Emad Sameer
Mr. A stood before the lifeless body of someone who had once steadied his world. The room trembled with grief. Voices cracked. Shoulders shook. The language of sorrow filled the air.
He felt it too — the surge rising within him, pressing against his chest, asking to be released.
He wanted to weep.
But something older than the moment tightened his throat. Something inherited. Something rehearsed across generations.
“Men must be strong.”
“Do not break.”
“Tears are not for you.”
And so he stood composed. His grief disciplined. His sorrow contained.
Around him, women cried openly. Their tears were permitted. His were not. Even emotion had been assigned its gender.
In that silent restraint lies the subtle architecture of patriarchy — not merely as male dominance, but as a script that distributes authority in public life and regulates vulnerability in private. It grants decision-making power disproportionately to men while burdening women with emotional labour. It often mistakes suppression for strength and obedience for virtue.
Its consequences are visible. Across societies, vital decisions — career, marriage and mobility — have frequently rested in male hands. In several conservative pockets of Kashmir, bright young women still negotiate ambition through the filters of social approval and matrimonial expectation. Globally, reports from UN Women and UNESCO continue to reveal disparities in leadership representation, participation in STEM fields, and the unequal burden of unpaid care work.
Even in conflict zones, the consequences of power politics are rarely gender-neutral. The devastation of the Russia–Ukraine war and the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip have drawn repeated concern from UNICEF, particularly regarding displacement, disrupted education and the vulnerability of women and children. Political cultures that valorize dominance and aggression often leave those furthest from authority to bear the heaviest cost.
Feminism emerged as a moral interruption to such imbalance. It insisted that dignity cannot be conditional, that consent must replace compulsion, and that women are equal moral agents rather than secondary participants in society. It humanized workplaces, strengthened legal safeguards against domestic violence, expanded educational access, and demanded accountability from inherited hierarchies.
Yet philosophical reflection requires balance.
If patriarchy errs by sanctifying hierarchy, certain contemporary expressions of feminism risk sanctifying autonomy without adequate engagement with shared obligation. When every institution — marriage, family and community — is viewed solely through the lens of oppression, we risk overlooking their potential as sites of care, stability and moral formation. The goal cannot be the inversion of dominance; it must be the correction of injustice.
History itself unsettles simplistic binaries.
After the passing of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), questions of law and social conduct sought resolution at the doors of knowledge — and often those doors opened into the homes of women.
Aisha bint Abi Bakr emerged as a towering juristic authority, consulted by leading companions whose gender did not entitle them to superiority over her scholarship. Her knowledge — not her sex — determined her stature.
Likewise, Umar ibn al-Khattab entrusted administrative responsibility to Al-Shifa bint Abdullah, demonstrating that competence, wherever it resides, must be empowered.
If a seventh-century society, layered with its own cultural complexities, could recognise expertise over masculinity, what restrains us in the twenty-first century?
In matters as delicate as dispensing medicine to a child, should authority arise from patriarchal reflex or professional knowledge? If the mother holds medical training and the father does not, reason itself demands that science — not social conditioning — guide the decision. To privilege gender over expertise is not tradition; it is intellectual negligence.
The debate, then, is not patriarchy versus feminism as rival camps.
It is ignorance versus merit.
Domination versus dignity.
Rigidity versus humane balance.
A constructive society is not built by entrenching hierarchies nor by dissolving all structure. It is built by allowing calibre to flow where it rightfully belongs — where authority is earned through discipline, where freedom is tempered by responsibility, and where knowledge quietly guides our decisions.
A humane society cannot deny tears to men and choices to women. It cannot confuse suppression with strength, nor mistake atomization for liberation. Justice requires correction — but correction must be mutual.
Let this day be not merely a celebration or a critique, but a moment of introspection. A moment to ask whether our structures truly cultivate dignity for all. A moment to humanize power, and to discipline freedom with responsibility.
For only when authority becomes accountable and autonomy becomes relational can a balanced society begin, gently and deliberately, to see the light of day.
(The author holds a Master’s degree in Political Science and can be reached at:
