It Must Be Women

“he most uncontrollable force in human life is nature, which patriarchal culture routinely characterizes as female. Women are regarded as irrational beings ruled by emotion, intuition, and the rhythms, needs, and desires of the body. In patriarchal culture, truly dangerous wildness is female, for it is female wildness that threatens the gender order. This is why so much energy is expended trying to control girls and women. It is why sexually active girls are far more likely to be institutionalized as incorrigible than are sexually active boys. It's why openly sexual women are often regarded by men as "asking for" men to assert control by raping them. It's why the Wild Woman is so often portrayed as a nymphomaniac whose "wildness" isn't true wildness at all, but a compulsion that winds up primarily serving “men's sexual fantasies. It's why "a good fuck" is the standard patriarchal "cure'' for women whose "condition" is the wildness of female autonomy and power and a hairy, carnal juiciness that defies male control.”