Blame It On The Patriarchy by Carey Roberts

Originally published on ifeminists.net

Used with permission of the author

| Chapter 8 — Domestic Violence And The Patriarchy |

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August 9, 2006 — The feminism is a secular religion with its own high priestesses, dogmas, and initiation rituals. Its creation myth holds that on the first day Goddess created Eve, and all was right with the world. But that idyllic state was shattered when first patriarch Adam stumbled into the Garden, pounded on the table, and demanded his apple.

Simply put, the word “patriarchy” denotes male leadership. By that definition, the United States is a patriarchal society.

It was our Founding Fathers who brought forth a nation based on the principles of democracy, equal opportunity, and limited government. Men provided the raw muscle power and ingenuity that became the engine for a booming economy. Patriarchs, also known as primary breadwinners, provided sustenance and stability to their families.

And male leadership enabled our country to prevail through two World Wars and the Great Depression.

Those events left an indelible mark on the men who pulled us through those terrible times. These brave souls can be forgiven if they sometimes burp without covering their mouth or find it hard to talk about their feelings.

Then Gloria Steinem and her ilk came along. They co-opted the word patriarchy, did an ideological shake-and-bake, and stamped it “Hazardous to Women.” Those same men who years before had returned to our shores as war heroes were now branded as bellicose ogres.

The feminist jihad then indicted the entire male species for Crimes against Womankind. The never-ending litany of grievances is like one of those Whack-a-Mole games at the county fair — as soon as one myth is squelched, another pops up.

Here are just a few:

• Count No. 1: Husbands are considered the head of their family. Sometimes these men are known to actually encourage their wives to stay within the credit card limit and to stay out of cat fights. Yes, silly, that's what leadership is all about.

• Count No. 2: The callous brutes in the U.S. Congress are insensitive to the needs of women. That's right. And those monthly checks that keep rolling in to Grandma for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — programs enacted by and largely paid for by men — are designed to hoodwink unsuspecting women about the vast, untamed patriarchal conspiracy.

• Count No. 3: Men don't listen to their wives. And considering all the women who rant and rave about patriarchal oppression, maybe they're not worth listening to.

Sensing people still were not convinced of their plight, the Matrons of Mischief trot out examples of sad-sack women who suffered tremendously at the hands of patriarchy. Take feminist icon Betty Friedan whose husband set her up in cushy digs in New York suburbia, provided her with a maid, and encouraged Betty to pursue her writing interests.

Betty expressed her gratitude by calling this a “comfortable concentration camp.”

One of the tenets of the cult of feminism is that women, being the appointed guardians of gentleness and light, are capable only of doing good. (For now we will ignore inconvenient facts like the women who abort 1.3 million unborn children each year, unwed mothers who finger some unsuspecting dude to get a bigger child support check, and exotic dancers who fabricate claims of being raped by a bunch of lacrosse players.)

So when bad things happen, women have a convenient scapegoat: male-dominated society.

• When a demonic mother drowns her five kids in a bathtub, the chief suspect becomes her husband who failed to protect the woman from herself.

• When a woman castrates her husband, her lawyer trots out the always-reliable Battered Woman defense.

• When a wife breaks her vows and cheats on her husband, she evokes sympathy (and wins custody of the kids, just for good measure) by claiming to feel “stifled” in the relationship.

The notion that women should not be held accountable for their misdeeds is laughable. You mean to say that women should enjoy equal rights with men, but not equal responsibilities?

There's another reason why the patriarchal bogeyman persists — it's what liberal dragon-slayer Ann Coulter calls “girly guilt-mongering.”

Take men who hold immense pride in knowing their families are well-provided for. Now lecture them they got it all wrong — that providing and protecting are actually oppressive to women.

Once this fantastic guilt trip has been imposed on male breadwinners, then tell them it's pay-back time.

The shibboleth of oppressive patriarchy lies at the very foundation of feminist ideology. So imagine what would happen if people arose from their slumber one day, looked around in amazement at the false idols that now surround us, and came to realize that Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and their fellow myth-makers are the modern-day incarnations of the Jezebels and Delilahs of yore?

Carey Roberts has been published frequently in the Washington Times, Townhall.com, LewRockwell.com, ifeminists.net, Intellectual Conservative, and elsewhere. He is a staff reporter for the New Media Alliance.

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| Chapter 8 — Domestic Violence And The Patriarchy |

| Next — Patriarchy and wife assault-the ecological fallacy by Don Dutton, Ph.D. |

| Back — The role of the patriarchy in domestic violence |

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Added December 3, 2006

Last modified 11/11/21