Gender Inequality: The Patriarchal American Way + Live with Bonnie Marcus

If Inequality within Patriarhcy is the Basic Norm, Is the Fight Futile?

How are you today my friends?

Below are some of my thoughts from this past week…bear with me. I am taking you down my NueroSpicey rabit hole in my mind. Giving you an INSIDE glimpse of how I work out in this brain of mine — of how I make connections. And happy to report — I DO pull it all together by the end!

But first — TODAY: Be sure to catch us today at 2pm CST/12pm PST as we talk LIVE with

Bonnie Marcus

about her work and coaching pracitce for women in Corporate America.

Bonnie writes “Own Your Ambition” where she is exposing the System of Patriarchy within Corporate America — and coaches women on practical ways to overcome the obstacles. I’ve shared numerous of Bonnie’s posts, but here is a great one to start with if you wanna know more about her before our Live today: “The Politics of Ambition: How Women Can Claim Power Without Paying the Price.”

LAST WEEK:

1. Lorissa Rinehart
   of The Female Body Politic - an Interview

2. My personal Story of how I got into and out of the Toxic TradWife, Purity Culture and Evangelical Christianity: From Hell to Holy to Holy Hell

NEW to Deconstructing Patriarchy?

1. START HERE!⚡

2. Binge: Foundations to Deconstructing Patriarchy

3. 30 Seconds to tell me what you NEED to do this work…and make it fun!

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Gender Inequality: The Patriarchal American Way

Last week I wrote about how Equality within the Patriarchal system ain’t going to happen.

This week as I finished up

Josie Cox

’s book “Women|Money|Power: The Rise and Fall of Economic Equality”…my blood is boiling.

How is it that at almost 48 I am STILL waking up to how unequal the world really is living in a female body? How unequal the LAWS still are?

More than that…how the internalized idea that “women are less than” by BOTH women and men trickles down into a million micro-aggressions that stack up in compounding ways. I hear some of the company names of where Sexism and Male Bro Culture make their environments hostile for women to do their work…and think, “Damn I applied at that company coming out of college….glad I didn’t end up working there.”

These micro-agressions — from demeaning, belitting comments to behaviors by men who feel entitled to women’s bodies no matter what — they impact all of us. Every day.

Why?

Because the Cultural DNA about Gender we have been taught via myths, religion, state and social norms impacts every single one of us — every single moment of every single day.

A DRIVING QUESITON THAT LED ME OUT OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY

If you haven’t caught my personal Conversion to Deconversion story here — I highly encourage you to do so. Not because I desire the world to know my story for my own glory…but because I know my story will resonate with so many souls that might still be unable or unwilling to speak.

Because in my story I draw a line between Gender Roles, Purity Culture, Christian teachings and Domestic Abuse.

While many in the Feminist and Equality movement might say, “Well Duh Holli!” —
to someone like me who had no early childhood or young adult years of feminist training or educaiton, then found herself DEEP within Evangelical Purity and TradWife culture — this idea was revolutionary.

In fact, as I was learning about about Domestic Abuse (from a Christian class mind you)…I was researching and asking quesitons. In that space, I formulated a question that would eventually land me in the lap of the book “The Creation of Patriarchy” — where fireworks went off like a magical kiss at the end of the movie of my life in Christiainty:

“What do gender roles, as defined by the Christian church, have to do with domestic abuse?”

As it turns out, after 13 years of learning and 8 months of doing this work to create this transformational educaiton for Deconstructing Patriarchy — Gender has EVERYTHING to do with everything about Patriarchy.

It turns out that every single damn “ism” we find in Patriarchy — from sexism to racism to slaves — was built on the first principle of Gender.

Once humanity started dividing themselves based on gender with strictly defined roles for each, the rest of Patriarchy became “easily” a way to structure itself.

For our final episode (ep 14 not yet title, out next week Wed 7/2) I will give us a visual breakdown of how Gender and Gender Roles became the foundation of the Patriarchal System. And how invisibly visible so much of this STILL is today 6000 years later.

