Feminism’s Harlequin Patriarchy Romance
Denial, Bargaining and Resentment
Contradiction
Feminists complain about patriarchy, but know shockingly little about what it was, why it developed, or how it actually functioned. Feminism’s patriarchy is an ideological fantasy. It isn’t treated as a historical or evolutionary reality, but as a moralized, Harlequin-romance-style narrative: always-already bad and male-imposed.
In reality, patriarchy—as a way of organizing reproduction—emerged with the transition from small hunter-gatherer bands to settled agrarian life, and with it, the development of villages, towns, and cities. It wasn’t handed down from the heavens or dreamt up in a male conspiracy room. Patriarchy arose as a reproductive order—not from ideology, but from material conditions: the need to manage paternity, inheritance, and social stability in increasingly complex, sedentary societies.
The patriarchal mode of organized and institutionalized breeding was emergent, adaptive, and geographically variable. And—trigger warning—it objectively served female reproductive interests as much, if not more, than male ones.
But for feminists to acknowledge the historical materialism of patriarchy would mean:
Recognizing that women were stakeholders in ‘the Patriarchy’
Accepting that sexual politics is structured by biology, hierarchy, and political economy
Letting go of the fantasy that men invented patriarchy just because they could—for shits and giggles
Realizing you can’t keep playing the patriarchy card—or leap to “3 Degrees to Male Privilege”—without sounding adolescent
Capitalism retired the Father. Pretending otherwise leaves feminists banging on an open door—fighting ghosts. . .
TBC