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{{Refimprove|date=December 2008}}
{{Short description|Social system with male rule}}
{{POV|date=December 2008}}
{{About|the social system}}
[[Image:Vintage family from england.jpg|thumb|right|200px|English family c. 1900]]
{{Redirect|Macho politics|the concept of pride in male domination|Machismo}}
{{otheruses|Patriarchy (disambiguation)}}
{{redirect|Patriarchal system|the political hierarchy of the Western Zhou|Patriarchal system (Western Zhou)}}
'''Patriarchy''' can be traditionally defined as the structuring of [[society]] on the basis of [[family]] units, where the father or man has the primary authority and [[Social responsibility|responsibility]] and decision making powers over the rest of the family members. However, the meaning of the term is much wider. Patriarchy refers to not just the benefits that fathers and men have in families and at home, but also in society at large: at the workplace, at home, and in human relationships at large. The concept of patriarchy is often used by extension (in [[anthropology]] and [[feminism]]) to refer to the expectation that [[man|men]] take primary responsibility and authority over the welfare of the [[community]] as a whole, acting as representatives via [[public office]].
{{distinguish|Patriarchate}}
{{Political anthropology|expanded=Basic concepts|Gender Studies=}}
{{use dmy dates|date=November 2017}}
'''Patriarchy''' is a [[social system]] in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term ''patriarchy'' is used both in [[anthropology]] to describe a family or [[clan]] controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in [[feminist theory]] to describe a broader social structure in which men as a group [[dominance hierarchy|dominate]] society.{{r|Lerner p238|Walby 1989}}<ref name="Hunnicutt 2009">{{cite journal |last1=Hunnicutt |first1=Gwen |date=2009 |title=Varieties of Patriarchy and Violence Against Women: Resurrecting 'Patriarchy' as a Theoretical Tool |journal=Violence Against Women |volume=15 |issue=5 |pages=553–573 |doi=10.1177/1077801208331246 |issn=1077-8012 |pmid=19182049 |s2cid=206667077 |quote=The core concept of patriarchy [is a system] of male domination and female subordination [...] Although patriarchy has been variously defined, for purposes of this article, it means social arrangements that privilege males, where men as a group dominate women as a group, both structurally and ideologically man power![...]}}</ref>


Patriarchal [[ideology]] acts to explain and rationalize patriarchy by attributing [[gender inequality]] to inherent [[Gender essentialism|natural differences between men and women]], divine commandment, or other fixed structures.{{r|Green 2010}} [[Sociologist]]s tend to disagree with some of the predominantly biological explanations of patriarchy and contend that [[socialization]] processes are primarily responsible for establishing [[gender role]]s.{{r|Henslin 2001}} [[Sociobiologist]]s compare human gender roles to sexed behavior in other primates and some{{Who|date=December 2023}} argue that gender inequality comes primarily from genetic and reproductive differences between men and women. [[Social constructionists]] contest this argument, arguing that gender roles and gender inequity are instruments of power and have become social norms to maintain control over women.
[[Western world|Western civilization]] is predominately patriarchal, and has only recently gravitated towards a more [[gender egalitarianism|egalitarian]] form under the influence of the [[Women's rights]]' movement.{{Fact|date=January 2009}} The major non-Western [[civilization]]s in the [[Arab world|Middle East]], [[Chinese patriarchy|East Asia]] and [[Indian culture|South Asia]] remain pronouncedly patriarchal.{{Fact|date=December 2008}}


Historically, patriarchy has manifested itself in the social, legal, political, religious, and economic organization of a range of different cultures.<ref>{{cite book |last=Malti-Douglas |first=Fedwa|author-link=Fedwa Malti-Douglas |title=Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender |year=2007 |publisher=Macmillan |location=Detroit |isbn=978-0-02-865960-2}}</ref> Most contemporary societies are, in practice, patriarchal, unless the criteria of complete exclusion of women in authority is applied.<ref name="Lockard p88">{{Cite book |title=Societies, Networks, and Transitions: A Global History |edition=3rd |last=Lockard |first=Craig |publisher=Cengage Learning |location=Stamford, Conn. |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-285-78312-3 |page=88 |quote=Today, as in the past, men generally hold political, economic, and religious power in most societies thanks to patriarchy, a system whereby men largely control women and children, shape ideas about appropriate gender behavior, and generally dominate society.}}</ref><ref name="Pateman 2016">{{cite encyclopedia |editor-first=Nancy A. |editor-last=Naples |encyclopedia=The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, Volume 5 |first1=Carole |last1=Pateman |author-link=Carole Pateman|chapter=Sexual Contract |publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Ltd |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-4051-9694-9 |chapter-url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/9781118663219.wbegss468 |doi=10.1002/9781118663219.wbegss468 |quote=The heyday of the patriarchal structures analyzed in ''The Sexual Contract'' extended from the 1840s to the late 1970s [...] Nevertheless, men's government of women is one of the most deeply entrenched of all power structures |pages=1–3}}</ref>
The feminine form of ''patriarchy'' is ''[[matriarchy]]'', where the authority and responsibility that men enjoy under patriarchy, is instead reversed and awarded to women. However, there are no known examples of strictly matriarchal societies.<ref name=Britannica>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Matriarchy|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|year=2007|quote=The view of matriarchy as constituting a stage of cultural development is now generally discredited. Furthermore, the consensus among modern anthropologists and sociologists is that a strictly matriarchal society never existed.}}</ref>


==Terminology==
==Etymology and related terms==
''Patriarchy'' literally means "the rule of the father"<ref name="Ferguson 1999">{{cite book |last=Ferguson|first= Kathy E.|author-link=Kathy Ferguson |chapter=Patriarchy |editor=Tierney, Helen |title=Women's Studies Encyclopedia, Volume 2 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing |year=1999 |edition=revised and expanded |isbn=978-0-313-31072-0 |page=1048 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/womensstudiesenc0000unse_l3o9/mode/1up?view=theater |chapter-url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name="Green 2010">{{cite book |last=Green |first=Fiona Joy |chapter=Patriarchal Ideology of Motherhood |editor=O'Reilly, Andrea |title=Encyclopedia of Motherhood, Volume 3 |publisher=SAGE Publications |location=Thousand Oaks, Calif. |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4129-6846-1 |pages=969–970}}</ref> and comes from the [[Greek language|Greek]] {{lang|grc|πατριάρχης}} (''patriarkhēs''),<ref>{{cite web |title=patriarchy |url=https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/patriarchy |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181103003358/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/patriarchy |url-status=dead |archive-date=3 November 2018 |website=Oxford Dictionaries |access-date=4 January 2019}}</ref><ref>{{OEtymD|patriarchy}}</ref> "father or chief of a race",<ref>{{LSJ|patria/rxhs|πατριάρχης|ref}}.</ref> which is a [[Compound (linguistics)|compound]] of {{lang|grc|πατριά}} (''patria''), "lineage, descent, family, fatherland"<ref>{{LSJ|patria/|πατριά|ref}}.</ref> (from {{lang|grc|πατήρ}} ''patēr'', "father")<ref>{{LSJ|path/r|πατήρ|ref}}.</ref> and {{lang|grc|ἀρχή}} (''arkhē''), "domination, authority, sovereignty".<ref>{{LSJ|a)rxh/|ἀρχή|ref}}.</ref>
{{see|Pater familias|Patriarch|Archon|Tribal chief|Dominus (title)}}


Historically, the term ''patriarchy'' has been used to refer to [[autocratic]] rule by the male head of a family; however, since the late 20th century it has also been used to refer to [[social system]]s in which power is primarily held by adult men.<ref name="Cannell 1996">{{cite book |last1=Cannell |first1=Fenella |last2=Green |first2=Sarah |editor1-last=Kuper |editor1-first=Adam |editor2-last=Kuper |editor2-first=Jessica |title=The Social Science Encyclopedia |date=1996 |edition=2nd |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-0-41-510829-4 |pages=592–593 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/socialscienceenc0002unse/page/592/mode/1up?view=theater |chapter-url-access=registration |chapter=Patriarchy}}</ref><ref name="Meagher 2011">{{Cite book |last=Meagher |first=Michelle|author-link=Michelle Meagher |chapter=Patriarchy |editor1-last=Ritzer |editor1-first=George |editor2-last=Ryan |editor2-first=J. Michael |title=The Concise Encyclopedia of Sociology |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-4051-8353-6 |pages=441–442}}</ref><ref name="Hennessy 2012">{{cite book |last1=Hennessy |first1=Rosemary |editor1-last=Harrington |editor1-first=A. |editor2-last=Marshall |editor2-first=B.L. |editor3-last=Muller |editor3-first=H. |title=Encyclopedia of Social Theory |date=2012 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-13-678694-5 |pages=420–422 |chapter=Patriarchy}}</ref> The term was particularly used by writers associated with [[second-wave feminism]] such as [[Kate Millett]]; these writers sought to use an understanding of patriarchal social relations to liberate women from male domination.<ref name="Gardiner 1999">{{cite book |last=Gardiner |first=Jean |editor1-last=O'Hara |editor1-first=Phillip A. |title=Encyclopedia of Political Economy, Volume 2: L–Z |date=1999 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-41-518718-3 |pages=843–846 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofpo02ohar/page/843 |chapter-url-access=registration |chapter=Patriarchy}}</ref><ref name="Fitzpatrick 2013">{{cite book |display-editors=etal |editor1-last=Fitzpatrick |editor1-first=Tony |title=International Encyclopedia of Social Policy |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-13-661004-2 |pages=987 ff |chapter=Patriarchy}}</ref> This concept of patriarchy was developed to explain male dominance as a social, rather than biological, phenomenon.{{r|Meagher 2011}}
The usage of the word ''patriarchy'' in the sense of a male-oriented social organization started in the English language in the 16th century, from the post-classical Latin ''patriarchia'' "office of a [[patriarch]]". It is a loanword from [[Byzantine Greek]] {{lang|grc|πατριαρχια}} "office of a patriarch", in use since the 6th or 7th century for the Christian office, but attested in the 4th century for the headship of a Jewish community, from the [[Hellenistic Greek]] term for such a community leader, {{lang|grc|πατριαρχης}}.<ref>[[OED]] s.v. "patriarchy".</ref>


==Overview==
The term ''[[patriarch]]'', from post-classical Latin ''patriarcha'' "[[Tribal chief|chief or head]] of a family or tribe", [[Anglo-Norman]] ''patriarche'' was the title of the bishop of any of the chief sees of the [[Roman Empire]]. The [[Biblical Patriarchs]] are the heads of the Israelite tribe before Moses. In late medieval use, it could more generically refer to any venerable old man.
Patriarchy is a social system in which men are the primary [[authority]] figures in the areas of [[political leader]]ship, [[moral authority]] and control of [[property]].<ref name="Catalano p187">{{cite book |last1=Catalano |first1=D. Chase J. |last2=Griffin |first2=Pat |editor1-last=Adams |editor1-first=Maurianne |editor2-last=Bell |editor2-first=Lee Anne |title=Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=978-1-317-68869-3 |page=187 |edition=3rd |doi=10.4324/9781315775852-8 |chapter=Sexism, Heterosexism, and Trans* Oppression: An Integrated Perspective}}</ref>
Sociologist [[Sylvia Walby]] defines patriarchy as "a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress, and exploit women".<ref name="Walby 1989">{{Cite journal |last=Walby |first=Sylvia |title=Theorising Patriarchy |date=1989 |journal=Sociology |volume=23 |issue=2 |pages=213–234 |doi=10.1177/0038038589023002004 |jstor=42853921 |s2cid=220676988 |quote=I shall define patriarchy as a system of social structures, and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women.}}</ref>
The English term is first used in the sense of the societal organization rather than the Church office in the 17th century, by [[Francis Bacon]].<ref> "The first [state] is Paternity or Patriarchy, which was when a family growing so great as it could not containe it selfe within one habitation, some branches of the descendents were forced to plant themselves into new families." ''Concerning the Post-Nati of Scotland'' (1626), in ''Three Speeches'' (1641) (cited after [[OED]]).</ref>
[[Social stratification]] along gender lines, with power predominantly held by men, has been observed in most, but not all societies.{{r|Lockard p88|Meagher 2011|Hennessy 2012}}
The concept of patriarchy is also related to [[patrilineality]] in a anthropological sense, although not exclusively.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-08-26 |title=Can the patriarchy be matrilineal? An anthropologist calls for clarity {{!}} Santa Fe Institute |url=https://www.santafe.edu/news-center/news/can-patriarchy-be-matrilineal-anthropoligst-calls-clarity |access-date=2024-06-04 |website=www.santafe.edu |language=en |agency=[[Santa Fe Institute]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fortunato |first=Laura |date=2019-09-02 |title=Lineal kinship organization in cross-specific perspective |journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |language=en |volume=374 |issue=1780 |pages=20190005 |doi=10.1098/rstb.2019.0005 |issn=0962-8436 |pmc=6664128 |pmid=31303167}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Lewis |first=Jone Johnson |title=Patrilineal vs. Matrilineal Succession: How Does Inheritance Work? |url=https://www.thoughtco.com/patrilineal-vs-matrilineal-succession-3529192 |access-date=2024-06-04 |website=ThoughtCo |language=en |quote=Sometimes, men in matrilineal societies were the ones who inherited, but they did so through their mother’s brothers, and passed their own inheritances along to their sisters’ children.}}</ref>{{Explain|date=August 2024}}


==History==
The adjective for ''patriarchy'' is ''patriarchal''; and ''patriarchalism'', or more commonly ''[[paternalism]]'', refer to the practice or defence of patriarchy.