I think that is the thang that strikes me perhaps the most: Just how damn visible gender roles are…and yet how much these damn things entrap us within the System of Patriarchy.

Why is that?

If I had my guess, it is because of what I said last week.

So many well meaning people from all sides understand that Patriarchy and Gender/gender roles have something to do with this mess.

Yet, for whatever reason, they have not found Gerda Lerner’s work — or have not internalized it to the extent they need to — in order to understand why and where people are getting stuck in fighing for Equality within a system that will NEVER be able to give us equality.

While I never want to demean, belittle or put down the fights for rights I once took for granted and now see disappearing…

I cannot help but think perhaps our energy at this point would be better put in finding a way to END PATRIARCHY…instead of Fighing for Gender Equality within a system that uses Gender Inequality as its foundation.

I wish I could say that fighing to end the Gender Inequality would automically topple the System of Patriarchy. That this approach would seem to make sense.

As I look at what drives Laws to change…it seems to be the culture shifting at large.

Or it did. Until this last 10 years as Fundamentalist and “Traditionalists” have gained ahold of public offices and law makers.

Now laws are trying to once again drive culture to change.

This is how Patriarchy began.

So this would tell me that Cutlure at large really did not change, or change enough, to drive the change we need it to drive.

This tells me that we are missing something BIG here…but what is that Something Big?

WE ARE GOING FROM TOP DOWN INSTEAD OF DOWN UP

I will be honset, I cannot quite put my finger on it…but I feel it has something to do with what I said last week…we are trying to go after this thing from a Top Down approach.

Instead of a Down Up approach.

So bare with me as I work through this…and maybe you will see it before me.

We are trying to change Gender Inequality from the top of the chain, via laws.
Before our cutlural myths and stories have changed.
Before our values, customs, social roles and leading metaphors have changed.
Before enough of those myths and stories have truly permeated the consciousness of the crucial 3.5% of the population.

We are trying to change Gender Inequality within a System that is based OFF OF GENDER INEQUALITY.

Instead of just changing the System.

But it would seem to make sense that if you change the very basis of what makes Patriarchy work — gender inequality — that WOULD change the system, right?

🤷🏽‍♀️

This is where my own research might be limiting me…but I still come back to this: Our approach is wrong. This is why we are seeing the backslide.

WHAT DOES GERDA LERNER HAVE TO SHARE ON THIS TOPIC?

On the 2nd to last page of “The Creation of Patriarchy”, Ms. Lerner says this

The shift in consciousness we must make occurs in two steps:

1. We must, at least for a time, be woman-centered. Meaning we ask: If women were centeral to this argument (ignoring how patriarchy marginalizes women), how would this arugment be definied? This presupposes that women were never NOT part of History…but ALWAYS part of making History (thus culture, stories, myths, laws, etc), just left out of the retelling of History.

2. We must, as far as possible, leave patriarchal thought behind. Meaning: Being skeptical toward every known system of thought, being critical of all assumptions, ordering values and definitions.

Booya!

Okay here is what my mind sees from this:

1. I would actually reverse these steps. I would put #2 — leaving patrairchal thought behind — first. Because I feel only then can I truly get into the mind/culture/values/morals of what women would do if we were central to the events of the past — if we can first LEAVE the Patriarchal Lens behind.

This is EXACTLY what I have been saying all season in “Foundations of Deconstructing Patriarchy, History and Myth.”

If we take OFF the Patriarchal Lens we view the world, history, myth, laws, culture, medicine, science, society through — including GENDER INEQUALITY — we can then actually SEE more of the past.

When we can SEE more of the past…we will view more of us in the past.
This allows us to have power and agency in the Present.
And thus rewrite the future.

2. “The shift in CONSCIOUSNESS” — Ms. Lerner doesn’t start with laws. She starts with “conciousness”. Reality perception. She doesn’t break this down further…but I would aruge she meant this “shift in consciousness” to be both

   1. Individual

   2. Collective

Agh…there it is folks. The reason trying to institutionalize Gender Equality via laws ain’t working: We as a collective are not SEEING that we are looking at Gender Equality via that damn Patriachal Lens.

