This author is unearthing the lies and omissions of American patriarchy
Bestselling author Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs is sparking powerful conversations on gender and race in the U.S., especially the pervasive erasure of Black women. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology, a Master's in Multidisciplinary Gender Studies from the University of Cambridge, and a Bachelor's in Medical Anthropology from Stanford University.
Her new book, Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden From Us, examines the systemic forces that have obscured and silenced women’s contributions in American history. With incisive scholarship, intimate storytelling, and political clarity, she unpacks the myth of “neutral history,” generational erasure, and the power of feminist historiography.
Aisha Becker-Burrowes: What does feminism mean to you?
Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs: Feminism to me is the opposite of patriarchy. I think it's really important to define patriarchy when we're talking about feminism. Patriarchy is a system that serves men, gives men resources, and denies those resources to women so that men can control women. When I'm talking about feminism and the opposite of patriarchy, it's not necessarily so that one other group has more power over other people — feminism is about each of us having power within ourselves and the power to make choices about our lives.
“Those who have been the furthest cast away from the benefits of American patriarchy are those who are most able to know from the beginning that it's all made up. That we can always make up something different.” - Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs
Aisha Becker-Burrowes: And, how do you define patriarchy?
Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs: In the Constitution, the Founding Fathers defined men as those who can vote, those who can own land, and those who can represent themselves in any business decision. And they are also the ones who pass on their legacy through their children. They leave out women, enslaved people, poor White folks, immigrant people — the list goes on and on.
With this very limited definition of what it means to be human in the United States, we have this binary where we're erasing Indigenous belief systems, around anybody who's beyond this binary, and where we're choosing to build a republic of men. They knew that there were other ways of organizing nations, but they wanted to keep power in their hands. If we're not talking about patriarchy with those nuances, and if we're not talking about how even slavery was justified because of patriarchy and its inextricability from Whiteness, then we're missing the solutions because we're not targeting that initial system.
American patriarchy has always seen itself as the power of the whole world. I really wanted to make sure that readers understood we are also in a patriarchal nation and we've been sold a lie.
Aisha Becker-Burrowes: Your book, Erased, traces American patriarchy as a system really deeply intertwined with Whiteness and the gender binary. How does understanding this help us rethink common narratives about gender and power in the US today?
Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs: As that system is designed, everybody who is not included in [the] original definition of “human” in the United States is tricked into believing that the way in which you can be treated as a human being in the United States is to uphold, protect, and assimilate to this system. Throughout American history, many different groups of people [thought], "If I don't have access to the resources that I need, if I'm not succeeding in the way that I want to, it's because I'm not playing the role of these two different options that are available to me well enough. I need to try to do that more and I need to try harder.” Versus thinking, “Let me direct my attention towards the system that actually doesn't serve any of us, even those who are supposed to be the primary beneficiaries of it.”
We're especially seeing that play out today, where you have many powerful White men who are suffering from depression, who are addicted to drugs. There's so much that you have to deny within yourself in order to maintain this system. Those who have been the furthest cast away from the benefits of American patriarchy are those who are most able to know from the beginning that it's all made up. That we can always build something different. We have to remove the power of the American patriarchal system.
The Founding Fathers defined men as those who can pass on their legacy and their status through children. Black women in the United States were seen as the complete opposite of that. During times of slavery, if Black women had children, those children would always carry the status of the mother, so that already puts Black women as sort of the opposite of American patriarchy. That's why I always tell others to lean on Black women in these moments and not only to admire us for our strength, but to actually ask us what the path forward is and start to listen—like electing Black women, for example.
Aisha Becker-Burrowes: Why was it important to you to highlight this intentionally, and how do you see feminist historiography as helping to create new possibilities for gender equity in America's future?
Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs: I think it really signals that it wasn't a mistake. It was by design. To maintain a fabricated system, you have to erase any record of anything that shows you something different, that shows you other options. You have to erase the people and the voices who tell you to see something beyond what's being offered to you.
We see this happening with attacks on trans people in the U.S. — President Trump is targeting them because trans people, by their nature, are telling us there is something beyond what you are being sold. There is something that would allow us all to have more freedom, more self-definition, the ability to listen to our intuition, and the ability to make choices for ourselves and our bodies.
With my first book, I wrote about three mothers whose life stories had been discarded, who had not been honored in the way that they should have been. We lost record of their lives. When you start to piece their lives back together, when you start to know who Alberta King was, Luis Little was, Berdis Baldwin was, and how their passions, their dreams, their talents led to their children following in their footsteps, you then see that strategic erasure so clearly. You actually couldn't know MLK Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin without understanding their mothers.
Aisha Becker-Burrowes: Your book really poignantly deconstructs patriarchy as a deeply entrenched and pervasive system of power and oppression. So many folks, especially within the feminist space, talk about "smashing the patriarchy." Is smashing the patriarchy too simple? And what strategies hold the most hope for shifting deeply entrenched power?
Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs: I'm all about smashing the patriarchy. I'm all about burning the patriarchy. I love all the language of let's be violent towards the patriarchy. I think we do have to be clear about what that entails and the steps to get there, because I think there's a lot of us who actually still exist within "Let me protect the social order and let me climb up the ladder of that social order. And then maybe when I'm at the top of that ladder, I will be able to do something about this social order." That is just replicating the system.
We have to take a step back. Smashing the patriarchy means you no longer uphold a gender binary. It means you no longer think that all women are affected the same way by this patriarchal order. It means that we are trying to give power to every single person in the United States. It means we're going back and thinking about what American democracy could look like if each of us were able to vote, for example, and no barriers were put in our way.
Aisha Becker-Burrowes: Thank you for that critical analysis. I love this idea of understanding and giving tools for smashing the patriarchy, but also having a deep understanding of what patriarchy is and how deeply entrenched it is in the first place and starting there.
Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs: Erased is a guide to understanding how it has become so ingrained and not blaming ourselves for that, but thinking through the strategies of patriarchy.
The narrative patriarchy has sold us is: "This is all that's available to you. We've lost record of other ways of living so that you're not even aware of them. This is the only option that you have.." That sets up who gets to be human in the United States. Then come the punishments, because in order to maintain something that is made up, you have to scare anybody who's willing to challenge it.
We’re not just imagining inequity. It's not just feelings of unfairness. It was constructed. You can trace everything back to this original vision. And once you can trace it, you can [then] say we're going to start from the ground up.
Aisha Becker-Burrowes: My last question for you: is there a woman or story in Erased whose story really stayed with you or that you think more people should know about?
Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs: Oh my goodness. All of them. I find every story that came to me as so powerful and so beautiful. But [if] I have to choose just one, I would say Ellen Craft. Her story should also be so much more widely known. It's a perfect example of the fabrication of gender and race and how that's been used in such an unsophisticated manner to organize people.
Ellen and her husband were able to gain their freedom from slavery by having her impersonate a White man. She sews herself some pants, she cuts her hair, and she puts bandages on her face to conceal her identity even more. Her husband, who has darker skin than she does, pretends to be her slave for this journey that they take on a train to get to the North. Her ability to study American patriarchy and to become so aware of the design of it is what allows her a path to freedom.
Aisha Becker-Burrowes: I loved reading more about her story in your book. And, I love the lens that you provide, specifically not just it being a story around race but also a story around gender and patriarchy in America. I'm happy that we could have this conversation, and it's definitely not the end of this conversation!