“If my kids don’t get bullied for having daddy’s money & a hot mom then I failed at life,” Parker Lamosa wrote on Facebook on July 21.

According to Parker Lamosa, “daddy” is the breadwinner, the one who earns the money – and lots of it — for the family. Standing by his side is the “hot mom” who does, well, supports the rich “daddy” by raising the “kids,” of course.

My comment to Lamosa on July 22: “Superficial priorities. You have surrendered your integrity to the patriarchy.”

Patriarchy: The privelege of over-valued cis-het male bodies

“What is patriarchy? A society is patriarchal to the degree that it promotes male privilege by being male dominated, male identified, and male centered. It is also organized around an obsession with control and involves as one of its aspects the oppression of women.”

– Allan Johnson, Privilege, Power, and Difference

Within a patriarchal system of male domination, cisgender (primarily white) heterosexual male bodies matter more, while “othered” bodies matter less. These “othered” bodies include female and intersex bodies, and bodies that violate the “rules” for the reproduction and maintenance of the dominant patriarchal system: such as trans, gender diverse, non-binary, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual bodies, and bodies with disabilities.

In addition, within many Western societies, non-European-heritage bodies are regarded also as “othered” abject bodies.

The United States currently stands at a critical cultural juncture in which targets of sexual harassment and assault are stepping out of the shadows of isolation and fear to challenge abusive patriarchal power, domination, and privilege.

Sexism: Locking women out of social power

I define “sexism” as the overarching system of advantages bestowed on males. It is prejudice and discrimination based on sex, especially against females and intersex people, and is founded on a patriarchal structure of male dominance promoted through individual, institutional, social, and cultural systems.

Throughout history, examples abound of male domination over the rights and lives of women. Men denied women the vote until women fought hard and demanded the rights of political enfranchisement; strictly enforced gender-based social roles mandated without choice that women’s only option was to remain in the home and undertake cleaning and childcare duties; women were (and are), by far, the primary target of harassment, abuse, physical assault, and rape by men.

Women were and still remain locked out of some professions; rules required that women teachers relinquish their jobs after marriage. In fact, the institution of marriage itself was structured on a foundation of male domination, with men serving as the so-called “head of the household” and taking on sole ownership of all property, thereby taking away these rights from women.

In other words, women have been constructed as second-class and even third-class citizens, but certainly not as victims, because through it all, women as a group have challenged the inequities and have pushed back against patriarchal constraints.

Sexism: A thing of the past?

I often hear some men and even some women claim that sexism is a thing of the past, that women have achieved the equality that was once denied them, that we live in a system of meritocracy where one’s success in life is based solely on merit, work ethic, motivation, and abilities, rather than on our social identities or the stations of life to which we are born.

This was brought to light some years ago by a respondent to my editorial that I wrote in the Iowa State Daily university newspaper, entitled “Awareness Rewards,” in which I attempted to make visible the often invisible condition of dominant group privilege (for example, the assumption of male, white, heterosexual, and Christian identities as a baseline “norm”).

Responding to my claim specifically of male privilege, one respondent flatly rejected the notion by providing examples allegedly showing otherwise:

“The idea that women are considered inferior is absurd in a nation where doors are opened for them from coast to coast, their meals and entertainment are paid by men eager to please them, they are the physical majority, they own the majority of wealth, and control most of the rest, and they live longer because they have easier lives.”

I would like to address these claims point by point.

Yes, men continue literally to open doors for women, and they often pay for their meals and entertainment. While this can in certain settings be regarded as a sign of politeness and admiration, does it actually indicate a true respect for women and signify an equality among the sexes?

Does it not represent, rather, a reification of socially constructed gender norms that keep a sexual hierarchy firmly in place, with men literally and figuratively on top, where men remain in control and where women are expected to perform a dependent role?

The respondent also claims that women are the physical majority. Yes, this is statistically true. I’m afraid, however, that the respondent confuses “majority” in terms of numbers with dominance in terms of social power. For example, though Black Africans numbered as the vast majority under the corrupt apartheid system in South Africa, for many years, white South Africans held the social power to invoke and to maintain their oppressive control.

In addition, do women in fact, as the respondent claims, “own the majority of wealth and control most of the rest.” While women’s annual salaries have grown over the past decades, and while many studies indicate that women have fared somewhat better during the current economic recession, reports indicate that women continue to make substantially less than their male counterparts when performing similar jobs.

While the gender pay gap has narrowed during the last two decades, according to Pew Research Center’s 2024 analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers found that women earned an average of 85% of what men earned for doing the same job. Overall, the wage gap is smaller for workers ages 25 to 34 than for all workers 16 and older.

The wage gap in the United States deepens further when race and gender intersect due to persistent disparities where Black, Hispanic, and Native American workers earn significantly less on average than White and Asian workers.

In the respondent’s claim that women live longer than men, while most comparative studies do indicate that women on average outlive men. But I cannot see how this proves the absence of sexism and male domination. I would also like the respondent to validate the claim that women have “easier lives.”

The respondent continued: “Women are worshipped in this country, with beauty pageants to showcase them, like Miss America and Miss Universe. Where are the Mister America and Mister Universe pageants, and who would watch them? Men knock themselves out in this country to find a good woman they can make the center of their world.”

So, the question here arises: do women’s beauty pageants indicate a worship and veneration of women, or something else entirely? While pageants can offer a number of financial, educational, and career-enhancing benefits to the women involved, let us be clear about who and what is really being honored.

Rather than considering women’s beauty pageants as honoring women, I believe they further reinscribe gender roles by promoting socially constructed norms of beauty, which are exclusionary hegemonic ideologies in terms of body size and shape, standards for skin and hair type, and an idealized and circumscribed age range that acts to the detriment of all women. As such, beauty pageants remain a consumerist colonization of women’s bodies for the edification and commodification of the objectifying male gaze.

Many women and men are fully aware of the continuing existence of sexism and male privilege, and they are working tirelessly for its eradication. Many others, however, fail to perceive its harmful effects on themselves and others. This apparent invisibility of sexism and male privilege, in fact, not only fortifies but indeed strengthens this form of oppression and privilege by perpetuating patriarchal hegemony in such a way as to avoid detection.

In other words, male dominance is maintained by its relative invisibility, and with this invisibility, privilege is neither analyzed nor scrutinized, neither interrogated nor confronted by many.

Dominance is perceived as unremarkable or “normal,” and when anyone poses a challenge or attempts to reveal its true impact and significance, those in the dominant group brand them as “subversive” or even “accuse” them of being “irrational” or “overly analytical.” Possibly, those who make such accusations are themselves insufficiently analytical.

Within a patriarchal system as evidenced in the United States, even the notion of moderate common sense regulations on firearms challenge patriarchal hegemonic promises based on hypermasculinity with the qualities taken to the extremes of control, domination over others and the environment, competition, full and complete autonomy, rugged individualism, superior physical strength and emotional restraint, toughness, forcefulness, and decisiveness, and, of course, never having to ask for help or assistance. Concepts of cooperation and community responsibility are pushed to the sidelines and discarded.

I have heard some people refer to our current times as a “post-feminist” era, where sexism and male privilege no longer impose major social barriers. They are referring to “feminism,” which can be defined as the cultural, political, economic, and civil rights movement for the advancement of equality and equity for women.

For me this brings to mind a clever and I believe insightful bumper sticker produced by the National Association for Women: “I’ll be Post-Feminist in the Post-Patriarchy.”

Unfortunately, for now, the patriarchy is still alive and fully functioning.