![A Ledger of the Soul: Navigating the Allah-Bhagavant Nexus in a 19th-Century Puruṣākāra Jñāna Caupara [Gyan Chauper]](https://counterpointbd.com/uploads/images/202608/image_430x256_6a93baa3b09a7.jpg)
Patriarchy does not survive only because men consciously decide to oppress women. It survives because its norms can become embedded in families, institutions, communities and individual beliefs, including the beliefs of women themselves.
A political culture that cannot imagine women as independent political actors inevitably returns to patriarchy's oldest explanation: If a woman has succeeded, she must have traded her body for power. That explanation tells us very little about women. But it tells us almost everything about the society that produces it.
