Banner Greenham

Blue Gate
1989-1994

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THE RIVER Growing Flowing down to THE SEA
Page 1 by Elizabeth Abraham

THE END OF PATRIARCHY

By Patriarchy I mean the whole structure of POWER and CONTROL by which our world is MANAGED:

as an external organisation rather than as an internalised organism of living beings (living cells). This is the feminist (organic) mode.

Organisations, each of its nature being an hierarchical power structure, speak to organisations, in a descending or an ascending hierarchy; ie. they are either authoritarian: power from above, or 'democratic': power from below - in which case people 'participate1 in the 'decision making process'.

But there are always 'decision makers' and 'leaders' at 'the top'; committee structures of weariness and boredom (go to any local council meeting); and an 'administrative machinery' in between, that is in fact people, constrained and automated.

The key to organisational effectiveness lies in having on the one hand the right machinery, and on the other the right integration of people into it: there are always problems of 'apathy' to some degree.

In this mode individual freedom always has to be balanced against the needs of the collective.

Organisms have a very different way of being.

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