Lessons from feminist foremothers: the imagining of the post-patriarch

This article explores the imaginings of the post-patriarch through the lens of both liberal and radical feminism and the extent to which these differing strands of feminism can challenge the ontological masculine standard of the liberal citizen. From this discussion, central ideas from feminist theorists, including Germaine Greer and Catharine MacKinnon, conceptualise the patriarchal state, how oppression is embedded within the structure and the extent to which contemporary forms of resistance, such as the #MeToo movement, can challenge this understanding. This article ultimately concludes that the state as an apparatus of inequality is redeemably masculinist in the sense that when the root cause of inequality is addressed and overturned only then will women and men engage in reciprocal relationships. This indeed is the imagining of the post-patriarch.