In the new century these debates will almost certainly continue. Look for three areas in which women will continue to contest the dominance of men, but might also assert something new to take the place of patriarchy. Lacking legal and other privileges, men often continue to dominate women through violence and the threat of violence. Globally as well as in the United States, women are likely to contest the violence against them as a violation of their human rights. In this context women might well become a force for reducing violence in our society more generally.
Men continue to be paid more than women, for comparable work as well as for the same work.
This reality is likely to fuel movements that promote equal pay for equal work, as well as those that seek equal pay for work of comparable social value. In this context women might well become a force for the more equitable distribution of resources in our society generally. One of the most subtle forms of male dominance remaining in our society today is the assertion of male superiority in popular media. Since the 1830s feminist movements in the United States have struggled against the process by which women have psychologically internalized male views of them as less important than men. In 1969, feminist picket lines outside the Miss America contest disdained male-oriented definitions of beauty.