Patriarchal Society According to Feminism

What Is Patriarchy According To Feminism?

Defining Patriarchy

The word ‘patriarchy’ literally means the rule of the father. It first described a specific ‘male-dominated family’ (Sultana, 2010).

In its modern, feminist sense, patriarchy is a system of political, social, and economic relations and institutions structured around gender inequality (Nash, 2009). Feminists mainly use the term to describe the power relationship between men and women.

Most forms of feminism see patriarchy as unjust: a present-day social system that subordinates, discriminates against, or oppresses women.

How Patriarchy Structures Society

In a patriarchal society, women are usually excluded from fully participating in political and economic life. Instead, they are restricted to the home, raising children.

Patriarchal relations structure both the private and public sphere. Men dominate both, at home and in public life (Nash, 2009).

In a patriarchy, women are often under-represented in key institutions, in decision-making positions, and employment. They are often ignored or criticized if they try to regain power.

Attributes seen as ‘feminine’ are undervalued compared to ‘masculine’ ones. Violence against women is a significant factor in patriarchy.

Undervalued women face more exploitation and abuse. They can also face overlapping oppression based on race, class, and sexuality, alongside sexism.

In Western societies, it is predominantly white men who benefit from patriarchy. Men from minority backgrounds face their own oppression too.

When Did Patriarchal Societies Begin?

Traditionalists who are in support of the patriarchy believe that men are born to dominate, and women are born to be subordinate.

They believe that a hierarchy of power has always existed and will always continue to exist since it is human nature. This view is shared with some historical figures.

The philosopher Aristotle labeled men as ‘active’ and women as ‘passive’, describing the female as a ‘mutilated male’ without a soul.

He held that women’s biological inferiority made them inferior also in their capacity to reason and make decisions (Lerner, 1989).

This view was influential for centuries.

In modern psychology, Sigmund Freud suggested that biology determines one’s psychology and therefore their ability and role. He stated that for women and girls, they envy men for their anatomy. In his view, normal human was male (Freud, 1977).

These views are less extreme now, but some still believe that men, specifically white men, are the most dominant and important in society.

Society is organized around their needs. Their perspective is treated as the default, their attributes as most valuable, and they dominate politics and culture as a result.

Gerda Lerner’s Historical Account

The historian Gerda Lerner asked when, not just why, patriarchy began. In her book The Creation of Patriarchy, she traced its emergence to a specific historical process.

Aim: To establish precisely when and how patriarchy first arose, against the view that male dominance is simply human nature. If it began, it could also end.

Method: She conducted a historical and archival analysis rather than an experiment. Lerner drew on legal codes, religious and literary texts, and archaeological evidence from the ancient Near East across roughly 3100 BC to 600 BC.

Results: She found a graduated process, not a single event. Law codes increasingly regulated women’s sexuality and inheritance, and the state claimed growing control over women’s reproduction.

Conclusion: Patriarchy is not a feature of human nature but a historically contingent arrangement that took roughly 2,500 years to become fully established. It can, in principle, be undone (Lerner, 1989).

Lerner’s account gave patriarchy a historical foundation rather than a purely philosophical one. Her evidence centres on one region, the ancient Near East, so how far the pattern generalises elsewhere is not fully established.

Her method was also interpretive rather than experimental: a historical synthesis cannot be replicated or falsified the way an experiment can. Scholars still dispute the underlying mechanism, too.

Some argue Lerner underweights private property as the root cause; others that she overstates how new male control over women’s bodies really was.

What Are The Characteristics Of A Patriarchal Society?

Patriarchy is a complex system made up of many elements: a set of symbols and ideas that make up a culture. It shows up everywhere, from everyday conversation to literature and film.

A patriarchal society is concerned with:

• Social life and how it is supposed to be

• What is expected of people

• Standards of feminine beauty that is expected

• Masculine toughness that is expected

• Images of feminine vulnerability and masculine protectiveness

• Defining men and women as opposites

• Valuing masculinity and devaluing femininity

Patriarchy’s defining elements are that it is male-dominated, male-identified, and male-centered.

Male dominance

Patriarchy describes an institutionalized system of male dominance. It is a hierarchy: men sit at the top in positions of authority, and women are pushed into lower, subordinate roles.

Men often see themselves as superior to women. Biological differences between the sexes are exaggerated to justify this: men get the dominant, masculine roles, and women the subordinate, feminine ones.

In a patriarchy, men hold as many positions of power as possible, claiming the top jobs and leading both public life and the household. Women are expected to do as the man says, contributing mainly by keeping house and raising children.

Male centeredness

Male-centeredness means a patriarchal society is focused on men. Most of human history celebrates the successes of, primarily, white men as heroes, inventors, and leaders. Women’s history, by contrast, is often ignored or treated as though it barely existed.

