Meghan Daum

Do We Give the Patriarchy More Power Than It Really Has?

We should be looking down on misogynists, not paying them attention they don’t deserve

For several years in my twenties I shared a rambling, roach-infested but otherwise quite desirable apartment in New York City near Columbia University. There were three people in residence at any given time, and though we were usually all women there were also a handful of male roommates. Periodically someone would move out and the remaining roommate and I would advertise for a replacement by stapling fliers onto telephone poles around the neighborhood. Competition was tough — the bedroom most often up for grabs rented for less than $500 — and we often set aside a day during which candidates would file in for interviews like actors on a casting call.

There was one applicant in particular I’ll never forget. The year was 1995 or so, and the remaining roommate and I were both in graduate school and working any number of side hustles to pay the rent. I was registered with a number of temp agencies and routinely blew off my campus job to do secretarial work in midtown offices, which paid twice as much. We probably interviewed a dozen candidates that day, most of them students, or struggling artists, or people in entry level jobs; people a lot…