Also as a follow up question (as my topic title is already quite long): Can a "patriarchy" be legislated away, or does it have to happen at the personal/relationship level?

So my thoughts are the reason why we live in a "patriarchy" is mostly (not entirely, but mostly) based on what women find sexually and romantically appealing. Despite years of feminism and theorycrafting from numerous angles, the path to being a respected adult male still seems to revolve around:

  • being 1 to 7ish years older than her (although this tends to wane with age)
  • taking initiative and being confident (many suggest to even "fake it till you make it" when it comes to confident)
  • being tall
  • being fairly popular/liked within a social circle
  • having a solid career

Don't those qualities in men have to change in order to "smash the patriarchy"? You can argue why do they have to I suppose, but if there is some added incentive for men to be "more powerful/dominant" than women, shouldn't it be expected that men achieve that power?

You could also argue that fewer people need marriage now due to this, but it seems like people still want to be in relationships/marriage/etc. I remember reading somewhere that the number one fear people have is dying alone, and that tells me that people still want some form of a family unit, and that when many people say "I never want to get married and/or have kids" it seems out of frustration and saying it because they want it to be true, but are terribly lonely underneath it all.

Another aspect of feminism I'm just unsure of due to mixed responses is the claim "once women have the good jobs they will be free to marry for love and marry these less financially well off men", or something along the sort. This baffles me for a few reasons:

  1. Some feminists I've talked to do not agree with this premise, but if that is the case they should see why a patriarchy exists, due to the added incentive for men to achieve power/influence/wealth/etc

  2. Childless women in their 20s/30s have been outearning their male counterparts since the 80s/early 90s if i recall, and definitely amongst the millennials during the past decade or so, so how much longer can feminists make this claim? The millennial generation isn't 18 anymore, the youngest ones are 20 or so, and the oldest are approaching 40.

I guess what I am saying is that do most people who want to get rid of gender roles still seem to want gender roles within their personal life? Thus nothing can get done to actually remove gender roles? Also do gender roles exist primarily because of the sexual and romantic desires of the opposite gender combined with people's fear of dying alone?

Meh, just some thoughts that have been bothering me lately. 29/m/virgin loser