Conceptualizing and Measuring Patriarchy: The Importance of Feminist Theory

By Lindsay J. Benstead, Portland State University

Why do we know so little about gender and politics in the Middle East? Most obviously, few women
were elected to office in the Arab world until recently, limiting the study of women in formal politics. In
Morocco, the first female was elected to the lower house in 1993, while in Saudi Arabia, women first ran
for office—in municipal elections—in 2015. Systematic data on politics has also been historically scant,
making the study of women’s informal participation, such as voting and civil society activities, also
difficult. The Middle East tends to contribute less to comparative politics than have other regions, and so,
it is unsurprising that little is known about a sometimes marginalized, though sizeable area of political
science—gender and politics—in the Arab region.

In a working paper, Marwa Shalaby and I discuss these and other reasons the Middle East lags behind in
its contribution to gender and politics literature. We also summarize insights from new avenues of
research which are transforming the ways we think about gender relations within and beyond the Arab
world. In this memo, I discuss another barrier: the need for improved conceptualization and measurement
of patriarchy. I argue that political scientists under-conceptualize patriarchy and fail to draw on existing
feminist theory.1 By better engaging with feminist theorists such as Kandiyoti (1988), who conceptualized
gender relations as a “patriarchal bargain,” and Sadiqi (2008), who distinguished private and public
patriarchy, political scientists can better explain mechanisms promoting women’s empowerment.

Explaining Women’s Empowerment

A number of theories have been proposed to explain why women achieve greater empowerment in some
countries than others. These include cultural (e.g., Islam, Arab culture) and economic modernization
theories (Inglehart and Norris 2003; Sharabi 1988), which see the Arab world as monolithic and draw on
Islam and failed or stalled modernization to explain poor outcomes for women. Other theories tap oil
(Ross 2008), militaries (Beck 2003), and tribes (Charrad 2001; Benstead 2015). Still, others examine
institutions such as quotas (Bush and Gao 2013), the psychology of stereotyping, bias and role congruity
theory (Benstead, Jamal, and Lust 2015; Benstead and Lust 2015), and the role of gendered social
institutions and networks (Benstead 2016).

Yet, despite some growth in this literature, most individual research studies focus on a single dimension
or measure of gender equality and thus do not yet sufficiently appreciate the extent to which patriarchy is
a multi-dimensional concept with different causes and consequences. For example, Ross’s (2008)
important piece on women and Islam operationalizes patriarchy as the proportion of women in
parliament. Kang’s (2009) response to this piece shows that the link between oil and patriarchy decreases
when controlling for quotas. Quotas are easily implemented—especially by authoritarian governments—
and, as expected, are effective ways to increase women’s formal representation. When used as a measure
of patriarchy, the United States, where 19 percent of the Congress is female, is less equal than Algeria and
Tunisia, where 32 percent and 31 percent of the lower house, respectively, is female. Oil may strengthen
some dimensions of patriarchy, but not others. The extent to which this is the case needs to be better
understood.

1
From the Greek, “rule of the father.” In a patriarchal system, males have advantages in property, moral
authority, and status. Women and girls unquestionably obey the authority of the male head, brothers,
uncles, and male cousins, fulfil roles as wife and mother, and preserve the interests and honor of the
family (Amawi 2007).
Indeed, feminists identify two dimensions of patriarchy — public and private. Private rights are women’s
rights in marriage, divorce, mobility, and inheritance (i.e., the Shari’a regime), while public rights
concern access to public spheres such as education and politics (Sadiqi 2008). Yet, these dimensions are
often not distinguished in political science literature. At times, measures of patriarchal attitudes are scaled
without adequate discussion of this dimensionality. In the past, this was not problematic, because there
were few survey questions about gender. The World Values Survey asked its first question about women
and politics in 1981 and has since has asked three about equal rights in work, politics, and education.
Norris (2011) and Alexander and Welzel (2011) have written extensively on attitudes toward gender
equality and tended to scale these three items on politics, education, and the labor force to create a
dependent variable. They find a high Cronbach’s alpha of .65 and are justified in scaling these questions,
in part because the items tap into public patriarchy.

