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Edited Legal Collections Data |
Book Title: Constitutions and Gender
Editor(s): Irving, Helen
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN (hard cover): 9781784716950
Section: Chapter 19
Section Title: Patriarchy and constitutional origins
Author(s): Kang, John
Number of pages: 24
Abstract/Description:
The purpose of this chapter is to show that in Britain, the United States, and Japan, arguments about manliness were basic to arguments about what their respective constitutions came to mean. Two caveats are necessary: 1. While I sift through the textual properties of the constitutions, my overarching preoccupation is with the separation of powers, the central principle that orders all constitutions. Even pseudo-constitutions like North Korea’s pay lip-service to it by dividing power, at least on paper, among different branches (Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, 1972: Chapter 6). 2. I do not for the most part dwell on the familiar binary between male and female found in gender scholarship. I focus on a particular iteration of male identity in patriarchy, the belief that father-like authorities are entitled to epistemic deference. I explore how patriarchy assumes political form as a justification for absolute monarchy. I argue that in Britain, the United States, and Japan, patriarchy as a political ideology was used (or, as the reader may feel, abused) by monarchists and champions of constitutional democracy alike to further their respective ends. Monarchists inflated the moral grandeur of patriarchy to underwrite their case against constitutional democracy; those who advocated constitutionalism demonized the king as a hypermasculine bully. Patriarchy therefore served, I suggest, as both mascot and villain in the story of constitutional democracy.
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URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ELECD/2017/853.html