Anatomy of Female Power

by Chinweizu

  The way a twig is bent, that way the tree will grow.

  - An ancient saying.

  Everyday of a man's life, he is subject to the dictates of womb. Kitchen and cradle. The first set to rule him belongs to his mother; the second belongs to his wife. The first rules him in his vulnerable infancy; the second in his ambitious adulthood. His bride exploits his nostalgia for his mother's set, and manipulates his craving for his future wife's. Thus it is that mother, bride and wife control a man everyday of his life by playing on his changing needs for womb, kitchen and cradle.

  The power of the womb is great. It holds the mightiest of men in thrall. Be he a Caesar or a Croesus, a Rameses or a Genghis Khan, a womb will bring him to his knees when he seeks access to it. Consider any man and any woman when they set out to reproduce themselves. She needs his sperm; he needs her egg; without the one, the other cannot procreate. At the level of their complementary biological donations to the child, neither has the whiphand over the other. A fair and uncoerced collaboration is possible.

  Enter the womb - that factory where egg and sperm, having combined, grow till the foetus is ready to be born. Mas, for the man, that indispensable factory belongs to the woman and the woman alone. {17} Woman's monopoly of the womb loads the mating encounter in her favour. It reduces the man to a supplicant. Since he is driven to survive through his progeny, he will pay any price to be allowed the use of a womb. He has little recourse. Should he seize her factory against her will, by subterfuge or by force, she can thwart him by aborting the foetus, or by smothering the child at birth. It is therefore in his interest to yield to her terms, whatever they may be. If he must, he will conquer the whole world and lay it at a woman's feet in order to be allowed to use her womb. Confronted with her monopoly over the womb, the man is obliged to be her slave if that is the price she demands; and she does.

  A woman knows that she has the monopolist's whiphand over her suitor; and she knows how to crack the whip and bow his head. Contemplate this rebuke, from an Igbo maiden's song, addressed to a suitor:

  "Have you come, empty-handed, to marry me?" Also consider the scorn in this rejection of her poor suitor by a Bashi girl from Zaire:

  'You want to marry me, but what can you give me? A nice field?'.

  'No, I have only a house.'

  'What? You have nothing but a house? How would we live? Go to Bukavu; there you can earn plenty of money. You can buy food and other things.'

  'No, I won't go. I don't know the people there. I have always lived here, and I know the people and want to stay here.'

  'You are a stupid man. You want to marry me but you have nothing. If you don't go to Bukavu and earn money to buy me things then I won't marry you.'18

  In anticipation of the bride's demands, and of her monopolist's veto powers, a man is trained to seek adventure and win the world; by laying the booty at her feet, he can avoid her withering scorn and rejection.

  Of course, man's situation is not as terrible as that of the male mantis which is obliged to surrender his life when he mates; but it is close enough: man is obliged to surrender his liberty and his earnings when he mates.

  From puberty onwards, when procreative hormones take possession of him, the quest for a fruitful womb dominates the male's behaviour. Its consequences have been known to alter the settled course of history. {18}

  In the case of England's Henry VIII, his quest for a womb that would yield him a male heir caused him to seek annulment of his first marriage so he could marry some other woman. When the Pope denied him his wish, Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome, set up the Church of England with himself as its head, and got his desire. When his second wife, Anne Boleyn, proved unable to bear him a male heir, he chopped off her head, and married his third wife.

  So intense is the male craving for a fruitful womb that, after a man has found one, he feels obliged to secure it against all other users. This has led many a husband to kill a "cheating" wife, or to kill her lover, and get himself hanged for his trouble. The Trojan War is perhaps the most notorious example of what men will do to maintain exclusive rights in a womb. Menelaus, king of Sparta, made war on Paris, a prince of Troy, for carrying off Helen, Menelaus's wife. By the time he got her back, Troy had been razed to the ground, and the flower of the manhood of the Eastern Mediterranean lands had perished.

  Yes indeed! A woman with a fruitful womb is most precious to a man; contrariwise, a woman without a fruitful womb is of scant value to a procreative man, and holds little power over him.

  O womb, your power is great! You are the biological foundation, the taproot of female power. As the goal net into which a man must shoot if he is to procreate, you are that part of a woman for which he will pay almost any price. And because you are priceless to him, you hold untold power over him, like a fabulous gold seam which rules a prospector's life.

  The power of the kitchen is also great, for it is the power over hunger. Hunger can break the hardest will; can reduce the headstrong man to whimpering obedience; can scatter a mighty army without wasting even a bullet. Military commanders use hunger against besieged cities; torturers use it; wives use it. Since the power of hunger is terrible, whatever holds power over hunger is great indeed. And the kitchen holds power over hunger. It holds the power to sate as well as the power to starve; and it wields that power every day. As a Yoruba saying has it: "I ate yesterday does not interest hunger"; or as the ancient Egyptians said: "Yesterday's drunkenness does not quench today's thirst."19

  The kitchen is the daily operations centre of female power. By feeding him his choice meals, or by not serving him any meal at all, the woman who is the commandant of his kitchen can manipulate any man. Woe unto him who depends entirely on his wife for his meals: a galley {19} slave's life would be paradise in his sight. Should he offend her, or should he not knuckle fast enough to her whims, he will feel the rats of hunger gnaw through his empty stomach; and should he complain about whatever scraps and bones she eventually sets before him, he shall find himself eating a dessert of heart-wounding words. O kitchen, your power is great; and woman, who rules the kitchen, is therefore powerful indeed.

