The Motte and Bailey of "The Patriarchy".

The problem with contemporary discussions of "The Patriarchy" is that feminism as a whole plays motte and bailey with the definition.

The Motte and Bailey laid bare:

Definition 1: What I call the "academic definition" of feminism.

(taken from the sidebar of r/askfeminists)

"Patriarchy is a system in which men have all the power, women have none of the power, and men use their power (as a class) to oppress women (as a class)".

Note that in the same sidebar the term "power" is left undefined. This is no accident. This is the downfall of applying this definition to my society. Where I live half of the ruling class are women, and they have been for quite some time.

This is the bailey. It is easy to argue against this description of reality by imploring people to look around them and see who primarily benefits from our current societal conditions. Are the people who live in the expensive neighbourhoods, drive the nice cars, and wear the status clothes mostly men, mostly women, or about 50/50?

If you look at who is actually in the ruling class, my society is clearly not a "patriarchy" in the academic sense.

Defintion 2: The Motte

The Motte is an easily defended proposition that has nothing to do with The Bailey, but is inherently robust, and close enough to the subject at hand to be substituted for the bailey when the bailey is called out as false.

Here is the bailey definition of "The Patriarchy"

"Look around you. Do a head count of leaders (CEO's, elected officials, etc). If 51% of them are men then it's a patriarchy."

This definition of patriarchy has nothing to do with class oppression and proves nothing of the sort. Under this definition, if 51% of leaders are male and 51% of leaders support gender equality, then we must live in a "feminist patriarchy".

What does that even mean?