Dear daughter, here's what you need to know about living in a patriarchy

If millions of women keep having the exact same regrets, maybe we should tell our daughters about them.

Last week I wrote “Dear son, here’s what you need to know about the patriarchy.”

This week, it’s the girls’ turn.

I have two sons and two daughters¹, so I’m not just pulling this stuff out of thin air.

Maybe you want your girls to know something completely different. That’s fine. This is what I want my girls to know. Tell us what you would say in the comments.

I’ve also included a list of discussion questions at the end to get these conversations going.

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Dear daughter,

When I was growing up in the dinosaur age (the 90s), we were just a few decades out from the women’s liberation movement of the 60s and 70s when women were first able to have their own credit card or own a home without a male co-signer (1974), have legal access to birth control (1960), and not be discriminated against in the workforce (1964).

I grew up surrounded by “you can be whatever you want!” messages, which historically speaking were new messages for a gal to grow up hearing. My mother and grandmother grew up with the message “You get to be a wife! You get to be a mother! End of list!”

Things have changed since then, and things have changed since I was a girl.

The message that girls can be whatever they want isn’t so new anymore. You know you can be a doctor or a politician or a librarian. You know can choose to have kids or not choose to have kids.

I recently came across a video online² that spurred the desire to write this letter. It was a video of a woman turning 30 listing off what she wished she knew at age 20.

Her biggest regret? She wished she hadn’t measured her self worth through men. She said she felt elated when she entered into a new relationship, and continually asked herself what was wrong with her every month she was single. Her self-esteem rode a rollercoaster- up when she secured the attention of a man, down when she didn’t.

This led her to stay in unhealthy relationships and put up with mistreatment far longer than she should have.

Someone in the comments said, “Oh so we all had the same twenties?” Hundreds of other comments echoed that they came away from their 20s having learned those exact same lessons the hard way.

I am one of these women.

I don’t have a time machine- I can’t go back and tell my younger self that she is safe, whole, loved, valuable and worthy on her own regardless of whether she has secured a man’s attention.

But I can tell you.

Who knows, maybe you’ll grow up and live happily ever after with a wife. Maybe you’ll move to a polyamorous commune in Portland. Maybe you’ll live happy as a clam alone in a cabin in the woods with a bunch of dogs. I have no idea what your future holds, let alone what your romantic future holds. Maybe you’ll want a long-term monogamous relationship, and maybe not.

Who knows.

What I do know is that women have been making the same mistakes and learning the same lessons while living under the patriarchy³ for decades.

In thinking about what I want you to know about living in a patriarchy, relationship lessons are top of mind for me.

You know your father and I don’t care if you’re gay, straight, bi, queer, non-binary, trans, pan, or asexual. Our love and support is not conditional.

But should you find yourself dating men, there are some things you should have on your radar.

First off, heterosexual marriage was not created to benefit women. At all. It was created because thousands of years ago, certain men wanted to pass their name and property onto their sons. But without paternity tests, there was no way of knowing for sure which sons were theirs.

To solve this problem, they forbade women from sleeping with anyone except one man. If they strictly policed women’s sexuality, they could ensure their kids were their kids. So they whipped, beat or stoned women for sleeping with any man before marriage or with anyone other than her husband after marriage.⁴

Then the Abrahamic texts assured everyone that marriage is FOR SURE God’s will for everyone (PS but especially for women. PPS women can’t ask for divorce, PPPS women should stay silent, PPPPS all of humanity’s sins are women’s fault). And we were off to the patriarchal races.

Yes this was a long time ago, but there are far too many patriarchal hang overs from the system of men owning women for me to be entirely comfortable with you entering a long-term heterosexual relationship with a man without being educated on it.⁵

This is an interesting time to enter the heterosexual dating world. We are living in what sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls a “stalled revolution.” We’ve had the women’s revolution where they can break out of their gender performance box and act masculine- be successful in the workplace, be confident, independent and assertive; but we have not yet had a men’s revolution to the same degree where they break out of their gender performance box and act feminine- be the primary care giver, take over domestic and mental labor, be emotionally expressive and tender.

Hence, the stalled revolution.

Let’s start out with some stats.

• One in four women experience sexual assault or violence in their lifetime.

