Age Patriarchy

• Gittens 1998

  She uses the terms age patriarchy to describe inequalities between adults and children. She argues there is an age patriarchy of adult domination and child dependency.
• Humphreys and Thiara 2002

  They found that a quarter of the 200 women in their study left their abusing partner because they feared for their children's lives. Gittens views that patriarchy oppresses children as well as women.
• Hockey and James 1993

  Children may experience childhood as oppressive, which comes from the strategies that they use to restrict the status of a child. Hockey and James describe one strategy as 'acting up' - acting like adults by doing adult things e.g. swearing, drinking, smoking and under-age sexual activity. 'acting down' - behaving in ways expected from younger children e.g. baby talk or wanting to be carried.
• Child liberationist

  Critics of the child liberationist view argue that some control is justified on the grounds that children cannot make rational decisions and so are unable to safeguard their interests themselves.