Religious Settings — Where Pressure and Patriarchy Collide

Part 2 of Patriarchy Works for Me… Or Does It?

Guest blog post by David Herrin about the patriarchal system

This is a continuation of the post, Patriarchy Works for Me.. Or Does It? A Man’s Reckoning With Systems That Were Built For Him. If you haven’t read the first part, you may want to give it a read before continuing.

An Observation from the Pew: Status Anxiety at Church

I was sitting in church one Sunday with my journal and wrote the following: 

“Do bishops feel audited or closely observed when the presiding Stake Presidency attends? The Bishop said their speakers didn’t work out today, so he’s stepping in, and commented on being a bit nervous…..Why is this a thing? Sure, speaking can cause anxiousness for many, including me. But for a bishop that’s been there for a few years already, I have to wonder why our system elicits an organizational need to impress the boss and yearn for advancement. Yet, women in leadership positions can’t be on the stand? Only the ward organist.”

This seems messed up to me. I am open to other interpretations, but to me, this illustrates how male leadership often breeds performance anxiety, competition, and hierarchical approval-seeking. I once had a mission companion tell me he was going to be a General Authority someday. Not out of a desire to love and serve God’s children, but out of prestige and status fantasies.

Now, I cannot agree with patriarchy enlisting this attitude. In my opinion, this engenders narcissistic and abusive tendencies. Especially when coupled with a solidly conformist and generally accepted people-pleasing form of behavior in our culture. This power differential creates prime, fertile ground for exploitation.

The Invisible Half: Women’s Absence From Leadership

While some men may be distracted by hierarchical games of impressing the boss and fulfilling duties, the systemic exclusion of women from visibility and decision-making continues. Take your pick on how:

Leadership inequality, limited voice in ward councils (opinions/advisory versus ultimate authority), priesthood exclusion, pressures to marry instead of becoming educated, modesty policing and shaming, handling of abuse and confidentiality (leaders lacking proper training or encouraging forgiveness over protection), all-male disciplinary councils, theological teachings on polygamy and the resulting impact on women’s sense of worth and equality, and enormous amounts of unpaid labor and service, often without more than a “thank you” (but it’s a BIG deal if men organize the same activity).  

Broadening the Lens — Racism and Patriarchy Are Intertwined

Not Just About Gender: Systems of Power Overlap

The more I learn about patriarchy, the more I realize it’s not the only system hurting all of us. Racism, too, is baked into the structures we live in (see Blacks and the Priesthood topic). Systems of power don’t exist in isolation — they overlap, reinforce, and multiply harm. 

Learning about the stages of racial identity development — like Cross’s Nigrescence model for Black identity and Helm’s model for White identity — gives me a glimpse into what it might feel like to wake up inside a system that was never built for me (see also Dear Mormon Man, an essay by Amy McPhie Allebest, 2016). It made me realize: unlearning is lifelong work. While I can’t fully know the Black experience, or the Women in patriarchy experience, I can learn from the stages of identity development and act accordingly.

Building Anti-racist, Anti-patriarchal Identities

I am learning that developing both a non-racist and anti-racist white identity parallels my growing rejection of unhealthy masculinity. I believe that both forms of self-work link and are essential for collective healing. In addition, I can see how both harm society, peel back faulty and harmful messages I’ve adopted in my life, and replace them with upgraded, healthier beliefs and values that drive toward love, kindness, equality, and harmony. Toward the way Christ lived.

To reflect on my progress, I offer a gentle self-assessment of my current status. Today, I think I live somewhere between introspection and committed action. I work on myself internally — questioning old assumptions, challenging inherited biases — but I know true change requires more. It requires stepping out of comfort and into solidarity, even when it’s messy and scary.

What Could Healthier Masculinity (and Humanity) Look Like?

Permission to Feel, Permission to Be

Imagine a masculinity free from rigid rules: emotional permission and literacy, collaborative leadership, and authenticity. This would literally save lives, including those of men. This does not have to mean a Male completely changes or gives up all that they know. There is both. There is nuance. 

