The many ways in which patriarchy succeeds in silencing women’s voices

I knew the furore would not last long. Just a month after the much-publicised gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi, the mainstream Indian media has moved on to other “bigger stories”, such as the rising tensions between India and Pakistan.

It is hardly surprising. Every time women’s issues gain prominence, men conspire to cut them down to size.

There are many ways to shut women up. You can ignore them – pretend they don’t exist. You can give them a blackout in the media. You can use religion as an excuse to oppress them. You can lock them out of leadership positions.

But if you are really clever, you can make them feel that they are powerful but ensure that they are not in control of anything, not even their own bodies.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to commodify them – give them monetary value. Women’s worth is thus measured by their physical beauty – a beauty that must be preserved through expensive cosmetics and the latest fashion.

Female stars are then recruited to endorse these products, further reinforcing the idea that women’s worth is measured by their looks. Their value is based, not so much on their acting or singing talent, but on the quality and number of brands they are contracted to endorse.

It is a trend that has been evident since the mid-1980s, when a dying international women’s movement resulted in what is now known as “post-feminism” – often described as a backlash against the feminism of the 1960s and 1970s, whose leading voices included feminists such as Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Madhu Kishwar and Nawal el Saadawi.

The heyday of the feminist movement gave rise to progressive new forms of creativity and expression. The mainstream media covered “women’s issues” in a more sympathetic fashion and had a more woman-friendly news agenda. Films, including Indian cinema, had strong female characters, and tackled issues affecting women in a mature fashion.

But that all changed in the 1980s when “Reaganomics” and Margaret Thatcher’s hardline capitalist policies sought to suppress the voices of all those who threatened the status quo, from labour unions to women’s movements.

This period saw a dramatic rise in privatisation of public corporations and the emasculation of unions. Women, being half the world’s population, also had to be subdued, and what better way than by convincing them that their raison d’etre was to please men?

For instance, since the 1990s, there has been a significant change in the way women are portrayed in films. This is particularly evident in Bollywood where leading female actors are valued not so much for their acting skills, but their ability to dance provocatively in the skimpiest outfits.

Female roles tend to be over-sexualised. Female characters have no thoughts or beliefs other than to find a man to marry or fall in love with. This has give rise to TV serials such as Sex and the City, which is portrayed as a series celebrating women’s liberation, but which is quintessentially post-feminist in that all the female characters spend a large proportion of their time trying to find or please men.

Meanwhile, crimes against women continue unabated. The trafficking of women and girls has reached epidemic proportions around the world. Rape and domestic violence has escalated in countries such as India, Kenya and South Africa.

Women still earn less than men all over the world, and few make it to the top in both the public and private sectors. On the contrary, the gains made by women in the 1960s and 1970s are rapidly being eroded.

Here in Kenya, there was a robust women’s movement in the 1990s when women such as the late environmentalist Wangari Maathai represented the voice of the voiceless. Maathai felt the full wrath of the State but she did manage to change the way women perceived their role in politics.

Since then, there have been more women in leadership positions in the country, but they are singing to a male tune. They have become more conservative and less interested in the plight of ordinary women. Patriarchy has won, once again.

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