sure am afraid of her.”

There is controversy among anthropologists as to whether early societies were matriarchal. Since no written records exist, most of what we know, or think we know, is based on relics that archeologists have uncovered. The story they tell is largely subject to interpretation. Regardless, we do know that patriarchy, with few exceptions, has prevailed throughout recorded history. Most recognize that these patriarchal societies have, to varying degrees, treated women oppressively. At worst women were treated as little more than beasts of burden and considered possessions of men. At best they were regarded as inferior and less intelligent creatures whose primary function was to have babies (preferably male ones) and to make life easier for their men. In America it’s only been since the 19th Constitutional Amendment became law on August 26, 1920 that women have even been considered intelligent enough to vote.

In the world according to VeezKnight, sociological events can somehow be linked to power, either the pursuit of power, the maintenance of power, the loss of power or the absence of power. And every society is essentially divided into two groups, those with power and those without. Inevitably, whether it be with benevolence or malevolence, those with power rule or somehow control those without. With this in mind, I don’t think it matters if matriarchy preceded patriarchy. Whether or not men rose to power or maintained it from the beginning, they have dominated women because they fear them. Why? Men know women have what they want and are wired by nature to crave. They know this gives women power over them, which could easily be used to control them. Rather than risk this, men have channeled their aggressive behavior into dominating and oppressing women, simply to keep them from fully realizing their potential for control.

Aggression is often a manifestation of insecurity and inner weakness. Nonetheless, in times when women were considered mere possessions, this tact has allowed men to simply take what they want. In more “enlightened” times as women rose along the social scale, it still prevented them from realizing the true potential of their feminine sexual power. Through it all, it was men who were behind teaching women to be ladies, not to flaunt their sexuality, to keep their legs together, to remain virgins until marriage. In ancient Rome and Greece, statues celebrated the human body, the male pallus often depicted in all its splendor. Statues of females however often have their genitalia discretely concealed. It was largely men who coined terms such as slut, whore, bitch and so forth. Would anyone seriously suggest that women created pornography?

One could argue that Nature intended homo sapiens to evolve in this manner. It’s why men were given larger size and greater strength, as well as a proclivity for aggression, violence and competition. With the roles of hunter, gather, came the roles of protector and defender. Oppression toward women came with the territory as an evitable part of the deal. Today however, at least in the civilized world, men are no longer hunters and gathers, and there is no longer much need for continual protection and defense against wild animals and neighboring hostile tribes. With the emerging equality between sexes, the boundaries defining our traditional roles as male and female are evaporating. Evaporating along with those boundaries is the opportunity for men to oppress, dilute or otherwise ignore the power of feminine sexuality. Without being able to identity women as “the adversary”, I think that in some ways, men have lost sight of their own purpose and identity.

Exacerbating this is how women are now better educated, more sure of themselves and more accepting of their sexuality. They excel in sports, the arts, academics, the sciences, politics and business, as well as occupy positions of leadership in all of those areas. Women now wield even more power in the mind of the male. It’s this image of authority and self-assuredness, combined with their sexuality that is digging deep into the male psyche to cultivate a seed planted by Mother Nature, a seed that has never been allowed to germinate. Perhaps Nature intended for it to sprout long ago, perhaps not until society had reached the point we are at today. Either way, the seed of submission to female authority is taking root and growing in male consciousness.