“Pleased to meet you, don’t you know my name?” It’s the right to victimize 14 May 2019 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Arts , History , Patriarchy , No Comments The opening song of the Rolling Stones’ 1968 album Beggars Banquet kicks off with a screech and an insistent, hypnotic beat. “Please allow me […]
Lap-dancing clubs don’t sell sex, they sell a boundary 3 May 2019 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Patriarchy , Sexuality , No Comments It’s a common misconception that lap-dancing clubs, or gentlemen’s clubs, as they are otherwise (and somewhat euphemistically) known, sell sex*. What they actually sell is an invisible boundary between fake sex […]
Patriarchy destroys our capacity to trust 29 April 2019 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Mother wound , Patriarchy , No Comments In Saharasia, geographer James DeMeo demonstrates that patriarchy arose between 6000 and 2000 BC when desertification of the Sahara, Arabia and Central Asia created competition for food sources between previously peaceful hunter-gatherer and […]
Patriarchy at the root of environmental destruction 22 April 2019 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Mother wound , Patriarchy , No Comments I recently attended a grass roots environmental meeting at which an older lady, a staunch activist, spelled out various things we should be doing to protect the environment. A young man, owner […]
Shame is the lock that keeps patriarchy in place 22 February 2019 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Patriarchy , Shame , No Comments I have written a lot about shame, and I have written a lot about patriarchy. But never before have I articulated the connection between them so clearly. Shame is the lock […]
Naughty or nice? The patriarchal programming behind Santa’s question 26 January 2019 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Patriarchy , No Comments Over the Christmas period I was offered a chocolate with the rider that “you can only have one if you’ve been good.” The admonition was no doubt intended as a joke, but it […]
Why do we always eat too much at Christmas? 21 December 2018 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Mother wound , Patriarchy , No Comments Amid all the jollity of Christmas—much of it genuine, some of it forced—it’s an awkward question to ask. It disturbs the glossy patina of pre-Christmas rituals. Putting up the tree […]
Sex in patriarchy – how the past shapes sex today 15 December 2018 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Cornerstones , Patriarchy , No Comments In A brief history of shame, I wrote how patriarchy arose some 6,000 years ago, giving rise to male dominant, anti-female, anti-sexual societies. Here I’m going to examine the way […]
Pointing the finger at God – why are Michelangelo’s willies so small? 30 November 2018 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Arts , History , Patriarchy , No Comments I’ve been a little obsessed by penis size lately. I think it’s something to do with having recently begun life modelling with the good folks at […]
Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell – a rock opera on patriarchy 29 September 2018 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Arts , Patriarchy , No Comments Some years ago I wrote how Pink Floyd’s 1979 epic double album The Wall was a complex 26-song cycle about patriarchy and its institutionalised sexual shame. I don’t know […]