If we saw the Lens of Patriarchy FIRST…then we would see the possibly insane notion it is trying to RIGHT what Patriarhcy Institutionalized as Its FIRST DECLARATION: GENDER INEQUALITY.

Fighting Gender Inequality within a system set up by that exact thang cannot possibly change the system.

If we ever were possibly able to topple Gender Inequality via the law, we would either:

1. See complete and utter chaos as the system broke apart at the seams. Becasue the seams are held together by Gender Inequality. If there was nothing imediately availabe to organize us into reality, culture, society…we would have nothing but absolute mayhem on our hands. Because we hadn’t started with the “shift in consciousness.”

2. The System of Patriarchy would fight and push back with EVERYTHING it has on the law. BECAUSE the conceptual ideology of Gender Inequality is so deeply entrenched and embedded into our Cultural DNA on an individual and collective level. It is a well grooved pattern/habit/routine within each one of us, still exists within our stories, values, customs, social roles and leading metaphors — that it would not take that long to work its way back into the highest organzing principle of the land — the Law.
   
   The foundation of gender inequality was built into the paternalistic dominance (defined this in last week’s post here) structure of the Patriarchal family…and it will continue to trickle out and up the heirarchy until we have the critical mass in “consciouness shift” we need.

Working through all that…is it any wonder we are in #2 scenario? Squarely in it?

BUCKLE UP BUTTERCUP: THIS AIN’T GONNA BE FAST

Is that “critical” mass also 3.5%? I honestly have no idea.

All I know is that what I am preaching and standing on my soap box trying to get more people to hear is:

1. Not as flashy or as momentum building as protests and rallies…and changing the law would be.

2. Is not a fast process.
   The MAJOR SHIFT in collective consciousness we need to chagne this Titanic from sinking starts like a pin prick in each one of our individual consciousness. Only when enough of us INDIVIDUALLY are taking the 2 necessary steps in tandem will we begin to see a wider shift start to happen. Those 2 steps are:

   1. First see and take off the patriarchal lens

   2. Become female/woman/non-male centric for a time

Remember, the Ideology of the Patriarchal Lens I keep ranting on and on about …it took 2500 years to anchor itself into the collective pysche.

My best guess is that we are about 150-200 years on the flip side of this thang.

This means we need to set up this system of change now…and teach our children and grandchildren about it. Ensure they will continue on with the work. That it will not be lost again.

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With that, I hope you undrestand my begging and pleading for you to SHARE THIS WORK…and work like this…with your own network.

Share a personal message of WHY this work matters to you and what you hope your friends and family get out of it.

Maybe it is a common language.
Maybe with that common language you can start to build your own local network of Mythic Rebels Decosntructing Patriarchy.
Maybe with all that, your pin prick will turn into the Mississippi flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.

I am doing everything I can personally to get this work — which is not my work but OUR WORK, Our EDUCATION, OUR FUTURE — out there. I am putting my retirement and my full 40-80 hours a week into this right now.

This isn’t just about supporting this work, so I can continue to push it out for all of us.

This is about letting this work transform your own story with Gender Inequality that is internalized from Patriarchy…and encouraging those that might hear you in your life to do the same.

This is about building the pin prick in all of our worlds that will eventually be the Tide that Turns the System, from the roots up.

Just like so many of us were taught to Evangelize the “Good News” of a savior….I am asking each of us to take that notion of Evangelicalism for the “GREAT NEWS” this transformational education truly is.

Till next week y’all!

What did you think of this post? Did you like how I “showed my work” or was it a bit too much?

AND more importantly — do you arrive at the same consclusion as I do? That fighing for Gender Equality within a system founded on Gender Inequality is perhaps not the best use of our resources? What do you think of the proposed way forward? What other ideas do you have to add, expand and challenge my own thiking?

All compassionate and well meaning ideas welcome — that is how we ALL grow our consciousness in conversation together!

From Mel Jones Note on 6/20/25