• When a woman gets married, on average she starts doing seven more hours of domestic labor than when she was single while her husband does less married than he was when he was single.

• Men are six times more likely to leave their partner if their partner gets cancer than women are.

• Single women report being both healthier and happier than married women, while married men report being both healthier and happier than single men.

This probably sounds like I’m trying to scare you off from dating men. I’m not. As you know, I’ve been married to your father for 16 years and I’m happy to be so.

Falling in love is one of the best experiences humanity has to offer. It’s intoxicating, giddy, heady, flattering and so fun. When I fell in love with your dad, I could not stop smiling. I was in a good mood for months. Nothing could get me down. I felt like skipping every where I went. It’s awesome.

Sex is also awesome. Our nerve endings are some of nature’s finest work. When its consensual and you are both committed to each other’s pleasure- those are some of the most transcendent, beautiful and powerful experiences.

I absolutely want you to experience both falling in love and really good sex in your life.

And if it is with men, it’s good to be aware that a lot of us women run into the same pitfalls in pursuit of good love and good sex.

It’s important to go into the experience with your eyes open.

I wonder how many women would still have the same regrets if we were all educated about the predictable, statistical inequalities and risks of entering relationships with men in a patriarchal culture.

I’ll describe these common regrets to you, not so you can be scared out of your wits to date, not so you build up so much armor around yourself that you never let anyone in, but so you can hopefully be a little more safe, a little more educated and a little more grounded in yourself than generations of women were before you.

I’m not a fan of navigating life out of fear. I don’t recommend it. But I am a fan of being educated and being aware of the systems you were born into.

Perhaps being aware of women’s common regrets will prevent some unnecessary heartbreak, pain and self-loathing. Perhaps not. Perhaps these are just lessons you’ll have to learn the hard way.

At the very least, I hope you won’t feel alone if or when you find yourself learning these same lessons. You’re in good company.

And of course, your father and I are always here with a listening ear and some tissues should the need arise.

In any case, here are some of the common regrets myself and most of the straight women I know have faced while living in a patriarchal society:

1. Hanging your self worth on being in a relationship.

2. Staying in unhealthy relationships too long and tolerating mistreatment.

3. Chronically prioritizing others’ desires above our own.

4. Giving all your time and energy to romantic relationships at the expense of community.

5. Thinking you owe someone sex.

6. Hinging your financial well-being on a man not leaving you.

7. Measuring your self-worth by your waistline.

8. Liking what patriarchy trains you to like instead of what you actually like.

Let’s dive in.

1. Hanging your self worth on being in a relationship.

I’ve always been a dreamer. When I was a kid, I would spend hours in my room lost in some daydream- I was leader of a gang of do-gooders riding around on our bikes, I was teacher to a classroom full of stuffed animals. I was a movie star/singer/veterinarian/cowgirl.

But when I became a teenager, all of my dreams became vortexed into the solitary dream that a boy would choose me.

Every night I would daydream that whatever boy I had a crush on would notice me, look at me, be attracted to me, like me, choose me over all the other girls, kiss me.

I would feel wonderful when I captured a boy’s sustained attention and horrible when I didn’t.

Something I now see as… a bit of a waste.

Even though a lot of us cis straight women tend to have this same regret of valuing ourselves through male attention and relationships and then taking years to build up our self worth apart from it, we don’t really learn why so many of us go through these exact same experiences.

There is very good historical reason and historical precedent for why this happens.

It’s not new. It’s very, very very old.

You won’t learn this in school, but it’s important you know. For most of recorded human history women were the property of men.

When we shifted from hunter-gatherer societies to stationary agrarian societies thousands of years ago, we starting paying for food and shelter. But then they barred women from being able to pay for food and shelter without a man.

For most of the past several centuries, the government, religious and commerce systems set up made it so a woman was dependent on a man for her survival.

Have you ever noticed how most married women go from having their father’s last name to their husband’s last name? How boyfriends ask their girlfriend’s father for permission to marry her? Like your father asked my father for his permission before asking me to marry him? This is a left over from centuries of marriage being a property transaction between the father and husband of a woman. The property being the girl.

A woman’s ability to attract a man was her most powerful currency, often her only currency. (Which is why beauty standards are so freaking intense for women still, more on that in a minute).

