Is the man-dominated society fearful of women?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question: We come from a society that is patriarchal in nature, everything revolves around a man and there is a general subjugation of a woman in the sense that the laws, the rules, and regulations around whatever woman can do, not do; things like that. My question is that, is there a general fear of a woman in the man’s mind and society at large? Because we control things, we subjugate a thing to rules or regulations only when we feel a threat, maybe inferiority, if I may say. So, that is my question — “Is there a fear of a woman?”

Acharya Prashant (AP): So, you are already in the hold of something important. At one end you see that it’s a patriarchal society that we are coming from. On the other end, your question is — “Is the man afraid of women?”

Firstly, we are saying that the man is the controller and then we are asking that is the man afraid of the woman.

Questioner (Q): Not just the man, but maybe the society at large — man and woman — because even the women are equal participants in the patriarchal system. It is also the woman who holds the patriarchy; so, the society also.

AP: Yes, but then the society, by itself, hardly means anything. When we say society, we mean the…