A note about The Patriarchy

Quoting other people is always dangerous because the quote is taken out of context, and people tend to assume that what they think the quote says is agreed with by the person doing the quoting.

So I want to be perfectly clear that I do not believe that anyone is bad, rotten, evil, or nasty simply because of the circumstances of their birth or their gender identity.

That set of behaviors and privileges called the patriarchy and railed against by feminists is not the way it is because it is associated with men. It would be just as bad if practiced by women, and in fact as women assume positions of wealth and power they not infrequently go over to the patriarchy. (If this sounds like giving in to the dark side, you've got the idea. Good and evil lurk within each of us.)

I object to the idea that the battle lines in the war between those in power and those not in power must be drawn according to sex. Sex is the great red herring of history and politics. (Please read Phyllis Burke's wonderful book, Gender Shock: Exploding The Myths of Male and Female.)

To paraphrase Simone de Beauvoir, one is not born an asshole.