===Pre-history===
''Patrimonalism'' describes the view of a [[Sovereign state|state]] as the extended household of a [[monarch|mon-arch]] (sole ruler, ''archē'' as above) or [[deity]]. There are records of patrimonalism almost as far back as the earliest [[writing]] itself (about 5000 years ago). This is probably because patrimonalism directly facilitated the invention of writing — the first hereditary monarchs gained so much wealth as to need to keep [[accountancy|accounts]], and enough to pay those [[accountant]]s. The earliest records of patrimonalism come from [[Ancient Near East]]ern legal documents, the best known being the [[Code of Hammurabi]] and the Torah. Some aspects of patrimonalism can still be found in the few remaining [[monarchy|monarchies]] in the world today, for example, [[Law of the United Kingdom|British law]] concerning [[real estate]] (see [[Crown land]]s), especially in [[Australia]]. For more detail regarding patrimonalism see [[Traditional authority#Patrimonalism|Traditional authority]].
====Sexual division of labour====
Some preconditions for the eventual development of patriarchy were the emergence of increased [[paternal investment]] in the offspring, also referred to as [[fatherhood]], and of a [[sexual division of labour]]. Several researchers have stated that the first signs of a sexual division of labour dates from around 2 million years ago, deep within humanity's evolutionary past.<ref name="Wrangham 2009" /><ref name="Betuel 2020" /><ref name="Alger 2020" /> It has been connected to an evolutionary process during a period of resource scarcity in Africa approximately 2 million years ago.<ref name="Betuel 2020">{{cite web |last=Betuel |first=Emma |title=Why ancient men had to evolve from carousers to doting dads — or die |url=https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/the-first-stay-at-home-dad |website=Inverse |access-date=11 December 2023 |date=21 June 2020}}</ref><ref name="Alger 2020">{{Cite magazine |last1=Alger |first1=Ingela |last2=Hooper |first2=Paul L. |last3=Cox |first3=Donald |last4=Stieglitz |first4=Jonathan |last5=Kaplan |first5=Hillard S. |date=2020-05-19 |title=Paternal provisioning results from ecological change |magazine=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |language=en |volume=117 |issue=20 |pages=10746–10754 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1917166117 |issn=0027-8424 |pmc=7245097 |pmid=32358187 |doi-access=free}}</ref> In the 2009 book ''[[Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human]]'',<ref name="Wrangham 2009">{{Cite book |last=Wrangham |first=Richard |title=Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human |publisher=Basic Books |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-465-01362-3}}</ref> British [[Primatology|primatologist]] [[Richard Wrangham]] suggests that the origin of the [[Sexual_division_of_labour|division of labor]] between males and females may have originated with the invention of cooking,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bradt |first1=Steve |title=Invention of cooking drove evolution of the human species, new book argues |url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/06/invention-of-cooking-drove-evolution-of-the-human-species-new-book-argues/ |website=The Harvard Gazette |access-date=11 December 2023 |date=1 June 2009}}</ref><ref name="Rehg 2010">{{Cite journal |last=Rehg |first=Jennifer |date=2010 |title=Review of 'Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human' |url=https://thekeep.eiu.edu/the_councilor/vol71/iss1/1 |journal=The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Studies |volume=71 |issue=1 |at=Article 1}}</ref> which is estimated to have happened simultaneously with [[Control of fire by early humans|humans gaining control of fire]] between 1 and 2 million years ago.<ref name="Herculano-Houzel 2016">{{Cite book |last=Herculano-Houzel |first=Suzana |date=2016 |title=The Human Advantage: A New Understanding of How Our Brain Became Remarkable |publisher=The MIT Press |doi=10.7551/mitpress/9780262034258.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-262-03425-8}}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}</ref> The idea was early proposed by [[Friedrich Engels]] in an [[The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man|unfinished essay from 1876]].
====Sex hierarchies====
[[anthropology|Anthropological]], [[Archaeology|archaeological]] and [[Evolutionary psychology|evolutionary psychological]] evidence suggests that most [[prehistoric]] societies were relatively [[egalitarian]],{{r|Lockard p88}} and suggests that patriarchal social structures did not develop until after the end of the [[Pleistocene]] epoch, following social and technological developments such as [[agriculture]] and [[domestication]].<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Women in Ancient Civilizations |editor=Adas, Michael |title=Agricultural and pastoral societies in ancient and classical history |publisher=Temple University Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-1-56639-832-9 |pages=118–119 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qcSsoJ0IXawC&pg=PA118 |author1=Hughes, Sarah Shaver |author2=Hughes Brady |name-list-style=amp}}</ref><ref name="Eagly 1999">{{cite journal |author1=Eagly, Alice H. |author2=Wood, Wendy |name-list-style=amp |title=The Origins of Sex Differences in Human Behavior: Evolved Dispositions Versus Social Roles |journal=American Psychologist |volume=54 |issue=6 |date=July 1999 |pages=408–423 |url=http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/fiske/facets/eagly&wood.htm |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120527003250/http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/fiske/facets/eagly&wood.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=27 May 2012 |doi=10.1037/0003-066x.54.6.408}}</ref><ref name="Erdal 1996">{{cite book |last1=Erdal |first1=David |title=Modelling the early human mind |last2=Whiten |first2=Andrew |date=1996 |publisher=McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge |isbn=978-0-9519420-1-7 |editor-last1=Mellars |editor-first1=Paul |series=Cambridge McDonald Monograph Series |location=Cambridge Oakville, Connecticut |chapter=Egalitarianism and Machiavellian intelligence in human evolution |editor-last2=Gibson |editor-first2=Kathleen Rita |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-okQAQAAIAAJ}}</ref> According to [[Robert M. Strozier]], historical research has not yet found a specific "initiating event".<ref name="Strozier 2002">Strozier, Robert M. (2002) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=fuDdNSLXPI8C Foucault, Subjectivity, and Identity: Historical Constructions of Subject and Self]'' p. 46</ref> Historian [[Gerda Lerner]] asserts in her 1986 book ''[[The Creation of Patriarchy]]'' that there was no single event, and documents that patriarchy as a social system arose in different parts of the world at different times.<ref name="Lerner p8">{{cite book |last=Lerner |first=Gerda |date=1986 |url=https://archive.org/details/creationofpatria0000lern/page/8/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration |title=The Creation of Patriarchy |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |series=Women and History, Volume 1 |isbn=978-0-19-503996-2 |pages=8–11}}</ref> Some scholars point to social and technological events, notably the emergence of [[agriculture]], about six thousand years ago (4000 [[BCE]]).<ref>{{cite journal |author=Kraemer, Sebastian |title=The Origins of Fatherhood: An Ancient Family Process |volume=30 |issue=4 |year=1991 |journal=[[Family Process (journal)|Family Process]] |pages=377–392 |doi=10.1111/j.1545-5300.1991.00377.x |pmid=1790784}}</ref><ref>[http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=11879852 Ehrenberg, 1989]; Harris, M. (1993) ''The Evolution of Human Gender Hierarchies''; Leibowitz, 1983; Lerner, 1986; Sanday, 1981</ref>


[[Marxist]] theory, as articulated mainly by [[Friedrich Engels]] in ''[[The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State]]'' (1884), assigns the origin of patriarchy to the emergence of [[private property]], which has traditionally been controlled by men. In this view, men directed household production and sought to control women in order to ensure the passing of family property to their own (male) offspring, while women were limited to household labor and producing children.{{r|Cannell 1996|Gardiner 1999}}<ref name="Bryson 2000">{{cite book |last=Bryson |first=Valerie |editor1=Kramarae, Cheris |editor2=Spender, Dale |title=Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women's Issues and Knowledge, Volume 2 |date=2000 |location=New York |isbn=978-0-415-92088-9 |page=791 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QAOUAgAAQBAJ&q=%22this+understanding+was+developed+by+frederick+engels%22 |chapter=Feminism: Marxist}}</ref> Lerner disputes this idea, arguing that patriarchy emerged before the development of class-based society and the concept of private property.<ref name="Lerner p53">{{Cite book |last=Lerner |first=Gerda |title=The Creation of Patriarchy |date=1986 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-503996-2 |location=New York |series=Women and History, Volume 1 |pages=50–53 |quote=But in a situation in which ecological conditions and irregularities in biological reproduction threatened the survival of the group, people would search for more reproducers — that is, women. Thus, the first appropriation of private property consists of the appropriation of the labor of women as ''reproducers''. Aaby concludes: 'The connection between the reification of women on the one hand and the state and private property on the other is exactly the opposite of that posed by Engels and his followers. Without the reification of women as a historically given socio-structural feature, the origin of private property and the state will remain inexplicable.' If we follow Aaby’s argument, which I find persuasive, we must conclude that in the course of the agricultural revolution the exploitation of human labor and the sexual exploitation of women become inextricably linked. |url=https://archive.org/details/creationofpatria00lern/page/50/mode/1up?ref=ol&view=theater |url-access=registration}}</ref>
Some social customs reflect what is termed ''[[patrilineality]]'' or ''[[patrilocal residence|patrilocality]]''.


Domination by men of women is found in the [[Ancient Near East]] as far back as 3100 BCE, as are restrictions on a woman's reproductive capacity and exclusion from "the process of representing or the construction of history".<ref name="Strozier 2002"/> According to some researchers, with the appearance of the [[Hebrews]], there is also "the exclusion of woman from the God-humanity covenant".<ref name="Strozier 2002"/><ref name="Lerner p8"/>
''Patrilineal'' describes the custom of tracing descent from paternal lineage. Typically, it also describes the custom of passing family responsibilities and assets from father to son. By contrast, cultures which trace their lineage maternally are called ''[[matrilineality|matrilineal]]''.


The archaeologist [[Marija Gimbutas]] argues that waves of [[kurgan hypothesis|kurgan]]-building invaders from the [[Pontic–Caspian steppe|Ukrainian steppes]] into the early agricultural cultures of [[Old Europe (archaeology)|Old Europe]] in the Aegean, the Balkans and southern Italy instituted male hierarchies that led to the rise of patriarchy in [[Western society]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Gimbutas |first=Marija |chapter=The end of Old Europe: the intrusion of Steppe Pastoralists from South Russia and the transformation of Europe |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ktftAAAAMAAJ |title=The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe |pages=351–510 |publisher=Harper Collins |location=San Francisco, California |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-06-250337-4}}</ref> Steven Taylor argues that the rise of patriarchal domination was associated with the appearance of socially stratified hierarchical polities, institutionalised violence and the separated individuated ego associated with a period of climatic stress.<ref>{{cite book |last=Taylor |first=Steven |chapter=What's wrong with human beings? |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mSPtBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT12 |title=The Fall: The Insanity of the Ego in Human History |pages=17–19 |publisher=O Books |location=Winchester |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-905047-20-8}}</ref>
''Patrilocal'' describes the custom of [[bride]]s relocating to the geographic community of the husband and his father's family. In a [[matrilocal]] society, a husband will relocate to the home community of his wife and her mother (see also [[marriage]]). Matrilocality can substantially increase the social influence of women in a culture, however, given that tribal and family leaders are still men in all known matrilocal societies{{Fact|date=August 2008}}, matrilocality is not equivalent to matriarchy, see main entry [[patriarchy (anthropology)]].


===Ancient Western history===
By contrast with these other customs, patriarchy can be seen to be distinctly about gender and the [[nuclear family]], gender and public office, and about female-male relationships in general.
A prominent Greek general [[Meno (general)|Meno]], in the Platonic dialogue of the same name, sums up the prevailing sentiment in [[Classical Greece]] about the respective virtues of men and women. He says:<ref>{{cite book |author=W.R.M. Lamb |title=Plato in Twelve Volumes |volume=3 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |publisher=Harvard University Press |date=1967 |chapter=71E: Meno |chapter-url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0178:text=Meno:section=71e |access-date=9 February 2015}}</ref>
{{blockquote | First of all, if you take the virtue of a man, it is easily stated that a man's virtue is this—that he be competent to manage the affairs of his city, and to manage them so as to benefit his friends and harm his enemies, and to take care to avoid suffering harm himself. Or take a woman's virtue: there is no difficulty in describing it as the duty of ordering the house well, looking after the property indoors, and obeying her husband. | Meno | Plato in Twelve Volumes}}


The works of [[Aristotle]] portrayed women as morally, intellectually, and physically inferior to men; saw women as the property of men; claimed that women's role in society was to reproduce and to serve men in the household; and saw male domination of women as natural and virtuous.<ref>{{cite book |author=Fishbein, Harold D. |title=Peer prejudice and discrimination: the origins of prejudice |edition=2nd |publisher=Psychology Press |date=2002 |isbn=978-0-8058-3772-8 |page=27 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HBwAYLFPP3sC&pg=PA27}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Dubber, Markus Dirk |title=The police power: patriarchy and the foundations of American government |publisher=Columbia University Press |date=2005 |isbn=978-0-231-13207-7 |pages=5–7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cjdbRF8PXhUC&pg=PA5}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |author=Bar On, Bat-Ami |title=Engendering origins: critical feminist readings in Plato and Aristotle |publisher=SUNY Press |date=1994 |isbn=978-0-7914-1643-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6UVq3z2Kd6cC}}</ref>
==Sociology==
Most sociologists reject predominantly biological explanations of patriarchy and contend that social and cultural conditioning is primarily responsible for establishing male and female gender roles.<ref name="Sanderson">{{cite book|title=The Evolution of Human Sociality|first=Stephen K.|last=Sanderson|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|year=2001|page=198}}</ref><ref name="Henslin">{{cite book|title=Essentials of Sociology|first=James M.|last=Henslin|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2001|pages=65–67, 240}}</ref> According to standard sociological theory, patriarchy is the result of sociological constructions that are passed down from generation to generation.<ref name="Sanderson"/> These constructions are most pronounced in societies with traditional cultures and less economic development.<ref>{{cite book|title=Sociology: A Global Introduction|first=John J.|last=Macionis|publisher=Prentice Hall|year=2000|page=347}}</ref> Even in modern developed societies, however, gender messages conveyed by family, mass media, and other institutions largely favor males having a dominant status.<ref name="Henslin"/>


Not all of the great Greek thinkers believed that women were inferior. Aristotle's teacher [[Plato]] laid out his vision of the most just society in his work [[Republic (Plato)|Republic]]. In it, Plato argues that women would have complete educational and political equality in such a society, and would serve in the military. The [[Pythagoreanism|Pythagoreans]] also valued the participation of women, who were treated as intellectual equals.
==Benefits of patriarchy==
Patriarchy is advanced as being beneficial for human [[evolution]] and social organisation on many grounds, crossing several [[List of academic disciplines|disciplines]]. Although [[biology]] may explain its existence (see below), arguments for its social [[Utilitarianism|utility]] have been made since ancient times. These include elements of Greek [[Stoicism|Stoic Philosophy]] and the Roman social structure based on the ''[[pater familias]]'',<ref>"Research into the nature of marriage in the Greco-Roman world ... shows ... [that] in Stoic traditions marriage promoted the full responsibility of a husband as a householder, father, and citizen and stability in society." [[Anthony Thiselton|Anthony C. Thiselton]], ''First Corinthians: A Shorter Exegetical and Pastoral Commentary'', (Grand Rapids: [[Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.]], 2006), p. 102.</ref> but are also found in [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] records of Babylonian and Assyrian laws. [[George Lakoff]] proposes an ancient dichotomy of "Strict Father" as opposed to "Nurturing Parent" models of ethical theory (SFM and NPM).<ref>George Lakoff, ''Moral Politics'', (Univ of Chicago Press, 1996) and ''Philosophy in the Flesh'', (UCP, 1999).</ref> In general, the main lines of argument are either [[Pragmatism|pragmatic]]—namely, the [[Sexual reproduction|reproductive]] advantages of male-as-provider—<ref> [[Phillip Longman]], '[http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3376 The Return of Patriarchy]', ''[[Foreign Policy]]'', 2006.</ref> or [[Ethics|ethical]]—that any perceived male authority is [[Contingency|contingent]] upon underlying perceptions of [[duty of care]].


Lerner states that Aristotle believed that women had colder blood than men, which made women not evolve into men, the sex that Aristotle believed to be perfect and superior. [[Maryanne Cline Horowitz]] stated that Aristotle believed that "soul contributes the form and model of creation". This implies that any imperfection that is caused in the world must be caused by a woman because one cannot acquire an imperfection from perfection (which he perceived as male). Aristotle had a hierarchical ruling structure in his theories. Lerner claims that through this patriarchal belief system, passed down generation to generation, people have been conditioned to believe that men are superior to women. These symbols are benchmarks which children learn about when they grow up, and the cycle of patriarchy continues much past the Greeks.<ref name="Lerner p199">{{cite book |last=Lerner |first=Gerda |date=1986 |title=The Creation of Patriarchy |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |series=Women and History, Volume 1 |pages=199–211 |isbn=978-0-19-503996-2 |chapter=Symbols |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/creationofpatria0000lern/page/199/mode/1up?view=theater |chapter-url-access=registration}}{{page range too broad|date=December 2023}}</ref>
The constitution of [[Francisco Franco]]'s Spain enshrined the principles of Patriarchy, for example in stating that in a [[referendum]] the vote should be given only to "family heads", and that their opinion in the matter under consideration should be considered as representing the entire family. This was abolished upon the restoration of Spanish democracy in 1975.


