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Patriarchy
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“Because men have so long ruled the world, it does not follow that the philosophy by which they have ruled it is the correct one.”
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“Perhaps patriarchy's greatest psychological weapon is simply its universality and longevity. ... Patriarchy has a still more tenacious or powerful hold through its successful habit of passing itself off as nature.”
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“Patriarchal Poetry makes mistakes.”
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“From a biological viewpoint, patriarchal religion denied women the natural rights of every other mammalian female: the right to choose her stud, to control the circumstances of her mating, to occupy and govern her own nest, or to refuse all males when preoccupied with the important business of raising her young.”
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“Patriarchy values the hard over the soft; the tough over the tender; punishment, vengeance, and vindictiveness over compassion, negotiation, and reconciliation. The 'hard' qualities are linked to power, success, and masculinity — and exalted. The 'soft' qualities are identified with weakness, powerlessness, and femininity — and denigrated.”
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“We are not at war with men, we are at war with history — a history defined by a patriarchy so tenacious and entrenched it feels almost dangerous to say the word aloud.”
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“The tracing of a child's lineage and its name with reference to the father, though it has lasted for many thousands of years, has not become any the more natural or reasonable as a result.”
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“... the patriarchal family, with its division of functions between a providing and protective father and a home-making, submissive mother, however satisfactory it may have been in its time, has outlived its day. Bread-winning is no longer a monopoly of men, and home-making should no longer be the monopoly of women.”
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“A patriarchal state is one rehabilitating from war, presently at war, or preparing for war.”
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“Benevolent patriarchy is still patriarchy.”
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“It's patriarchal society that has freed me as a woman.”
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“Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges ... the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy and dignity of girls and women.”
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“Overturning patriarchy does not mean replacing men's dominance with women's dominance. That would merely maintain the patriarchal pattern of dominance. We need to transform the pattern itself.”