AustLII Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback

Edited Legal Collections Data

You are here:  AustLII >> Databases >> Edited Legal Collections Data >> 2017 >> [2017] ELECD 853

Database Search | Name Search | Recent Articles | Noteup | LawCite | Help

Kang, John --- "Patriarchy and constitutional origins" [2017] ELECD 853; in Irving, Helen (ed), "Constitutions and Gender" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 501

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.


AustLII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback
URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ELECD/2017/853.html