Primary Author: Eric C. Thompson (Socect)

This is the top page for a series of web-pages on Patriarchy.

A major motivation for this project is deep dissatisfaction with the Wikipedia entry on Patriarchy.

I first read that entry in mid-2006, in the course of research and teaching in gender studies. I have refered back to it on a regular basis since then (it has not substantially changed). The entry mainly discusses the work of Steven Goldberg and fails to mention the vast majority of alternative explanations and work on patriarchy cited and discussed in these pages (which itself represents only a small fraction of relevant literature on the subject).

In addition, I am using this as a context in which to develop and present what I believe to be a crucial yet (in all the literature I have reviewed to date) missing element in explaining the patriarchal tendency among human societies, which I refer to as sexual-exchange theory.

Contents

1. Definitions, Descriptions, Distribution

1.1 Definitions
1.2 Distribution (The Patriarchal Tendency)

2. Related Concepts
2.1 Matriarchy
2.2 Patrilineal
2.3 Matrilineal
2.4 Patrimonialism
2.5 Status of Women in Society

3. Explanations for Patriarchy

3.1 Superior talents of men
3.2 Testosterone and biology
3.3 Jealousy (mate-guarding)
3.4 Neo-Freudian
3.5 Misogyny
3.6 Power-begets-power
3.7 Conceptual trap
3.8 Marxist
3.9 Political Economy
3.10 Violence and Use of Force
3.11 Militarism
3.12 Reproductive Burden
3.13 Sexual Exchange

4. Patriarchal Bargains

5. Denial of Patriarchy

Sources