A Heartfelt Thank-You to the Guys Who Know What’s Best for Me

A Letter to the Patriarchy

Photo by Europeana on Unsplash

Patriarchy: A social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly: control by men of a disproportionately large share of power. — Merriam-Webster.com

Also: The gift that keeps on giving.

Dear Patriarchy,

Your recent resurgence in the form of Christian nationalists and other powerful men with 19th-century mindsets has really gotten me thinking about how deeply you’ve shaped my life. And not just mine—every woman’s life.

I just wanted to take a moment, between washing dishes, dodging street harassment, and pretending not to notice that I’m the only woman in the meeting to say: thank you. Truly, you’ve been with me every step of the way. You’ve made sure there’s not a single part of my life you haven’t touched with your enormous, calloused hands.

First and foremost, thank you for your tireless efforts to keep women out of leadership positions—especially in powerful institutions. Sure, you’ll toss a woman a title every now and then, but let’s not get carried away. Too many women in charge? Dangerous stuff. We’re far too emotional, unlike the guys calmly screaming at TVs during playoff season. And just because we launch companies, build nonprofits, and do the invisible labor that keeps the world spinning, doesn’t mean we should be trusted with actual decisions. After all, if women start running things… who’s going to look after the stray cats in the neighborhood?

And thank you, truly, for keeping that pesky wage gap intact. Making less money for the same work is such a gift—it keeps us from buying frivolous things like lipstick, high heels, or groceries for the entire family. I know you don’t really think women should work anyway. And of course, we all know economies thrive when half the population is underpaid, undervalued, or not working at all. Clearly, women have nothing meaningful to contribute to the national GDP, unless we start counting the unpaid labor that props up the entire economy.

I especially appreciate how graciously you’ve prescribed motherhood as our destiny. Women should be moms whether we want to, can, or should. Infertility? Trauma? Personal ambition? Doesn’t matter! And thank you for the insight from one of your movement’s shining intellects, Doug Wilson, who said, “Women are the kind of people that people come out of… It doesn’t take any talent to simply reproduce biologically.” You should definitely share that quote with the thousands of women who die in childbirth every year. I’m sure they’ll find it both hilarious and deeply reassuring.

And speaking of our bodies, thank you for overturning Roe v. Wade. Who better to make lifelong decisions about our bodies than a bunch of men in suits who’ve never bought a tampon, let alone had a uterus? I mean, it’s not like we can be trusted to make deeply personal, lifelong decisions about our health and futures. Especially in cases of rape or incest—the logical outcome, of course, is forced pregnancy. After all, how hard can carrying a child be? Nine months, a little screaming, maybe a tear or two. It builds character.

Also, just want to say how much I appreciate the ever-present threat of violence you’ve so seamlessly woven into our daily lives. Nothing says power like keeping half the population in a state of ambient terror. Every woman I know plans her jog like she’s in a Jason Bourne chase scene. And that “keys-between-the-fingers” game we play every time we walk alone at night? A real thrill.

And kudos for what you’ve done with the justice system. Nothing says “we care” like retraumatizing survivors. When women report sexual assault, the response is so consistently humiliating or outright hostile, it’s like you don’t want them to come forward. That makes sense. After all, men have the sacred right not to have their lives “ruined” by an accusation that statistically is almost always true. And your cultural side hustle? Sexualizing girls from an early age, then blaming them for male behavior. Impressive. Why fix male violence when you can just ogle and then critique a woman’s cleavage? That’s what I call efficiency.

And finally, bless you for the daily microaggressions—those little tokens of contempt scattered through our lives like sexist confetti. The backhanded compliments. The casual workplace sexism. The endless stream of “just kidding” remarks that were never jokes. Thank you for ensuring women are measured not by intelligence or ability, but by bra size and email punctuation. And when we refuse to play along—when we’re smart, vocal, or visibly done with the nonsense—we become “difficult,” “crazy,” “too much.” I especially admire how this logic follows us home, where men refer to their wives as “the boss” in that special tone that means absolutely not. Thank you for creating a world where women’s choices are reduced to silence that earns condescension, or speech that earns disdain.

Thank you for all the opportunities you’ve generously withheld, the decisions you’ve made on our behalf, and the wisdom you’ve shared from your centuries of not having a clue. Truly, without you, we might have wasted our lives on things like autonomy, ambition, or joy. But thanks to your tireless efforts, we’ve been spared such foolishness.

As you consider whether women should retain the right to vote, as you continue to restrict our bodies, redefine our personhood, and debate whether we are worthy of autonomy, I just want to thank you sincerely for your concern. It’s touching, really, how much time you spend deciding what’s best for us. I know this isn’t about power, or fear, or controlling half the population. Of course not. It’s clearly just love and care, expressed through legislation and loaded silence. And we so appreciate it.

And don’t worry—we’ll keep shouldering the emotional labor, raising generations, enduring the backlash, and smiling sweetly while you explain how staplers work, how freedom works, how we work. We’ll keep showing up, even when you write us out.

Truly, we are blessed beyond reason.

So thank you again, from the bottom of my overworked, underpaid, slightly terrified heart.

You’ve left your fingerprints on every part of my life—smudged, sweaty, and impossible to scrub out.

Please, go wash your hands.