[[Egypt]] left no philosophical record, but [[Herodotus]] left a record of his shock at the contrast between the roles of Egyptian women and the women of [[Athens]]. He observed that Egyptian women attended market and were employed in [[trade]]. In ancient Egypt, [[Middle class|middle-class]] women were eligible to sit on a local [[tribunal]], engage in [[real estate]] transactions, and inherit or bequeath [[property]]. Women also secured loans, and witnessed legal documents. [[Women in Classical Athens|Athenian women]] were denied such rights.<ref>Ptahhotep, trans. John A. Wilson. ''Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to The Old Testament''. James B. Pritchard, ed. Princeton University Press, 1950. p. 412</ref><!-- Amazon lists 2nd and 3rd ed. with this title, editor and publisher, e.g. 1969, 3rd ed., isbn=978-0691035031; Perhaps this is also in the even more available {{cite book |editor=James B. Pritchard |title=The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures |publisher=Princeton University Press; |date=2010 |isbn=978-0691147260}} -->
==Feminist criticism==
[[Image:Beauvoir.jpg|thumb|150px|left|Simone de Beauvoir]]
[[Image:JohnStuartMill.jpg|thumb|150px|right|John Stuart Mill]]
{{Main|Patriarchy in feminism}}
{{POV|date=December 2008}}
The 20th century [[women's rights]] movement criticized the social domination of males in modern [[western world|Western society]] as unjust. [[Women's suffrage]] was introduced in all Western democracies by the end of the 20th century (see [[Timeline of women's suffrage]]) and [[List of the first female holders of political offices|female holders of political office]] and [[List of elected or appointed female heads of government|heads of state]] became commonplace as a consequence.{{Fact|date=December 2008}} The Women's Rights movement is also known as [[First-wave feminism]].


[[Hellenization|Greek influence]] spread, however, with the conquests of [[Alexander the Great]], who was educated by Aristotle.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bristow |first=John Temple |title=What Paul Really Said About Women: an Apostle's liberating views on equality in marriage, leadership, and love |location=New York |date=1991 |publisher=HarperOne |isbn=978-0-06-061063-0}}</ref>
[[Second-wave feminism]] in the 1960s to 1970s turned to [[feminist theory|theoretical]] criticism of patriarchy, and [[feminist history]] and [[feminist archaeology]] constructed the hypothesis of the patriarchy as a secondary imposition on an originally [[gynecocentric]] or [[matriarchal]] ''[[Urgesellschaft]]''.
[[Tribal society|Tribal societies]] are not universally patriarchal,{{Fact|date=December 2008}} and a number of indigenous [[matrilineal]] societies with egalitarian structures are on record.{{Fact|date=December 2008}} This has led to [[feminist]] criticism of patriarchy as the result of the hierarchical structure of urban civilization,{{Fact|date=December 2008}} in the [[feminist spirituality movement]] combined with calls to a return to a non-hierarchic model based on [[band society|paleolithic proto-society]].{{Fact|date=December 2008}}


===Modern Western history===
In some [[feminist theory|feminist theories]], the opposite of feminism is patriarchy. It is not surprising, therefore, that the word ''patriarchy'' has a range of additional, negative associations when used in the context of feminist theory, where it is sometimes capitalized and used with the definite article (''the Patriarchy''), likely best understood as a form of collective [[personification]] (compare "blame it on the Government" to "blame it on the Patriarchy"). The use of the word ''patriarchy'' in [[list of feminist literature|feminist literature]] has become so loaded with emotive associations that some writers prefer to use an approximate [[synonym]],{{Fact|date=January 2009}} the more objective and technical [[androcentrism|''androcentric'']] (also from Greek – ''anēr'', genitive ''andros'', meaning man).
Although many 16th- and 17th-century theorists agreed with Aristotle's views concerning the place of women in society, none of them tried to prove political obligation on the basis of the patriarchal family until sometime after 1680. The patriarchal political theory is closely associated with Sir [[Robert Filmer]]. Sometime before 1653, Filmer completed a work entitled ''[[Patriarcha]]''. However, it was not published until after his death. In it, he defended the [[divine right of kings]] as having title inherited from [[Adam]], the first man of the human species, according to [[Judeo-Christian-Islamic]] tradition.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Gordon |first=Schochet |title=Patriarchy and Paternalism |encyclopedia=Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World |date=2004 |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |isbn=978-0-684-31200-2}}</ref>


However, in the latter half of the 18th century, clerical sentiments of patriarchy were meeting challenges from intellectual authorities – [[Diderot]]'s ''[[Encyclopédie]]'' denies inheritance of paternal authority stating, "... reason shows us that mothers have rights and authority equal to those of fathers; for the obligations imposed on children originate equally from the mother and the father, as both are equally responsible for bringing them into the world. Thus the positive laws of God that relate to the obedience of children join the father and the mother without any differentiation; both possess a kind of ascendancy and jurisdiction over their children...."<ref>{{cite journal |title=Encyclopedie, Paternal Authority |journal=Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert – Collaborative Translation Project |url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/did2222.0000.040/--paternal-authority?rgn=main;view=fulltext;q1=education |access-date=1 April 2015 |date=February 2003 |last1=Louis |first1=Chevalier de Jaucourt (Biography)}}</ref>
Fredrika Scarth, a feminist, reads Simone de Beauvoir's ''The Second Sex'' to be saying, "Neither men nor women live their bodies authentically under patriarchy."<ref>Fredrika Scarth, ''The Other Within: Ethics, Politics and the Body in Simone de Beauvoir'', (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), p. 100.</ref> [[Mary Daly]], a radical feminist, wrote, "Males and males only are the originators, planners, controllers, and legitimators of patriarchy."<ref>Mary Daly, ''Gyn/Ecology The Metaethics of Radical Feminism'', (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978), p. 29.</ref> Carole Pateman, another feminist, writes, "The patriarchal construction of the difference between masculinity and femininity is the political difference between freedom and subjection."<ref>Carole Pateman, ''The Sexual Contract'', (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), p. 207.</ref>


In the 19th century, various women began to question the commonly accepted patriarchal interpretation of [[Christian scripture]]. [[Quaker]] [[Sarah Grimké]] voiced skepticism about the ability of men to translate and interpret passages relating to the roles of the sexes without bias. She proposed alternative translations and interpretations of passages relating to women, and she applied historical and cultural criticism to a number of verses, arguing that their admonitions applied to specific historical situations, and were not to be viewed as universal commands.<ref>{{cite book |last=Durso |first=Pamela R. |title=The Power of Woman: The Life and writings of Sarah Moore Grimké |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aQFTJJgK8esC |date=2003 |publisher=Mercer University Press |location=Macon, Ga. |isbn=978-0-86554-876-3 |pages=130–138 |edition=1st}}</ref>
[[Liberal feminism|Liberal]], or mainstream, feminists do not propose to replace patriarchy with matriarchy, rather they argue for [[egalitarianism|equality]]. Some [[radical feminism|radical feminists]] and [[separatist feminism|separatist feminists]] have argued for [[gendercide]] against men, [[matriarchy]], or [[Separatist feminism|separation]].<ref>http://www.wie.org/j16/daly.asp?page=2</ref> However, [[Ronald Dworkin]] has argued that equality is a difficult idea.<ref>"People who praise it or disparage it disagree about what they are praising or disparaging.", Ronald Dworkin, ''Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality'', (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 2.</ref> It is particularly hard to work out what equality means when it comes to gender, because there are real differences between men and women (see [[Sexual dimorphism]] and [[Gender differences]]). Recent feminist writers speak of "feminisms of diversity", that seek to reconcile older debates between [[equality feminism]]s and [[difference feminism]]s. For instance, Judith Squires writes, "The whole conceptual force of 'equality' rests on the assumption of differences, which should in some respect be valued equally."<ref>Judith Squires, ''Gender in Political Theory'', (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999), p. 97.</ref>


[[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]] used Grimké's criticism of biblical sources to establish a basis for feminist thought. She published ''[[The Woman's Bible]]'', which proposed a feminist reading of the Old and New Testament. This tendency was enlarged by feminist theory, which denounced the patriarchal Judeo-Christian tradition.<ref>{{cite book |author=Castro, Ginette |title=American Feminism: a contemporary history |url=https://archive.org/details/americanfeminism00castrich/page/31/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration |publisher=NYU Press |date=1990 |page=31}}</ref> In 2020, social theorist and theologian [[Elaine Storkey]] retold the stories of thirty biblical women in her book ''Women in a Patriarchal World'' and applied the challenges they faced to women today. Working from both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, she analysed different variations of patriarchy, and outlined the paradox of Rahab, a prostitute in the Old Testament who became a role-model in the New Testament Epistle of James, and Epistle to the Hebrews.<ref>{{cite book |last=Storkey |first=Elaine |title=Women in a Patriarchal World; Twenty five empowering stories from the Bible |date=2020 |publisher=SPCK Publishing |location=London, UK. |pages=144 |edition=1st}}</ref> In his essay "A Judicial Patriarchy: Family Law at the Turn of the Century", Michael Grossberg coined the phrase "judicial patriarchy", stating that "The judge became the buffer between the family and the state", and that "Judicial patriarchs dominated family law because within these institutional and intraclass rivalries judges succeeded in protecting their power over the law governing the hearth."<ref>{{cite book |last=Gossberg |first=Michael |chapter=A judicial patriarchy: family law at the turn of the century |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bCHkkM1dRYgC&pg=PA289 |editor-last=Grossberg |editor-first=Michael |title=Governing the hearth: law and the family in nineteenth-century America |pages=289–307 |publisher=The University of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill London |date=1985 |isbn=978-0-8078-6336-7}}
For a leading feminist who writes against patriarchy see [[Marilyn French]]; and for one who is more sympathetic{{Fact|date=August 2008}} see [[Christina Hoff Sommers]].
:''See also'': {{cite journal |last=Gossberg |first=Michael |title=Crossing boundaries: nineteenth-century domestic relations law and the merger of family and legal history |journal=[[American Bar Foundation|American Bar Foundation Research Journal]] |volume=10 |pages=799–847 |url=http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/facpub/2153 |date=1985 |issue=4 |doi=10.1111/j.1747-4469.1985.tb00520.x}}</ref>{{rp|290–291}}


===Asian history===
[[Image:Income inequity US.png||thumb|300px|right|Average Income USA (2005 Census Data)]]


In ancient [[Japan]], power in society was more evenly distributed, particularly in the religious domain, where [[Shinto]]ism worships the goddess [[Amaterasu]], and ancient writings were replete with references to great priestesses and magicians. However, at the time contemporary with [[Constantine the Great|Constantine]] in the West, "the emperor of Japan changed Japanese modes of worship", giving supremacy to male deities and suppressing belief in female spiritual power in what feminist scholars in the field of religious studies have called a "patriarchal revolution."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ellwood |first=Robert |date=1986 |title=Patriarchal Revolution in Ancient Japan: Episodes from the "Nihonshoki" Sūjin Chronicle |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/25002039 |journal=Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=23–37 |jstor=25002039 |issn=8755-4178}}</ref>
In summary, some recent feminist writers have shown a tendency to admit [[misandry]] among some other members of the movement<ref name=Hoff_Sommers> Hoff Sommers, Christina, Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1995)</ref>, and acknowledge real differences in men and women that make diversity a more meaningful aim than [[reductionism|reductionistic]] equality (for example Judith Squires above).


In ancient China, gender roles and patriarchy were shaped by [[Confucianism]]. Adopted as the official religion in the [[Han dynasty]], Confucianism has strong dictates regarding the behavior of women, declaring a woman's place in society, as well as outlining virtuous behavior.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Adler |first=Joseph A. |date=Winter 2006 |title=Daughter/Wife/Mother or Sage/Immortal/Bodhisattva? Women in the Teaching of Chinese Religions |url=https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Writings/Women.htm |journal=ASIANetwork Exchange |volume=XIV |issue=2}}</ref> ''[[Three Obediences and Four Virtues]]'', a Confucian text, places a woman's value on her loyalty and obedience. It explains that an obedient woman is to obey their father before her marriage, her husband after marriage, and her first son if widowed, and that a virtuous woman must practice sexual propriety, proper speech, modest appearance, and hard work.<ref>{{cite book |last=Largen |first=Kristin Johnston |title=Finding God Among Our Neighbors: An Interfaith Systematic Theology |date=2017 |publisher=Augsburg Fortress |isbn=978-1-5064-2330-2 |location=Minneapolis |pages=61–88 |chapter=A Brief Introduction to Confucianism |doi=10.2307/j.ctt1ggjhm3.7 |jstor=j.ctt1ggjhm3.7}}</ref> [[Ban Zhao]], a Confucian disciple, writes in her book ''[[Lessons for Women|Precepts for Women]]'' that a woman's primary concern is to subordinate themselves before patriarchal figures, such as a husband or father, and that they need not concern themselves with intelligence or talent.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gao |first=Xiongya |year=2003 |title=Women Existing for Men: Confucianism and Social Injustice against Women in China |journal=Race, Gender & Class |volume=10 |issue=3 |pages=114–125 |jstor=41675091}}</ref> Ban Zhao is considered by some historians as an early champion for women's education in China; however, her extensive writing on the value of a woman's mediocrity and servile behavior leaves others feeling that this narrative is the result of a misplaced desire to cast her in a contemporary feminist light.<ref>{{cite book |last=Goldin |first=Paul R. |title=After Confucius: Studies in Early Chinese Philosophy |date=2005 |publisher=University of Hawai'i Press |isbn=978-0-8248-2842-4 |location=Honolulu |pages=112–118 |chapter=Ban Zhao in Her Time and in Ours |jstor=j.ctt1wn0qtj.11}}</ref> Similarly to ''Three Obediences and Four Virtues'', ''Precepts for Women'' was meant as a moral guide for proper feminine behavior, and was widely accepted as such for centuries.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bray |first=Francesca |title=Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China |date=1997 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-91900-6 |location=Berkeley |oclc=42922667}}</ref>
Decades of [[legislation]] and [[affirmative action]] have not yet changed the fact that [[western world|western culture]] is male dominated in terms of male acquisition of territory and resources{{Fact|date=August 2008}}, and that it remains patriarchal{{Fact|date=August 2008}}, although women can vote in most countries of the world, and they outnumber men in [[higher education]] in many countries.<ref>"In terms of academic achievement, international education figures from 43 developed countries, published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2003, showed a consistent picture of women achieving better results than men at every level, particularly in literacy assessments.", [http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1046/j.1529-8817.2004.00098.x Ian W Craig, Emma Harper and Caroline S Loat, 'The Genetic Basis for Sex Differences in Human Behaviour: Role of the Sex Chromosomes', ''Annals of Human Genetics'' 68 (2004): 269–284.]</ref>


In China's [[Ming dynasty]], widowed women were expected to never remarry, and unmarried women were expected to remain chaste for the duration of their lives.<ref>{{Cite book |title=My Country and My People |last=Lin |first=Yutang |author-link=Lin Yutang |year=2011 |publisher=Oxford City Press |orig-date=1935 |isbn=978-1-84902-664-2 |oclc=744466115}}</ref> ''[[Biographies of Exemplary Women]]'', a book containing biographies of women who lived according to the Confucian ideals of virtuous womanhood, popularized an entire genre of similar writing during the Ming dynasty. Women who lived according to this [[Neo-Confucianism|Neo-Confucian]] ideal were celebrated in official documents, and some had structures erected in their honor.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Waltner |first=Ann |title=Widows and Remarriage in Ming and Early Qing China |journal=Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques |volume=8 |issue=3 |year=1981 |pages=129–146 |jstor=41298764}}</ref>
However, [[head of state|heads of state]], [[minister (government)|cabinet ministers]], and the top [[corporate title|executives]] of major [[company (law)|companies]] are still mostly men (see [[glass ceiling]]). Also, women's average [[income]] is still significantly [[Male-female income disparity in the United States|lower than men's average income]]. However, some economists argue that this is primarily due to education and career choices that women and men make, rather than the patriarchy.<ref>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040201262.html</ref> Sally Haslanger claims women are still marginalized within academic [[philosophy]] departments.<ref>Sally Haslanger, [http://www.mit.edu/~shaslang/papers/HaslangerCICP.pdf Article Title].</ref>


