MEN HAVE NOT ESCAPED patriarchy's bludgeonings. While women are presently more articulate in expressing their demands for equal rights, increasing numbers of men are becoming conscious of their wounding. They are recognizing how deep is the hole at the center of their psyche because their father was not present to them.

He may have died; he may have disappeared; he may have worked hard every night at the office or at his computer at home. Life may have been too much for him and he drowned himself in alcohol.

He may have been a tyrannical father, who always knew what was best for his son and, therefore, never saw or heard his child. He may have been the perfectionist, for whom nothing but top grades, top scores, top performance were worth bothering with. Or he may have "opted out" and let "Mother" take over-Mother, who was also shaped by patriarchy.

Mother, whose judgment was more severe than Dad's, her eyes soul-blind, her ears soul-deaf; or Mother, who in her essential hatred for men, sucked her son's life out.

These are patriarchal parents, who may be doing their very best but who are totally unaware of the unconscious devouring complexes that destroy life around them.

• MARION WOODMAN.