By Kate Rooney
Patriarchy Chicken. This was a phrase that I had only recently come across but had been taking part in for years.
For those of you who don’t know, patriarchy chicken is the act of women refusing to move out of the way of men while walking, running, or on a bike. Basically, any situation where one person has to move to get out of the way of the other.
Coined by Dr Charlotte Riley in an article for the News Stateman, it is a game that I, and thousands of other women, have been playing for years, probably even centuries. It seems that it is so inbuilt into our DNA that we find ourselves automatically moving out of the way of males before they’ve even registered that we’re there.
The point of Patriarchy Chicken is not to get somewhere faster, or to irritate men (that’s just a bonus), the point is that men have been socialised for their entire lives to take up space. Women have been socialised not to take up space, to step down, to give way. It is so ingrained that we don’t even think about it. It is simply women exerting our right to exist in public and claiming the space that we are in.
Anna Lee Beyer wrote that she has been teaching her 5 and 2-year-old about Patriarchy Chicken. She stated that while they may be too young to fully comprehend the notion, if women can be taught at a young age to uphold patriarchal values, why can’t we teach them feminine values at the same age. Maybe then women won’t be so quick to bow our heads and apologise later in our professional and personal lives.
Patriarchy Chicken is just a small way to reclaim a bit of space. It’s not being impolite. If I am in the wrong for anyone, male or female, I will move and make space for them.
It’s about all of us making space for each other. If I need to move, I will. We all should. But if someone is encroaching on my space, my side of the footpath, then I don’t see why I can’t straighten up, look them in the eye, smile, and watch as they stumble over themselves because a 5’ 2” women won’t move for them.