I soon began to sense a fundamental perceptual difficulty among male scholars (and some female ones) for which 'sexism' is too facile a term. It is really an intellectual defect, which might be termed 'patrivincialism' or patrochialism': the assumption that women are a subgroup, that men's culture is the 'real' world, that patriarchy is equivalent to culture and culture to patriarchy, that the 'great' or 'liberalizing' periods of history have been the same for women as for men.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the male-centric perspective in scholarship, arguing that it undermines women's contributions and experiences.
Adrienne Rich emphasizes the pervasive issue of male-centric viewpoints in academia, which she describes as an intellectual defect beyond simple sexism. This perspective dismisses women as an equally valid part of culture and history, instead promoting the notion that male experiences represent the universal norm. By coining terms like 'patrivincialism,' she challenges the assumption that history has been the same for both genders, advocating for a broader understanding of cultural contributions.
In practice
In a discussion on gender representation in literature, this quote can highlight the need for diverse perspectives.
My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.
The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.
A president cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored.'β
There is no 'the truth','a truth' - truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. the pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet
It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness
It's as if, in the mother's eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child first reads the message:'You are there!'
Now and again, it is necessary to seclude yourself among deep mountain and hidden valleys to restore your link to the source of life.
In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.
Things were somehow so good that they were in danger of becoming very bad because what is fully mature is very close to rotting
No man is to be credited for his mere authority's sake, unless he can show Scripture for the maintenance of his opinion.
Ask yourself whether you are happy', observed the philosopher John Stuart Mill, 'and you cease to be so.' At best, it would appear, happiness can only be glimpsed out of the corner of an eye, not stared at directly.
I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.
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