Ok let me give my hot take: Patriarchy doesn’t exist in the same way god doesn’t: It’s a bullshit way to analyse the world ultimately more trouble than it’s worth because it obscures instead of clarifies social relations.

That’s evidenced by the theoretical drift the term has taken, from “oh it’s the men” (classical definition: rule of men) to “oh no it’s certain social forces and we’re calling them patriarchy even if propagated by women” (feminist definition starting whatever-wave), leading to stellar analysis such as “female beauty standards are internalised misogyny” which make my head hurt, it’s women saying “look how high status I am I have so much free time to care about non-survival stuff”, pure female competition, men really don’t give a fuck ultimately we like you best in pyjamas and bed hair. So, uncharitable take, “patriarchy exists” means “certain forces exist and I’m uncomfortable acknowledging my own participation in them so I’m deflecting”. Which is why you then see takes such as “the favourite past-time of feminists is to enforce patriarchy” from people who understand academic feminism, referring to what’s happening in political feminism and somehow those sides have stopped talking quite a while ago because what they’re doing is fundamentally irreconcilable as what they share is equivoke terminology, not ideology. QED.

So: Throw out the terminology, re-do it from the ground up with a focus on precision and clarity and without regards for hysterical raisins.