The Shadow King

he power that these women feel at work or in the world dissolves when they come home and walk through the door. They are tigers at work and children at home. This striking change is due, at least in part, to the Inner Patriarch’s rules about the woman’s role in relationship.

He never did give me much credit for childrearing and always saw it as a bit of a vacation from “real life.” He admitted that I was behaving like a good, responsible, thoughtful mother at home, but he truly admired me only during the hours I was professionally active

To do otherwise, to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, has been viewed as a sin and, in previous decades, has been written into our laws as illegal. In the interests of protecting the new life of the fetus, the woman’s choice in this matter, her own needs, and her own life have been overlooked. It is my feeling that her awesome—yes, truly awesome—ability to create and destroy life is something that has felt dangerous to her, something that the patriarchal society has needed to control. The knowledge that this is true power is something that the Inner Patriarch denies to women