  The power of the cradle is also great; for the way the twig is bent, that way the tree will grow. The cradle is the boot camp where every raw recruit is trained for induction into the human community, where basic habits are ingrained. Habits are more powerful than commands; for commands can only work where there already is a habit of obedience: the power of the cradle's commandant can, therefore, never be overestimated.

  Mothers use their cradle power in the strategic interest of female power. In the nursery, they channel boys towards certain kinds of behaviour, and guide them away from others. The boy-child is taught to disdain cooking, child caring and housekeeping; but the girl-child is encouraged to learn them. A boy showing keen interest in such skills is branded a "sissy", or mocked as unmanly or effeminate. The boy-child is also taught to revere and obey mother, and to hunger for her smile and approval. These lessons mark him for life. His disdain for childrearing skills will ensure that, when he grows up, he will abandon the nursery to his wife, so she can dominate it and shape the next generation to suit women's interest. His disdain for cooking will put his stomach into the hands of whatever woman cooks for him in adult life. His reverence for his mother, and his habit of obeying her, prepare him to revere and obey any woman, such as his future wife, whom he makes into his mother-surrogate.

  O cradle, you power is great! By conditioning a boy-child's ego, you lay the foundations upon which female power will build its structures over him.

  The womb's basic power, the cradle's strategic power, the kitchen's tactical power; to hold any one of these is to have great power; to hold all three is indeed to have overwhelming power. Somehow, women hold all three. God or evolution (take your choice of explanation) gave the womb to woman. But, as feminists quite rightly point out, there is no reason, intrinsic to child rearing or to cooking, why the cradle or the kitchen
should be under woman's control. One must therefore marvel {20} at how woman took control of them. In quietly annexing the cradle, and in seizing control of the kitchen during the original division of labour between the genders (alias the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden!), woman pulled off the most consequential coup in human history. That coup guaranteed that, however mighty a man may become, he will submit to be ruled by woman. With these three pillars of power in her domain, a man and all his possessions, tangible and intangible, are woman's to dispose of.

  In the light of the above, we must ask: If men are so powerful, how come they allow women to keep control of the kitchen and the cradle? Could it simply be that men are not as clever as women, and so have failed to realize that whoever rules the womb and the kitchen and the cradle rules the world? Could it be that, even if men should understand the situation, they would not dare to overthrow female power? Could it be that the courage and skill needed to overthrow female power would be greater than that which went to make all the political revolutions in all of history? Could it be that, compared to a revolution against female power, the American, French, Russian, Chinese and other revolutions would look like child's play?

  Even if men found the enlightenment and the courage to challenge female power, its dominion over them would not be easily ended. Woman's control of the womb is unassailable, and will remain so until such a time as cloning makes the womb unnecessary for procreation. So, if research into cloning is blocked, you can guess in whose interest it is done.

  Any movement to deprive women of their control of the kitchen can expect to be resisted, with all the methods, devious and direct, at the disposal of women. If in doubt about that, consider the following comment by a Nigerian woman columnist, Bunmi Fadase, after she had enjoyed a man’s cooking:

  As I licked the last drop (of gravy) off my fingers, I became a bit uncomfortable. What right do men have to infringe on territories most wives have held erring husbands with? ... So there you are girls! When next you are in the kitchen and hubby wants to know what and what you're putting in the stew pot, shut the lid firmly on the pot. Better still, wake up in the middle of the night to do your cooking.20 {21}

  In like manner, any movement to hand the cradle over to men will be resisted with everything women have got. Note this: even the most extreme of feminists do not go so far as to advocate that women abandon control of the cradle; if they did, other women would lynch them. They may insist that the man assist, but they would never abandon the cradle to him altogether. Feminists may demand crèches in workplaces, but the crèches are still to be run by women - as in the kibbutzim of Israel. The cradle business may be reorganized to accommodate women's new ambitions, but the reorganization will only be permitted to shift control from some women to some other women, but never to men.

  Why, despite all this, is there the illusion that a power as durable and ubiquitous as female power hardly exists? Why is there the illusion that power is an affair that belongs exclusively in the male sphere? These illusions are fostered by the contrasting characteristics of male and female power; by a male-centred view of what power is; and, paradoxically, by the very ubiquity and assured superiority of female power.

  Whereas male power is hard, aggressive and boastful female power is soft, passive and self-effacing. Whereas male power is like an irresistible force, female power is like an immovable object. Whereas male power acts like a storm, full of motion, sound and fury, female power is like the sun - steady, quiet and incontestable. Against resistance, male power barks, commands and pummels, whereas female power whispers, manipulates and erodes.

  Of women students of angling it has been said:

  They don't use brute strength, but rely instead on technique, which is what learning to cast properly is all about.21

  - Andrew Murray, fly-casting instructor.