Centuries of historical precedent don’t erase over night, or in 15 years, 50 years or 100 years. We’ve made so much progress this century, but according to the World Economic Forum, it is still estimated to take at least another 135 years to close the global gender gap.

And so, a woman’s social status is still overly affected by her ability to attract a man and keep a man attracted to her.

I recently came across someone online asking the question why a certain girl on a reality TV show would give up her economic and emotional well being to be with a man who treats her like crap.

This was her answer:

“Think about all the women you know who are in miserable relationships with men who treat them poorly. That’s what happens when you grow up in a society where to be with any man is better than holding men accountable.” - Abaetol

To be with any man no matter how he treats you is better than being with no man.

Historically, when a woman’s ability to eat and be sheltered was dependent on being with a man, this was true.

This is no longer true, but there is still a stigma against being single, unmarried and unchosen.

So much so that millions of women stay in unhealthy relationships because, hey, at least they’re not single.

2. Staying in unhealthy relationships far longer than you should.

Too many women, especially when we are young, tolerate a male partner’s lack of help, courtesy, curiosity, sexual selfishness, disdain and mistreatment. We let our female friendships go because we spent every week night and weekend with him. We prioritize his needs and desires above our own. We watch his shows because he doesn’t like ours and we wouldn’t want to be needy. We don’t visit our family as often because he is uncomfortable. We’ll do the cooking and cleaning- we’re better at it anyway, we don’t mind. He doesn’t even notice if it’s dirty! It’s ok, we’ll watch the kids so he can relax.

We will put up with anything so long as he doesn’t leave.

Remember when we went to the Gracie Abrams concert together? You were having so much fun, but I was listening to the lyrics thinking, “Oh God, I hope she doesn’t internalize these lyrics.”

I love Gracie’s songs, she’s such a talented musician. She was only 21 when she came out with her first album. Her lyrics reflect so accurately what so many of us women were thinking and feeling in relationships at that time in our lives—desperate for love, taking up as little space as possible so he won’t leave and then apologizing for the itty bitty amount of space you do take up.

Two of her biggest songs are “I love you I’m sorry” and “I miss you I’m sorry.”

Here are some of the lyrics I’m talking about:

“I miss fighting in your old apartment—breaking dishes when you’re disappointed. I still love you. I’m sorry.”

“I need nothing.” - Risk

“I burn for you and you don’t even know my name. If you asked me to, I’d give up everything—to be close to you… Break my heart and start a fire… just let me be close to you.” - Close to you

“I was the one who would stay up and call you and I'd drive to your house for the shit that you went through… I know I should hate you… I’d bend back to you if you left the door open.” - I should hate you.

“I’m gonna bend till I break.” - Risk

Gracie voices what happens to many women in relationships with men when she sings “I’m gonna bend till I break.” I’ll bend— I’ll keep silent when I’m upset. I’ll keep the peace instead of voicing my opinion. I’ll bend on what I really want to do, to have, to be, until…. I break.

Or until I go long enough not voicing what I want that I stop asking myself.

Until one day you’ve gone so long without asking yourself what you want that you realize you have no idea what it is you want at all.

3. Chronically prioritizing other’s desires above our own.

If you spend enough years only asking what everybody else around you desires from you, you’ll eventually be a stranger to your own desires and to yourself.

The work of men is to lose the self, but the work of women is to build the self—precisely because we are socially conditioned to the exact opposite.

No one ever told me this growing up. I got the exact opposite message- relentlessly - be selfless, serve others, sacrifice, be giving, be forgiving, be compassionate, be nice, be chill, be easy going.

Those are the only relationship tools I was ever handed. But they weren’t the ones I needed. I needed to learn how to set boundaries, how to value my time and energy as much as I valued everyone else’s, I needed to learn how to disappoint others, how to inconvenience them without feeling like dying.

As women we are conditioned to chronically accommodate the needs of others. You will be socially rewarded when you do this. But it comes at a cost.

Here’s a quote from The Center of Health and Well Being:

“While stress affects both men and women, women are disproportionately affected by chronic stress-related illnesses, including autoimmune diseases. According to Dr. Gabor Maté, a leading expert on the mind-body connection, unprocessed emotional pain and chronic self-suppression are major contributors to the development of autoimmune conditions (Maté, 2003).

