Patriarchy

Patriarchy

During the hearings, after Dr. Blasey Ford had testified, it was as if patriarchy hung on the precipice.  Would she be believed? What a simple thing, to topple the long history of privilege. To be believed.  

Then we saw an extraordinary performance of masculine rage.  Puffed up and overblown, hyperbolic, choleric, colicky. It seemed like an over-reaction.  “Oh my god, Kavanaugh is freaking out, he’s losing it. It’s so Trumpian, is this going to work?” 

The dynamic of the female prosecutor as mouth-piece for the committee of older white men was perhaps evidence that white feminism had been working -- the republican dotards felt they couldn’t speak without hurting their own cause.  What an interesting admission. Then came the switch. It must have occurred to Lindsay Graham, through patriarchy’s intuition, that the entire history of male authority was in the balance. That something was changing. 

Graham went in like Kavanaugh, seizing control of the narrative and bellowing like a man who can feel patriarchy’s death in his heart.