  And as with angling for fish, so with angling for men. Of women rugby players, it has also been said:

  Women tend to emphasize skill rather than aggression, which makes for a better game.22

  - Keith Evans, coach of a women's rugby team.

  And as with rugby, so with other games of outmanoeuvring aggressive brutes. {22}

  Generally, then, whereas male power tends to be crude, confrontational and direct, female power tends to be subtle, manipulative, and indirect. Whereas aggressiveness is the hallmark of male power, manoeuvre is the hallmark of female power. And where man is the great physical aggressor, woman is the great psychological maneuverer.

  From a male-centred view of what power is, it is easy to be misled into thinking that a female form of power does not exist at all; and even when female power is recognized, it is easy to dismiss it as power of an inferior type, just because it is not hard, aggressive or boastful like the highly visible male form.

  But just as the sun, from an earthbound perspective, seems to move around the earth, whereas, in reality, it is the earth which moves around the sun, so too with female power when it is seen from the perspective of male power. And just as the air, though everywhere, is hardly noticed, so too with female power: its quiet ubiquity acts like a camouflage. Its vastly greater might is so well entrenched, in both biology and social arrangements, that it does not need to call attention to itself, and so goes largely unremarked. This all makes female power hard to see, hard to challenge, and even harder to overthrow. In contrast, male power, being the weaker power, bullies and bays for acknowledgement, and so appears greater than it really is.

  Let us turn now to the phases of female power (namely motherpower, bridepower and wifepower) and explore how each is organized and exercised. {23}

  Part II

  Motherpower: In the Nest of His Father's Matriarch

  3. The Commandant of the Cradle

  Women ... control the nursery, and because they control the nursery, they can potentially modify any life style that threatens them.23

  - Marvin Harris

  Motherpower is the least baleful form of female power over man. Of course, a badly behaved boy may be disciplined by being smacked, threatened or berated, or by having his dinner withheld. But, all in all, the exercise of kitchen and cradle power over the boy-child is mild and benign. Because of the sexual incapacity of the baby boy, and because of the incest taboo when the boy reaches puberty, his mother's wombpower is rarely unleashed on him.

  Motherpower over a boy is anchored on his awe for the mysterious ability of the person who gave birth to him; on his gratitude to the nurse who cares for him, who protects him in an unfamiliar and often frightening world; and on his respect for his first teacher. It is exercised through the subtle manipulation of his hunger for mother's warmth, approval and praise; and through the sometimes unconcealed manipulation of his gratitude. Among the Igbo, as elsewhere,

  The final appeal a mother would make to an undutiful and rebellious child would be: 'Whatever you may become and wherever you may go, I bore you, for nine months, in this my womb; and fed you, till you were weaned, with these my breasts.' That person must be an exceptionally unimaginative and remorseless child who would not respond with filial repentance and obedience to this irresistible pull at the human heart-strings.24 {26}

  Such manipulation of guilt feelings is only one of motherpower's methods for ruling its offspring. According to Helene Deutsch:

  Many mothers in their attempts to tie their children to themselves appeal cleverly and consistently to their guilt feelings: 'You will abandon me, who have suffered so much?' Others manage to occupy the place of the ego ideal so deeply and permanently that any weakening of the child's relation to the mother is felt by him to be dangerous for his inner morality. A domineering, matriarchal woman often achieves rule over her children by setting up a common ideology, thus gratifying her tendency to dominate.25

  The techniques of motherpower are perhaps best revealed in those battles where adult daughters fight for independence from their mothers. In some cases, we may be privileged to watch two adepts at female power
analyse their game, even as they are deep in it. In one such battle, the daughter lists the main techniques by which her mother had controlled her up until her revolt at age 34! Chief among them were:

  1) making "supposedly casual comments" which cast slurs on the daughter's friends and husband;

  2) making the daughter "feel pressured, nervous and incapable of ever pleasing you";

  3) making the daughter feel excluded from a family "club which I don't belong to, don't want to belong to, but feel that I should belong to. Also a club that I pretend, in your presence, to belong to, and this pretence makes me feel nervous";

  4) making the daughter "feel guilty as hell" if she did something "knowing as I was doing it that I was displeasing you, 'upsetting' you";

  5) making the daughter "feel so anxious to please you" ;

  6) manipulating the daughter's "little-girl fear of Something Terrible Happening And It All Being My Fault"; her fear of being wrong and being proved wrong: "And when you get into your 'bad moods' (which, from my point of view, are unpredictable), this fear runs rampant";

  7) trying "to pull a guilt trip on me by saying I'm 'discarding' you", or by "repeating how 'hurt' my letter made you";

  8) using "'the manoeuvre of calling me 'unliberated', or anything equivalent"; {27}

  9) using "one of the classic manoeuvres, used unconsciously by parents everywhere" of saying: " 'I want you to know how much you've upset me'; 'I could tell you a few things - but I won't'; 'After all I've done for, you…'; 'If you could remember some of the things you did when you were little…'; 'I see you've given up all your (meaning 'our') principles'; 'I see that husband of yours is poisoning your mind'; 'But, in spite of it all, 1 want you to know that you're very important to us, that we still love you'."26