However, as surveys expand into the Arab world and include many more questions about women and
gender — especially on private rights — there is greater danger of lumping indicators of multiple
dimensions into a single, unreliable scale. For example, as shown in Table 1, correlations between the
seven gender-related items included in the Arab Barometer (Wave 1) never exceed .58 and in many cases
are substantially lower. My work on interviewer effects suggests conflict over public roles and rights are
driven by gender relations, while disagreement about private rights is largely explained by religious
orientations (Benstead 2014a, b). Yet, it is important to separate these dimensions in order to understand
what causes support for equality.
Table 1. Correlations between gender-related items in the Arab Barometer

3. On the whole, men make better

outside the home if she wishes.

receive equal wages and salaries.

5. Men and women should have

7. A woman can travel abroad by

country.1. A woman can be a president or

4. A university education is more

2. A married woman can work

political leaders than women do.

important for a boy than a girl.

equal job opportunities and

6. Men and women should

prime minister of a Muslim

herself if she wishes.

wages.
1. 1.00
2. .46 1.00
3. -.32 -.17 1.00
4. -.18 -.28 .25 1.00
5. .43 .48 -.22 -.21 1.00
6. .29 .43 -.12 -.27 .58 1.00
7. .47 .43 -.33 -.20 .41 .31 1.00
Jamal and Tessler, “Arab Barometer. Wave 1.” http://www.arabbarometer.org/

The same is true of aggregate measures of gender equality, which often are not highly correlated. Table 2
lists common indicators of gender equality, where the most unequal cases for each indicator are
highlighted in grey. The fact that we see a patchwork, rather than grey lines, indicates that outcomes for
women in a case look very different depending on the measure of patriarchy. Countries with the most
conservative family laws—Jordan, Libya, Palestine, and Yemen—do not always have lowest women’s
labor force participation or formal political representation. Countries with poor social acceptance of
women in government sometimes have high numbers of women in parliament (e.g., Algeria). According
to the Gender Inequality Index (GII), which combines indicators of health, labor force participation, and
politics, Libya is the most gender equal of the eight countries, despite its conservative family law. Jordan
has poor outcomes on all seven indicators. But, women in Jordan enjoy virtually equal access to services
from parliamentarians, due to the political importance of tribes, which allow females to access services on
the basis of an intersecting identity—ethnicity (Benstead 2016). At the same time, Charrad (2001)
demonstrates that tribes create incentives for rulers to invoke conservative family codes. This suggests
that the same factor—politically important tribes—can harm women on one dimension of rights (i.e.,
family law)—and empower them on another (i.e., access to clientelistic services).
Table 2. Gender indicators by country

