In any society, the foot soldiers of patriarchy are women who enforce the dominant, male-orientated, socio-political system in which men are seen as naturally powerful and dominant, and male interests, across economics and politics, are institutionalised. Patriarchy—the word originates from the Greek ‘patriarkhes’, which means ‘rule of the father’—or systemic male supremacy needs women to sustain and perpetuate it. The 84-year-old Anandiben Patel, governor of Uttar Pradesh and former chief minister of Gujarat, demonstrated this last Thursday. While addressing the 41st convocation ceremony at Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University in Kanpur, she urged women students to be “expert mothers” before aspiring to “become IAS officers or teachers”, and emphasised that women’s professional success “should not come at the cost of family responsibilities”, although they could study after marriage. Ironically, women secured 82 per cent of the medals; the topper with five medals, including the Chancellor's Gold Medal, was Priya Yadav.
Making marriage, motherhood and family responsibilities central to women’s lives and a societal duty, irrespective of their education and professional careers, is a central and oft-repeated theme of patriarchy. The idea sowed into little girls’ minds is that they may reach for the stars, but, fundamentally, they are responsible for raising good families within the structure of marriage and inculcating values and customs in children. The work, thanks to feminist economists, has a name—the care economy. It has been consistently unvalued or undervalued; its role in the sustenance of the economy is rarely acknowledged. For example, mothers are deemed responsible for ensuring children are in school, study, and do well to eventually join the formal economy.
India’s official estimates suggest that the economic value of women’s unpaid domestic and care work ranges between 15 and 17 per cent of the GDP. And the time women spend on care responsibilities is heavily skewed in favour of men—married women devote nearly nine times more than married men; even single women spend nearly four times as much. In handing out her blatantly patriarchal, now controversial, advice, Patel did not expand the idea of the care economy or call for balanced distribution of domestic work. Instead, she circled it back many decades to deny its full and complete value in the socio-economic system and, once again, placed the entire burden of care on women.
There will be any number of fathers, husbands, and sons, perhaps even women, who will quote Patel to deepen the patriarchal norms in their homes and societies. Women in powerful positions, such as Patel, must weigh their words in the prevailing context before speaking. Unfortunately, she did not. The ripple effect of her words takes the debate over women’s role in society two steps back from where women’s rights groups have struggled to redefine it.
