Not Recreating the Wheel: Historically Informed Activism Now

As a newly practicing attorney and long-term activist for women, with a background in international human rights as well as women’s studies and sociology, I am excited to read Judith M. Bennett’s work. Her insights into the historical perseverance of the patriarchal equilibrium are enlightening, disheartening, and true: 40 years into the feminist “equality” period there is no real decline in rape or domestic violence; parity for women in the legal field is accompanied by falling attorney wages, rising work hours, and declining status; and the race and gender wage gaps persist. Moreover, 16 years after the passage of the most recent anti-slavery laws, prostitution is still penalized and labor trafficking is barely touched.

Studying how women have been fighting for centuries, and how patriarchy maintains its equilibrium, can teach us both how deep our fight must go, and help us to invent potentially more effective approaches. I agree that using the term patriarchy can be simplistic and dismissive, and also that naming and dissecting it can be powerful and useful.

While I believe strongly in laws as a tool to advance justice, Bennett’s assertions that we must address broader cultural paradigms speaks to me as an activist, applied sociologist, and attorney. The criticisms and critiques of her work illuminate how History Matters is a valuable tool, among many tools, for creating effective social change to address the multiple ways that people are marginalized, and to make life better for all categories of persons oppressed by the patriarchal equilibrium.