In China's [[Qing dynasty]], laws governing morality, sexuality, and gender-relations continued to be based on Confucian teachings. Men and women were both subject to strict laws regarding sexual behavior, however men were punished infrequently in comparison to women. Additionally, women's punishment often carried strong [[social stigma]], "rendering [women] unmarriageable", a stigma which did not follow men.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Ruskola |first=Teemu |title=Law, Sexual Morality, and Gender Equality in Qing and Communist China |journal=The Yale Law Journal |volume=103 |issue=8 |year=1994 |pages=2531–2565 |jstor=797055 |doi=10.2307/797055 |url=https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7574&context=ylj}}</ref> Similarly, in the [[People's Republic of China]], laws governing morality which were written as egalitarian were selectively enforced favoring men, with insufficient enforcement against [[female infanticide]] in various areas, while infanticide of any form was, by the letter of the law, prohibited.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jimmerson |first=Julie |date=Winter 1991 |title=Female Infanticide in China: An Examination of Cultural and Legal Norms |url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/80n7k798 |journal=Pacific Basin Law Journal |volume=8 |pages=33 |via=eScholarship.org}}</ref>
==Matriarchal and egalitarian societies==
{{Main|Matriarchy}}


==Social theories==
During the 19th century, scholars such as [[Johann Jakob Bachofen]] advanced the idea that matriarchy represented an early stage in the development of human society.<ref name="Bamberger">Bamberger, Joan. "The Myth of Matriarchy: Why Men Rule in Primitive Society". ''Woman, Culture, and Society''. Stanford University Press, 1974.</ref> According to Bachofen, humans originally lived in a state of sexual promiscuity, where descent was traced exclusively through maternal lineage. This gave women a position of honor and power which was lost when human societies transitioned to [[monogamy]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Das Mutterrecht: Eine Untersuchung über die Gynaikokratie der alten Welt nach ihrer religiösen und rechtlichen Natur|first=Johann Jakob|last=Bachofen|year=1861|language=German}}</ref> This view, however, is now largely discredited, and both anthropologists and sociologists generally agree that human society throughout history has been patriarchal.<ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="Bamberger"/> Nevertheless, there is considerable variation in the role that gender plays in human societies. Although there are no known examples of strictly matriarchal cultures,<ref name="Britannica"/><ref>{{cite book|title=[[The Inevitability of Patriarchy]]|first=Steven|last=Goldberg|publisher=William Morrow & Company|year=1973}}</ref> there are [[List of matrilineal or matrilocal societies|a number of societies]] that have been shown to be [[matrilinear]] or [[matrilocal]] and gynocentric, especially among indigenous tribal groups.<ref>{{cite book|title=Male dominance and female autonomy: domestic authority in matrilineal societies|first=Alice|last=Schlegel|year=1972|publisher=HRAF Press}}</ref> In addition, some [[hunter-gatherer]] groups have been characterized as largely [[egalitarianism|egalitarian]]<ref name="erdal">Erdal, D. & Whiten, A. (1996) "Egalitarianism and Machiavellian Intelligence in Human Evolution" in Mellars, P. & Gibson, K. (eds) Modelling the Early Human Mind. Cambridge Macdonald Monograph Series.</ref>
{{Further|Sex differences in humans|Social construction of gender difference}}

Sociologists{{Clarify|reason=which sociologists? Sociology is a broad field of study |date=April 2024}} tend to reject predominantly biological explanations of patriarchy<ref name="Macionis 2012">Macionis, John J. (2012). ''Sociology'' (13th ed.). Prentice Hall. {{ISBN|0-205-18109-0}}</ref> and contend that socialization processes are primarily responsible for establishing [[gender roles]].<ref name="Henslin 2001">{{cite book |title=Essentials of Sociology |first=James M. |last=Henslin |publisher=Taylor & Francis |date=2001 |pages=65–67, 240 |isbn=978-0-536-94185-5}}</ref> According to standard sociological theory, patriarchy is the result of sociological constructions that are passed down from generation to generation.<ref name="Sanderson 2001">{{cite book |title=The Evolution of Human Sociality |url=https://archive.org/details/evolutionhumanso00sand/page/n209/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration |last=Sanderson |first=Stephen K. |date=2001 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-8476-9534-8 |location=Lanham, Maryland |page=198}}</ref> These constructions are most pronounced in societies with traditional cultures and less economic development.<ref>{{cite book |title=Sociology: A Global Introduction |first1=John J. |last1=Macionis |last2=Plummer |first2=Ken |publisher=Prentice Hall |location=Harlow |date=2000 |page=347 |isbn=978-0-13-040737-5}}</ref> Even in modern, developed societies, however, gender messages conveyed by family, mass media, and other institutions largely favor males having a dominant status.<ref name="Henslin 2001"/>

Although patriarchy exists within the scientific atmosphere,{{Clarify|reason=what is the scientific atmosphere?|date=December 2020}} "the periods over which women would have been at a physiological disadvantage in participation in hunting through being at a late stage of pregnancy or early stage of child-rearing would have been short".<ref name="Lewontin 1984" />{{rp|157}} During the time of the nomads, patriarchy still grew with power. Lewontin and others argue that such biological determinism unjustly limits women. In his study, he states women behave a certain way not because they are biologically inclined to, but rather because they are judged by "how well they conform to the stereotypical local image of femininity".<ref name="Lewontin 1984" />{{rp|137}}

Feminists{{Who|date=December 2020}} believe that people have gendered biases, which are perpetuated and enforced across generations by those who benefit from them.<ref name="Lewontin 1984" /> For instance, it has historically been claimed that women cannot make rational decisions during their menstrual periods. This claim cloaks the fact that men also have periods of time where they can be aggressive and irrational; furthermore, unrelated effects of aging and similar medical problems are often blamed on menopause, amplifying its reputation.<ref name="Coney 1994">{{cite book |last=Coney |first=Sandra |title=The menopause industry: how the medical establishment exploits women |publisher=Hunter House |location=Alameda, California |date=1994 |isbn=978-0-89793-161-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/menopauseindustr00cone/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration}}</ref> These biological traits and others specific to women, such as their ability to get pregnant, are often used against them as an attribute of weakness.<ref name="Lewontin 1984" /><ref name="Coney 1994" />

Sociologist [[Sylvia Walby]] has composed six overlapping structures that define patriarchy and that take different forms in different cultures and different times:<ref name="Walby 1989" />

# The household: women are more likely to have their labor expropriated by their husbands such as through housework and raising children
# Paid work: women are likely to be paid less and face exclusion from paid work
# The state: women are unlikely to have formal power and representation
# Violence: women are more prone to being abused
# Sexuality: women's sexuality is more likely to be treated negatively
# Culture: representation of women in different cultural contexts

The idea that patriarchy is natural has, however, come under attack from many sociologists, explaining that patriarchy evolved due to historical, rather than biological, conditions. In technologically simple societies, men's greater physical strength and women's common experience of pregnancy combined to sustain patriarchy.<ref name="Lewontin 1984" /> Gradually, technological advances, especially industrial machinery, diminished the primacy of physical strength in everyday life. Introduction of household appliances reduced the amount of manual labor needed in the households.<ref>{{cite web |title=How the appliance boom moved more women into the workforce |url=https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/how-appliance-boom-moved-more-women-workforce |website=Penn Today |date=30 January 2019 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=de V. Cavalcanti |first1=Tiago V. |last2=Tavares |first2=José |title=Assessing the "Engines of Liberation": Home Appliances and Female Labor Force Participation |journal=The Review of Economics and Statistics |date=2008 |volume=90 |issue=1 |pages=81–88 |doi=10.1162/rest.90.1.81 |jstor=40043126 |s2cid=9870721 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40043126 |issn=0034-6535}}</ref> Similarly, contraception has given women control over their reproductive cycle.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2008/issue40/ |title=Taming the Cycle: How Does the Pill Work? |website=Science in the News |publisher=Harvard Medical School |date=15 March 2008 |access-date=17 February 2021}}</ref>{{relevance inline|date=February 2021|reason=Source doesn't mention patriarchy}}

'''Patriarchy and Feminism'''

Patriarchy generally falls under two categories, "traditional patriarchy" and "structural patriarchy" (Pierik).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pierek |first=B. T. |title=A History of Patriarchy? |url=https://studenttheses.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item%3A2605417/view |journal=Leiden University}}</ref> Traditional patriarchy refers to the idea that the father is the head of the household and is at the top of families’ social hierarchies. This patriarchal structure is most apparent in the American representation of a nuclear family; the father works and brings home an income while the mother takes care of the children and the household. This economic power dynamic in the home typically places the desires of the man/father/husband as priority over the desires of the woman/mother/wife.

Structural patriarchy expands the range of this social hierarchy outside of just the home and family dynamic. The typical influence that men hold in the home is extended to their social and professional positions. Women are often considered the caretakers of the workplace when in a professional setting while men do the labor. This dynamic can be seen in an office setting, with men as sources of income for the business and women in roles as secretaries to care for the workplace. This system leans into the idea that men are typically placed in higher-power positions in society due to the traditional role of a financial provider, and women fall into caretaker roles.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Gupta |first1=Mayank |last2=Madabushi |first2=Jayakrishna S. |last3=Gupta |first3=Nihit |last4=Gupta |first4=Mayank |last5=Madabushi |first5=Jayakrishna S. |last6=Gupta |first6=Nihit |date=2023-06-10 |title=Critical Overview of Patriarchy, Its Interferences With Psychological Development, and Risks for Mental Health |journal=Cureus |language=en |volume=15 |issue=6 |pages=e40216 |doi=10.7759/cureus.40216 |doi-access=free |issn=2168-8184 |pmc=10332384 |pmid=37435274}}</ref>

'''Development of Feminism'''

The extended presence of patriarchal structures has led to the establishment of feministic ideals over centuries (Brunell).<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-09-17 |title=Feminism {{!}} Definition, History, Types, Waves, Examples, & Facts {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/feminism |access-date=2024-10-25 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> Several prominent fronts led to and continue to push the development of feminism; including paid and unpaid labor and expectations of gender roles(Thompson).<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-01-10 |title=Sylvia Walby: Six Structures of Patriarchy - ReviseSociology |url=https://revisesociology.com/2017/01/10/patriarchy-structure-walby-sylvia/#google_vignet |access-date=2024-10-25 |website=revisesociology.com |language=en-gb}}</ref> Men are traditionally viewed as the breadwinners in a patriarchal society, and women are seen as homemakers. Formal job occupations outside of the home, traditionally carried out by men in a patriarchal society, are paid labor. Any work done inside of the home without financial compensation, traditionally carried out by women in patriarchal societies, is unpaid labor. Until 1974, women were not allowed to have their bank accounts, which pushed the financial divide further and placed men in higher economic positions. (Adam)<ref>{{Cite web |title=When Could Women Open A Bank Account? – Forbes Advisor |url=https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/when-could-women-open-a-bank-account/ |access-date=2024-10-25 |website=www.forbes.com}}</ref> The uneven financial compensation between these levels of labor is one of the factors that pushed feministic ideals forward.

'''The Role of Patriarchy in Feminism'''

With men being expected to bring home an income to support a family and the entire household, the strain of the increasing cost of living makes that ideal impractical. Because of this economic strain, many households rely on multiple incomes from both men and women. When women would traditionally be expected to stay home and provide childcare, they now have to seek it out elsewhere to provide for the family, which in turn drives up the cost of living further. With this reliance on further income and sourcing traditionally female childcare roles outside of the home, patriarchal norms start to become less relevant. This breakdown of traditional roles leads to the natural decrease of a gender-specific social structure.

'''Feminist Ideologies'''

Feminism is not a direct opposition to patriarchy, it is a theory in response to patriarchy. Feminism focuses on the empowerment of women in society and the dismissal of traditional gender roles that are oppressive. Traditional female roles in the household are largely abandoned, and equal opportunity for women is the largest ideal that feminism stands with. Feminist theories believe that financial and social opportunities should be equally available for all.

This social division of gender roles as caretakers and providers is broken down to better allow women to participate outside of caring for a home and children. Financial opportunity refers to employment pursuits, access to one's own finances, and wage equality for job positions that are available for both men and women. The wage gap issues and traditional roles as unpaid laborers for the family significantly drive the growth of feminism in modern social settings. Which in turn shuts down patriarchal structures.

===Feminist theory===
[[File:Fight Patriarchy graffiti in Turin.jpg|thumb|"FIGHT PATRIARCHY" – a graffito in [[Turin]]]]

Feminist theorists have written extensively about patriarchy either as a primary cause of women's oppression, or as part of an interactive system. [[Shulamith Firestone]], a radical-libertarian feminist, defines patriarchy as a system of [[oppression]] of women. Firestone believes that patriarchy is caused by the biological inequalities between women and men, e.g. that women bear children, while men do not. Firestone writes that patriarchal ideologies support the oppression of women and gives as an example the joy of giving birth, which she labels a patriarchal myth. For Firestone, women must gain control over reproduction in order to be free from oppression.<ref name="Lerner p8" /> Feminist historian [[Gerda Lerner]] believes that male control over women's sexuality and reproductive functions is a fundamental cause and result of patriarchy.<ref name="Lerner p238">{{Cite book |last=Lerner |first=Gerda |title=The Creation of Patriarchy |date=1986 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-503996-2 |location=New York |series=Women and History, Volume 1 |pages=238–239 |quote=In its narrow meaning, patriarchy refers to the system, historically derived from Greek and Roman law, in which the male head of the household had absolute legal and economic power over his dependent female and male family members. [...] Patriarchy in its wider definition means the manifestation and institutionalization of male dominance over women and children in the family and the extension of male dominance over women in society in general. |url=https://archive.org/details/creationofpatria00lern/page/238/mode/1up?ref=ol&view=theater |url-access=registration}}</ref>

Interactive systems theorists [[Iris Marion Young]] and [[Heidi Hartmann]] believe that patriarchy and [[capitalism]] interact together to oppress women. Young, Hartmann, and other [[Socialist feminism|socialist]] and [[Marxist feminism|Marxist feminists]] use the terms ''patriarchal capitalism'' or ''capitalist patriarchy'' to describe the interactive relationship of capitalism and patriarchy in producing and reproducing the oppression of women.<ref name="Tong 2017">{{Cite book |title=Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction |last1=Tong |first1=Rosemarie |last2=Botts |first2=Tina Fernandes |date=2017 |isbn=978-0-8133-5070-7 |edition=Fifth |location=New York |oclc=979993556}}{{page needed|date=December 2023}}</ref> According to Hartmann, the term ''patriarchy'' redirects the focus of oppression from the [[Division of labour|labour division]] to a moral and political responsibility liable directly to men as a [[gender]]. In its being both systematic and universal, therefore, the concept of patriarchy represents an adaptation of the Marxist concept of class and [[Class conflict|class struggle]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hartmann |first1=Heidi |title=The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism |journal=Capital and Class |volume=8 |page=1}}</ref>

[[Lindsey German]] represents an outlier in this regard. German argued for a need to redefine the origins and sources of the patriarchy, describing the mainstream theories as providing "little understanding of how women's oppression and the nature of the family have changed historically. Nor is there much notion of how widely differing that oppression is from class to class."<ref name="German 1981">{{Cite web |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/german/1981/xx/patriarchy.htm |title=Lindsey German: Theories of Patriarchy (Spring 1981) |website=www.marxists.org |access-date=2020-03-18}}</ref> Instead, the patriarchy is not the result of men's oppression of women or sexism per se, with men not even identified as the main beneficiaries of such a system, but [[Capital (economics)|capital]] itself. As such, female liberation needs to begin "with an assessment of the material position of women in capitalist society."<ref name="German 1981" /> In that, German differs from Young or Hartmann by rejecting the notion ("eternal truth") that the patriarchy is at the root of female oppression.<ref name="German 1981" />

