The Oppressive Patriarchy: The Parental Relationships Between Men And Women

Throughout history, the oppressive patriarchy has allowed men to hold societal power over women, often resulting in abusive and tyrannical relationships between men and women. This imbalance of power in abusive relationships reflects on the societal inequality of power between the genders. Domestic violence is “a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain control over another intimate partner,” as defined by the United States Department of Justices. While the victims are often men as well, women are primarily the victims in incidents of domestic violence, with as much as 22-33% of North American assaulted by an intimate partner in their lifetime. The root of this problem stems from many individual causes: biological factors, psychological damage, etc., but they are all aggravated from a similar societal factor: the oppressive patriarchy. The power imbalance caused by a man-dominated society is reflected in abusive relationships, due to the pressure for men to dominate women which only aggravates relationships of violent nature.

In a society where men hold most of the social, political, and economic positions of power, the tendency for men to dominate, and women to submit, becomes an involuntary and ingrained habit. This social power gives men the power to

Although men are often victims as well, there is a huge disparity in frequency, severity, and intent. Male perpetrators in domestic violence cases are much more frequent - in 1998, women experienced violence from their partner at rate of five times higher than men - and often occur as an attempt to establish control and dominate. With nearly one in five teenage girls who have been in a relationship experiencing signs of abusive relationships, violence against women in intimate partnerships is a clear and immense social