Word: millett
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Legally sanctioned paths toward change, as far as Kate Millett is concerned, are simply not enough. She calls for a "cultural revolution, which must necessarily involve political and economic reorganization [but] must go far beyond as well." Her target is the patriarchy, "the one ancient and universal scheme for the domination of one birth group by another, the scheme that prevails in the area...
...family, Millett says, is patriarchy's chief institution and cell for sexist brainwashing. It not only "encourages its own members to adjust and conform, but acts as a unit [in the] patriarchal state which rules its citizens through its family heads." Male power is enforced by the man's position as head of the household: other members of the family must rely upon his economic and social status. Within the family, gender roles are ideologically reinforced. Girls, for instance, are taught to cook and sew passively, in imitation of their mothers; boys are encouraged to be aggressive in imitation...
Even the concepts of courtly behavior and romantic love come in for attack. Chivalry represents, Millett says, simply "a sporting kind of reparation," and romance is a "means of emotional manipulation," which helps men to exploit women. (She does concede that romantic love is "convenient to both parties," particularly since it allows the female to overcome "the far more powerful conditioning she has received toward sexual inhibition.") The great myths of mankind, as interpreted by anthropologists, reinforce the themes of feminine subordination. Millett cites the legend of Pandora's box and the biblical tale of Adam's Fall, and says...
There is no questioning the impact of her argument. But it is precisely the broad sweep of that argument that renders it vulnerable. Millett is no scientist, and scientists, notably Social Anthropologist Lionel Tiger (see box), are quick to point out imperfections. "She's not looking for the truth, but making a case," says Rutgers Anthropologist Robin Fox. He says he is no misogynist, but, he charges, she's "inventing a new mythology to replace the old one . . . She's playing ducks and drakes with the truth, and in the process doing herself and her cause a disservice." Specifically...
Psychoanalyst Irving Bieber of New York Medical College says that men and women are very different genetically, and points out that the exact degrees of difference have yet to be determined. Both Bieber and Fox?and Clinical Psychologist Wardell Pomeroy as well?dispute Millett's argument that the family's chief function is to perpetuate the prescribed patriarchal attitudes. "That's another one of her sweeping generalizations," says Fox. "To assume that the situation is perpetuated by male conspiracy is to ignore the genetic basis." The real issue, says Fox, "is whether male and female roles are totally flexible...