All the more reason for us to keep writing and speaking about it, then. I got an annoyed comment a few days ago from another guy telling me that I was conflating patriarchy with other things and essentially telling me that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Imagine that?! 🙄

I then presented him with the 12 or so articles I’ve written about how the dominance hierarchy aspect of patriarchy infuses everything in our culture — not just the relationship between men and women. How prior to the advent of patriarchy about 10–12 K years ago, there were no significant classes or stratification of any kind. Ergo, patriarchy and social hierarchy of all sorts go hand in hand. I haven’t heard from him since.

Most people have never thought about this stuff in quite this way before. I admit I hadn’t until relatively recently. But, I do think it’s one of the most important conversations we can be having right now because there is no way to do better on racism, misogyny, homophobia, male isolation and loneliness, etc. until we tackle what underlies it all.