Why We Need the Patriarchy

In recent years, “patriarchy” has been dug-up and reanimated as a term to describe the supposedly poor behavior of men. It now functions as a sneer-word, one of the many used as a shorthand for indicating the right stance to be assumed by progressive-minded folk everywhere.

Yet there is something ironic in attributing our social ills to an excess of paternal authority. According to the US Census Bureau, 1 in 4 children live without a father of any kind (biological, step, or adoptive), a situation the National Fatherhood Initiative suggests is a factor in “nearly all social ills.” Fathers, where they are depicted in mainstream culture, veer between inept and pathetic at one end, unable to solve basic household tasks, and, at the other, violent, alcoholic, and abusive, consumed by impotent rage, railing against the universe and harming women and children.

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