logo

Quotes About Patriarchy

Men have always gotten to name children after themselves, while not doing any of the work.
~ Lionel Shriver
Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy.
~ Jeffrey Eugenides
There's no doubt that the patriarchy that we live in also controls the movie industry. The heads of the studios are men, and it's reflected in the scripts they buy and the work that gets made.
~ Ellen Burstyn
Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name.
~ Andrea Dworkin
The mother must socialize her daughter to become subordinate to men, and if her daughter challenges patriarchal norms, the mother is likely to defend the patriarchal structures against her own daughters.
~ Carol P. Christ
Despite erasure by the media and other patriarchal institutions, there was, by 1975, a substantial body of feminist writings as well as artwork, music, films, and organization of all kinds.
~ Mary Daly
Women are regarded as upholding the traditions by conforming to them; men on the other hand uphold traditions by enforcing them—not upon themselves but upon women.
~ Unknown
sound and fury of these "my culture is better than your culture" conflicts between male-dominated colonial governments and male-dominated Third-World nationalist movements often served to obscure the fact that women were clearly second-class citizens in all these cultural contexts.
~ Unknown
I was the victim of both social orders: of Apollo's waxing patriarchy, & of Clytemnestra's last spasms of outraged matriarchy. My father Priam probably would have said: that I had asked for it. That no society could be expected to tolerate an individual who insisted on telling the truth.
~ Unknown
Modern science, as we have noted earlier, has a world-view that both supports and is supported by the socio-political-economic system of western capitalist patriarchy which dominates and exploits nature, women, and the poor.
~ Vandana Shiva
The close nexus between reductionist science, patriarchy, violence, and profits is explicit in 80 percent of scientific research that is devoted to the war industry, and is frankly aimed directly at lethal violence—
~ Vandana Shiva
Monocultures and monopolies symbolize patriarchal agriculture. The war mentality underlying military-industrial agriculture is evident from the names given to the herbicides destroying the economic basis of the survival of the poorest women in the rural areas of the Third World. Roundup, Machete, and Lasso from Monsanto. Pentagon, Prowl, Scepter, Squadron, Cadre, and Avenge from American Home Products, which has merged with Monsanto. The language is of war, not sustainability.
~ Vandana Shiva
This book focuses on science and development as patriarchal projects not as a denial of other sources of patriarchy, such as religion, but because they are thought to be class, culture, and gender neutral.
~ Vandana Shiva
Likewise the subjection of woman to man results from the perfection of the male and the imperfection of the female sex.
~ Peter Kreeft
What gives you the right. Yes. To speak to a woman in your private Ã¢â'¬Â¦ Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You feel yourself empowered Ã¢â'¬Â¦ you say so yourself. To strut. To posture. To "perform." To "Call me in here Ã¢â'¬Â¦Ã¢â'¬Â Eh? You say that higher education is a joke. And treat it as such, you treat it as such. And confess to a taste to play the Patriarch in your class. To grant this. To deny that. To embrace your students.
~ David Mamet
It is the power patriarchal societies try to diminish by infantalizing women by calling them doll, chick, babe, and girl regardless of their age.
~ Unknown
Papa used to shake his head at this and say, "What's de use of me taking my fist to a poor weakly thing like a woman? Anyhow, you got to submit yourself to 'em, so there ain't no use in beating on 'em and then have to go back and beg 'em pardon.
~ Zora Neale Hurston
Whereupon Jim flopped into a chair and held forth at great length on the necessity of keeping wives in their places; to wit: speechless and expressionless in the presence of their lords and masters and cited several instances where men had met their downfall and utter ruin by ill advisedly permitting their wives to air their ignorance by talking. His audience, composed entirely of males, agreed with him. Wife-beaters are numberous in Poplar Street.
~ Zora Neale Hurston
You women will live as if father is still alive and in the next room.
~ Warren Jeffs
I grew up in traditional black patriarchal culture and there is no doubt that I'm going to take a great many unconscious, but present, patriarchal complicities to the grave because it so deeply ensconced in how I look at the world. Therefore, very much like alcoholism, drug addiction, or racism patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it.
~ Cornel West
Se le ocurrió que los psicoanalistas varones eran como machos cabríos: les gustaba tener una manada de mujeres dependientes, sumisas, frustradas, que trabajaban para él y lo consultaban acerca de todas las cosas, como si él fuera el gran macho, el macho Alfa, el patriarca, la autoridad suprema, Dios.
~ Unknown
Patriarchy is sustained by those co-workers who withhold their valuable support for women colleagues because they see the world as a zero-sum universe: you gain, I lose.
~ Unknown
Who is formally categorised as a "skilled worker" and who gets to define what work is "skilled" - together, these are two crucial gears in the machinery of any patriarchal workplace.
~ Unknown
Fortunately, I have never been a victim of sexual harassment. But there have been instances where I have lost out on work or people have shown disinterest in working with me because I was unwilling to succumb to this unspoken understanding of patriarchy.
~ Dia Mirza