[[Audre Lorde]], an African American feminist writer and theorist, believed that [[racism]] and patriarchy were intertwined systems of oppression.<ref name="Tong 2017" /> [[Sara Ruddick]], a philosopher who wrote about "good mothers" in the context of maternal ethics, describes the dilemma facing contemporary mothers who must train their children within a patriarchal system. She asks whether a "good mother" trains her son to be competitive, individualistic, and comfortable within the hierarchies of patriarchy, knowing that he may likely be economically successful but a mean person, or whether she resists patriarchal ideologies and [[Socialization|socializes]] her son to be cooperative and communal but economically unsuccessful.<ref name="Lerner p8" />

Lerner, in her 1986 book ''The Creation of Patriarchy'', makes a series of arguments about the origins and reproduction of patriarchy as a system of oppression of women, and concludes that patriarchy is [[Social constructionism|socially constructed]] and seen as natural and invisible.<ref name="Lerner p238" />

Some feminist theorists believe that patriarchy is an unjust [[social system]] that is harmful to both men and women.<ref>{{cite book |author1=David A. J. Richards |title=Resisting Injustice and the Feminist Ethics of Care in the Age of Obama: "Suddenly ... All the Truth Was Coming Out" |publisher=Routledge Research in American Politics and Governance |isbn=978-1-135-09970-1 |page=143 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qm7MAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA143 |access-date=11 February 2015 |quote=Feminism, as I understand it, arises in resistance to the gender binary enforced by the patriarchy, an injustice that is as harmful to men as it is to women, as we can see in the long history of unjust wars, rationalized by patriarchy, in which men have fought and been killed and injured and traumatized. |date=2014-02-05}}</ref> It often includes any social, political, or economic mechanism that evokes male dominance over women. Because patriarchy is a social construction, it can be overcome by revealing and critically analyzing its manifestations.<ref>{{cite book |author=Tickner, Ann J. |chapter=Patriarchy |title=Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy: Entries P-Z |publisher=Taylor & Francis |date=2001 |isbn=978-0-415-24352-0 |pages=1197–1198 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lSmU3aXWIAYC&pg=PA1197}}</ref>

Jaggar, Young, and Hartmann are among the feminist theorists who argue that the system of patriarchy should be completely overturned, especially the [[Heteropatriarchy|heteropatriarchal]] family, which they see as a necessary component of female oppression. The family not only serves as a representative of the greater civilization by pushing its own affiliates to change and obey, but performs as a component in the rule of the patriarchal state that rules its inhabitants with the head of the family.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.unesco.org |title=Violence against Women and Media: Advancements and Challenges of a Research and Political Agenda |last=Montiel |first=Aimée Vega |date=8 October 2014 |publisher=UNESCO}}</ref>

Many feminists (especially scholars and activists) have called for culture repositioning as a method for deconstructing patriarchy. Culture repositioning relates to [[culture change]]. It involves the reconstruction of the cultural concept of a society.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Chigbu |first=Uchendu Eugene |title=Repositioning culture for development: women and development in a Nigerian rural community |journal=Community, Work & Family |date=2015 |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=334–350 |doi=10.1080/13668803.2014.981506 |s2cid=144448501}}</ref> Prior to the widespread use of the term ''patriarchy'', early feminists used ''[[Chauvinism#Male chauvinism|male chauvinism]]'' and ''sexism'' to refer roughly to the same phenomenon.<ref name="hooks p17">{{cite book |last=hooks |first=bell |author-link=bell hooks |chapter=Understanding patriarchy |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G28LTQltyVAC&pg=PA17 |title=The will to change: men, masculinity, and love |publisher=Washington Square Press |date=2004 |pages=17–25 |isbn=978-0-7434-8033-8 |quote=Patriarchy is a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence.}}</ref> Author [[bell hooks]] argues that the new term identifies the ideological system itself (that men claim dominance and superiority to women) that can be believed and acted upon by either men or women, whereas the earlier terms imply only men act as oppressors of women.<ref name="hooks p17" />

Sociologist [[Joan Acker]], analyzing the concept of patriarchy and the role that it has played in the development of feminist thought, says that seeing patriarchy as a "universal, trans-historical and trans-cultural phenomenon" where "women were everywhere oppressed by men in more or less the same ways […] tended toward a biological essentialism."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Acker |first1=Joan |title=The Problem with Patriarchy |journal=Sociology |date=1989 |volume=23 |issue=2 |page=235 |doi=10.1177/0038038589023002005 |s2cid=143683720}}</ref>

Anna Pollert has described use of the term patriarchy as circular and conflating description and explanation. She remarks the discourse on patriarchy creates a "theoretical impasse ... imposing a structural label on what it is supposed to explain" and therefore impoverishes the possibility of explaining [[Gender inequality|gender inequalities]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pollert |first1=Anna |title=Gender and Class Revisited, or the Poverty of 'Patriarchy' |journal=Sociology |date=1996 |volume=30 |issue=4 |page=235 |doi=10.1177/0038038596030004002 |s2cid=145758809}}</ref>

==Biological theories==
{{Main|Sex differences in humans|Social construction of gender difference}}

Studies of male [[Sexual coercion among animals|sexual coercion]] and female resistance in nonhuman [[primate|primates]] (for example, [[chimpanzee]]s<ref>{{cite journal |title=Sexually coercive male chimpanzees sire more offspring. |journal=Current Biology |volume=24 |issue=23 |pages=2855–2860 |date=Dec 2014 |pmid=25454788 |pmc=4905588 |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2014.10.039 |last1=Feldblum |first1=Joseph&nbsp;T. |last2=Wroblewski |first2=Emily&nbsp;E. |last3=Rudicell |first3=Rebecca&nbsp;S. |last4=Hahn |first4=Beatrice&nbsp;H. |last5=Paiva |first5=Thais |last6=Cetinkaya-Rundel |first6=Mine |last7=Pusey |first7=Anne&nbsp;E. |last8=Gilby |first8=Ian&nbsp;C.|bibcode=2014CBio...24.2855F }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Sexual Conflict: Nice Guys Finish Last |author=Thompson, ME |journal=Current Biology |volume=24 |issue=23 |pages=R1125–R1127 |year=2014 |pmid=25465331 |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2014.10.056 |doi-access=free|bibcode=2014CBio...24R1125T }}</ref>) suggest that sexual conflicts of interest underlying the patriarchy precede the emergence of the human species.<ref name="Smuts 1995">{{cite journal |title=The evolutionary origins of patriarchy |author=Smuts, B |journal=Human Nature |year=1995 |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=1–32 |doi=10.1007/BF02734133 |pmid=24202828 |s2cid=17741169}}</ref> However, the extent of male power over females varies greatly across different primate species.<ref name="Smuts 1995"/> Among [[Bonobo|bonobos]] (a close relative of humans), for example, male coercion of females is rarely, if ever, observed,<ref name="Smuts 1995"/> and bonobos are widely considered to be [[matriarchy|matriarchal]] in their social structure.<ref name="Sommer 2010">{{cite book |last1=Sommer |first1=Volker |last2=Bauer |first2=Jan |last3=Fowler |first3=Andrew |last4=Ortmann |first4=Sylvia |title=Primates of Gashaka |year=2010 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/primatesgashakas00somm/page/n488/mode/1up?view=theater |chapter-url-access=registration |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4419-7402-0 |pages=469–501 |chapter=Patriarchal Chimpanzees, Matriarchal Bonobos: Potential Ecological Causes of a Pan Dichotomy}}</ref><ref name="Bosson 2018">{{cite book |last1=Bosson |first1=Jennifer Katherine |last2=Vandello |first2=Joseph Alan |last3=Buckner |first3=Camille E. |title=The Psychology of Sex and Gender |date=27 February 2018 |isbn=978-1-5063-3132-4 |page=185 |publisher=SAGE Publications}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Angier |first=Natalie |date=2016-09-10 |title=In the Bonobo World, Female Camaraderie Prevails |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/science/bonobos-apes-matriarchy.html |access-date=2022-05-07 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

There is also considerable variation in the role that gender plays in human societies, and there is no academic consensus on to what extent [[Biological determinism|biology determines]] human social structure. The ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' states that "...many cultures bestow power preferentially on one sex or the other...."<ref name="Britannica 2018">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Matriarchy |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |date=2018 |access-date=23 June 2018 |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/matriarchy}}</ref> Some anthropologists, such as Floriana Ciccodicola, have argued that patriarchy is a [[cultural universal]],<ref name="Ciccodicola 2012">{{cite book |last=Ciccodicola |first=Floriana |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gq9QSx4CQLAC&pg=PA160 |title=Practicing anthropology in development processes: new perspectives for a radical anthropology |date=2012 |publisher=Edizioni Nuova Cultura |isbn=978-88-6134-791-5 |location=Roma |page=160}}</ref> and the masculinities scholar [[David Buchbinder]] suggests that [[Roland Barthes]]' description of the term ''[[ex-nomination]],'' i.e. patriarchy as the 'norm' or common sense, is relevant.<ref>{{cite book |last=Buchbinder |first=David |title=Studying men and masculinities |publisher=Routledge |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-415-57829-5 |location=Abingdon, Oxon, UK; New York, N.Y. |pages=106–107 |chapter=Troubling patriarchy |author-link=David Buchbinder |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TmfUzE4WnW8C&pg=PA106}}</ref>{{Clarify|reason=How is it relevant?|date=December 2020}} However, there do exist cultures that some anthropologists have described as matriarchal. Among the [[Mosuo]] (a tiny society in [[Yunnan|Yunnan Province]], China), for example, women exert greater power, authority, and control over decision-making.<ref name="Macionis 2012" /> Other societies are [[matrilinear]] or [[matrilocal]], primarily among [[Indigenous peoples|indigenous tribal groups]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Schlegel |first=Alice |title=Male dominance and female autonomy: domestic authority in matrilineal societies |date=1972 |publisher=HRAF Press |isbn=978-0-87536-328-8 |location=New Haven, Connecticut}}</ref> Some [[hunter-gatherer]] groups, such as the [[!Kung]] of southern Africa,{{r|Lockard p88}} have been characterized as largely [[egalitarianism|egalitarian]].<ref name="Erdal 1996" />

Some proponents{{Who|date=December 2020}} of the [[Biological determinism|biological determinist]] understanding of patriarchy argue that because of human female biology, women are more fit to perform roles such as anonymous child-rearing at home, rather than high-profile decision-making roles, such as leaders in battles. Through this basis, "the existence of a [[Sexual division of labour|sexual division of labor]] in primitive societies is a starting point as much for purely social accounts of the origins of patriarchy as for biological."<ref name="Lewontin 1984">{{cite book |chapter=The determined patriarchy |chapter-url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/10348941 |last1=Lewontin |first1=Richard C. |last2=Rose |first2=Steven |last3=Kamin |first3=Leon J. |author-link1=Richard Lewontin |title=Not in our genes: biology, ideology, and human nature |pages=132–163 |publisher=Pantheon Books |location=New York |date=1984 |isbn=978-0-14-022605-8 |oclc=10348941}}</ref>{{rp|157}}{{Verify source|date=December 2020}} Hence, the rise of patriarchy is recognized through this apparent "sexual division".<ref name="Lewontin 1984" />{{Verify source|date=December 2020}}

=== Evolutionary biology ===
An early theory in [[evolutionary biology]], sometimes referred to as [[Bateman's principle]], argues that females almost always invest more energy into producing offspring than males, and therefore, females are a [[limiting factor]] over which males of most species will compete. This idea suggests that females prefer males who control more resources that can help her and her offspring, which in turn causes an [[evolutionary pressure]] on males to be competitive with each other in order to gain resources and power.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Buss |first1=David Michael |last2=Schmitt |first2=David P. |date=May 2011 |title=Evolutionary psychology and feminism |journal=[[Sex Roles (journal)|Sex Roles]] |volume=64 |issue=9–10 |pages=768–787 |doi=10.1007/s11199-011-9987-3 |s2cid=7878675}}</ref>

Sociobiologist [[Steven Goldberg]] argues that social behavior is primarily determined by [[genetics]], and thus that patriarchy arises more as a result of inherent biology than [[social conditioning]]. Goldberg contends that patriarchy is a universal feature of [[Culture|human culture]]. In 1973, Goldberg wrote, "The ethnographic studies of every society that has ever been observed explicitly state that these feelings were present, there is literally no variation at all."<ref name="Goldberg 1974">{{cite book |last=Goldberg |first=Steven |title=The inevitability of patriarchy |date=1974 |publisher=W. Morrow |isbn=978-0-688-05175-4 |location=New York}}</ref> Goldberg has critics among anthropologists. Concerning Goldberg's claims about the "feelings of both men and women", [[Eleanor Leacock]] countered in 1974 that the data on women's attitudes are "sparse and contradictory", and that the data on male attitudes about male–female relations are "ambiguous". Also, the effects of [[colonialism]] on the cultures represented in the studies were not considered.<ref name="Leacock 1974">{{cite journal |last=Leacock |first=Eleanor |author-link=Eleanor Leacock |date=June 1974 |title=Reviewed Work: ''The Inevitability of Patriarchy'' by Steven Goldberg |journal=[[American Anthropologist]] |volume=76 |issue=2 |pages=363–365 |doi=10.1525/aa.1974.76.2.02a00280 |jstor=674209 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

Anthropologist and psychologist [[Barbara Smuts]] argues that patriarchy evolved in humans through conflict between the respective reproductive interests of males and females. She lists six ways it may have emerged:<ref name="Smuts 1995" />{{Further explanation needed|reason=|date=December 2020}}

# a reduction in female allies
# elaboration of male-male alliances
# increased male control over resources
# increased hierarchy formation among men
# female strategies that reinforce male control over females
# the [[Origin of language|evolution of language]] and its power to create ideology.

