Okay. I am no great feminist or feminist theorist but, based on much reading and debating and observing over most of my 47 years, here is a little thread about patriarchy and what it is. 1/

I often hear/see feminists, mostly radfems because I tend to avoid libfems because they fucking annoy me, refer to patriarchy as "men oppressing women." That's true, but it is not the whole story and not what the word actually means. And the meaning is important. 2/

"Patriarchy" is a word deriving from the Greek for "rule of fathers." In short, the fathers are in charge of society.

Does this mean literal fathers? Are only dads in charge in our society?

Nah. This runs deeper than the literal. 3/

In a patriarchy, it's true men walk all over women, but some men have more power than others.

I like to think of the more powerful men as being in the role of "fathers" while less powerful men are in the role of "sons." I'm not the only one. I just dig the construct. 4/

We could drill even deeper and see some parallels with the cultural stories we've heard about a father with two sons and one's a bad son and one's a good son (like the Bible story of God, Jesus, and Satan, let us say), but that's neither here nor there. 5/

The familial analogy is important because it explains a lot of stuff, like (as I said) why some men are more powerful than other men. But also, why some women are favored more than other women. Because in a family you've also got moms and daughters. 6/

But this is not a healthy family. Everyone in the family does not have an equal say, or at least as close to equal as you can get with the adults still being in charge. No, the males are lording it over the females, and they are not nice about this. 7/

In fact, this is an abusive family. The father abuses everybody, but particularly the mother and daughter. The son, because he identifies with the father, aids in this abuse. Someday he will become a father and have his own household and repeat the cycle. 8/

The mother shares a bed with the father, so she doesn't get it as badly as Daughter does, but she definitely takes her shitty life out on Daughter. Think how higher-ranking women treat lower-ranking ones in our culture. Downright vicious. 9/

This does not absolve Father or disprove patriarchy. It points to the few choices women truly have in a patriarchy and how hard it is to dissociate from bad men, which of course keeps the whole fucking racket going because there are no obvious alternatives. 10/

One reason feminism has such a hard time gaining a foothold in society is because it would provide an alternative to this dysfunctional "family," and Fathers know it, so they have to stamp out anything that looks like an escape in order to maintain power and control. 11/

Think about how real-life abusive husbands/boyfriends behave. They cut off their victim from society, right? Get her away from supportive family and friends and isolate her. That's what patriarchy does to women and girls. It's doing it right now as I write this. 12/

This is the real reason men want to "identify as women" and get into all our spaces. They saw we were succeeding at helping one another and offering real alternatives to being stuck in patriarchy and they are not. fucking. having it. 13/

Patriarchy is the abusive family. Feminism is the domestic violence shelter. Feminism can also be a new vision for the human family, if we are brave enough to carry it through the worst assaults and insults with our integrity intact. /end