Reviews
“…this compact book exists in a category of its own. The voices of its authors are accessible, incisive and engaging – the perfect book to launch almost any conversation about our current messy psycho-political times.” Jill Gentile, Author of Feminine Law: Freud, Free Speech, and the Voice of Desire
“…there is a freshness and vitality…should be compulsory reading..” Terri Apter, Newnham College, Cambridge
““Why Does Patriarchy Persist?” is a gentle dialogue between Dr. Gilligan and Ms. Snider that proposes a psychological reason for patriarchy — that it’s a defense against loss — that complements the agreed-upon explanation, which is that people in power don’t tend to give it up. It’s more forgiving than many conversations about men right now…. her voice on the page is as it is in real life: warm and inviting. Democracy, she said, is like love. It only works if everyone has a voice. Dr. Gilligan’s new book continues to try and universalize the intimate.” Penelope Green, New York Times (full review here)
In producing their book Why Does Patriarchy Persist Carol Gilligan and Naomi Snider doggedly pursued the mystery of why our patriarchal ways of living and relating endure with such tenacity when they keep producing results we do not want. It is a personal account of three discoveries which, theoretically if not politically, can change the game of deep social change. Michael Johnson (full review here)
There are books that do what they set out to do: they make their points clearly, they argue something new, they uncover something for us. Carol Gilligan and Naomi Snider’s new book, Why Does Patriarchy Persist?, does more than that. It is a spark. It is something like a book-length speech act, both illocutionary and perlocutionary: in speaking, the authors bring their thesis into being, and with it a host of possibilities come alive within us. As we read, we believe intimately that what they say is so. We feel it and see it in our own lives; it cannot but leap up within us." Ali Shames-Dawson (full review here)
“Gilligan and Snider adopt a neo-existentialist perspective, which is to say that patriarchy is a choice, a system in which we are complicit… Gilligan and Snider tell of their own experiences in a very personal way,” Andy Martin, Author of Said Nothing: Lee Child and the Making of Make Me (full review here)
“Based in two complementary narratives, this original work is a call for all girls and women to resist pressures to disengage themselves from their honest voices. The seeds for resistance and transformation are in our voices.” Athena. Maquina Lectora: Notes of a curious mind (full review here)
Press coverage
Interview with Carol Gilligan in French Magazine Liberation
Interview with Carol Gilligan and French historian, Michelle Perrott, in French Magazine L’Obs
H. Schachter, “Why Does Patriarchy Persist In the Workplace?”, Globe and Mail, September 2019
M. Sprengnether, Howard Stern on How to be a Man, Psychology Today, July 2019
M. Johnson Moving Into and Out of Patriarchy: a Review , Resilience, June 2019
R. Onion Male Loneliness Starts in Boyhood, Slate, May 2019
P. Green Carefully Smash the Patriarchy, New York Times, March 2019
M. Salam How the Patriarchy Got in Our Heads, New York Times, March 2019
E. Louis, Needed: A quiet cultural revolution: Having more women in politics is only the beginning, NY Dailynews, December 2018
N, Burleigh, TRUMP VS. PELOSI: MANSPREADING AND THE PATRIARCHY, FEMINIST CAROL GILLIGAN GIVES A BLOW-BY-BLOW ACCOUNT OF OVAL OFFICE SHOWDOWN, Newsweek, December 2018
A Martin, Despite the #MeToo movement, patriarchy still persists – is it a choice? The Independent, 14 September 2018
R. Onion, Trump’s “Pocahontas” Mockery of Elizabeth Warren Is Racist. But It Also Reveals Something Profound About His Misogyny. Slate Magazine, 17 October 2018