Tali Pocket | December 14, 2003
An excerpt from the Action-Medical listserv:
"I am rogue because I no more accept a matriarchy than a patriarchy."
This statement is very disturbing to me.
It is an alarming statement because of the context that it is made in, because of the power dynamic it suggests, because of the lack of consciousness around what Patriarchy is and what Matriarchy is, because of the power that is taken in saying it, because of the power that is ignored in saying it, and because it discredits the strength of women in this movement.
We live in a patriarchal society, and our movement is dominated by men. In the context of this patriarchal society, this alleged matriarchy is being defined by that patriarchy, and thus only envisioned as a mirror of the way that there is patriarchy today. The idea that matriarchy would be the same sort of violence and oppression only perpetrated by women is not an uncontested idea. There are many people who believe that a matriarchy would have an entirely different power structure than a patriarchy, that women have the ability to have power with instead of power over, and there is much history to support this. However, right now, I don't intend to spend more time discussing this particular facet of the issue, for the sake of space, but mostly because I don't really believe that this is an issue of matriarchy vs. patriarchy. I think this is an issue of powerful women being a threat to the patriarchy in our society and our movement. Powerful women are not the same as powerful men within a patriarchal society.
Patriarchy does not share power nor does it give up power. Our movements and Action-Medical in particular are so far from being a matriarchy that I can't even envision what they would look like if there wasn't patriarchy, let alone another sort of a structure. Since I spend a lot of my time trying to keep myself safe from men, not only do I not have time to plot the overthrowing of men, but the alliances I build with women have everything to do with safety in numbers and little to do with these suggested women-attempted macho power grabs. I live in a world where I am constantly threatened with sexual violence because I am a perceived woman. I live in a world where all of my decisions are influenced by my need to survive patriarchal violence. And I work with a movement, with the medics, where I find no sanctity from that threat or from that violence, nor do I find an environment that fosters solidarity with those working to survive and end this violence.
Stating that one does not accept a matriarchy suggests that one exists, and suggests that it is oppressive. Seeing as I haven't ever experienced a matriarchy in my life nor heard whisper of one in my recent ancestry, I must assume that "matriarchy" is referring to women in roles of power. Since we are not talking about specific women, we can't talk about specific behavior that may or may not be oppressive. So I must assume that the issue is not that these women in roles of power are being oppressive, but that they are threatening the men who have power, and guess what, within a patriarchal society all men have power, no matter how much they get off on feminism.
As I think I'm probably making fairly evident, this statement is not acceptable to me. If this is what being a rogue medic is about, than count me out. I want to fight the patriarchy that perpetrates the violence that everyone on this planet is living through (or dying from). I want to work with people who are interested in finding strength, sharing power and supporting each other. I want to work with men who are interested in accountability for their actions and devoted to the life long path of challenging their socialization in violence and the fetishization of power over others.
Not only is this sort of a statement hugely ignorant to the way patriarchy oppresses people and the history and vision of matriarchy, but it sets up an environment where women cannot be powerful or even be loud or even be heard without then being accused of attempting a man-envisioned-matriarchy.
And as to the statement about not accepting patriarchy, I'm curious as to how you all and anyone else who agrees with this definition of "rogue" (and let me say, the dictionary definitions of this word are very interesting), are not accepting patriarchy in your lives, in the medic communities, and in the world?
Fight the Power. Do No Harm.
1) Bush at War, by Bob Woodward, Simon & Schuster, 2002.
2) http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
3) The Neoconservative Persuasion, by Irving Kristol, Weekly Standard, August 25, 2003.
4) http://newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
5) We'll Win This War, by Michael A. Ledeen, The American Enterprise Online.
6) The Future of War and the American Military, by Stephen P. Rosen, Harvard Magazine, May-June 2002, vol 104, no 5.
7) Michael A. Ledeen, quoted by Jonah Goldberg in Baghdad Delenda Est, Part Two, National Review, April 23, 2002.
8) Beware of Bolton, by Ian Williams, May 30, 2002.
9) America's Imperial Ambition, by John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs, 2002.
10) Should We Evict the UN? by Patrick Buchanan, New York Post, December 27, 1997, page 15.
11) Washington Post, January 31, 2003.