Private rights Public rights

Workforc Politics Summary
e
Family code1

views4% holding egalitarian

Gender Inequality
Women’s labor force
Number of gender

parliamentary gender

election5% women, House of

Representatives and
date of most recent
quota (most recent

Index (2014)6
participation3
rights2

National
Algeria Moderate (3) 14 14.7% 25% Legislated 32% of 462 .413
candidate (2012)
quota
Jordan Conservative (4) 10 15.6% 18% Reserved 12% of 150 .473
seat quota (2013)
Lebanon Varies by sect 5 22.0% 41% None 3% of 128 .385
(2009)
Libya Very Not 29.8% 25% Legislated 15% of 30 .134
conservative (5) available candidate (2014)
quota
Morocco Progressive (2) 18 25.9% 30% Reserved 17% of 395 .525
seat quota (2011)
Palestinian Conservative (4) 7 14.7% 19% Legislated 13% of 132 Not
Territories candidate (2006) available
quota
Tunisia Very 12 25.3% 24% Legislated 31% of 217 .240
progressive (1) candidate (2014)
quota
Yemen Very 8 24.8% 14% None 0% of 301 .744
conservative (4) (2003)
1
Author’s perceptions of the Personal Status Code.
2
Domestic violence, constitution, harassment, property, work, and other. The Guardian. “Women’s Rights
Country by County Interactive.” Last updated April 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/global-
development/ng-interactive/2014/feb/04/womens-rights-country-by-country-interactive cited from the
World Bank. “Women, Business and the Law database.”
3
All except Palestine: “World Statistics Pocketbook,” United Nations Statistics Division. Accessed
August 12, 2015. http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=Morocco. Palestine: MDG
Achievement Fund. “Women’s Participation in the Palestinian Labour Force: 2010-2011.” Accessed
August 12, 2015. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---arabstates/---ro-
beirut/documents/publication/wcms_218024.pdf
4
% disagreeing/strongly disagreeing. “Men make better political leaders.” Most recent wave of World
Values Survey. Accessed February 28, 2016. http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp
5
“Quota Project.” Accessed August 18, 2015. http://www.quotaproject.org/aboutProject.cfm
 “Women in National Parliaments,” Inter-Parliamentary Union, House of Representatives, first election
2002 or later. Accessed August 12, 2015. http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif-arc.htm
6
Index of health, labor force, and political indicators. Higher value corresponds to higher inequality.
United Nations Development Programme. “Gender Inequality Index (GII).” Accessed February 28, 2016.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/gender-inequality-index-gii

Conceptualizing Patriarchy

Kandiyoti (1988)’s work on patriarchy can help us gain analytical traction on some of these issues. In
conceptualizing gender relations as a “patriarchal bargain,” she calls attention to women’s status as the
outcome of negotiation. The “patriarchal bargain” constrains women, while at the same time offering
space in which women develop strategies and negotiate areas of autonomy. Women in this
conceptualization are seen as having agency, helping us exit out of rigid paradigms, such as cultural and
economic modernization theory, which see outcomes as determined by broader forces outside women’s
control. This bargaining may also explain the wide range of outcomes we actually observe across
different measures of gender inequality (see Tables 1 and 2). Women may negotiate rights in one sphere
and also in ways that are not captured by current political science theorizing.

Kandiyoti’s “patriarchal bargain” has other useful elements as well. She argues that the bargain takes
different forms across cultures—“Arab culture” is no longer essentialized — and varies across history —
providing a conceptual structure for understanding improvement and regression in women’s rights in the
Arab world and beyond. The bargain is constantly being renegotiated. Moreover, the patriarchal bargain
varies within societies and across classes and ethnicities. Wealthy women enjoy areas of autonomy that
poor women do not. Women from privileged regions or ethnicities might be more empowered than males
from less privileged areas. Finally, because it is a bargain, space that is negotiated can relate to specific
aspects or dimensions of life, such as the public or private space.

How Taking Patriarchy Seriously Will Change Our Scholarship

Taking the patriarchal bargain seriously will change our scholarship in four ways. First, we will more
seriously take the need to analyze subnational differences in women’s empowerment in addition to
national differences. This will lead us to explain not only differences across males and females, but also
across females with intersecting traits, such as ethnicity, class, or region. Second, it will encourage us to
examine change over time and explain improvements and reversals for females. Third, and most
importantly, it will encourage us to recognize that outcomes for women vary across dimensions of
patriarchy, which may have different causes and consequences. Finally, we will be better able to discern
how gender-based inequality relates to broader outcomes such as authoritarian persistence, political
instability, and terrorism, and to better integrate gender into other important literatures in Middle East
political science.

Lindsay J. Benstead is an assistant professor of political science at the Mark O. Hatfield School of
Government, Portland State University. She is Contributing Scholar in the Program on Women’s Rights
in the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University and Affiliated Scholar, Program on
Governance and Local Development (GLD), University of Gothenburg and Yale University.
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