Patriarchy and Pathology

Last night at dinner I asked Ira how one might productively analyze the Joseph Fritzl case in terms of systemic, rather than subjective, violence. (Yes, we do have dinner conversations like this. Whaddya expect? We're both PhDs in literature.) Ira's response: begin by looking at the way the Austrian State's patriarchal biases effectively enabled Fritzl to commit his crimes. The State, for instance, repeatedly ignored his daughter's attempts to run away from home, even though her father had a record as a sex offender. Ira's hypothesis is corroborated by "Joseph Fritzl's fictive forebears," a TLS essay, the gist of which is this: Symptomological analyses of Austrian literature, including Freud's case studies, suggest a systemic sociocultural tendency to indulge abusive patriarchs while disregarding patriarchy's victims, primarily women and children.