Response to Johnson

In Patriarchy the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us, Johnson discusses the case he testified for regarding violence against women.  According to Johnson, there are three main points to consider when dealing with violence against women: violence against women is more often than not carried out by men; violence against women is carried out in a patriarchal male-dominated society; and lastly, these two considerations need to be looked at together in order to understand how, “the patriarchal character of the society contributed to the patterns of violence by members of the gender-dominant group against members of the gender-subordinate group.”  In a way, Johnson’s case is relatively straight forward and not all that impressive.  However, I think that the responses to Johnson’s case are particularly interesting because they clearly demonstrate how we are all participating in a system of patriarchy that cannot be changed on the individual level.  

When Johnson recommended that citizens of the U.S. start acknowledging the widespread violence against women in our patriarchal society, many men responded by saying that men would be angered by such a statement because it wrongly accuses all men of participating in sexual violence against women.  I think such responses are the biggest challenge when it comes to changing the patriarchal system because for the most part, people tend to think on the individual level and have trouble seeing their connection to violence against women if they are not directly a part of it.  Johnson goes on to discuss violence against women can only start to be combated if everyone who is a part of the patriarchal system positively participates, even if individuals are not rapists or victims of rape themselves.  We are all part of a patriarchal society that promotes structures of power, privilege, and oppression.  Therefore, it is not fair to let leave the problem solving of the structures only to the perpetrators or victims.  

The biggest takeaway that I got from this reading is that, as Johnson puts it,  “when people step off the path of least resistance, they have the potential to not simply change other people, but to alter the way the system itself happens.”  If we want to change the patriarchal system we live in, change has to come from a collective effort that does not just resort to the “paths of least resistance”.  I think that that it is important to think about this quote not only in relation to our patriarchal system and violence against women, but also in relation to every other system in our society that is problematic or potentially dangerous.  If we start thinking about our participation in systems and change in the way that Johnson understands it, it is possible to make great impacts on the network of systems that make up our society.