… one of the most common obstacles to grasping the concept of patriarchy in all its gruesome enormity is the mistaken idea that it is merely theory, or that women are mostly equal now, or that it only affects people in Saudi Arabia or Ohio. Women as a class are the most obvious casualties of patriarchal ideology, but in praxis we’re perps, too, just like everybody else. What we call “patriarchy” is a social order based not just on misogyny, but in a broader sense on dominance and submission. Because of this set-up, nobody can avoid membership in some group or class that dominates some and submits to some other. Thus is your existence predicated on some oppression which benefits you and harms someone else. I offer this as a statement of fact. You can feel guilty about it or not; that’s on you.

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