Maté identifies common personality traits in individuals with autoimmune diseases:

• People-pleasing tendencies

• Difficulty expressing anger

• A deep sense of responsibility for others’ well-being

• Chronic self-sacrifice at the expense of personal health” - Dr. Silvia Centeno

Things are changing, but girls and women are still disproportionately conditioned to keep everyone happy. Something to notice in yourself and others.

4 Giving all your time and energy to romantic relationships at the expense of community

There’s a viral TikTok series going on right now called “the group chat” where a group of girl friends are annoyed when one girl in the group insists on bringing her boyfriend to a dinner they had planned together⁶.

The group notes that they never see her without him any more. She says that he’s been distraught lately and she doesn’t feel comfortable leaving him at home.

It’s spurred many conversations of how common it is for women to neglect their friendships when they enter a relationship as their free time is devoted their boyfriend.

I hope you experience romantic love at some point - whether that is with a man or a woman, trans or non-binary.

But what I want for you even more than romantic love is community. Strong community. Tight-knit community. A little network that has your back- where you can love and be loved, can help and be helped, can cry to and cry with.

Unfortunately our current society neither values community nor makes it easy. We are trained to be isolated consumers, buying everything we need rather than connected community members relying on each other.

Also unfortunate is that our society has taken all of our vast need for other people, support, connection, human interaction and community and placed all of these needs at the feet of … romance, marriage, and the nuclear family.

That’s why the happily ever after of so many fairy tales, movies, shows, books, dreams end with wedding bells. That’s why so many are so desperate for romantic love- it’s the surest alternative our society offers to not being alone.

It’s why I spent all my daydreams on finding love- my ability to be connected to other humans, to be “ok,” to have support and built in friendship- hinged on it.

All of our vast human connection needs have been pressure-funneled into romantic love— our need for fun, for passion, for sexual fulfillment, laughter, emotional intimacy, venting, grieving, celebrating, everything.

It’s too much- one person can’t hold it all- man or woman. We need to spread it out.

But between work and romantic partnership, we often have no time or energy left for community or friendship.

When I was in graduate school studying sociology, we read a lot of studies that found that being married increased both health and happiness.

That was in 2008. Since then, several studies have come out finding that actually, marriage greatly increase’s a man’s health, happiness, life expectancy and financial success. But. It does exactly the opposite for a woman.

Statistically the happiest men are married men. Statistically the unhappiest women are married women.

But I think there is a confounding factor here and it has to do with community.

Our longest and most prestigious study of happiness comes from an 85 year long study from Harvard. They found that the single most important factor that determines both health and happiness is the strength of one’s relationships.

Men have a harder time forging strong relationships—with women or men— than women because they are socialized that the worst thing they can be is feminine. But forging strong connections requires feminine qualities like empathy, listening, compassion, vulnerability and expressing emotion.

So it makes sense that married men would be both healthier and happier than single men. Often men’s source of deep human connection is romantic relationship.

But do you know what studies have found is the key factor to women’s health and happiness?

It’s also women. It’s female friendship:

• The Journal of Clinical Oncology found that among women with breast cancer— those who did not have many female friends were 4x more likely to die than those who did.

• Harvard Medical School has found that the more friends a woman has, they less likely she is to have high blood pressure and heart disease. She has a 60% lower change of premature death.

• Women with strong female friendships report much higher levels of life satisfaction than those without.

Female friendship is crucial to a woman’s health and happiness, but married women report having less close ties with their female friends than unmarried women.

This I think is the confounding factor that explains why single women so often report higher levels of happiness than married women and why the same isn’t true of men- single women tend to forge community, single men tend not to. Married women have less community than single women.

All this to say, if you find yourself in a long-term relationship, don’t ditch your friends.

5. Thinking you owe someone sex.

Something you’ll likely learn without me having to tell you- most men want sex. Many men really really really want sex. Not all men, but many.

Unfortunately, under patriarchy, many men also believe that they are entitled to sex. Like if they are nice to you or buy you dinner or take you out a few times, but especially if they are officially dating you or are married to you. In fact, while 77% of men think getting consent is important before sex, 59% of men believe husbands are entitled to sex with their wives.

