Sex Work Undresses Patriarchy with Every Trick!

Thoughts on patriarchy.

I felt I could not let the diatribe1 posing as a scientific article by Professor Malcolm Potts and his wife, Dr Martha Campbell, go without comment. When one reads an article that contains gross inaccuracy, even in part, the credibility of the rest and of the journal running it is thrown into question. The couple has an understandable modern problem with St Augustine but that is no excuse for t...

The evolutionary origins of patriarchy.

This article argues that feminist analyses of patriarchy should be expanded to address the evolutionary basis of male motivation to control female sexuality. Evidence from other primates of male sexual coercion and female resistance to it indicates that the sexual conflicts of interest that underlie patriarchy predate the emergence of the human species. Humans, however, exhibit more extensive m...

Professions and patriarchy

ANNE WITZ, Professions and patriarchy, London and New York, Routledge, 1992, pp. x, 233, £10.99 (paperback 0-415-07044-9). Witz's book, based on her doctoral thesis, is primarily concerned to develop feminist and sociological theories of occupational development. But she does this through an analysis of the relationship between gender and the professionalization of medicine, midwifery, nursing ...

Unpacking Hetero-Patriarchy: Tracing the Conflation of Sex, Gender & Sexual Orientation to Its Origins

What is Patriarchy?

The concept of Patriarchy itself is not a contribution of feminist theories. Many social scientists in the nineteenth century wrote about it as a more civilized or complex form of organization compared to the primitive matriarchies. Engels referred to it as the earliest system of domination establishing that Patriarchy is “the world historical defeat of the female sex.” In this sense, it is sai...