12) The Guardian, March 21, 2003.
13) Why America Still Needs the United Nations, by Shashi Tharoor, Foreign Affairs, Sept/Oct 2003
14) The End of the American Era: US Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century, by Charles A. Kupchan, Knopf, October 29, 2002.
15) The Real Crisis Over the Atlantic, by Dominique Moisi, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2001.
16) Propaganda Isn't the Way: Soft Power, by Joseph S. Nye Jr., The International Herald Tribune, January 10, 2003.
17) Wolfowitz Stands Fast Amid the Antiwarriors, by Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, September 22, 2003.
18) Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, June 2003.
19) The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, The White House, September 17, 2002.
20) But What's the Legal Case for Preemption? by Bruce Ackerman, Washington Post, August 18, 2002.
21) The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, The White House, September 17, 2002.
22) Law unto Themselves, by Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, March 14, 2003.
23) UN Resolution 1441, The Security Council, November 8, 2002.
24) Selective Intelligence, by Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, May 5, 2003.
25) The Economist, October 4, 2003.
26) A deafening silence, by Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz, October 6, 2002.
27) Bush's Unreliable Intelligence, by David Corn, The Nation, November 12, 2003.
28) Rice: Iraq trained al Qaeda in chemical weapons, CNN, September 26, 2002.
29) President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat, by George W. Bush, Cincinnati, October 7, 2002.
30) Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 Attacks, Washington Post Poll, September 6, 2003.
31) We're Taking Him Out, CNN, May 6, 2002.
32) May 9, 2003 interview of Paul Wolfowitz by Sam Tannenbaus, published in Vanity Fair, July 2003.
33) Iraq Said to Have Tried to Reach Last-Minute Deal to Avert War, by James Risen, The New York Times, November 6, 2003. Original article.
34) Stumbling into War, by James P. Rubin, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2003.
35) Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History, by George Crile, Atlantic Monthly Press, April 2003.
36) Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban, by Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times, May 22, 2001.
37) Iraqi Democracy Is a Pipe Dream, by Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, October 19, 2002.
38) UN Resolution 1441, The Security Council, November 8, 2002.
39) Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, July 7, 1991.
40) A War for Oil?, by Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, January 5, 2003.
41) US Diplomatic and Commercial Relationships with Iraq, 1980 - 2 August 1990.
42) US Support for Iraq in the 1980s, Center for Cooperative Research.
43) The Ghosts of 1991, by Peter W. Galbraith, Washington Post, Saturday, April 12, 2003.
44) Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, June 2003.
45) Making of a Monster: How the US Helped Build Iraq's War Machine, by William P. Hoar, The New American, September 1992.
46) A Hard Look at Iraq Sanctions, by David Cortright, The Nation, December 3, 2001.
47) Iraq surveys show 'humanitarian emergency, Unicef Information Newsline, August 12, 1999.
48) Columbia News Video, by Prof. Richard Garfield, March 03, 2000.
49) Cool War, by Joy Gordon, Harper's Magazine, November 2002.
50) Squeezed to death, by John Pilger The Guardian, Saturday March 4, 2000.
51) Cool War, by Joy Gordon, Harper's Magazine, November 2002.
52) Iraq 'smart sanctions' derailed by Russia, by Anton La Guardia, telegraph.co.uk, April 7, 2001.
53) Pew's Global Attitudes Project, June 2003.
54) Andrew Kohut's Senate Testimony, February 27, 2003.
55) Jihad: Expansion et declin de l'Islamisme, by Gilles Kepel, Gallimard, 2003.
56) Terror and Liberalism, by Paul Berman, Norton, 2003.
57) Jerry Falwell, September 13, 2001.
58) General William Boykin, 2002-2003.
59) State of the Union Address to Congress, by President Carter, January 21, 1980.
60) Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, May 4, 2003.
61) Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, by Niall Ferguson, Basic Books, 2003. Critics of US policy are racist, says Rice, by David Rennie, telegraph.co.uk, September 8, 2003.
62) Iraqi Democracy Is a Pipe Dream, by Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, October 19, 2002.
63) Critics of US policy are racist, says Rice, by David Rennie, telegraph.co.uk, September 8, 2003.
64) A World Transformed, by Brent Scowcroft and George H. W. Bush, Knopf, September 1998.