Here’s another parallel, and I’ll try to be careful with this one, given the current state of affairs in the US. In psychological studies of people who legally move to a new country, for whatever reason (war, famine, catastrophe, a better life, religious freedom, etc), those who completely reject or completely accept the values of the host culture appear to experience greater stress than those who partially accept them. Researchers have concluded that a bicultural orientation (i.e., maintaining some components of the native culture/identity while incorporating practices and beliefs of the host culture) may be the “healthiest” resolution for acculturation; those with bicultural values can accept and negotiate aspects of both cultures. 

Thus, rather than swinging from one extreme to the other, finding middle ground, or the middle way, is most healthy. What qualities and activities do you wish to explore, regardless of what society thinks or says? What barriers do you want to break? And what changes can you implement to solve problems created by a patriarchal structure?

Building Something Better — Together

We are on the same team. Collaboration and synergy will always be more powerful and effective approaches in the long term. Collective liberation involves bringing together all of our wisdom, creativity, talents, experiences, perspectives, and passions as men and women so that we can freely benefit the whole. When we dismantle unhealthy systems, we restore optimal function.

Conclusion

“I used to think the system worked for me. Now I see that true strength — true flourishing — comes from breaking free of it.”

I invite you to reflect on your own beliefs, values, and experiences with gender roles and patriarchy. And what change could look like for you, your family, your community, and for society. Seek support in the process, and reap the fruit of your labors. I wish you well!

For those interested in a more specific and action-oriented approach, men seeking to follow a process of development may find this:

Seven‐Step Process of Male Non-Patriarchal Identity Development

Similar to the model described in part 1, this model aids men in understanding and exploring themselves. And thinking about their implications for working with women. The seven phases include:

• Naiveté phase, 
• Conformity phase, 
• Dissonance phase, 
• Resistance and Immersion phase, 
• Introspective phase, 
• Integrative awareness phase, 
• Commitment to anti-patriarchal action phase.
  

Men go through a development process just like other groups and cultures. Once you can understand where you are developmentally, you can be more intentional about moving along the process.

Phase Descriptions:

Naiveté phase

This brief phase is relatively neutral concerning gender differences and is marked by a naive, child-like curiosity (indeed, typically young children/toddlers reside in this stage), innocence, and openness regarding gender differences. Gradually, the bombardment of societal and religious messages, mass media, and caregivers or others with influence in his life, positive meanings become conditioned and attached to his gender group, while negative messaging is applied to women. This shapes a general sense of the superiority of Maleness and the inferiority of women.

Conformity phase

Minimal awareness of, and limited accurate knowledge of gender pervades, while strong universal beliefs in societal norms are held. However, stereotypes supply the main source of information. They contribute to the belief (consciously or unconsciously) that men are more capable or superior. This exists in religious superiority as well (LDS faith is superior to all others because we have “the most truth”). However, contradictory attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors characterize this phase of denial and compartmentalization, as one may say or think they exhibit no gender bias, yet justify marginalizing women through, often subtle, words and deeds.

Denial that differences matter leads to blindness in seeing and accepting gender assumptions, biases, and inequalities that impact perceptions and behaviors, and they operate as if everyone shares this view. Statements such as “we are all equal” or “women equally share” aspects of decision-making (in the home or church), for example, are contradictory and minimize historical injustice in women’s rights and inequity in leadership opportunities, decision-making, voice, and participation.

This denial of differences and discrimination shifts the focus of the problem to marginalized women. If only they would fall in line and accept their defined roles, we would have nothing to talk about.

Dissonance phase

Confrontation with experiences or information proving inconsistent with previously-held beliefs, forces the male to deal with the denial and conflicting views. Contradictory behavior unreflective of Christ’s love of others is presented against newly recognized values.

For example, a close, personal experience could involve a loving Bishop only speaking directly with a male priesthood holder in a home about setting up temple recommend interviews, wholly oblivious to the female sitting there and her potentially sacred process in preparing for temple attendance. This may be recognized by a male spouse as conflicting, a cause for concern, previously unrecognized. Or, a male is presented with the doctrinal idea that one day he will be sealed as one of many husbands to his wife (see Dear Mormon Man, an essay by Amy McPhie Allebest, 2016).

