Feminists say patriarchy when they mean “immutable sex differences I don’t like” (Mary Harrington) — Transcript

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1. 0:02whether you are male or female
2. 0:05morphologically comes down to
3. 0:09um effectively a single switch that
4. 0:12lives on the Y chromosome in humans
5. 0:15if that switch is present you become
6. 0:17male if the switch is absent because you
7. 0:20have two X chromosomes instead of a y
8. 0:21you become female but interestingly if
9. 0:24you have a y chromosome and that switch
10. 0:26is defective you also become female
11. 0:28that's the default mode
12. 0:31and what that means
13. 0:33is that it is perfectly conceivable for
14. 0:35any human being watching or listening to
15. 0:38this podcast
16. 0:39that you could have an identical twin
17. 0:43that is somebody who shares your entire
18. 0:46genome but is of the opposite sex based
19. 0:49on whether that switch is added in or
20. 0:51subtracted
21. 0:55that means it's not your genome being
22. 0:58male which takes a particular approach
23. 1:00to sex it is your genome being willing
24. 1:03to play either role
25. 1:05and being triggered into one set of
26. 1:08strategies or another based on whether
27. 1:10or not that switch
28. 1:12triggers a developmental change
29. 1:14and I find this very powerful because it
30. 1:17puts the LIE
31. 1:19to the idea that what happened to women
32. 1:22was that men oppressed them
33. 1:25and in fact
34. 1:26it is certainly true that we do not
35. 1:29choose our sex and that historically
36. 1:32speaking whatever sex we were born into
37. 1:36came with obligations and burdens that
38. 1:38were special that would have been absent
39. 1:39had we been born the other way right if
40. 1:42you were a woman then reproduction is
41. 1:45likely uh going to be
42. 1:49um and especially burdensome operation
43. 1:51for you if you're male you run the risk
44. 1:55of going to war
45. 1:58you know these are asymmetries it's not
46. 2:01clearly better to be one than the other
47. 2:03but in any case the idea that every time
48. 2:07a zygote is created there is a lottery
49. 2:10that dictates whether it's going to live
50. 2:12its life as a male or a female and that
51. 2:14most of the genome knows nothing about
52. 2:16how that Lottery is going to work out
53. 2:18until it's already happened and then you
54. 2:21play your role just the same way if
55. 2:24you're genetically endowed with genes
56. 2:28that make you tall you play that role if
57. 2:30you have genes that don't make you tall
58. 2:32then that's the life you live it's just
59. 2:34luck of the draw but it isn't the story
60. 2:38of you know
61. 2:39boy genomes oppressing girl genomes and
62. 2:42it never has been that it's not to say
63. 2:43that men have not impressed women but
64. 2:46that's it's not a simple story of of a
65. 2:48genetic of an evolutionary
66. 2:51um conflict between the sexes
67. 2:55yeah I don't really believe in
68. 2:56patriarchy I mean I think there are
69. 2:58there are a phenomena that we can
70. 3:00describe as patriarchal and there are
71. 3:02clearly patriarchal cultures
72. 3:04um but I
73. 3:06I think we we need to assess those
74. 3:08cultures in their own context and in
75. 3:10their own under their own material
76. 3:12conditions
77. 3:13um you know and and when when you do
78. 3:15that it's often fairly clear how why it
79. 3:17is that they came to be the way they are
80. 3:21um and and under it's it's pretty clear
81. 3:25to me that this the culture that we live
82. 3:27in now is not patriarchal and if any if
83. 3:30anything it's the opposite of
84. 3:31patriarchal in the sense that most of
85. 3:34the most of the obligations and the
86. 3:36expectations and the strictures that
87. 3:37were placed on that are placed on men
88. 3:39within a patriarchal culture are not are
89. 3:41not heavily present now
90. 3:44um for a whole host of quite complicated
91. 3:45reasons and yet what I find fascinating
92. 3:48is that that hasn't stopped people
93. 3:49talking about patriarchy and it hasn't
94. 3:51stopped it hasn't stopped them women
95. 3:53wanting to smash the patriarchy and I
96. 3:55puzzled over this for a long time
97. 3:56thinking well there isn't there isn't
98. 3:57really one left to smash in any sort of
99. 3:59you know I mean it is it's not as though
100. 4:01you know curvature is not a thing
101. 4:03anymore women get to vote you know most
102. 4:04in most in most ordinary contexts you
103. 4:07know there really is very little
104. 4:08difference between the Sexes so what
105. 4:11what actually are women talking about
106. 4:13here and and it came it came to me at
107. 4:15last I was reading a history of women
108. 4:17and Medicine there was I mean in some
109. 4:19parts it was quite long research but the
110. 4:21thing I found frustrating about it was
111. 4:23that every time every time something
112. 4:25came along that the author didn't like
113. 4:27um she would blame it on patriarchy so
114. 4:29for example let me see the the fact that
115. 4:32male doctors didn't want to get involved
116. 4:34in childbirth was patriarchal but then
117. 4:37when male doctors wanted to get involved
118. 4:38in childbirth that was them pushing out
119. 4:40the female midwives and that was also a
120. 4:41patriarch and there were a whole lot of
121. 4:43instances and I was I was reading this
122. 4:44and I was thinking you can only have it
123. 4:46both ways you know these these things
124. 4:48can't all be patriarchal you know
