Patriarchy

A form of mental, social, economic, and political organization of society where men, individually and collectively, oppress people of other genders. Unlike sexism, the term “patriarchy” names the social power dynamic involved. This dynamic plays out individually (e.g., street harassment, talking over women, policing children’s gender expression), institutionally (e.g., segregated bathrooms, the wage gap, caretaking work relegated to women), and culturally (e.g., women depicted as sex objects in media, myth of the gender binary). See more on the levels of patriarchy.