Media reflects the same pattern. TV and movies centre on male protagonists, with women in minor roles, often as a love interest or in service to the male characters.

Girls are socialized early to be pretty and accommodating, so they can attract a husband. They are taught that marriage and children are their ultimate goal, and that their lives will revolve around the man they marry.

Male identification

In patriarchy, ideas about what counts as good, desirable, and normal are male-identified. Traits linked to being ‘masculine’ are seen as preferable; those linked to being ‘feminine’ are not.

Masculine qualities include being aggressive, forceful, strong, self-controlled, and competitive. Men can become fixated on displaying only these traits.

Not every man is born this way; many are naturally caring, kind, and sensitive. Because these traits are coded feminine, they are treated as undesirable, and boys who show them may be ridiculed back into the ‘masculine’ mould.

A father may see his son crying. If he subscribes to patriarchy, he may tell the boy to ‘man up.’ He may then push the boy to hide his feelings, behaving in a way deemed more appropriate for a boy.

Control of family systems

In a patriarchal society, men often believe they must control every family and social situation. That includes decisions about the family’s education and finances.

A woman may have to ask permission. She must get her husband’s approval before making a decision. Traditionally, she needed her father’s permission to marry, with the father approving her suitor. This treats women as though they cannot be trusted to decide for themselves.

Some men go further. They oppress the women in their family to gain more control. A woman who tries to reclaim power risks being oppressed, exploited, or even abused, as a way of forcing her back into a submissive role.

What Are ‘Patriarchal Institutions’?

‘Patriarchal institutions’ is defined as ‘a set of mechanisms, practices, beliefs, myths, and relationships organizing relatively stable patterns of human activity with respect to the distribution of resources, the reproduction of individuals, and the type of societal structures found within a given patriarchy’ (Facio, 2013).

These institutions reinforce each other. Together, they help maintain the inequality between men and women across generations.

Men typically maintain this oppression through institutions such as education, religion, and the family. Each justifies and reinforces women’s subordination to men. It often places men in positions of power within these institutions (Millett, 1977).

Patriarchal institutions bear real costs. They are held responsible for women’s inferior or secondary status, often creating obstacles to progress.

Society gives men absolute priority and, to some extent, limits women’s human rights (Sultana, 2010).

Women’s role in a patriarchal society

For a patriarchal society to function, women play a defined role: to be subservient and submissive, catering to men’s hopes and desires without complaint.

Women are expected to stay in the household as mother and homemaker. This can mean hours of unpaid labor each week.

Marxist feminists argue this unpaid labor benefits both capital and the woman’s husband (Hartmann, 1981).

It is harder to be oneself as a woman. ‘Real women’ are expected to be dependent, vulnerable, weak, supportive, nurturing, emotional, and empathetic. Women are criticized for going against what is seen as ‘pertaining to woman,’ while men are simply defined by not being women.

Women can also be treated as a trophy. This symbolizes a man’s success over other men. They are expected to be attractive, but not so attractive that they are blamed for any harassment or abuse they receive.

Yet not every woman conforms to this mould.

Living under patriarchy does not stop women from succeeding. Many do. But those who succeed tend to be male-centered and male-identified, showing traits such as assertiveness and competitiveness. These traits do not threaten the patriarchal order (Becker, 1999).

Hegemonic Masculinity and the Patriarchal Dividend

Patriarchy does not ask every man to be the same. The sociologist R. W. Connell (1995) argued that masculinities exist in a hierarchy, with one idealised version sitting at the top.

The Patriarchal Dividend

At the top of that hierarchy sits hegemonic masculinity: the culturally dominant, idealised form of manhood in a given time and place. In most Western societies, it is linked to heterosexuality, marriage, physical toughness, authority, and paid work.

Few men actually live up to this ideal in full. It works through culture, not force: media, education, and everyday attitudes make it look natural.

The hierarchy does not stop at ranking straight men above each other. Connell places gay masculinity at the bottom, treated as hegemonic masculinity’s opposite. ‘Emphasised femininity’ sits alongside it: a form of femininity built around accommodating men’s interests and desires.

Connell calls the benefit this creates the patriarchal dividend. Most men gain higher wages, authority, and social deference from hegemonic masculinity’s dominant position, simply by being men, whether or not they personally act tough or aggressive.

Men who take this dividend without living up to the ideal themselves show complicit masculinity: they benefit from patriarchy without personally enforcing it.

This hierarchy gets enforced day to day. In all-male settings, men police each other’s conformity to masculine norms and exclude anything coded as feminine or gay, a pattern researchers call ‘homosociality’ (Bird, 1996).

