Part II — The Feminist Shadow’s Odd Obsession with “The Patriarchy”

What is Feminism trying to hide?

Only the male power structure has a face and a name.

In Part I of this series we talked about the Feminist Shadow’s odd obsession with “The Patriarchy” and how keeping attention on male power, real and imagined, precludes acknowledgment and accountability for the power that women have. Denying and hiding women’s power makes it easy for women to insist they have no obligation to provide for us a seat at the table and negotiate in good faith about a win-win redistribution of obligations, expectations, privileges and power between the sexes.

“Look around,” they can say. “Do you see anything even remotely as big and powerful as The Patriarchy?” And, of course, we don’t. But the lesson here is not to let the Feminist Shadow control our gaze, and to recognize that Tall is not the only Big.

In the late 1960s feminism had a problem. There was talk about adding an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution but some women were afraid that equality between the sexes would result in women losing precious rights and privileges. They succeeded in adding this clause to a draft of the proposed constitutional amendment:

Nothing in this amendment will be construed to deprive persons of the female sex of any rights, benefits and exemptions now conferred by law on persons…