362 Quotes About Patriarchy

Because he is a monster. But he’s strong and powerful, and from most perspectives, he’s on the winning side. She has to ask herself – and women have asked themselves this question for centuries – would she rather be suffocated slowly for the rest of her life, or die quickly trying to accomplish something.

Olympus is still a patriarchy. Zeus heads his royal household as jealously as Jehovah rules his harem of dull, harp-playing angels. Both are templates for order on earth, don’t you think?

Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling.

The best countries at closing the gender gap are the most peaceful. The best countries at closing the gender gap are the most prosperous. The most peaceful countries are the happiest. The most peaceful countries are best on the environment.

Generations of men are frustrated, angry and ashamed that, despite following the rules - and despite sacrificing the tender, emotionally connected boys inside of them - they're not getting what was promised to them.

Sometimes, sexual violence is a ‘cultural problem’ (but only when this culture is non white). Sometimes, it is a product of male anatomy (but only when this anatomy is assigned to a trans woman or a man of colour). Sexual violence is never the violence of heteropatriarchy or globalising racial capital. Instead, representatives of patriarchy, capitalism and colonialism weaponise the idea of ‘women’s safety’ against marginalised and hyper-exploited groups.

Masculinity is simply a conglomeration of the personality traits necessary for the patriarchal soldier-rapist: physically strong, emotionally cauterized, rational, domineering, cruel. All of this is supposed to add up to "handsome" as well. Likewise femininity is ultimately a description of the personality that results from trauma and powerlessness: weak, passive, yielding, emotional, hyper-vigilant to the needs of the dominators and desperate for the dominator's attention.

In children, it’s about as easy to find conclusive evidence of a ‘male brain’ or ‘female brain’ as it is to find conclusive evidence of an immortal soul.

Violence against women is a pivot for the intersecting systems of heteropatriarchy, racial capitalism and colonialism. It results from the tussle for material and emotional resources, between commodity production and the reproduction of human life.