If women have influence, it is only--and then only sometimes--within their home. Men control all the political and economic power, the culture and customs; they proclaim the laws and apply them as they wish, and when social pressures and the legal apparatus are not sufficient to subdue the most rebellious women, the Church steps in with its incontestable patriarchal seal. What is unforgivable, though, is that it is women who perpetuate and reinforce the system, continuing to raise arrogant sons and servile daughters. If they would agree to revise the standards, they could end machismo in one generation.