Patriarchy

Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and authority in family, political, economic, and cultural life. It can be maintained through laws, institutions, customs, and everyday relationships.

Gender roles: Social expectations about behavior, responsibilities, and traits associated with gender. Gender roles can normalize the unequal division of authority and labor that sustains patriarchy.
Gerda Lerner: An American historian whose scholarship examined the historical formation of patriarchy and women's status. Her history of ancient societies challenged explanations that treat patriarchy as timeless.
Sylvia Walby: A British sociologist known for analyzing patriarchy as a system operating through multiple social structures. Her framework distinguishes institutions through which patriarchal relations are organized.
Matriarchy: A social system in which women hold primary authority in family, political, economic, or cultural life. It is often presented as patriarchy's opposite, though evidence for fully matriarchal societies is contested.
Feminism: A range of movements and ideas seeking gender equality and challenging gender-based power. Feminist movements have organized to contest patriarchal laws, institutions, and cultural expectations.
Patrilineality: A system in which descent or inheritance is traced through the male line. Tracing family identity and property through men can reinforce male authority within households.
The Creation of Patriarchy: A 1986 book by Gerda Lerner tracing the historical development of patriarchal institutions in the ancient Near East. It offers a sustained historical account of how women's subordination became institutionalized.
Theorizing Patriarchy: A 1990 book by Sylvia Walby that analyzes patriarchy through six interconnected structures. It provides a prominent structural model for comparing how patriarchy operates across societies.
Matriarchy (anthropology): An anthropological concept describing societies in which women exercise dominant social or political authority. Anthropologists distinguish documented kinship patterns from claims of female rule equivalent to patriarchy.
Women's suffrage: The movement to secure women's legal right to vote. Exclusion from voting illustrates how patriarchal authority was built into political citizenship.

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