I don’t have any agenda except to look at what is preventing us from having a saner, kinder society all around. The dominance hierarchy inherent in patriarchy is pretty much the root of all social ills as far as I can determine. It’s less of a battle of the the sexes than it is a problem of stratification all around, and elite White men have historically (and still do) hold the most spots at the apex of the pyramid. It’s not that all men have power and primacy over all women anymore, although up until only 50 years ago we did have laws and overt customs which still enshrined that, and ideas don’t change over night.

Although women have made significant strides in the past 50 years (as have Black people) there is still a significant issue with those at the top oppressing those lower down the rungs. After all, that’s how they got their position in the first place. In America, the most ruthless is most likely to be elevated to positions of power and prestige. Those born into those ranks will do just about anything to keep them. This is why 50 years of sexual harassment training in workplaces has yielded little improvement — that’s a kind of dominance posturing using sex as the weapon. Until we begin addressing the dominance hierarchy, nothing is going to improve all that much as far as sexism, racism, homophobia, disdain for the poor, hatred of victims (in a dominance hierarchy, victims deserve what they get — they should have been stronger), etc.

Patriarchy seeks to enforce gender roles for both men and women, doing nobody any favors. The most elite hold the vast bulk of power and privilege and everyone else has to fight it out for their position. We have a culture build on coercion, domination, manipulation, greed, and pain or threat of pain. Both men and women participate in this because we’ve all been indoctrinated in the same dogma. Patriarchy is the real issue. Moving to a more caring and cooperative, less stratified society, as most European countries have done, would be a step in the right direction for everyone.