==Psychoanalytic theories==
While the term ''patriarchy'' often refers to male domination generally, another interpretation sees it as literally "rule of the father".<ref name="Mitchell 1974">{{cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Juliet |author-link=Juliet Mitchell |chapter=The cultural revolution |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DwG0AAAAIAAJ |title=Psychoanalysis and feminism |page=409 |publisher=Pantheon Books |location=New York |date=1974 |isbn=978-0-394-47472-4}}</ref> So some people{{Who|date=September 2018}} believe patriarchy does not refer simply to male power over women, but the expression of power dependent on age as well as gender, such as by older men over women, children, and younger men. Some of these younger men may inherit and therefore have a stake in continuing these conventions. Others may rebel.<ref>{{cite book |last=Eherenreich |first=Barbara |chapter=Life without father |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4_zeRtk81pcC |editor-last1=McDowell |editor-first1=Linda |editor-last2=Pringle |editor-first2=Rosemary |title=Defining women: Social institutions and gender divisions |publisher=Polity/Open University |location=London |date=1992 |isbn=978-0-7456-0979-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/definingwomensoc0000unse/mode/1up?view=theater}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Cockburn |first=Cynthia |title=Brothers: male dominance and technological change |publisher=Pluto |location=London Concord, Massachusetts |date=1991 |isbn=978-0-7453-0583-7}}</ref>{{Explain|date=September 2018}}

This psychoanalytic model is based upon revisions of Freud's description of the normally neurotic family using the analogy of the story of [[Oedipus]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Lacan |first=Jaques |author-link=Jaques Lacan |chapter=The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience (1949) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XFtrNAEACAAJ |editor-last=Sheridan |editor-first=Alan |title=Écrits: a selection |publisher=Routledge |location=London |date=2001 |orig-date=1977 |isbn=978-0-415-25392-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Mulvey |first=Laura |author-link=Laura Mulvey |chapter=The Oedipus myth: beyond the riddles of the Sphinx |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P6awCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA177 |title=Visual and other pleasures |pages=177–200 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire England New York |date=2009 |edition=2nd |isbn=978-0-230-57646-9}}</ref> Those who fall outside the Oedipal triad of mother/father/child are less subject to male authority.<ref>{{cite book |last=Butler |first=Judith |author-link=Judith Butler |title=Antigone's claim: kinship between life and death |url=https://archive.org/details/antigonesclaim00judi/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |date=2000 |isbn=978-0-231-11895-8}}</ref>

The operations of power in such cases are usually enacted unconsciously. All are subject, even fathers are bound by its strictures.<ref>{{cite thesis |degree=PhD |last=Dalton |first=Penelope |author-link=Pen Dalton |date=2008 |chapter=Complex family relations |title=Family and other relations: a thesis examining the extent to which family relationships shape the relations of art |publisher=[[University of Plymouth]] |hdl=10026.1/758}}</ref> It is represented in unspoken traditions and conventions performed in everyday behaviors, customs, and habits.<ref name="Mitchell 1974" /> The triangular relationship of a father, a mother and an inheriting eldest son frequently form the dynamic and emotional narratives of popular culture and are enacted [[Performativity|performatively]] in rituals of courtship and marriage.<ref>{{cite book |last=Dalton |first=Pen |author-link=Pen Dalton |chapter=Theoretical perspectives |chapter-url=https://www.mheducation.co.uk/openup/chapters/0335196489.pdf |title=The gendering of art education: modernism, identity, and critical feminism |pages=9–32 |publisher=Open University |location=Buckingham England Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |date=2001 |isbn=978-0-335-19649-4}}</ref> They provide conceptual models for organising power relations in spheres that have nothing to do with the family, for example, politics and business.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hofstede |first1=Geert |last2=Hofstede |first2=Gert Jan |title=Cultures and organizations: software of the mind |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7mslqQWDP10C |publisher=McGraw-Hill |location=New York |date=2005 |isbn=978-0-07-143959-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Tierney |first=Margaret |chapter=Negotiating a software career: informal work practices and 'the lads' in a software installation |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wbukPYoqZ2cC&pg=PA192 |editor-last1=Gill |editor-first1=Rosalind |editor-last2=Grint |editor-first2=Keith |editor-link1=Rosalind Gill |title=The gender-technology relation: contemporary theory and research |pages=192–209 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |location=London Bristol, Pennsylvania |date=1995 |isbn=978-0-7484-0161-1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Roper |first=Michael |title=Masculinity and the British organization man since 1945 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dhq5PdRMsRQC |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford New York |date=1994 |isbn=978-0-19-825693-9}}</ref>

Arguing from this standpoint, radical feminist [[Shulamith Firestone]] wrote in her 1970 ''[[The Dialectic of Sex]]'':

<blockquote>Marx was on to something more profound than he knew when he observed that the family contained within itself in embryo all the antagonisms that later develop on a wide scale within the society and the state. For unless revolution uproots the basic social organisation, the biological family – the vinculum through which the psychology of power can always be smuggled – the tapeworm of exploitation will never be annihilated.<ref>{{cite book |last=Firestone |first=Shulamith |author-link=Shulamith Firestone |title=The dialectic of sex: the case for feminist revolution |url=https://archive.org/details/dialecticofsexca0000fire/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration |publisher=Quill |location=New York |date=1970 |isbn=978-0-688-12359-8}}</ref></blockquote>

== Gender Inequality today ==
According to United Nations, $6.4 trillion the estimated annual requirement for certain sectors in 48 developing countries. This accounts for almost 70% of the world's population in developing countries.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title='Patriarchy Is Regaining Ground', Secretary-General Warns, while Women's, Girls' Rights Face Unprecedented Threat, as Commission Opens 2024 Session |url=https://press.un.org/en/2024/wom2231.doc.htm}}</ref> The President of the General Assembly, Dennis Francis emphasized the need to reverse the prediction of 340 million women in extreme poverty by 2030 due to the finding of one in every ten women currently living in extreme poverty. Women are also being targeted in places like Palestine, Ukraine, and Haiti, as he stated that credible evidence of sexual abuse was found.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |title=Critical Overview of Patriarchy, Its Interferences With Psychological Development, and Risks for Mental Health |date=2023 |doi=10.7759/cureus.40216 |doi-access=free |last1=Gupta |first1=Mayank |last2=Madabushi |first2=Jayakrishna S. |last3=Gupta |first3=Nihit |last4=Gupta |first4=Mayank |last5=Madabushi |first5=Jayakrishna S. |last6=Gupta |first6=Nihit |journal=Cureus |volume=15 |issue=6 |pages=e40216 |pmid=37435274 |pmc=10332384 }}</ref> Sexual violence impacts individuals of all genders, though women are disproportionately affected. Additionally, most perpetrators are male, which some view as reinforcing traditional power structures associated with patriarchy.<ref name=":1" />

Sima Bahouse, the Executive director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, emphasized the urgent need to eliminate poverty for women and girls, advocating for inclusive fiscal policies that promote equitable redistribution and progressive taxation.<ref name=":0" /> Key priorities include enhancing public services and creating gender-responsive social protection systems that specifically benefit women and girls in poverty. Investing in the care economy is highlighted as essential for alleviating their poverty and fostering sustainable economic growth. The speaker rejected excuses about the difficulty or cost of these initiatives, asserting that a fair and sustainable future for all women and girls is achievable.<ref name=":0" />

== Impact of Patriarchy on Mental Health ==
The patriarchal framework of gender norms has established specific behavioral expectations for individuals according to their biological sex. Some individuals may not desire to adhere to the strict "acceptable behaviors" or gender boundaries set by society, which could be traumatic for some. These individuals are excluded and faced with alienation, making them more vulnerable to sexual violence.<ref name=":1" /> For example, LGBTQ+ members frequently fall victim to sexual abuse and harassment. Consequently, a patriarchal society creates an inherently unsafe and harmful environment for non-conforming women and those who do not adhere to rigid societal norms of gender and sexuality. While this power disparity is often perceived as primarily benefiting men, it also poses hidden risks to their psychological well-being.<ref name=":1" />

With social media being very present today, individuals are increasingly susceptible to the negative impacts of patriarchy on their mental health. The internet has facilitated the spread of gender-based discrimination, reinforced patriarchal norms, and propagated negative representations of women. Research has shown that "social media use may be linked to adverse mental health effects, such as suicidal thoughts, feelings of loneliness, and reduced empathy".<ref name=":1" /> For instance, social media platforms often feature curated images that promote unrealistic body standards or lifestyles, leading to feelings of comparison, jealousy, and anxiety among users.


==See also==
==See also==
{{Portal|Society|Politics|Feminism|Religion}}
{{Wiktionary|patriarchy}}

* [[Anti-feminism]]
===Patriarchal models===
* [[Biblical patriarchy]]
* [[Chinese patriarchy]]
* [[Chinese patriarchy]]
* [[Domitius]]
* [[Domostroy]]
* [[Gender role]]
* [[Imperial House of Japan]]
* [[Neopatriarchy]]
* ''[[Pater familias]]''
* ''[[Deme]]'' and ''[[genos]]''

===Related topics===
* [[Androcentrism]]
* [[Anti-subordination principle]]
* ''[[Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism]]''
* ''[[La Cité antique]]'' (about anthropological patriachy)
* [[Correspondence principle (sociology)]]
* [[Family as a model for the state]]
* [[Family economics]]
* [[Hegemonic masculinity]]
* [[Homemaker]]
* [[Homemaker]]
* [[Masculinity]]
* [[Male expendability]]
* [[Nature versus nurture]]
* [[Nature versus nurture]]
* [[Patriarch magazines]]
* [[Patriarch (disambiguation)]]
* [[Patriarchs (Bible)]]
* [[Patriarchate]]
* [[Patrician (ancient Rome)]]
* [[Patrilocal residence]]
* [[Phallocentrism]]
* [[Son preference]]
* [[Sociology of fatherhood]]
* [[Sociology of fatherhood]]
* [[The personal is political]]
* [[Tree of patriarchy]]
* [[Womb envy]]


===Comparable social models===
== Notes and references ==
* [[Androcracy]]
* [[Kyriarchy]]
* [[Male privilege]]


===Contrast===
{{reflist|2}}
* [[Shared earning/shared parenting marriage]]


== Bibliography ==
==References==
{{Reflist}}
<!-- This section is linked from [[Patriarchy]] -->


== Further reading ==
* Adeline, Helen B. ''Fascinating Womanhood''. New York: Random House, 2007.
<!-- * {{cite book |title= |publisher= |date= |isbn= |url=}} -->
* [[Simon Baron-Cohen|Baron-Cohen, Simon]]. ''The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male and Female Brain''. New York: Perseus Books Group, 2003.
* {{cite book |last=Bourdieu |first=Pierre |author-link=Pierre Bourdieu |title=Masculine domination |publisher=Polity Press |location=Cambridge, UK |date=2001 |isbn=978-0-7456-2265-1}}
* [[Simone de Beauvoir|Beauvoir, Simone de]]. ''Le Deuxième Sexe''. Paris: [[Éditions Gallimard]], 1949. (original French edition)
* {{cite journal |last=Durham |first=Meenakshi G. |author-link1=Meenakshi Gigi Durham |title=Articulating adolescent girls' resistance to patriarchal discourse in popular media |journal=Women's Studies in Communication |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=210–229 |doi=10.1080/07491409.1999.10162421 |date=1999}}
* [[Simone de Beauvoir|Beauvoir, Simone de]]. ''The Second Sex''. London: [[Jonathan Cape]], 1953. (first UK edition, in translation)
* {{cite book |last=Gilligan |first=Carol |title=In a different voice: psychological theory and women's development |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |date=1982 |isbn=978-0-674-44544-4 |title-link=In a Different Voice}}
* [[Simone de Beauvoir|Beauvoir, Simone de]]. ''The Second Sex''. New York: [[Alfred A. Knopf]], 1953. (first USA edition, in translation)
:'':Cited in'':
* [[Pierre Bourdieu|Bourdieu, Pierre]]. ''Masculine Domination''. Translated by Richard Nice. Stanford: [[Stanford University Press]], 2001.
:* {{cite journal |last=Smiley |first=Marion |title=Gender, democratic citizenship v. patriarchy: a feminist perspective on Rawls |journal=[[Fordham Law Review]] |volume=72 |issue=5 |pages=1599–1627 |date=2004 |url=http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3965&context=flr}}
* [[Louann Brizendine|Brizendine, Louann]]. ''The Female Brain''. New York: Morgan Road Books, 2006.
* {{cite book |last=Keith |first=Thomas |title=Masculinities in Contemporary American Culture: An Intersectional Approach to the Complexities and Challenges of Male Identity |date=2017 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-59534-2 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r_niDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT29 |chapter=Patriarchy, Male Privilege, and the Consequences of Living in a Patriarchal Society}}
* [[Donald Brown|Brown, Donald E]]. ''[[Human Universals]]''. New York: [[McGraw Hill]], 1991.
* {{cite book |last=Light |first=Aimee U. |chapter=Patriarchy |editor1=Boynton, Victoria |editor2=Malin, Jo |title=Encyclopedia of Women's Autobiography, Volume 2: K-Z |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-313-32737-7 |pages=453–456 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofwo0000unse_v4e3/page/453/mode/1up?view=theater |chapter-url-access=registration}}
* Eisler, Riane. ' 'The Chalice and the Blade' '. Harper Collins, 1987. "The most important book since Darwin's ' 'Origin of Species' '--Ashley Montagu
* {{cite journal |last=Messner |first=Michael A. |author-link=Michael Messner |title=On patriarchs and losers: rethinking men's interests |journal=Berkeley Journal of Sociology |volume=48 |pages=74–88 |date=2004 |jstor=41035593}} [http://www.michaelmessner.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/BJS04.pdf Pdf.]
* Jay, Jennifer W. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0279%28199604%2F06%29116%3A2%3C220%3AIM%22OWI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage 'Imagining Matriarchy:] "Kingdoms of Women" in Tang China'. ''[[Journal of the American Oriental Society]]'' '''116''' (1996): 220-229.
* {{cite book |last=Mies |first=Maria |author-link=Maria Mies |title=Patriarchy and accumulation on a world scale: women in the international division of labour |publisher=Zed Books Ltd |location=London |date=2014 |isbn=978-1-78360-169-1}}
* [[Melvin Konner|Konner, Melvin]]. ''[http://www.henryholt.com/tangledwing/tangledwingnotes.pdf The Tangled Wing:] Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit''. 2nd edition, revised and updated. ([[Henry Holt|Owl Books]], 2003). 560p. ISBN 0805072799 [first published 1982, [http://www.anthropology.emory.edu/FACULTY/ANTMK/TangledWing.htm Endnotes]
* {{cite book |last=Smith |first=Bonnie G. |author-link=Bonnie G. Smith |title=Women's history in global perspective |volume=2 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |location=Urbana |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cQz2o883S38C |date=2004 |isbn=978-0-252-02997-4}}
* Lepowsky, Maria. ''[http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023108/0231081200.HTM Fruit of the Motherland:] Gender in an Egalitarian Society''. New York: [[Columbia University Press]], 1993.
* {{cite book |last1=Pateman |first1=Carole |title=The Sexual Contract |date=2018 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-1-5036-0827-6 |edition=30th anniversary}}
* [[Margaret Mead|Mead, Margaret]]. 'Do We Undervalue Full-Time Wives'. ''[[Redbook]]'' 122 (1963).
* {{cite book |last1=Pilcher |first1=Jane |last2=Wheelan |first2=Imelda |title=50 key concepts in gender studies |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161230160953/http://www.imd.inder.cu/adjuntos/article/329/50_Key_Concepts_in_Gender_Studies.pdf |archive-date=30 December 2016 |url=http://www.imd.inder.cu/adjuntos/article/329/50_Key_Concepts_in_Gender_Studies.pdf |publisher=Sage |location=London Thousand Oaks, California |author-link=Jane Pilcher |date=2004 |isbn=978-0-7619-7036-1}}
* Mies, Maria. ''Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour''. [[Palgrave Macmillan|Palgrave MacMillan]], 1999.
* Moir, Anne and David Jessel. ''[[Brain Sex]]: The Real Difference Between Men and Women''.
* [[Sherry Ortner|Ortner, Sherry Beth]]. 'Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?'. In MZ Rosaldo and L Lamphere (eds). ''Woman, Culture and Society''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974, pp. 67-87.
* [[Sherry Ortner|Ortner, Sherry Beth]]. 'So, Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?'. In S Ortner. ''Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture.'' Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996, pp. 173-180.
* Pilcher, Jane and Imelda Wheelan. ''50 Key Concepts in Gender Studies''. London: Sage Publications, 2004.
* [[Steven Pinker|Pinker, Steven]]. ''The Blank Slate: A Modern Denial of Human Nature''. London: [[Penguin Books]], 2002.


== External links ==
==External links==
* {{Wiktionary-inline|patriarchy}}
* '[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9051408 Matriarchy]'. ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' Online, 2007.
* {{wikiquote-inline}}
* '[http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994220 Cattle ownership makes it a man's world]'. ''[[New Scientist]]'' (2003).
* {{Commons category-inline}}
* [[Mary Wollstonecraft]]. ''[http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/wollstonecraft/woman-a.html#CHAPTER%20II A Vindication of the Rights of Women]''. Boston: Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, 1792.
* {{Cite Americana |wstitle=Patriarchal System |page=401 |short=x}}
* [[Simone de Beauvoir]]. ''[http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/2ndsex.htm The Second Sex]''. Translated by HM Parshley. London: Penguin, 1972.
* '[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality Equality]'. In ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''. Stanford University, 2001.
* [http://www.debunker.com/texts/avoidable.html ''Times Literary Supplement'' review (by Mark Ridley) of ''The Inevitability of Patriarchy'' and reply by the author (Steven Goldberg).]
* [[Phyllis Kaberry|Phyllis M Kaberry]]. ''[http://www.era.anthropology.ac.uk/Kaberry/Kaberry_text A Study of the Economic Position of Women in Bamenda, British Cameroons]''. London: [[Office of Public Sector Information|Her Majesty's Stationary Office]], 1952.
* Steven Webster. '[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/9751 Was it Matriarchy?]' ''[[New York Review of Books]]'' (1972): 37–38.
* [[Phillip Longman]]. '[http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3376 The Return of Patriarchy]'. ''[[Foreign Policy]]'' (2006).
* Official [http://www.cbmw.org site] of the [[Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood]].
* [http://www.mamiwata.com/news.html Beyond Ritual: Rethinking the Role of Patriarchy in African Traditional Religions].


