I Envy The Patriarchy

You have to admit that whoever designed the patriarchy is a genius. I am not joking. Sit with it for a moment and think about it. Whoever engineered this thing understood human psychology at a level most of us will never touch. How do you build a system that sidelines women, brands them as lesser, shrinks their options, and then persuade them to guard that very system with lives? How do you convince the person standing at the bottom of the ladder that the ladder is sacred?

If I ever came face to face with the architect of patriarchy, I’d quickly pull out a notebook and jot things down because as a business owner, I need that level of mastery. I need to understand how you create belief so deep that people defend what diminishes them.

Look at marriage for example. At its most basic form, it was created to make men’s lives easy at the expense of women’s labor. Yet it has been packaged as a woman’s ultimate achievement and elevated to destiny status. Refuse it, or even question it, and watch how quickly you become the problem. They’ll call you a loser and a fool. And you know who leads the charge oftentimes? Women.

When the attacks and jabs start flying, or the whispers begin about how you will end up alone, it is often not men at the front lines. It is aunties, church women. Stupid, ordinary, women who have felt the weight of it themselves but refuse to come to terms with the truth. Women who know the cost but have since negotiated with their own autonomy in the name of stability. Women mocking other women for not being married will never cease to blow my mind.

You would think shared pressure would produce solidarity. Instead, what we often see is enforcement. Women guarding the gates of a system that has never fully guarded them. How did we get here? Is everybody mad?

Patriarchy did not win simply because it had force. Plenty of violent systems have fallen. This one has endured because it is layered. It is cultural, spiritual, emotional, economic; even romantic. It wrapped itself in religion, in love stories, in tradition. Everyfuckingwhere! Patriarchy has embedded itself so deeply that questioning it feels like questioning reality.

If you want a system to last generations, you do not only control behavior. You control meaning. You define what is respectable and what is shameful. You define what is normal. Then you reward the people who comply and isolate the ones who resist. Over time, people internalize the script so much that they do not even feel like they are following orders. They feel like they are making choices.

Marriage was never presented as one path among many. Rather, it is framed as the ultimate completion; the proof of desirability and security; even success. In most parts of the world today, your success as a woman is meaningless unless you have the ultimate marker of completeness. Need i mention what that is?

My take is that the reason women volunteer themselves so willingly as foot soldiers of the patriarchy is that it forces them to address something uncomfortable about their own choices. If she can be fulfilled outside of this institution that validates me, what does that mean for the sacrifices I made? If she can build a life without centering a man, what does that say about the compromises I swallowed? If she is free, what does that make me? This discomfort turns into defensiveness which in turn turns into policing.

Patriarchy also mastered scarcity. It told women that good men are scarce. That time is running out and they will wither with age. It taught women that being chosen is a prize. Once you convince people that resources are limited, they will compete instead of collaborate. And they will guard access and shame any alternatives. Add fear to that equation and you have a machine. Fear of loneliness. Fear of gossip or judgment. Fear of being left behind. Fear of disappointing parents. Fear of not having children. I too, feel that fear sometimes.

Fear is powerful. Attach morality to that fear and now you have something unstoppable. It’s genius branding.

As a person in business, I recognize structure when I see it. And heaven knows I love a well laid out structure. I also recognize narrative control and psychological precision. The ability to make the marginalized believe they are empowered while defending their own confinement is a masterclass in systems design.

I just cannot ignore the fact that patriarchy built one of the most enduring brands in human history. Imagine if feminism were this organized. This aligned. This clear.

Wow