Community Culture and Tradition: Maintaining Male Dominance in Conservative Institutions

Abstract

“The freer women are to share their gifts with society and to assume leadership in society, the better are the prospects for the entire human community to progress in wisdom, justice and dignified living …” So argued Mary Ann Glendon, the Vatican delegate to the Fourth World Conference on Women in September, 1995. While Glendon's point is well taken, in many societies, including the Catholic Church which Glendon represented at the Conference, women often do not have the opportunity to choose their roles and share their gifts and talents with society in the manner they deem most appropriate. In patriarchal societies women's roles and contributions are often reduced to the periphery. This is the case in traditional societies where the community is viewed as the bearer of rights, and the roles assigned women are designed to ensure that they conform to the needs of the community, rather than the needs of individual women. Women are often socialized into accepting the roles mapped out for them by the community, and attempts to challenge them often lead only to ostracization by the community.