PATRIARCHAL MIND READING

There are various degrees of patriarchal posturing, and mind reading.

Tha hall mark of a patriarch as such is always mind reading. A patriarch, if we are to define him, is somebody who believes he can look into one's mind, and know what is there. Often enough, he simply draws his conclusions without engaging in any kind of conversation. At other times, he does engage in actual conversation, but then overrides any communication that has taken place. He supposes that despite what a paricular woman said, she actually meant something else entirely. He knows this just because he does -- because his patriarchal ideology makes him an adherent and practitioner of mind reading.

Other kinds of mind reading take place in patriarchal society on the basis of a secondary effect of this kind of common attitudinalising by arch patriarchs.

There is the assumption that one's thinking must simply take place within a patriarchally circumscribed context -- in other words, that it must be defined by one's partisanship in relation to a particular political or social camp. And, any particular camp, quite naturally, has an arch patriarch to lead it. If one is not partisan, then one is assumed not to think at all. In that case, there is no point asking you what you in fact think! Just assume that no actual thinking is taking place. (But this is a kind of reverse mind reading, or negative hallucination, taking away from the substance of thinking that is actually there.)

Ladies and gentlemen: I give you patriarchal mind reading!