{{Feminism}}
[[Category:Biology of gender]]
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Patriarchy| ]]
[[Category:Cultural anthropology]]
[[Category:Cultural anthropology]]
[[Category:Family]]
[[Category:Family]]
[[Category:Fatherhood]]
[[Category:Fatherhood]]
[[Category:Forms of government]]
[[Category:Gender and society]]
[[Category:Gender studies]]
[[Category:Men]]
[[Category:Sociology]]
[[Category:Sociobiology]]
[[Category:Sociobiology]]
[[Category:Family economics]]
[[Category:Feminism and society]]
[[Category:Feminism and society]]
[[Category:Feminist terminology]]

[[Category:Feminist theory]]
[[az:Patriarxat]]
[[Category:Political anthropology]]
[[bg:Патриархат]]
[[cs:Patriarchát]]
[[da:Patriarkat]]
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[[et:Patriarhaalsus]]
[[el:Πατριαρχία]]
[[es:Patriarcado]]
[[fa:مردسالاری]]
[[fr:Patriarcat (sociologie)]]
[[ko:가부장제]]
[[hr:Patrijarhat]]
[[he:משפחה פטריארכלית]]
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[[ja:家父長制]]
[[no:Patriarki]]
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Latest revision as of 13:56, 24 December 2024

Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term patriarchy is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in feminist theory to describe a broader social structure in which men as a group dominate society.[1][2][3]

Patriarchal ideology acts to explain and rationalize patriarchy by attributing gender inequality to inherent natural differences between men and women, divine commandment, or other fixed structures.[4] Sociologists tend to disagree with some of the predominantly biological explanations of patriarchy and contend that socialization processes are primarily responsible for establishing gender roles.[5] Sociobiologists compare human gender roles to sexed behavior in other primates and some[who?] argue that gender inequality comes primarily from genetic and reproductive differences between men and women. Social constructionists contest this argument, arguing that gender roles and gender inequity are instruments of power and have become social norms to maintain control over women.

Historically, patriarchy has manifested itself in the social, legal, political, religious, and economic organization of a range of different cultures.[6] Most contemporary societies are, in practice, patriarchal, unless the criteria of complete exclusion of women in authority is applied.[7][8]

Terminology

[edit]

Patriarchy literally means "the rule of the father"[9][4] and comes from the Greek πατριάρχης (patriarkhēs),[10][11] "father or chief of a race",[12] which is a compound of πατριά (patria), "lineage, descent, family, fatherland"[13] (from πατήρ patēr, "father")[14] and ἀρχή (arkhē), "domination, authority, sovereignty".[15]

Historically, the term patriarchy has been used to refer to autocratic rule by the male head of a family; however, since the late 20th century it has also been used to refer to social systems in which power is primarily held by adult men.[16][17][18] The term was particularly used by writers associated with second-wave feminism such as Kate Millett; these writers sought to use an understanding of patriarchal social relations to liberate women from male domination.[19][20] This concept of patriarchy was developed to explain male dominance as a social, rather than biological, phenomenon.[17]

Overview

[edit]

Patriarchy is a social system in which men are the primary authority figures in the areas of political leadership, moral authority and control of property.[21] Sociologist Sylvia Walby defines patriarchy as "a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress, and exploit women".[2] Social stratification along gender lines, with power predominantly held by men, has been observed in most, but not all societies.[7][17][18] The concept of patriarchy is also related to patrilineality in a anthropological sense, although not exclusively.[22][23][24][further explanation needed]

History

[edit]

Pre-history

[edit]

Sexual division of labour

[edit]

Some preconditions for the eventual development of patriarchy were the emergence of increased paternal investment in the offspring, also referred to as fatherhood, and of a sexual division of labour. Several researchers have stated that the first signs of a sexual division of labour dates from around 2 million years ago, deep within humanity's evolutionary past.[25][26][27] It has been connected to an evolutionary process during a period of resource scarcity in Africa approximately 2 million years ago.[26][27] In the 2009 book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human,[25] British primatologist Richard Wrangham suggests that the origin of the division of labor between males and females may have originated with the invention of cooking,[28][29] which is estimated to have happened simultaneously with humans gaining control of fire between 1 and 2 million years ago.[30] The idea was early proposed by Friedrich Engels in an unfinished essay from 1876.

Sex hierarchies

[edit]

Anthropological, archaeological and evolutionary psychological evidence suggests that most prehistoric societies were relatively egalitarian,[7] and suggests that patriarchal social structures did not develop until after the end of the Pleistocene epoch, following social and technological developments such as agriculture and domestication.[31][32][33] According to Robert M. Strozier, historical research has not yet found a specific "initiating event".[34] Historian Gerda Lerner asserts in her 1986 book The Creation of Patriarchy that there was no single event, and documents that patriarchy as a social system arose in different parts of the world at different times.[35] Some scholars point to social and technological events, notably the emergence of agriculture, about six thousand years ago (4000 BCE).[36][37]

Marxist theory, as articulated mainly by Friedrich Engels in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), assigns the origin of patriarchy to the emergence of private property, which has traditionally been controlled by men. In this view, men directed household production and sought to control women in order to ensure the passing of family property to their own (male) offspring, while women were limited to household labor and producing children.[16][19][38] Lerner disputes this idea, arguing that patriarchy emerged before the development of class-based society and the concept of private property.[39]

Domination by men of women is found in the Ancient Near East as far back as 3100 BCE, as are restrictions on a woman's reproductive capacity and exclusion from "the process of representing or the construction of history".[34] According to some researchers, with the appearance of the Hebrews, there is also "the exclusion of woman from the God-humanity covenant".[34][35]

The archaeologist Marija Gimbutas argues that waves of kurgan-building invaders from the Ukrainian steppes into the early agricultural cultures of Old Europe in the Aegean, the Balkans and southern Italy instituted male hierarchies that led to the rise of patriarchy in Western society.[40] Steven Taylor argues that the rise of patriarchal domination was associated with the appearance of socially stratified hierarchical polities, institutionalised violence and the separated individuated ego associated with a period of climatic stress.[41]

Ancient Western history

[edit]

A prominent Greek general Meno, in the Platonic dialogue of the same name, sums up the prevailing sentiment in Classical Greece about the respective virtues of men and women. He says:[42]

First of all, if you take the virtue of a man, it is easily stated that a man's virtue is this—that he be competent to manage the affairs of his city, and to manage them so as to benefit his friends and harm his enemies, and to take care to avoid suffering harm himself. Or take a woman's virtue: there is no difficulty in describing it as the duty of ordering the house well, looking after the property indoors, and obeying her husband.

— Meno, Plato in Twelve Volumes

The works of Aristotle portrayed women as morally, intellectually, and physically inferior to men; saw women as the property of men; claimed that women's role in society was to reproduce and to serve men in the household; and saw male domination of women as natural and virtuous.[43][44][45]

Not all of the great Greek thinkers believed that women were inferior. Aristotle's teacher Plato laid out his vision of the most just society in his work Republic. In it, Plato argues that women would have complete educational and political equality in such a society, and would serve in the military. The Pythagoreans also valued the participation of women, who were treated as intellectual equals.

Lerner states that Aristotle believed that women had colder blood than men, which made women not evolve into men, the sex that Aristotle believed to be perfect and superior. Maryanne Cline Horowitz stated that Aristotle believed that "soul contributes the form and model of creation". This implies that any imperfection that is caused in the world must be caused by a woman because one cannot acquire an imperfection from perfection (which he perceived as male). Aristotle had a hierarchical ruling structure in his theories. Lerner claims that through this patriarchal belief system, passed down generation to generation, people have been conditioned to believe that men are superior to women. These symbols are benchmarks which children learn about when they grow up, and the cycle of patriarchy continues much past the Greeks.[46]

Egypt left no philosophical record, but Herodotus left a record of his shock at the contrast between the roles of Egyptian women and the women of Athens. He observed that Egyptian women attended market and were employed in trade. In ancient Egypt, middle-class women were eligible to sit on a local tribunal, engage in real estate transactions, and inherit or bequeath property. Women also secured loans, and witnessed legal documents. Athenian women were denied such rights.[47]

Greek influence spread, however, with the conquests of Alexander the Great, who was educated by Aristotle.[48]

Modern Western history

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Although many 16th- and 17th-century theorists agreed with Aristotle's views concerning the place of women in society, none of them tried to prove political obligation on the basis of the patriarchal family until sometime after 1680. The patriarchal political theory is closely associated with Sir Robert Filmer. Sometime before 1653, Filmer completed a work entitled Patriarcha. However, it was not published until after his death. In it, he defended the divine right of kings as having title inherited from Adam, the first man of the human species, according to Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition.[49]

However, in the latter half of the 18th century, clerical sentiments of patriarchy were meeting challenges from intellectual authorities – Diderot's Encyclopédie denies inheritance of paternal authority stating, "... reason shows us that mothers have rights and authority equal to those of fathers; for the obligations imposed on children originate equally from the mother and the father, as both are equally responsible for bringing them into the world. Thus the positive laws of God that relate to the obedience of children join the father and the mother without any differentiation; both possess a kind of ascendancy and jurisdiction over their children...."[50]

In the 19th century, various women began to question the commonly accepted patriarchal interpretation of Christian scripture. Quaker Sarah Grimké voiced skepticism about the ability of men to translate and interpret passages relating to the roles of the sexes without bias. She proposed alternative translations and interpretations of passages relating to women, and she applied historical and cultural criticism to a number of verses, arguing that their admonitions applied to specific historical situations, and were not to be viewed as universal commands.[51]

Elizabeth Cady Stanton used Grimké's criticism of biblical sources to establish a basis for feminist thought. She published The Woman's Bible, which proposed a feminist reading of the Old and New Testament. This tendency was enlarged by feminist theory, which denounced the patriarchal Judeo-Christian tradition.[52] In 2020, social theorist and theologian Elaine Storkey retold the stories of thirty biblical women in her book Women in a Patriarchal World and applied the challenges they faced to women today. Working from both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, she analysed different variations of patriarchy, and outlined the paradox of Rahab, a prostitute in the Old Testament who became a role-model in the New Testament Epistle of James, and Epistle to the Hebrews.[53] In his essay "A Judicial Patriarchy: Family Law at the Turn of the Century", Michael Grossberg coined the phrase "judicial patriarchy", stating that "The judge became the buffer between the family and the state", and that "Judicial patriarchs dominated family law because within these institutional and intraclass rivalries judges succeeded in protecting their power over the law governing the hearth."[54]: 290–291 

Asian history

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In ancient Japan, power in society was more evenly distributed, particularly in the religious domain, where Shintoism worships the goddess Amaterasu, and ancient writings were replete with references to great priestesses and magicians. However, at the time contemporary with Constantine in the West, "the emperor of Japan changed Japanese modes of worship", giving supremacy to male deities and suppressing belief in female spiritual power in what feminist scholars in the field of religious studies have called a "patriarchal revolution."[55]

In ancient China, gender roles and patriarchy were shaped by Confucianism. Adopted as the official religion in the Han dynasty, Confucianism has strong dictates regarding the behavior of women, declaring a woman's place in society, as well as outlining virtuous behavior.[56] Three Obediences and Four Virtues, a Confucian text, places a woman's value on her loyalty and obedience. It explains that an obedient woman is to obey their father before her marriage, her husband after marriage, and her first son if widowed, and that a virtuous woman must practice sexual propriety, proper speech, modest appearance, and hard work.[57] Ban Zhao, a Confucian disciple, writes in her book Precepts for Women that a woman's primary concern is to subordinate themselves before patriarchal figures, such as a husband or father, and that they need not concern themselves with intelligence or talent.[58] Ban Zhao is considered by some historians as an early champion for women's education in China; however, her extensive writing on the value of a woman's mediocrity and servile behavior leaves others feeling that this narrative is the result of a misplaced desire to cast her in a contemporary feminist light.[59] Similarly to Three Obediences and Four Virtues, Precepts for Women was meant as a moral guide for proper feminine behavior, and was widely accepted as such for centuries.[60]

In China's Ming dynasty, widowed women were expected to never remarry, and unmarried women were expected to remain chaste for the duration of their lives.[61] Biographies of Exemplary Women, a book containing biographies of women who lived according to the Confucian ideals of virtuous womanhood, popularized an entire genre of similar writing during the Ming dynasty. Women who lived according to this Neo-Confucian ideal were celebrated in official documents, and some had structures erected in their honor.[62]

In China's Qing dynasty, laws governing morality, sexuality, and gender-relations continued to be based on Confucian teachings. Men and women were both subject to strict laws regarding sexual behavior, however men were punished infrequently in comparison to women. Additionally, women's punishment often carried strong social stigma, "rendering [women] unmarriageable", a stigma which did not follow men.[63] Similarly, in the People's Republic of China, laws governing morality which were written as egalitarian were selectively enforced favoring men, with insufficient enforcement against female infanticide in various areas, while infanticide of any form was, by the letter of the law, prohibited.[64]

Social theories

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Sociologists[clarification needed] tend to reject predominantly biological explanations of patriarchy[65] and contend that socialization processes are primarily responsible for establishing gender roles.[5] According to standard sociological theory, patriarchy is the result of sociological constructions that are passed down from generation to generation.[66] These constructions are most pronounced in societies with traditional cultures and less economic development.[67] Even in modern, developed societies, however, gender messages conveyed by family, mass media, and other institutions largely favor males having a dominant status.[5]

Although patriarchy exists within the scientific atmosphere,[clarification needed] "the periods over which women would have been at a physiological disadvantage in participation in hunting through being at a late stage of pregnancy or early stage of child-rearing would have been short".[68]: 157  During the time of the nomads, patriarchy still grew with power. Lewontin and others argue that such biological determinism unjustly limits women. In his study, he states women behave a certain way not because they are biologically inclined to, but rather because they are judged by "how well they conform to the stereotypical local image of femininity".[68]: 137 

Feminists[who?] believe that people have gendered biases, which are perpetuated and enforced across generations by those who benefit from them.[68] For instance, it has historically been claimed that women cannot make rational decisions during their menstrual periods. This claim cloaks the fact that men also have periods of time where they can be aggressive and irrational; furthermore, unrelated effects of aging and similar medical problems are often blamed on menopause, amplifying its reputation.[69] These biological traits and others specific to women, such as their ability to get pregnant, are often used against them as an attribute of weakness.[68][69]

Sociologist Sylvia Walby has composed six overlapping structures that define patriarchy and that take different forms in different cultures and different times:[2]

  1. The household: women are more likely to have their labor expropriated by their husbands such as through housework and raising children
  2. Paid work: women are likely to be paid less and face exclusion from paid work
  3. The state: women are unlikely to have formal power and representation
  4. Violence: women are more prone to being abused
  5. Sexuality: women's sexuality is more likely to be treated negatively
  6. Culture: representation of women in different cultural contexts

The idea that patriarchy is natural has, however, come under attack from many sociologists, explaining that patriarchy evolved due to historical, rather than biological, conditions. In technologically simple societies, men's greater physical strength and women's common experience of pregnancy combined to sustain patriarchy.[68] Gradually, technological advances, especially industrial machinery, diminished the primacy of physical strength in everyday life. Introduction of household appliances reduced the amount of manual labor needed in the households.[70][71] Similarly, contraception has given women control over their reproductive cycle.[72][relevant?]

