P for patriarchal power paves the way for inequailty and exploitation across sex, class, creed, and culture. Patriarchal power distorted my identity, my activism, and my relationships. My weapon against our collaboration with patriarchy is active consciousness.

Pillars of community

His gaze scanned the hall with the aplomb of  veteran-familiarity with public speaking and film cameras. When he mentioned the name of a man-from-my-past from the stage as an acknowledgement of an old activist, his gaze held mine for a few seconds. The catching of eye laid down the challenge between personal, private, and public, between secrecy and my insecure sense of self.

‘That’s how they do it,’ I thought and held on to his gaze as I measured the reactions under my veneer of strength  ‘and they will never create the screen of secrecy again with my permission. ‘It’s time to face my mistakes and decades of emotional distractions. I look around at the hundreds in the hall and  wait until it is time for questions. I knew what I would ask. I have never engaged directly with this political celebrity. Did he recognise the connection long ago between his old activist-friend and me too as he caught my gaze? If so, did he know about the abuses? If he didn’t know how insensitive he must be. If he did know, how could he mention that name with respect as he looked directly at me? Was it a challenge or my imagination? Egal, n’importe I tell myself in the languages of confidence. I understand so much better now how abuse of power works and I know my question and his answer will tell me if anything has changed.

I listen to the rambling ego on the platform and hope somewhere there will be fresh insights but the words spiral between past, present, and future. A few seconds take me behind a screen in a flat in London fifty years ago. I had sought out the-man-from-my-past as a now-married-man and accepted the suggestion of meeting for a drink. I had no intention of inviting him to my bed-sit in Balham but I wanted resolution. I was no longer the schoolgirl or student of those secret trysts tempted by poetry and love of literature, tempted by the romance of resistance to the political and social order.  I had survived the fascination with him but I wanted to understand why and what had happened to me then. The relationship with Sohrab towards the end of my student days had reached its happy unhappy end with his return to the Shah’s Iran. Why did this fascination for the man-from-my-adolescence linger on?

We met in a pub and drank too much. Afterwards he took me back to his studio-flat where his wife was asleep. We were behind a screen when he pulled down my trousers from behind. My throat and mouth were free from him but I didn’t call out in the jumble of emotions and thoughts on sodomy and shame. I was frozen and passive. Was there consent? Less consent than those times when his hand brought me to orgasm or when he broke my hymen in the back of his car. I couldn’t cry out now to the shame on me, on him and his wife. Afterwards I told myself I could have shouted STOP  this is not what I want. Privacy and secrecy have meant I never told anyone and I question why an open confession now? My choked-back sobs after the interlude seemed to shock him as he ushered me out at speed. Did his wife really sleep through it? I dissolve into questions. What time is it? Where am I? How can I get back to my bed-sit? He’s too drunk to drive. Is there an underground station near here? Is it still running? Drunk as he was, he insisted on driving me home. Alone in my bedsit, I sobbed a promise to myself that I would explore my consciousness until I understood the pull and push of the contradictions.

Spurious science and patriarchal theology created the binary splits of heaven and hell, of Virgin v Whore, of Eve v Mary of Man v Woman. The man-from-my-past used to quote Galen a Greek physician and philosopher, remembered from his time in the seminary, “Every animal is sad after coitus except the human female and the rooster.” Thanks to the man-from-my-past, I understand better how power structures contribute to confusion and fear of commitment in relationships. I wish I could say that was the end of my self-abasement but it took me many decades and many therapies to find myself as a strong-bisexual-woman who could choose to make commitments or not.

The man on the platform rambles on full of praise for the feminism and activism of young women to-day. There could be a glimmer of hope after all, I tell myself before I ask my question, ‘Do you think development of consciousness has a role to play in political activism?’  His negative response in his rambling answer  about the greater  importance of his style of national socialist activism did not hide the depth of his denial. I remember the dismissal of feminism in the 1970’s and 1980’s when I abandoned the pose of young revolutionary in Ulster. Feminist consciousness-or anti-sectarianism was liberal, middle-class, and not revolutionary enough.  I don’t wish to “out”  the-man-from-my-past as an individual. I want recognition that he abused power while claiming to be revolutionary. He and the man on the stage have hindered equality not helped to achieve it.

Gender relations as described by young women today are a cause for anxiety. They describe how they can be easily seduced by  “anything goes” in their sexual relations including power and violence They can be choked to death when engaging in sexual activity because they have difficulty in knowing what they want or find they cannot  say ‘No’ or ‘Stop’.  Young people describe how they can be addicted to porn. Porn is not about sex; it’s about how we are manipulated by violent patriarchal power. Erotic sex and celebration of bodies needs mutual respect, consent, and equality.

The seductive politics of the man on the platform are flawed. Sexism, racism, and class inequality were all created to justify economic exploitation. They are intimately interconnected in our personal and public lives. If we don’t understand how we are manipulated by the seduction of patriarchal power then we will not be able to look equality in the eye. For equality we need consciousness of abuse of power.