HFCL TUTORIAL EX Patriarchy 5

PATRIARCHY (5 of 5)

AN IDEOLOGY ABOUT OTHER IDEOLOGIES ITSELF BECOMES A STRUCTURE TO WHICH PEOPLE CAN CLING TO INTERPRET SO IT SCREENS OUT AND SIMPLIFIES THE POSSIBLE PATTERNS OF RESPONSE

In the United States today there are a large number of households which consist of a mother and one or more of her children. As one might easitly imagine, it is not unususal for these households to have difficulty making ends meet.

However, to the members of a patriarchical ideology, the very idea of a woman as head of household seems strange. So when people who are influenced by patriarchy, and who have not experienced the "single-mother" livlihood or who have not studied the details of the situation, use terms such as, "welfare mothers" or "breakdown in family values," they generate a stereotype.

This stereotype reinforces the patriarchical ideology of the believers, and at the same time allows them to respond to a fairly complex socio-economic problem by recasting it in very simple terms.