At least in Western societies, those distinctive traits of a patriarchal society have nearly disappeared. Gone is the ruling despot of the patriarchal head of the family, the forms of arranged marriage in which either parent had a say or advice in the choice of a spouse, the submission of children (including male children) to much parental authority, and preference in the numbers of students in universities or doctoral programs, faculty, professions, and, in general, almost every field of social life (work, marriage, family, etc.). In fact, it has been so successful that the father figure has largely been eradicated or at least is on the endangered species list.
The result of all of this is the collapse of order. We live in a chaos of preference, desire, and choice without many restraints. What was it that turned the feminist quest for freedom and autonomy into an overall pursuit of a radical individualism, rampant consumerism,
and the idealization of rights? The response to the decline in patriarchy has been the adolescent male who never grows up or the hype of a feminized masculinity or metrosexualism or the angry and insecure violent male. Curiously, in the European societies that have experienced the most success in the overthrow of patriarchy, violence against women has not declined. It is what one author called 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.” The patriarchy, which has disappeared from Western society, today exists only in immigrant families and this contributes to the growing conflict between liberal Western values and those held by immigrant populations -- especially in Europe.
I wish that this were merely an offense against patriarchy -- actual or presumed -- but along with this decline has come an overall decline in common values. This is especially true of life. With the rise of feminism and the decline of patriarchy has come the normalization of a culture of death with regard to the child in the womb, the individual who deems life no longer worth living, and the aged and infirm in institutionalized care. The collapse of patriarchy has contributed to the collapse of order overall and the disappearance of the common values that once esteemed life, children, elderly, marriage, and family highly and which contributed to the stabilization of society.
We must ask ourselves if wars have actually declined since feminism began to rule the day or if the violence that routinely afflicts nearly every society has increased at the same time. If the answer is yes, we must admit that with the defeat of patriarchy has come something far more nefarious -- the end of order and the reign of chaos in which life itself is afforded no special protection at all. It almost makes you homesick for the days in which a little oppression might not be such a bad price to pay if we came to our senses and acknowledged that marriage, family, children, life, and a common morality came with the dreaded patriarchy. No one but an idiot or a fool or a misogynist longs for the days when abuse was normal. Neither am I saying that. But the collateral damage in the war against patriarchy has not produced a better society or world and may have hastened the demise of the very order that once marked us as civilized.
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