This dissonance elicits discomfort, often avoided for that reason (brains avoid pain and seek comfort). Unpleasant feelings such as anger, guilt, shame, and depression may ensue, with rationalization for one’s inactive, complicit involvement becoming a tempting antidote. The question then becomes, do I retreat to the confines of comfort? Or do I progress toward clarity, insight, peace, and resolution (resistance and immersion stage)? 

Regression or progression is dependent upon the amount of positive support versus negativity and fear, as a change in one’s stance may create ostracism from friends, peers, family members, and other like-minded patriarchs. Either decision is accompanied by discomfort, whether dealing with the shame associated with a conflictual and complicit role in harmful patriarchy (even simply being afraid to speak out or “powerless” to create change) or the anxiety around taking an egalitarian position that other brothers may label as “extreme feminist”.

Resistance and immersion phase

Eve’s eyes of understanding were opened, so she gave to Adam. Once the male realizes what patriarchy is and does to all of society, he cannot unsee it. There is no going back. He will now challenge and question his own, personal patriarchal views and behaviors, and see them everywhere he goes.

This increased awareness may be seen in church organization, leadership interactions, and at every level of society, and is the major feature of this phase. His eyes of understanding will recognize when women are being treated as second-class citizens, how they have been oppressed, how the media portrays stereotypes, and how being male grants advantages in the church system and beyond.

This may create anger at personal and systemic levels. Guilt for being a part of the system, and can lead to a form of gender-hatred or negativity about being male during this phase. This may be internal or may become projected onto other males he associates with. Next, he may take on a protector role to prevent further abuse or discrimination. Or he may, at times, over-identify with groups of women, actually wanting to identify with women and escape his Maleness. However, these attempts will be rejected by women, as they are not appreciated as a productive solution, and the male will either return to conformity, dissonance, or onward to the introspective phase.

Introspective phase

As the pendulum from one extreme (unconditional acceptance of patriarchy) to the other extreme (rejection of being Male) begins to find its center, we mark this phase by looking inward. He adopts a contemplative, introspective approach, and a reconstruction of what it means to be Male. He also accepts that he has participated in and benefited from the oppression. And one-down relationship women have experienced around him, as have men throughout human history.

This, however, does not require adoption of guilt or shame, but rather a new definition or identity that one can consider and explore within the expanse of Maleness as an individual and gender group, accepting qualities of benefit and rejecting harmful messages and behaviors. “What does it mean to be Male?” may be followed by creative and hopeful concepts. Or it may involve feelings of confusion, isolation, and loss as he feels stuck in the middle. In limbo, he is unable to fully understand the experiences of women living in a system set up with unequal power dynamics, yet disconnected from patriarchal-leaning males.

As the dissonance phase represents a shift in perspective, so, too, does the transition from the introspective phase to the integrative awareness phase. This requires continued questioning, expansive searching, observing, and a willingness to engage in dialogue and interaction with other groups.

Integrative awareness phase

This phase comprises a more fully developed sense of the Male self, awareness of institutional and social patriarchal influences, an appreciation of female equality and diverse views, and an increasing motivation to change the patriarchal system and move toward an egalitarian structure. An internalized sense of strength and security develops upon a foundation of a non-patriarchal male identity, with a desire to genuinely and authentically connect groups through understanding and compassion. This compassion, and resulting passion, provide a shield and purpose to withstand backlash and opposition in a new minority as an aware Male.

Commitment to anti-patriarchal action phase

As stated in the phase title, social and institutional anti-patriarchal action becomes the outcome of behaviors and commitments at this point. Knowing about the harmful effects of patriarchy and reforming a Male identity alone are not enough. And doing nothing to alter or improve the power differential reflects additional male privilege. In effect, if you know better as a male, do better as a male.

This may look like sharing information with family, friends, and others, directly opposing degrading jokes or language about women, and supporting women in their efforts to elicit change. One may experience strong pushback from family, friends, and society due to a misunderstanding of their worldview change. This may threaten the commitment to remain in this space, and it may be lonely. However, over time and with persistence, increased resilience and resistance to conformity of patriarchal norms will build. He will find alliances with those who see clearly, and progress will continue.