What a largely stupid and uneducated populace thinks of something has no relevance to me. A huge percentage of Americans don't realize that New Mexico is actually an American state.
I suggest you read my piece substituting MLK's speeches with feminism for some context.
Men, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their sexist ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the men of America believe they have so little to learn. The reality of substantial investment to assist women into the twenty-first century, adjusting to female colleagues and bosses and genuine safety and acceptance as equals, is still a nightmare for all too many female Americans… These are the deepest causes for contemporary abrasions between the sexes. Loose and easy language about equality, resonant resolutions about equality fall pleasantly on the ear, but for women there is a credibility gap they cannot overlook. She remembers that with each modest advance the male population promptly raises the argument that women have come far enough. Each step forward accents an ever-present tendency to backlash.
Chivalry was a concept that applied only to knights for a few hundred years in Europe and it had extremely limited scope. If you think that it kept them from raping common women or taking what they wanted from the poor or others they had power over, you are severely deluded.
Patriarchy is a dominance based hierarchy founded in what is essentially Might Makes Right. If you want to cast that as sinfulness, you probably aren't all that wrong because it is traditional power kept in place with coercion, intimidation, and violence or the threat of violence. I personally don't countenance that, no matter who has the most power.
