The term has been used and studied in various forms since the 1600s. As already noted (and ignored) it refers not only to family and socio-political structures where men have had greater power but to a pyramid shaped social system where a relatively small group of elites have power and prestige that they have gotten and maintain through the ruthless, and often violent domination of others. It's an extremely well defined social dynamic that has very particular parameters, as well as an identifiable window of onset, approximately 6-9k years ago. Feminist usages of the term typically only touch on the gender aspects, but social scientists like me, talk about the ways that a patriarchal dominance hierarchy system also impacts other things, such as racism, homophobia, ableism and garden variety playground bullying. As already noted (and ignored once again), it's a pyramid shaped social structure - not a binary where men always win and women always lose.
