Legitimacy

Legitimacy is the quality of being in accordance with the law. It is also, by extension, the rightfulness granted by accordance with the law, or, more widely, a quality of authenticity.

What is important to remember, in a feminist context especially, is that people create laws, and people are the agents of law enforcement. ("Law enforcement" is a synonym for an organization of professionals who work to police societies.) Beyond the rules and principles which some people have chosen to codify in a system of law, and which most people must obey, there is an act of reification made possible only by political power.

The laws are laws because they are backed by power. So the issue of legitimacy is, in one supremely important sense, the issue of what power allows.

Nations, which have governments, which create "the Law" (in the singular), are very complex systems built around innumberable types of organisations, and many types of organisations transcend borders.

But any person that has power over others, any organisation which follows a hierarchy, or any collectivity that has power over the individual, can enforce its own rules, its own laws, not matter how informal.

And one of the most important types of laws concerns the transmission of power, because the first requirement of being able to exert power is to have it. Incumbents will recognise themselves as legitimate, or forfeit their right to have power. They will also make laws to justify denying and/or punishing insurgents who wish to claim power.

Patriarchy has come to power through the exploitation and oppression of women. It is a type of hierarchy that, by dividing people into genders, can appropriate women's work, women's bodies, and women's resources in the name of men.

In a patriarchy, men have legitimacy at the expense of women. This is sometimes evident in the capital-L Law, but it is implied outside of the law as well, in the flow of power that accompanies informal decisions.

The authenticity of an idea, of an opinion, or of a given work, is magnified when its author is recognised as legitimate. This legitimacy can be self-appointed, or granted by external authorities.

Recognition of authority is a political act.

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