The spectre of the patriarchy

 (Roberto de Mattei) The “spectre of the patriarchy” is the theme of an editorial in the daily newspaper Il Messaggero by the sociologist Luca Ricolfi, published on 24 November. Ricolfi writes:

“Anyone who denies the existence of the patriarchy is looked at with astonished reproach, as if he had dared to deny the Holocaust. The reason is simple: we have been so bombarded with the thesis that violence against women depends on the survival of the patriarchy that, for many, denying the patriarchy sounds like denying violence against women. And yet, if we leave aside for a moment the ideological ardour of believers in the patriarchy, and allow ourselves the minimum amount of lucidity, we cannot fail to see the excellent reasons of the deniers. Which are many and very solid. The most important is that, apart from some specific enclaves … in Western societies the distinctive traits of patriarchal societies have almost entirely disappeared: the despotic power of the head of the family, arranged marriage, the submission of children (including male children) to parental authority, more generally the primacy of duties over rights in almost every field of social life (work, family, war). The process has lasted for centuries, but it has had two fundamental impulses: the rise of love marriage between the 1700s and 1800s, in the Romantic era, and the libertarian and anti-authoritarian revolutions of students and women in the 1960s and 70s. One fundamental aspect of these processes is the evaporation of the figure of the father, and more generally of any authority, promptly proclaimed by Alexander Mitscherlich with his book Society Without the Father (Harcourt, Brace & World 1969), published in German in 1963. On this, there are very few doubts among sociologists, social psychologists and psychoanalysts.”

At this point, Prof Ricolfi poses an obvious question: how can one speak of a patriarchal society when the figure of the father has disappeared not only from the family but from society more generally? The answer is this: 

“The hypothesis that we should seriously consider is that the violence of which women are victims is, if anything, the result — counterintuitive and paradoxical — of the defeat of patriarchy. There are ever more voices that are drawing attention to the fact that it could be precisely women’s great conquests of freedom and autonomy in the last 50 years, combined with growing individualism, consumerism, hypertrophy of rights — all typical traits of our time — that have made disenfranchised males increasingly aggressive, insecure, fragile, possessive, and ultimately incapable of withstanding the slightest defeat, or of accepting a simple refusal. In short: today’s machismo would also be a sort of backlash against women’s conquests, for which men were not ready, nor willing to step aside. Male violence would not be the sign of the survival of patriarchy, but rather of its death throes and the disorder they bring.”

So there is no reason to be astonished by what Ricolfi calls the “Nordic paradox”, or “the fact — surprising at first glance — that violence against women, from rape to femicide, is greater in the most civilised countries (like those of Scandinavia) and that a country like Italy, where the gender gap is still relatively wide, is among the least unsafe on the European continent”.

Read the rest: https://www.patreon.com/posts/spectre-of-116938057