What I did not understand fifty years ago was the Patriarchy and its strategies of power. Power always seeks to perpetuate itself. The Patriarchy is a house of cards, and it knows it. The Patriarchy, as we know it, is a tenuous, easily collapsed structure, supported by the following "cards:" 1) Social, political, and economic dominance of the male; 2) The establishment of monotheistic religion in which the "only true God" is "male;" 3) Repression of women and all of their rights, which are, of course, human rights; 4) Suppression of all expressions of the natural order, including equal rights (and equal respect) for women, freedom of the body, and natural nudity.
With regard specifically to 4), it is important to note that the Patriarchy only supports nudity that is exploitive and debases women; nudity that is natural, non-sexual, an expression of freedom and equality, and does not exist for the gratification and enrichment of the Patriarchy is, in most places, strictly forbidden.
If one or more of these "cards" is seriously challenged, the Patriarchy will fall. Let us challenge them all.