Patriarchy and Feminism

Patriarchy generally falls under two categories, "traditional patriarchy" and "structural patriarchy" (Pierik).[73] Traditional patriarchy refers to the idea that the father is the head of the household and is at the top of families’ social hierarchies. This patriarchal structure is most apparent in the American representation of a nuclear family; the father works and brings home an income while the mother takes care of the children and the household. This economic power dynamic in the home typically places the desires of the man/father/husband as priority over the desires of the woman/mother/wife.

Structural patriarchy expands the range of this social hierarchy outside of just the home and family dynamic. The typical influence that men hold in the home is extended to their social and professional positions. Women are often considered the caretakers of the workplace when in a professional setting while men do the labor. This dynamic can be seen in an office setting, with men as sources of income for the business and women in roles as secretaries to care for the workplace. This system leans into the idea that men are typically placed in higher-power positions in society due to the traditional role of a financial provider, and women fall into caretaker roles.[74]

Development of Feminism

The extended presence of patriarchal structures has led to the establishment of feministic ideals over centuries (Brunell).[75] Several prominent fronts led to and continue to push the development of feminism; including paid and unpaid labor and expectations of gender roles(Thompson).[76] Men are traditionally viewed as the breadwinners in a patriarchal society, and women are seen as homemakers. Formal job occupations outside of the home, traditionally carried out by men in a patriarchal society, are paid labor. Any work done inside of the home without financial compensation, traditionally carried out by women in patriarchal societies, is unpaid labor. Until 1974, women were not allowed to have their bank accounts, which pushed the financial divide further and placed men in higher economic positions. (Adam)[77] The uneven financial compensation between these levels of labor is one of the factors that pushed feministic ideals forward.

The Role of Patriarchy in Feminism

With men being expected to bring home an income to support a family and the entire household, the strain of the increasing cost of living makes that ideal impractical. Because of this economic strain, many households rely on multiple incomes from both men and women. When women would traditionally be expected to stay home and provide childcare, they now have to seek it out elsewhere to provide for the family, which in turn drives up the cost of living further. With this reliance on further income and sourcing traditionally female childcare roles outside of the home, patriarchal norms start to become less relevant. This breakdown of traditional roles leads to the natural decrease of a gender-specific social structure.

Feminist Ideologies

Feminism is not a direct opposition to patriarchy, it is a theory in response to patriarchy. Feminism focuses on the empowerment of women in society and the dismissal of traditional gender roles that are oppressive. Traditional female roles in the household are largely abandoned, and equal opportunity for women is the largest ideal that feminism stands with. Feminist theories believe that financial and social opportunities should be equally available for all.

This social division of gender roles as caretakers and providers is broken down to better allow women to participate outside of caring for a home and children. Financial opportunity refers to employment pursuits, access to one's own finances, and wage equality for job positions that are available for both men and women. The wage gap issues and traditional roles as unpaid laborers for the family significantly drive the growth of feminism in modern social settings. Which in turn shuts down patriarchal structures.

Feminist theory

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"FIGHT PATRIARCHY" – a graffito in Turin

Feminist theorists have written extensively about patriarchy either as a primary cause of women's oppression, or as part of an interactive system. Shulamith Firestone, a radical-libertarian feminist, defines patriarchy as a system of oppression of women. Firestone believes that patriarchy is caused by the biological inequalities between women and men, e.g. that women bear children, while men do not. Firestone writes that patriarchal ideologies support the oppression of women and gives as an example the joy of giving birth, which she labels a patriarchal myth. For Firestone, women must gain control over reproduction in order to be free from oppression.[35] Feminist historian Gerda Lerner believes that male control over women's sexuality and reproductive functions is a fundamental cause and result of patriarchy.[1]

Interactive systems theorists Iris Marion Young and Heidi Hartmann believe that patriarchy and capitalism interact together to oppress women. Young, Hartmann, and other socialist and Marxist feminists use the terms patriarchal capitalism or capitalist patriarchy to describe the interactive relationship of capitalism and patriarchy in producing and reproducing the oppression of women.[78] According to Hartmann, the term patriarchy redirects the focus of oppression from the labour division to a moral and political responsibility liable directly to men as a gender. In its being both systematic and universal, therefore, the concept of patriarchy represents an adaptation of the Marxist concept of class and class struggle.[79]

Lindsey German represents an outlier in this regard. German argued for a need to redefine the origins and sources of the patriarchy, describing the mainstream theories as providing "little understanding of how women's oppression and the nature of the family have changed historically. Nor is there much notion of how widely differing that oppression is from class to class."[80] Instead, the patriarchy is not the result of men's oppression of women or sexism per se, with men not even identified as the main beneficiaries of such a system, but capital itself. As such, female liberation needs to begin "with an assessment of the material position of women in capitalist society."[80] In that, German differs from Young or Hartmann by rejecting the notion ("eternal truth") that the patriarchy is at the root of female oppression.[80]

Audre Lorde, an African American feminist writer and theorist, believed that racism and patriarchy were intertwined systems of oppression.[78] Sara Ruddick, a philosopher who wrote about "good mothers" in the context of maternal ethics, describes the dilemma facing contemporary mothers who must train their children within a patriarchal system. She asks whether a "good mother" trains her son to be competitive, individualistic, and comfortable within the hierarchies of patriarchy, knowing that he may likely be economically successful but a mean person, or whether she resists patriarchal ideologies and socializes her son to be cooperative and communal but economically unsuccessful.[35]

Lerner, in her 1986 book The Creation of Patriarchy, makes a series of arguments about the origins and reproduction of patriarchy as a system of oppression of women, and concludes that patriarchy is socially constructed and seen as natural and invisible.[1]

Some feminist theorists believe that patriarchy is an unjust social system that is harmful to both men and women.[81] It often includes any social, political, or economic mechanism that evokes male dominance over women. Because patriarchy is a social construction, it can be overcome by revealing and critically analyzing its manifestations.[82]

Jaggar, Young, and Hartmann are among the feminist theorists who argue that the system of patriarchy should be completely overturned, especially the heteropatriarchal family, which they see as a necessary component of female oppression. The family not only serves as a representative of the greater civilization by pushing its own affiliates to change and obey, but performs as a component in the rule of the patriarchal state that rules its inhabitants with the head of the family.[83]

Many feminists (especially scholars and activists) have called for culture repositioning as a method for deconstructing patriarchy. Culture repositioning relates to culture change. It involves the reconstruction of the cultural concept of a society.[84] Prior to the widespread use of the term patriarchy, early feminists used male chauvinism and sexism to refer roughly to the same phenomenon.[85] Author bell hooks argues that the new term identifies the ideological system itself (that men claim dominance and superiority to women) that can be believed and acted upon by either men or women, whereas the earlier terms imply only men act as oppressors of women.[85]

Sociologist Joan Acker, analyzing the concept of patriarchy and the role that it has played in the development of feminist thought, says that seeing patriarchy as a "universal, trans-historical and trans-cultural phenomenon" where "women were everywhere oppressed by men in more or less the same ways […] tended toward a biological essentialism."[86]

Anna Pollert has described use of the term patriarchy as circular and conflating description and explanation. She remarks the discourse on patriarchy creates a "theoretical impasse ... imposing a structural label on what it is supposed to explain" and therefore impoverishes the possibility of explaining gender inequalities.[87]

Biological theories

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Studies of male sexual coercion and female resistance in nonhuman primates (for example, chimpanzees[88][89]) suggest that sexual conflicts of interest underlying the patriarchy precede the emergence of the human species.[90] However, the extent of male power over females varies greatly across different primate species.[90] Among bonobos (a close relative of humans), for example, male coercion of females is rarely, if ever, observed,[90] and bonobos are widely considered to be matriarchal in their social structure.[91][92][93]

There is also considerable variation in the role that gender plays in human societies, and there is no academic consensus on to what extent biology determines human social structure. The Encyclopædia Britannica states that "...many cultures bestow power preferentially on one sex or the other...."[94] Some anthropologists, such as Floriana Ciccodicola, have argued that patriarchy is a cultural universal,[95] and the masculinities scholar David Buchbinder suggests that Roland Barthes' description of the term ex-nomination, i.e. patriarchy as the 'norm' or common sense, is relevant.[96][clarification needed] However, there do exist cultures that some anthropologists have described as matriarchal. Among the Mosuo (a tiny society in Yunnan Province, China), for example, women exert greater power, authority, and control over decision-making.[65] Other societies are matrilinear or matrilocal, primarily among indigenous tribal groups.[97] Some hunter-gatherer groups, such as the !Kung of southern Africa,[7] have been characterized as largely egalitarian.[33]

Some proponents[who?] of the biological determinist understanding of patriarchy argue that because of human female biology, women are more fit to perform roles such as anonymous child-rearing at home, rather than high-profile decision-making roles, such as leaders in battles. Through this basis, "the existence of a sexual division of labor in primitive societies is a starting point as much for purely social accounts of the origins of patriarchy as for biological."[68]: 157 [verification needed] Hence, the rise of patriarchy is recognized through this apparent "sexual division".[68][verification needed]

Evolutionary biology

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An early theory in evolutionary biology, sometimes referred to as Bateman's principle, argues that females almost always invest more energy into producing offspring than males, and therefore, females are a limiting factor over which males of most species will compete. This idea suggests that females prefer males who control more resources that can help her and her offspring, which in turn causes an evolutionary pressure on males to be competitive with each other in order to gain resources and power.[98]

Sociobiologist Steven Goldberg argues that social behavior is primarily determined by genetics, and thus that patriarchy arises more as a result of inherent biology than social conditioning. Goldberg contends that patriarchy is a universal feature of human culture. In 1973, Goldberg wrote, "The ethnographic studies of every society that has ever been observed explicitly state that these feelings were present, there is literally no variation at all."[99] Goldberg has critics among anthropologists. Concerning Goldberg's claims about the "feelings of both men and women", Eleanor Leacock countered in 1974 that the data on women's attitudes are "sparse and contradictory", and that the data on male attitudes about male–female relations are "ambiguous". Also, the effects of colonialism on the cultures represented in the studies were not considered.[100]

Anthropologist and psychologist Barbara Smuts argues that patriarchy evolved in humans through conflict between the respective reproductive interests of males and females. She lists six ways it may have emerged:[90][further explanation needed]

  1. a reduction in female allies
  2. elaboration of male-male alliances
  3. increased male control over resources
  4. increased hierarchy formation among men
  5. female strategies that reinforce male control over females
  6. the evolution of language and its power to create ideology.

Psychoanalytic theories

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While the term patriarchy often refers to male domination generally, another interpretation sees it as literally "rule of the father".[101] So some people[who?] believe patriarchy does not refer simply to male power over women, but the expression of power dependent on age as well as gender, such as by older men over women, children, and younger men. Some of these younger men may inherit and therefore have a stake in continuing these conventions. Others may rebel.[102][103][further explanation needed]

This psychoanalytic model is based upon revisions of Freud's description of the normally neurotic family using the analogy of the story of Oedipus.[104][105] Those who fall outside the Oedipal triad of mother/father/child are less subject to male authority.[106]

The operations of power in such cases are usually enacted unconsciously. All are subject, even fathers are bound by its strictures.[107] It is represented in unspoken traditions and conventions performed in everyday behaviors, customs, and habits.[101] The triangular relationship of a father, a mother and an inheriting eldest son frequently form the dynamic and emotional narratives of popular culture and are enacted performatively in rituals of courtship and marriage.[108] They provide conceptual models for organising power relations in spheres that have nothing to do with the family, for example, politics and business.[109][110][111]

Arguing from this standpoint, radical feminist Shulamith Firestone wrote in her 1970 The Dialectic of Sex:

Marx was on to something more profound than he knew when he observed that the family contained within itself in embryo all the antagonisms that later develop on a wide scale within the society and the state. For unless revolution uproots the basic social organisation, the biological family – the vinculum through which the psychology of power can always be smuggled – the tapeworm of exploitation will never be annihilated.[112]

Gender Inequality today

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According to United Nations, $6.4 trillion the estimated annual requirement for certain sectors in 48 developing countries. This accounts for almost 70% of the world's population in developing countries.[113] The President of the General Assembly, Dennis Francis emphasized the need to reverse the prediction of 340 million women in extreme poverty by 2030 due to the finding of one in every ten women currently living in extreme poverty. Women are also being targeted in places like Palestine, Ukraine, and Haiti, as he stated that credible evidence of sexual abuse was found.[114] Sexual violence impacts individuals of all genders, though women are disproportionately affected. Additionally, most perpetrators are male, which some view as reinforcing traditional power structures associated with patriarchy.[114]

Sima Bahouse, the Executive director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, emphasized the urgent need to eliminate poverty for women and girls, advocating for inclusive fiscal policies that promote equitable redistribution and progressive taxation.[113] Key priorities include enhancing public services and creating gender-responsive social protection systems that specifically benefit women and girls in poverty. Investing in the care economy is highlighted as essential for alleviating their poverty and fostering sustainable economic growth. The speaker rejected excuses about the difficulty or cost of these initiatives, asserting that a fair and sustainable future for all women and girls is achievable.[113]

Impact of Patriarchy on Mental Health

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The patriarchal framework of gender norms has established specific behavioral expectations for individuals according to their biological sex. Some individuals may not desire to adhere to the strict "acceptable behaviors" or gender boundaries set by society, which could be traumatic for some. These individuals are excluded and faced with alienation, making them more vulnerable to sexual violence.[114] For example, LGBTQ+ members frequently fall victim to sexual abuse and harassment. Consequently, a patriarchal society creates an inherently unsafe and harmful environment for non-conforming women and those who do not adhere to rigid societal norms of gender and sexuality. While this power disparity is often perceived as primarily benefiting men, it also poses hidden risks to their psychological well-being.[114]

With social media being very present today, individuals are increasingly susceptible to the negative impacts of patriarchy on their mental health. The internet has facilitated the spread of gender-based discrimination, reinforced patriarchal norms, and propagated negative representations of women. Research has shown that "social media use may be linked to adverse mental health effects, such as suicidal thoughts, feelings of loneliness, and reduced empathy".[114] For instance, social media platforms often feature curated images that promote unrealistic body standards or lifestyles, leading to feelings of comparison, jealousy, and anxiety among users.

See also

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Patriarchal models

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Comparable social models

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Contrast

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Lerner, Gerda (1986). The Creation of Patriarchy. Women and History, Volume 1. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 238–239. ISBN 978-0-19-503996-2. In its narrow meaning, patriarchy refers to the system, historically derived from Greek and Roman law, in which the male head of the household had absolute legal and economic power over his dependent female and male family members. [...] Patriarchy in its wider definition means the manifestation and institutionalization of male dominance over women and children in the family and the extension of male dominance over women in society in general.
  2. ^ a b c Walby, Sylvia (1989). "Theorising Patriarchy". Sociology. 23 (2): 213–234. doi:10.1177/0038038589023002004. JSTOR 42853921. S2CID 220676988. I shall define patriarchy as a system of social structures, and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women.
  3. ^ Hunnicutt, Gwen (2009). "Varieties of Patriarchy and Violence Against Women: Resurrecting 'Patriarchy' as a Theoretical Tool". Violence Against Women. 15 (5): 553–573. doi:10.1177/1077801208331246. ISSN 1077-8012. PMID 19182049. S2CID 206667077. The core concept of patriarchy [is a system] of male domination and female subordination [...] Although patriarchy has been variously defined, for purposes of this article, it means social arrangements that privilege males, where men as a group dominate women as a group, both structurally and ideologically man power![...]
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  14. ^ πατήρ. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
  15. ^ ἀρχή. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
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