My theory is that this has to do with living in a society based in a dominance hierarchy, which is what patriarchy really is. When it first came about 10K years ago, for the first time in human history we began to have social stratification, and not just a power differential between men and women. You got classes and elites and chieftans for the first time.
It encourages everyone to constantly compare themselves to everyone else to see if they rank lower or higher on the pyramid of power because there are no true equals. It’s a zero-sum game. Someone has to lose in order for someone else to win. Women are just as enmeshed in this social system as men are.
“Patriarchy allowed for stratification not only between men and women but in the larger society as well. For the first time, you’ve got social castes and elites. Rather than sharing nearly everything for the good of the tribe, individual families are able to accumulate wealth, land, status, and power that belong solely to them. Having become a society of control and separation, you might as well see how much you can get for yourself out of it. If you don’t have power, what can you get out of being proximate to or aligned with a man who does?”
“The goal of nearly everyone is to maintain their ranking or to achieve a higher one by forcing someone else into a position lower than you are. This is typically done by creating fear, or threatening violence. Everyone from mean girls to workplace sexual harassers is trying to establish their dominance by making you aware of your inferiority.”