While rape was considered a crime in this country as early as the 1700s, marital rape wasn’t considered a crime in all 50 states until 1993!

I was in 2nd grade in 1993.

Yikes.

I grew up terrified of both sex and my body (and its sneaky penchant for landing me in hell). I don’t want you to be afraid of sex or your body. Sex is great. Sex feels great. When you’re safe, with someone who respects you and sex is consensual- it’s freaking awesome.

I want you to enjoy sex, but also know that you never owe anyone sex. Not if they planned date night. Not if they take you on vacation. Not if they had a hard day.

The regret around sex that many women have is that they are hyper-tuned in to whether or not their partner wants to have sex, but neglect to ask themselves if they really want sex.

Even our definition of sex is male-centric.

We define sex as male penetration and orgasm. But only 18.4% of women report that penetration alone is enough for them to orgasm, while 95% of men report that penetration is enough for them to orgasm. Female pleasure is not present in any definition of sex.

Which is freaking lame!

Your pleasure is every bit as important as his. Learn what you like and learn to ask for it. If your partner is annoyed when you ask for what you want, he’s not a keeper.

Here are three questions to ask yourself before any potential sexual encounter:

1. Am I safe? (do I feel pressured? taken advantage of? I am sober enough to consent?)

2. Do I want this? (not just does he want this)

3. Will I regret this tomorrow?

If you are safe and clear that you both really want it- go for it. Enjoy! Assuming you have protection and birth control squared away of course.

6. Hinging your financial well-being on a man not leaving you.

50% of marriages end in divorce, so if your life financial plan is “don’t get divorced” - you have a 50/50 chance of that working out.

Don’t bet your retirement plan on those odds.

I personally know far too many women stuck in crappy marriages because they don’t have a way of providing for themselves or their kids long term if they left.

Also, relying on your partner financially can cause an unequal power dynamic in the relationship.

Have you heard of the trad wife movement? Female subordination is making quite the comeback.

And actually I get it. If you’re dragging yourself out of bed every morning to go to a job you hate, then you scroll past enough glowy stay-at-home moms online frolicking with their children, you’d think “I’m doing this life thing all wrong. I need a man to provide for me. Then I wouldn’t have to work and I’d be happy all the time!”

To be trapped in capitalism or trapped in patriarchy are two really awful choices.

Ideally you’ll be able to find a career you don’t hate and a partner who respects you.

Even so. Have a way to provide for yourself without being financially dependent on a partner- it will make your mother sleep better at night.

7. Measuring your self worth by your waistline

I told you we’d cycle back to our history of a woman’s only currency lying in her ability to attract a man.

Denied actual power, our fore-mothers used what resource they did have- their bodies. Denied social mobility, women used their beauty to attract higher-status men and move up in the world. Denied wealth, women used their hair, make-up and slim figures to attract a wealthy husband. Often her body has been a woman’s only resource, so she’s used it.

Women can now own their own property and money, but the centuries-long stigma that a woman’s worth lie in her beauty, well, that has proven much harder to change. The chokehold of appearing as young and thin as possible remains.

I don’t know even one woman in my life who has been able to avoid tying her self-esteem to her weight and attractiveness at some point.

So perhaps I can’t shield this one from you either. But as much as I can, I would like you to know that while there are undeniably many perks to being pretty and thin (status, higher pay, social acceptability, male gaze approved, compliments, etc)- it’s a nasty trap to be stuck in.

Just read through the 3175 comments on this video of a middle-aged woman saying she has wished to be smaller every hour of every day of her teen and adult life. Every single comment is other women saying “me too.”

Such a depressing use of so much time and energy.

Aging comes for all of us, so if you hang your ability to feel good about yourself on your perky boobs, flat tummy and wrinkle-free skin, this is a self-worth plan doomed for failure.

You should also be asking yourself who benefits when you feel like shit about your appearance.

The diet industry is a $73 billion dollar industry, botox and cosmetic surgery is a $58 billion dollar industry, and the beauty industry is worth $650 billion.

Women’s bodily insecurity is a $781 billion dollar business.

If women were confident in their worth apart from their physical appearance, that would put a number of billionaires out of business. And they can’t have that. They’ll continue to bombard you with ads for perfect skin instead.

