Patriarchy. Among the Left, the word has — along with other “triggering” terms such as “fascism” and “homophobia” — become an encapsulation of everything hateful.
Go to any feminist event, be it a march in favor of legalizing abortion or a rally for the Equal Rights Amendment, and you’re likely to see several hand-made signs with some variation of “Down With the Patriarchy.”
So what exactly is it about patriarchy that makes leftist snowflakes’ blood boil over?
Feminists’ loose definition of “patriarchy” refers to a system in which men are in charge, and — in their mind — this implies the exclusion of women.
This straw man the Left has created certainly sounds terrifying. Often, conversations or depictions of patriarchy summon images out of The Handmaid’s Tale: women with leashes being led around as chattel slaves.
But again, as with most of the Left’s boogeymen, the specifics of the term’s meaning are few. Taliban rule of Afghanistan is a patriarchy. But a man holding a door open for a woman is apparently patriarchy, too, as is a man explaining to a woman how to fix a household appliance or a wife cooking dinner for her husband.
It’s the same as with the notorious and oft-repeated “fascist.” It simply describes anything the word’s users — in this case, disgruntled feminists — don’t like.
But is patriarchy something society should flee from, or embrace?
It’s a useful heuristic that if the Left is rabidly, obsessively against something, then it’s at least worth looking into to see if it has value.
In fact, restoring patriarchy as a major component of the right-wing movement specifically and of American and western society in general is crucial to restoring our culture.
Patriarchy is about the leadership of men, certainly. But, unlike the characterization feminists have created, it has nothing to do with subjecting or objectifying women, much less eroding their constitutionally protected natural rights.
On the contrary, exercised properly, patriarchy creates a stable and mutually beneficial relationship between men and women that leads to happy marriages, strong families, and prosperous societies.
In reality, patriarchy is the natural order of the family and society. And we know what happens when we disrupt the natural order of things — disorder, conflict, and misery are inevitable. And isn’t that precisely what so much of society has devolved into?
The left’s modus operandi is inversion. They invert everything good and twist it into its opposite: Men are feminized; women are made masculine; children, who are innocent and pure, are sexualized.
Why is the left so hyper focused on the corrupting and destroying the patriarchal order of society?
Because, as we have seen previously, feminism is a form of Marxism, and all forms of Marxism are inherently anti-Christian.
What many do not realize is that the chief aim of Marxism in all its forms is not to consolidate political power, although this is, of course, part of the process. The real underlying goal of Marxism is to eradicate Christianity and Christendom. Marxism is a false political religion whose vision of a communist utopia on earth is a perverse alternative to God’s kingdom on earth.
And if Marxism hopes to destroy Christianity, it must attack biblical institutions. That includes patriarchy, as the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, clearly establishes a patriarchal order in which men drive the role of leadership within families, society, and the Church.
It is not insignificant that the men whom the Bible refers to as patriarchs are the ones who are held as paragons of godly devotion: men like Abraham, Jacob and his sons, and King David.
The Left’s attacks on patriarchy, which have come in the form of deriding masculinity as “toxic” and taking measures to push men out of leadership roles in both the home and public life, have been disastrous for male-female relations.
Masculinity and leadership go hand-in-hand. It is in a man’s nature to aspire to leadership. The qualities that we recognize as the traits of a great man — decisiveness, assertiveness, confidence, strength, intellect, wisdom, courage, shrewdness — are also the traits of a great leader.
By saying it’s bad for men to display these qualities, we are making them deny themselves, causing them to feel lost, confused, without purpose — leading them to fall into identity crises.
Moreover, the aforementioned qualities of both leadership and masculinity are precisely those qualities which women are naturally attracted to in a man. Think of how often women say they want a man who is smart, successful, strong, protective.
And what is arguably the chief trait women look for in a man? Confidence — the mark of leadership. And, of course, a good sense of humor — which itself is a product of both confidence and intelligence.
Is it any wonder that by eroding these qualities among men, women find men less attractive and conflict between the sexes increases? Ironically, feminists have created this problem by attacking patriarchy, and now they complain about the “poor” quality of men they find in the dating scene.
What they do not realize is that it’s not a competition. Just because a man leads the home does not make him better than his wife. A man is not better than his wife just because he works at an office and she stays at home rearing the children. Both of their roles are essential.
Marxism is all about division and battles — the battle of the races, the battle of the social classes, the battle between the generations, the battle of the sexes.
Christianity, on the other hand, is about complementarity. 1 Corinthians in the New Testament articulates this principle perfectly, explaining that we are of “the body of Christ” and that “there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.”
