Patriarchy:
A set of complex emergent patterns with material, cultural and historical components, that arise in part due to the irreducible asymmetry of the sexes and in an attempt to navigate that asymmetry.

In this light, it’s possible to read ‘patriarchal’ phenomena as having a positive intended outcome other than the hostile one of hoarding resources, preserving male supremacy etc. For example women and children are, normatively speaking, almost always physically weaker than men.

And many of the informal social norms that come under attack as ‘patriarchy’ - sexual self-restraint, opening doors and walking between a female partner and traffic, ‘women and children first’ in emergencies - boil down to a negotiated contract between the sexes that honours the

class of humans that are normatively the strongest and most aggressive, for adopting a protective stance toward those weaker than themselves.

Viewed thus, in other words, “patriarchal” social codes are often not codes that entrench male supremacy so much as modulate untrammelled male aggression and sexuality in the interests of women and children.