Smashing ‘The Patriarchy’ Between Female Ears
By: Nicole Chardenet
Tags: Feminism, Patriarchy, Abuse, Victimhood, Psychology

“I want to marry a rich man,” some of my peers said in the 1980s. I tried to control my expression, since these were more often my office colleagues rather than close friends, few of whom valued themselves so little.

These gold-diggers weren’t mired in poverty or hopeless circumstances with little ability to see a future over which they had any control. I worked in an upscale payroll services office crammed with overeducated entitlement-oozing ‘Yuppies’ in expensive suits and a certainty they were Going Places, all of which required flying First Class.

Or marrying it.

Twenty-five years into Second Wave feminism women positioned to Do Better were still willing to give up their power, hand it over to men. I guess a quarter-century wasn’t enough time to erase thousands of years of patriarchy between female ears.

Sure, just let a man run your life. That’s the ticket.

The one abrogating her power the most was the drop-dead gorgeous highest-producing account executive, the lone woman on the sales team.

Solange, oozing a sense of beauteous female entitlement against which her colleagues were powerless, boasted about how a man had to have enough scratch to scratch her itch.

“So the bucks started circling,” she recounted in the office lunchroom after a ski lodge weekend. Her voice oozed with condescending triumph, her face suffused with power. “But you’ve got to pay to play! If you don’t got the dough, you don’t get to go!”

A faint, sick smile crossed my lips listening to Solange reduce marriage — her well-publicized goal — to rank whoredom. She was embarrassing.

Didn’t she realize how unfeminist she sounded? Didn’t she understand rich men expected deference, submission and dependence from their often multiple women, whether they were married or not? A harem is part of the male entitlement package, and each woman is expected to cater unto him and him only.

It’s why they want to be rich. They do it for the p**sy. ‘Scuze me, plural.

Didn’t she understand how domineering and controlling rich men often were?

The word I sought was patriarchal, but it hadn’t joined the vocabulary yet.

Solange was partially the woman I wished I was: Strong, ambitious, successful. She made a lot more money than I. Solange embodied the New Woman birthed from the early labor of Second Wave feminism: Beautiful, street smart, educated, and made her own money. She didn’t have to depend on a man for survival.

Underneath the whip-smarts go-getter was just another self-sabotaging princess willing to give it all up for, if not love, at least a big house in Fairfield County and a country club membership.

The guys sniped behind her back she was the top producer because she slept with her prospects, something they couldn’t do.

It wasn’t an unwarranted, misogynist response. Solange bragged about dating her leads.

Working in that money-crazed office was an early lesson in how unquestioning women give up their power. The women I worked with came from good families, could have supported themselves, had careers of their own, but instead, they aspired to marry a rich man.

Somewhere, the daisies rocked as Jane Austen nodded.

“I don’t want to marry a rich man,” I’d say. “I don’t want to give up my financial independence. Why would you say that? We don’t have to do that anymore! This is the ‘80s! We can do whatever we want, be whatever we want!”

While we organized Take Back The Night marches, maybe we should have also organized a few to Take Back Your Brain.