Patriarchy Today?

After reading Allan Johnson's Patriarchy, I found his argument of there being a system of male dominance true only to a certain extent. It is true that in the past, almost every aspect of leadership, politics, business, and even the social lives of the public it was common to find only men as the people in charge. Men and women were strictly placed and bounded by the limits of the gender roles defined only for their specific sex. Men were expected to take on the roles of decision making, defenses, business, and the maintenance and development of technology. These roles were considered to be the "masculine" like jobs; a job which would not be lady-like of a women to do. Women on the other hand, took on the other jobs, which made up nursing, teaching, cleaning, cooking, and house chores.

Today, we obviously see that women have come along way and made many strides to gain rights and acceptance into the many fields and professions that they were once denied and discouraged from pursuing. Women now hold positions as political leaders, soldiers and law enforcement, CEOs, doctors, and engineers. Women have proven that they are indeed capable of performing the jobs that men can do. Of course they maybe only few in some profession, however it is surely progress compared to before when they were no women in those careers. Even men have come to be more open to allowing women to take on leadership and masculine jobs. Men also made attempts to perform some of the roles that were only restricted to women. As we discussed before, this is the switching of gender roles as we see increasingly in today's society. There is still a patriarchy, however it is slowly but surely diminishing as our society becomes more liberal to change and equality between the roles of men and women.

- Gabriel Muñoz