No, it is not individual men and their delusions of grandeur who are solely responsible for wars, currently Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Who terrify the world. Who fuel the climate crisis and refuse to make the necessary changes. Who consider profit for the few more important than social and gender justice. It is the system of patriarchy, represented by individual power-obsessed men, continuously reproduced by society, by men and women, that is destroying the foundations of life by holding on to power and profit.
The fixation on masculinity places claims to power, profit, and economic growth at the center of thought and action. Care, the concern, caring and providing for people and the environment, is excluded. Patriarchy is blind to care work. Instead, the principle of “après moi, le déluge” dominates. This then results in war and climate change, in the worst case the destruction of democracies as well as the destruction of natural habitats and resource scarcity. Overall, this blindness to forethought and care makes life on this planet increasingly difficult, if not impossible.
These patriarchal structures are also produced by “doing gender”, by role-conforming behavior with which we demonstrate to ourselves and others which gender we feel we belong to. Therefore, the mere demand “more women in leadership positions” is not enough, even if it is justified from a justice perspective and can initiate steps towards a more just society. But we certainly need women to question the violent global systems of power, we need feminist perspectives at the negotiating tables when it comes to peace, security and climate protection.
What we need most urgently is a move away from patriarchy, a transformation to a way of thinking, seeing and navigating that places care at the center and thus applies caring and providing for people, society and the environment as the standard for all decisions.
Berlin, 8 March 2022