125. 4:49anesthetizing women who are giving birth
126. 4:51isn't patriarchal if not anesthetizing
127. 4:53woman who are giving birth is also a
128. 4:55patriarchal that doesn't make sense so
129. 4:56which is it and I came to the conclusion
130. 4:58that in fact what she what she meant in
131. 5:01aggregate what the inference over the
132. 5:03course of the book was that what she
133. 5:04meant by patriarchy was imageable sex
134. 5:06differences that really and and ever
135. 5:09since then every time I come across a
136. 5:10modern day usage of patriarchy I try I
137. 5:13experiment to see if see if I can
138. 5:16substitute it out and have it make more
139. 5:18sense if I replace it with immutable sex
140. 5:20differences that I don't like
141. 5:21and I have yet to find a contemporary
142. 5:24instance of the word patriarchy which
143. 5:26can't be can't be better replaced and
144. 5:28more coherently replaced with immutable
145. 5:30sex differences I don't like
146. 5:31no I think and you know I mean there are
147. 5:33plenty of there are plenty of situations
148. 5:35where I don't like the immutable
149. 5:37physiological morphological female form
150. 5:40that I have there are times it's
151. 5:41annoying and frustrating but it's not
152. 5:44patriarchy
153. 5:45yes uh I think you have this one exactly
154. 5:48right and in fact I have made this exact
155. 5:50point that patriarchal is real
156. 5:53patriarchy is a fiction
157. 5:56um and you're you're also correct about
158. 6:00the immutable characteristics right yes
159. 6:03it is oppressive that uh women are
160. 6:07disproportionately called upon to feed
161. 6:09infants
162. 6:10but it wasn't men who did that right uh
163. 6:14if it was anything about maleness it
164. 6:16happened so many hundreds of millions of
165. 6:18years ago that had nothing to do with a
166. 6:22creature that had any culture at all
167. 6:24right it was just simply an imbalance
168. 6:27um that cause you know we call it uh
169. 6:31anisogamy that basically once you have a
170. 6:34set of gametes that is
171. 6:37disproportionately invested in the
172. 6:39survival of Offspring it causes the
173. 6:41other set of gametes to cheap out and
174. 6:46that has consequences that continue to
175. 6:49Echo into our current form but you know
176. 6:51it wasn't
177. 6:52men who had anything to do with it there
178. 6:54were no men it was some biological truth
179. 6:58in the universe that is so deep we even
180. 7:01see that asymmetry in plants which
181. 7:03inherited it from someplace different so
182. 7:05anyway yes
183. 7:07um I wish I wish people would not leap
184. 7:09to the conclusion
185. 7:11that everything was so human-centric
186. 7:13that
187. 7:15um to the extent that they feel burdened
188. 7:16by something that has something to do
189. 7:18with sex or gender that it must be the
190. 7:20other sex or gender doing it that's just
191. 7:23not not the case so anyway I I agree
192. 7:26with your formulation completely
193. 7:30um yeah
194. 7:32foreign
195. 7:33go on yeah I remember that I just what
196. 7:37came to mind for me there was a moment
197. 7:39shortly after my daughter was born yeah
198. 7:41as I'm sure you know newborns go through
199. 7:43phases of cluster feeding because they
200. 7:45want to they want to bring up your milk
201. 7:47supply so they can grow which basically
202. 7:49means that you're stuck there under a
203. 7:51feeding newborn sometimes for hours at a
204. 7:53time it hurts
205. 7:54um it's it's it's not it's not
206. 7:56especially fun I mean it's not the
207. 7:58moment of radiant radiant motherhood
208. 8:00which is idealized in the million to one
209. 8:02images
210. 8:05um and I remember I remember sitting
211. 8:07there under crying literally crying
212. 8:09under a cluster feeding infant and my
213. 8:11husband bringing me a glass of wine and
214. 8:13a cheese sandwich because that was
215. 8:16um and just being you know Brave Mary
216. 8:18and you know please carry on you know I
217. 8:20wish I could help but I can't and and
218. 8:22just yeah that that was what came to
219. 8:24mind it wasn't his fault that he
220. 8:27couldn't help you know this is this is
221. 8:29just this is just how uh this is just
222. 8:30how humans are built and this is this is
223. 8:33just what being after a baby is that's
224. 8:35just one boss of the vet if you happen
225. 8:37to be this sex rather than that sex and
226. 8:40I guess I could have I could have felt
227. 8:41angry with him if I'd been feeling
228. 8:42extremely postpartum and unreasonable
229. 8:45but yeah it didn't yeah I wasn't being
230. 8:48oppressed in that way except just buying
231. 8:50my own physiology and that's certainly
232. 8:52not the fault of the patriarchy that's
233. 8:53just the way that's just the shape
234. 8:54humans are
235. 8:55yep I remember a moment late in one of
236. 9:00Heather's pregnancies
237. 9:02uh where she looked at me she had anger
238. 9:07in her eyes but it was clear that it
239. 9:08wasn't at me and she said this is a
240. 9:11goddamn stupid way to reproduce
241. 9:14[Laughter]
242. 9:18I just said a version of that
243. 9:21is that it was was very new humans yep
244. 9:23absolutely I happen to know that she had
245. 9:25marsupials on her mind at the moment
246. 9:27thinking that they had a smarter way of
247. 9:29doing it but
248. 9:31um they had it all figured out well I
249. 9:33don't know about all figured out but
250. 9:34certainly better figured out
251. 9:36laughs
252. 9:40[Music]