This is the formal version of ‘toxic masculinity,’ described above. Most men do not need to enact it violently to benefit from it. But it still licenses violence and emotional restriction in those who try to live up to it fully.

Are Masculinities Becoming More Inclusive?

Not every sociologist agrees hegemonic masculinity stays this dominant. Anderson (2009) argued that declining homophobia in many Western societies has produced a wider range of accepted ‘inclusive masculinities’.

Under this view, heterosexual men can now show more physical affection and emotional openness without threatening their masculine status, behaviour that would once have been read as weak.

Whether this is a genuine loosening of patriarchy’s hierarchy, or just a change in which behaviours count as masculine while the underlying hierarchy persists, remains an open question.

The Problems With A Patriarchal Society

Gender inequality

The main issue with patriarchy is that, if half of the population are thought to have dominance over the other, this results in inequalities. Patriarchy also justifies these inequalities and injustices between the genders.

In a patriarchal society, men may benefit from more opportunities such as being more likely to be promoted to top positions in their career. Women on the other hand have less opportunities and may need to work harder than men to be afforded equal opportunities.

Less individuality

If everyone in a society is socialized to subscribe to the gender norms enforced by the patriarchy, there is little room to express individuality.

Women may feel pressured to look a certain way, marry, and have children. Those who don’t are likely to face criticism for breaking society’s ‘rules’.

Men adhering to patriarchal masculinity hurt themselves too. The pressure cuts both ways.

Told to always be strong, aggressive, and unemotional, they restrict their own emotional range. They may never explore who they are beyond the status quo of gender.

Toxicity

Men in a patriarchal society who are fixated on sticking to traditionally masculine traits may, in fact, become quite toxic. Toxic masculinity is a set of attitudes and behaviours associated with or expected of men.

If men are expected to be aggressive, toxic masculinity can lead them to feel entitled to violence against others. It becomes a way to prove that aggression. The cost lands on everyone: men are hurt by their own dedication to toxic, patriarchal masculinity, and that dedication hurts others too.

Violence against women

Women in a patriarchal society are seen as subservient to men. If they display any ‘disobedience’, men may be forgiven for acting violently toward them.

Women are treated as desirable objects of male control, in a society organized around power, force, and violence (Johnson, 2004). Force is what keeps women under men’s command.

Women are disproportionately victims of male violence. It becomes something expected to happen to them.

Women are also conditioned to ignore, explain away, and belittle their own experiences of sexism, discrimination, and abuse (Bates, 2022). They are taught to blame themselves. That lets men escape the consequences.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some examples of patriarchy in daily life?

A common example of patriarchy in daily life is that women are expected to do most household tasks and spend more time raising children.

Women also do significantly more unpaid labor than men. Even today, when most women work paid jobs too, they are still expected to juggle that with unpaid labor at home, a burden men rarely share equally.

Another example: children are commonly given their father’s surname rather than their mother’s.

When a woman marries, she often takes her husband’s surname. She gives up her own family name in the process. Some women are still ‘given away’ by their father to their husband on the wedding day, almost as though this were an exchange of property.

Prospective husbands are also traditionally expected to ask the woman’s father for permission to marry her, treating her as property who cannot decide for herself. These customs are less common today, but still persist.

Can men be negatively affected by patriarchy?

Men, as well as women, are negatively affected by a patriarchal society. They are often expected to be strong, tough, aggressive, and assertive.

This leaves little room for vulnerability. It denies men’s need for connection and intimacy. Acting against these expectations, such as showing raw emotion like crying, is not natural for every man, and can lead to ridicule, bullying, or shame.

Many men repress their emotions as a result. That can affect their mental health.

Women are also still expected to spend more time raising children. In divorce cases, judges may therefore rule that mothers get full custody, leaving fathers with less access to their children than they might want.

How can patriarchy be tackled?

Patriarchy is a very complicated and interwoven concept that is thought to play a part in many aspects of society. It is therefore difficult to tackle patriarchy in one clear-cut way.

There are some small things that both men and women can do everyday to help dismantle harmful patriarchal ideas and attitudes:

• Share Housework: Be aware of how housework and childcare hours are split with your partner, and do your fair share.

• Challenge Misogyny: Refuse to join in talk that degrades women, and tell friends that misogynistic language is not acceptable.

• Embrace Femininity: Don’t fear traits or emotions seen as traditionally ‘feminine’.

• Celebrate Difference: Don’t criticize people for going against gender norms; celebrate the difference instead.

• Really Listen: If a woman’s point is ignored or interrupted in a meeting, insist that it is heard and valued.

Critical Evaluation of Patriarchy Theory

Patriarchy is not a settled idea. Sociologists have debated for decades whether it is a precise, testable concept, or one that risks explaining too much.

