When men make a mess, no need to send the men with an apology, just send a woman with a smile.
Why women rep patriarchy.
Last Sunday, a video leaked of the U.S. men’s hockey team laughing at a sexist joke made by President Trump.
Despite widespread disappointment, a PR nightmare and international calls for apologies; for four days, none of the men in that locker room stepped forward to address it.
Instead, their mother did.
She went on the Today Show not to stand up for the victims of the incident but to absolve the perpetrators.
“They care about humanity. They care about unity and they care about the country.”
But Ellen Weinberg-Hughes isn’t just the mother of Jack and Quinn Hughes, she is also a former US hockey player herself and one of the coaches of the women’s hockey team who were laughed at in that locker room.
Meaning she was among the mocked.
And if she isn’t outraged, why should you be?
*smile.
Misbehavior? What misbehavior? This is all just a misunderstanding. Nothin to see here but unity and good intentions.
Patriarchy PR 101: women make the best spokesmen for patriarchy.
Double bonus: she will place herself between male misbehavior and accountability, shielding the men from the consequences of their actions.
It’s giving Senator Katie Britt being the one sent to deliver the Republican party’s restrictive policies against women. From her kitchen.
It’s giving Sarah Huckabee Sanders defending Trump’s misogyny as just “locker room talk” when that tape surfaced where Trump said, “grab them by the pussy.”
It’s giving the Mormon Church sending Annette Dennis to clean up their image after an LDS women’s strike made the news.
It’s giving Ballerina Farm’s Hannah Neeleman. When her husband went viral for being sexist, he never addressed it, but she did. Every time he missteps, she’s the one on clean up duty, pleading that the world see him for the good man he is
It’s giving Phyllis Schlafly being the figure head of the fight against the ERA to keep women out of the constitution.
It’s giving Ghislaine Maxwell recruiting victims for Jeffrey Epstein.
(Let’s pause on that one for a moment.)
The question isn’t whether women defend patriarchy, it’s why?
Why would women support their own subordination?
Last week we talked about how patriarchy is the root cause of the Epstein scandals.1
A common response was, “If the problem is patriarchy, how on earth do you explain all the women who supported Epstein?”
They got us girls.
The gig is up.
Women can be monsters too, so patriarchy must not exist…..
Just kidding.
Very common and horrifically destructive misconception at play here- men and patriarchy are not synonyms.
Patriarchy does not mean men. Patriarchy is a system that values men above women.
It affects all of us.
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve typed this sentence in the last few years, but I’ve got no plans on stopping: patriarchy isn’t a man vs woman thing; it’s an all of us vs an oppressive system thing.
The phrase for how it shows up in women is often called internalized misogyny.
Fifteen years ago researchers wanted a way to measure internalized misogyny so they developed the Internalized Misogyny Scale. Their questions were divided into three categories:
The devaluation of women.
The distrust of women.
Valuing men over women.
Say…..
Those are the things we talked about last week as the root of Epstein!
What a coincidence.
The system that explains Epstein is the same system that explains Ghislaine Maxwell.
The system in the minds of men that puts men above women also exists in women.
For the visual learners:
Patriarchy assigns us different roles to play—dominance for men, deference for women —but it’s the same hierarchy.
And like any durable hierarchy, it survives by offering incentives to the middle tiers.
Why would women support a system that devalues them?
Well patriarchy makes women an offer:
If you play your part — if you don’t rock the boat, if you align yourself with powerful men and distance yourself from the “wrong” kinds of women — you won’t be at the bottom. You’ll be adjacent to power. You’ll be protected by it.
You don’t have to be the abuser.
You just have to look the other way when he abuses. Enable him. Excuse him. Laugh at his jokes. Shield him from accountability. Stay quiet when he harms someone. Defend him and his reputation.
In exchange, you receive any number of potential perks: acceptance, respectability, companionship, desirability, proximity to status, financial gain.
You may not be above men — but at least you’re above those women.
It’s the same bargain at the heart of white supremacy.
It does not promise every white person wealth or dominance. It promises ranking: you will not be last. Protect the structure and you’ll receive your slice.
Don’t dismantle the ladder. Just make sure you’re not on the lowest rung.
White feminism makes the same move. Don’t bring it all down, just clear a path wide enough for me on that corporate ladder please.
Patriarchy offers the same bargain to “low-status” men. You may not outrank the rich, powerful, or elite — but you outrank women. Don’t fall below women, how humiliating!
It’s all the same architecture.
And it’s often less about ruthlessly stomping on those below you and more about trying to stay in the good graces of those above you.
Of the men’s hockey team this week Liz Plank wrote:
“And here’s what this viral video makes clear. Patriarchy was never about us. Women are almost incidental to it. Patriarchy is a performance men put on for other men. It’s a constant, anxious audition, are you man enough, are you one of us, do you get the joke.… all to get a nod from the guy at the top of the hierarchy…
Patriarchy’s greatest trick is convincing average men that proximity to power is the same thing as possessing it. I would actually posit that it functions less like a hierarchy and more like a pyramid scheme: degrade yourself for the men above you, then reclaim the feeling by exerting control over the women below you.”
The hockey men laughed in deference to Trump.
Eileen Hughes went on television in deference to her sons.
The men laugh, the woman absolves.
And the hierarchy stays intact.
Want to root out that hierarchy in your own head? Cool me too. Our next Matriarchal Blessing book club book is going to help us do exactly that. The book is The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality by Angela Saini. We will meet in April to discuss it. Join us by becoming a paid subscriber.
Thank you guys so much for all the supportive comments, shares, DMs, subscriptions and paid subscriptions from last week’s article- I’m truly blown away by your generosity! It made me cry. Thank you!!
I am an old woman raised by an early feminist, so I’ve always been looking at these issues.
At one point in my life, I own some small businesses. I think at one point I had 450 employees.
I was very much in favor of promoting women in my businesses, and tried on many occasions.
They refused. They didn’t want to be in a position where they had to say unpleasant things to employees.
I offered them money. No. That didn’t do it.
There has always been the assumption on the part of women that men would protect us and would provide for us, but we are seeing what a myth that is.
Time to stop focusing on how thin we are, or what makeup makes us look the most attractive.
Time to appreciate that we have been screwed, and not in a pleasant fashion.
Yessss, this! Ive loved your past two posts - thank you for sharing them!
Recently I read “Why Does Patriarchy Persist?“ by Carol Gilligan and Naomi Snider and I haven’t stopped thinking about it especially in the recent context of Epstein/Gisele Pelicot/etc.
Their central argument is that patriarchy doesn’t just persist because of power or tradition — it performs a psychological function. It protects us from a kind of loss, pain, and grief. It acts as a defense mechanism. By elevating hierarchy over connection, and toughness over vulnerability, it protects us from confronting how much we depend on one another — and how painful it is to lose connection. Instead of grieving the parts of ourselves we’ve split off to fit gendered expectations, patriarchy normalises that disconnection and calls it strength, nature, or order.
When we understand that it persists because it helps us avoid vulnerability and grief — then the work of dismantling it becomes more achievable… but only if we can face what it’s protecting us from - grief, loss, our authentic selves.
Thanks again for sharing!!