Patriarchy

Patriarchy is more than just “sexism.” It is a social formation of male-gendered power with a particular structure that can be found with striking regularity in many different arenas of social life, from small-scale contexts like the family, kin groups, and gangs, up through larger institutional contexts like the police, the military, organized religion, the state, and more. At the same time, patriarchy never stands alone, and always exists in complex intersections with other forms of power. In this article, I look at patriarchy from both points of view—that is, from both an exclusively gendered perspective, and from a perspective in which patriarchy cannot be divorced from white supremacy, normative heterosexuality, and normative able-bodiedness. Finally I briefly consider contemporary right-wing extremist (fascist) politics, in which the toxic intersectional brew of patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativity, and ideologies of bodily perfection are mobilized in pursuit of mass political control and domination.