Is Patriarchy a Useful Analytical Concept?

The central criticism is that treating patriarchy as one uniform system risks explaining almost any instance of gender inequality. That is a real problem. If nothing could count as evidence against it, patriarchy stops being a testable claim and becomes an assumption instead.

Sylvia Walby disagreed. As she explains, patriarchy is not one single cause but a system. She defines it precisely: “a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women” (Walby, 1990, p. 20).

Six distinct structures make up that system, semi-independent of one another:

• Paid work: women are excluded from certain jobs, paid less, and segregated into less skilled roles.
• Household production: a woman’s unpaid domestic labour and childcare is, in effect, expropriated by her husband or partner.
• The state: policy and priorities show a systematic bias toward patriarchal interests, even when not deliberately intended.
• Male violence: not isolated acts, but a patterned feature of women’s lives that the state largely tolerates by rarely intervening.
• Sexuality: compulsory heterosexuality and a double standard that judges the same behaviour differently in a man and a woman.
• Culture: media, religious, and educational representations of women, produced within a patriarchal gaze, that shape women’s own identities.

Because the six structures are semi-independent, one can improve while another barely shifts, or even worsens. Walby names two overall forms this produces.

Private patriarchy is run by one man, a father or husband, who excludes women from public life entirely. Public patriarchy is more collective: women enter paid work and politics, but stay segregated within them from wealth, power, and status.

The shape changes, not the outcome. Walby argued that Britain, and many industrialised societies, has shifted from private to public patriarchy. Women’s subordination is no longer confined to the home. It is now dispersed across public life instead.

This makes the theory falsifiable in a way earlier, single-cause versions were not. It predicts, and can be checked against, exactly the kind of uneven change described next.

Contemporary Research

Two questions can now be tested against modern evidence: does patriarchal masculinity genuinely harm men, and can patriarchal violence actually be shifted by deliberate intervention? Start with men.

Does Patriarchal Masculinity Harm Men?

Aim: Wong, Ho, Wang, and Miller (2017) set out to synthesise decades of research on how conformity to masculine norms relates to mental health.

Method: The authors pooled 78 independent samples, totalling 19,453 participants, measuring conformity to norms such as self-reliance, power over women, and playboy behaviour. The results were mixed.

Results: Conformity to masculine norms overall was linked to worse mental health and less willingness to seek help. Self-reliance, power over women, and playboy norms carried the strongest cost; primacy of work showed no link at all.

Conclusion: “Toxic masculinity” is not one construct. Some specific norms carry a real psychological cost; others appear neutral (Wong et al., 2017).

Evaluation: With close to 20,000 participants, this is about as strong a design as this question allows. But the underlying studies are mostly cross-sectional and self-report, so this is an association, not proof of cause. The evidence is also concentrated in Western, higher-income countries.

Can Patriarchal Violence Be Reduced?

Wagman et al. (2015) evaluated a community programme in Rakai, Uganda, that combined group mobilisation against patriarchal norms with individual counselling for women attending HIV testing services.

The programme reached a cluster-randomised cohort of 11,448 adults over 35 months. Results were encouraging.

Physical violence was lower in intervention communities (12% versus 16%), and so was sexual violence (10% versus 13%). Emotional violence showed no difference.

Evaluation: HIV incidence was lower too (0.87 versus 1.15 cases per 100 person-years). This is consistent with less forced sexual contact between partners.

Whether these gains last once outside funding ends is not yet known. Emotional violence is the exception: patriarchy’s structures do not always move together, even under deliberate intervention.

Together, these findings support two claims. Patriarchal masculinity carries a real cost for men. Patriarchal violence, while deeply patterned, is not too fixed to change.

References

Anderson, E. (2009). Inclusive masculinity: The changing nature of masculinities. Routledge.

Bates, L. (2022). Fix the system, not the women (1st ed.). Simon & Schuster.

Becker, M. (1999). Patriarchy and inequality: Towards a substantive feminism. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 21.

Bird, S. R. (1996). Welcome to the men’s club: Homosociality and the maintenance of hegemonic masculinity. Gender and Society, 10(2), 120–132.

Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. University of California Press.

Facio, A. (2013). What is patriarchy. Women’s Human Rights Education Institute.

Freud, S. (1977). Freud on sexuality.

Hartmann, H. I. (1981). Women and revolution: A discussion of the unhappy marriage of Marxism and feminism (No. 2). South End Press.

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Wong, Y. J., Ho, M.-H. R., Wang, S.-Y., & Miller, I. S. K. (2017). Meta-analyses of the relationship between conformity to masculine norms and mental health-related outcomes. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 64(1), 80–93. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000176