legislation including its short comings in addressing the local labour market. Aconclusion shall then summate.
Historical Background
The society we live in has been shaped by a multitude of discourses that make upeverything about us, right down to our constructed sense of self. Intrinsically, the veryfabrics of society and the institutions we live by inform our own actions, and guide our collective responsibility as a society. Oddly enough, as noted by many a social writer, thevery fabrics of society that exist today place male prominence at their centre, and go asfar as subordinating females to ensure this dominance. This facet of society is called patriarchy, and is the most pervasive form of organizing society, and setting up a social-hierarchy based on gender. Thus lays the most crucial question at this stage which is justexactly what patriarchy is? The Oxford dictionary describes patriarchy as the; “form of social organization in which the father or oldest male is the head of the family, anddescent and relationship are reckoned through the male line; government or rule by a manor men” (Oxford, 2008). Such a definition, although encapsulating what patriarchy is,doesn’t take into account the full rigours of this concept, thus patriarchy is also posited asthe structuring of society on the basis of family units, where fathers have primaryresponsibility for the welfare of, and authority over, their families (Henslin, 2001). Theconcept of patriarchy is often used by extension to refer to the expectation that men take primary responsibility for the welfare of the community as a whole, acting asrepresentatives via public office.It is also important to state that patriarchy is, regardless of your ideological or methodological viewpoint, the most common and accepted method in which gender relations have come to be conceptualized. That is whether you are a creationalist,evolutionist, Marxist or a societal liberalist, all concur that patriarchy is dominant; andthat the commonly held notion is that the organisation of collective human effort hascentred around male dominance the subordination of females. Terbon (2004) notesthough that, the world was not equally patriarchal, though the powers of fathers, adult3
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