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Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, recently delivered an impassioned speech to the Commission on the Status of Women in which he challenged the so-called “patriarchy.” Guterres claimed that “patriarchy is fighting a strong rearguard action” and concluded his speech with this call to arms: “I very much look forward to hearing your views on how, together, we can take power from the patriarchy”.
Guterres never defined the word, “patriarchy,” nor did he comment on why men are now lagging behind women in many areas.
The concept of “patriarchy” was first set out by feminist Kate Millett in her book Sexual Politics in 1970. Millett defined patriarchy as the “birthright priority whereby males rule females.” This formulation ignored the many areas in which men were disadvantaged, such as being regarded as “disposable”.
Millett’s thesis soon became an unshakable article of faith among feminists. Before long, her book became known as the “Bible of Women’s Liberation”.
But feminists began to question Millett’s one-dimensional concept of patriarchy.
British academic Vallerie Bryson challenged the notion of “patriarchy” for producing a “hopelessly simplistic and distorted view of the world… Many have also attacked its apparent theoretical pretensions, arguing that it confuses description with explanation and substitutes slogans for genuine analysis”.
Christina Hoff Sommers, author of Who Stole Feminism?, explained, “I never bought the idea of the U.S. being a patriarchy or a rigid sex/gender system — not in the 1980s, and certainly not today. To me, gender feminism has always seemed like a conspiracy theory. There is no way to prove it wrong. Anyone who tries can be dismissed as an unwitting tool of the system”.
Dismissing the feminist “peevish, grudging rancor against men,” academic Camille Paglia ridiculed the concept of patriarchy altogether: “This sick portrayal of human history as nothing but male oppression and female victimage is a gross distortion of the facts”.
Imbued with a false belief that the male half of the world’s population is working for the demise of females, women may lapse into mental illness. Reflecting on Phyllis Chesler’s observation that “many of the most charismatic and original of feminist thinkers were mentally ill,” Canadian commentator Janice Fiamengo goes on to explain, “Most pretended that it was a sign of passionate resistance to patriarchy, thus acceptable”.
“Patriarchy” has become a feminist buzz-word to the point of incoherence. An article in Ms. Magazine made the confusing claim that when men engage in actions that are designed to help women – often referred to as “chivalry” -- feminists should dismiss such good-faith gestures as a mere “tool of the patriarchy”.
Globally, men are now trailing behind women in 12 areas – lower educational attainment, shorter lifespans, extreme weather deaths, much higher workplace deaths, victims of violence, lack of services for male victims of domestic violence, sex biases in the legal system, homelessness, unfair treatment of boys, military conscription, reproductive rights, and negative media portrayals.
So Antonio Guterres needs to explain, how did the all-powerful patriarchy allow men to fall behind in so many ways?