This is a newspaper ad from the 50s to form your face (read: take away your double chin). This shit has been going on a looooong time.

So many beauty products are a scam.

Ever heard of the pink tax? Walk into any pharmacy and the razors, shampoo, deodorants, body washes and lotions that are marketed to women will cost more than the ones for men even when there is the exact same goop inside the bottles.

Products for women cost more. Plus, there’s a heck of a lot more of them.

What’s the cost of female beauty?

There are different estimates, but over the course of a lifetime most women will spend between $150,000 to $300,000 more than men just by virtue of being a woman.

I know at certain points you really are going to want that expensive moisturizer, that lip gloss, hair straightener, bracelet set, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

It’s normal. I juuuuuust wanna set a little capitalism devil on your shoulder that will whisper “The billionaires want you to be insecure about your looks” as you put that viral concealer in your cart.

8. Liking what the patriarchy trains you to like instead of what you actually like

When I was your age, I loved the band The Chicks, but I never, ever admitted that because they weren’t cool. Instead, I hid their CDs and said my favorite bands were Third Eye Blind, Weezer, Matchbox 20, and The GooGoo Dolls. Ya know, real bands. (Read: male bands).

I loved when boys told me I wasn’t like other girls, that I could hang with the boys. I laughed at the dick jokes, made fun of girly music and girly books. I used to pride myself on only listening to “thought-provoking podcasts” (read: male podcasts) and substantive books (read: books by men- not chick lit).

It took me until I was in my late 30s to realize the number that internalized misogyny had done on me. Patriarchy hates everything a teenage girl loves on principle. Patriarchy classifies non-fiction books written by men as important business or health books and relegates books written by women as cutesy self-help. All male rock bands from the 70s like The Rolling Stones and ACDC were real bands writing real music. Taylor Swift writes frivolous songs about her exes.

Hopefully you won’t fall for the same pitfalls I did.

It may not sound like it from this letter, but some of my very favorite, most treasured transcendent moments in my life are those with men- with your father in particular.

I hope you can thread the needle of loving men and holding men accountable. At the same time.

I hope you learn to love without abandon, but I also hope you speak up for yourself and your desires especially in the face of inequality or mistreatment.

Mostly I hope you love yourself fiercely regardless of any relationship or non-relationship.

Your female ancestors were forced into the role of supporting character. Wherever your journey takes you, I hope you will be the main character in your own story.

We’re rooting for you, we’re cheering you on, we love you.

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That’s some of what I want to teach my daughters about living as a girl under patriarchy. What about you?

As promised, here are some discussion questions to get these conversations going with your daughter:

• Have you noticed a girl’s social status being tied to her ability to get a boyfriend?

• How do you think living in a patriarchal society affects you?

• When you picture life in your twenties, what do you picture?

• If you are interested in a relationship- what would your ideal relationship look like?

• Do you feel pressure to be thin? Pretty?

• What messages are you getting from your peers or online about sex? Do you think the boys your age are getting a different message?

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Ok, time to announce our next book club pick! Our next discussion will be in July and we will be discussing Ruth Whippman’s book BoyMom. I just finished. It’s EXCELLENT! So much interesting stuff and worth the read whether you have kids or boys or not. Join the discussion by becoming a paid subscriber:

Alternatively, you could also just pay me for my work just cause, that is also very cool and very appreciated! Thank you!

1. Both my daughters are older than my sons. They are in high school/middle school and my sons are still in elementary school. This might explain why I thought a lot about dating when I thought what I want my girls to know, whereas I was thinking more structural and less about dating when I wrote to my boys last week.

2. I wish I could find it! Alas, I didn’t save it!

3. When I say patriarchy I mean the structure where men are in charge. We’re making progress, but still men are overwhelmingly in charge of government, business, religion and the home. Currently only 26 of the 193 countries in the UN are led by women, and many of those for the first time. Only 10% of Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs. Many of the world’s leading religions don’t allow female leaders.

4. Marriage, a History by Stephanie Coontz is required reading

5. Especially since a huge percentage of the world’s population still believe the Abrahamic texts are God’s word.

6. Note how cool and in-the-know your mother is on viral TikTok trends. You’re welcome.