Ray Donovan won't be one of my favorite shows. I'm going to try to stop watching it after one season. It is bleak and brutal. It is, however, an effective portrayal of how the patriarchy manages to induce grinding misery even in men, the beneficiaries of the sexist order. The patriarchy oppresses women by limiting - even seeking to eliminate entirely - their agency and power, imposing on women the most constrained and reduced identity possible - that of a unpaid domestic servant with no rights and the opportunity to be perceived as either a Madonna or a (sexist epithet). The gender caste system permits men power and agency, but demands of them that they limit their emotional spectrum to aggression, dominance, the absence of vulnerability and very limited intimacy with family and friends. In many cases, as in the Donovan family, not even sadness is permitted. No grief allowed. The men learn they must bury their pain with drugs and alcohol, with fighting and often with the oppression of women - per the design of the wretched system.
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