Patriarchy

Patriarchy is a social system in which males hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege, and control of property.

Quotes

• Woman, compared to other creatures, is the image of God, for she bears dominion over them. But compared unto man, she may not be called the image of God, for she bears not rule and lordship over man, but ought to obey him. The woman shall be subject to man as unto Christ. For woman, has not her example from the body and from the flesh, that so she shall be subject to man, as the flesh is unto the Spirit, because that the flesh in the weakness and mortality of this life lusts and strives against the Spirit, and therefore would not the Holy Ghost give example of subjection to the woman of any such thing.
  • Saint Augustine, as quoted by John Knox The First Blast to Awaken Women Degenerate (1558).

• We have to work to find solidarity in each other’s stories, as differing as their inciting perspectives may be. The patriarchy sands out the edges of our rightful infuriation, making it harder to see in any light but our own. This blindness is part of what denies us community-forming solidarity and part of what has allowed widespread sexual assault and harassment to continue for so long.
  • Lauren Duca, Sexism, Remembered and Forgotten (November 17, 2017), Teen Vogue.

• Understanding the total impact of the patriarchy on the female experience is endlessly elusive. ... It is a constant process, perpetually blurred by the ebb and flow of so many epiphanies clouded by self-doubt.
  • Lauren Duca, Sexism, Remembered and Forgotten (November 17, 2017), Teen Vogue.

• If we take a survey of ages and of countries, we shall find the women, almost - without exception - at all times and in all places, adored and oppressed. Man, who has never neglected an opportunity of exerting his power, in paying homage to their beauty, has always availed himself of their weakness He has been at once their tyrant and their slave.
  • Anonymous (attr. Thomas Paine), "Women, Adored and Oppressed" (1775)

See also

• Misogyny

External links

• The dictionary definition of patriarchy at Wiktionary
• Encyclopedic article on Patriarchy at Wikipedia
• Media related to Patriarchy at Wikimedia Commons