What Neopatriarchy Would Need To Address

Are we going to flat-out deny the reasons we rebelled against traditional gender roles?

Neopatriarchy n. a contemporary social structure where traditional patriarchal norms are maintained or revived within the context of modern society.

Imbalance

I’ve been having conversations with men I know who believe society needs to return to traditional male and female roles.

They argue that society is in decline since women entered the workforce. That men have it much harder than women—here they’ll mention the plight of Incels, increased competition in the workplace, military service, and so on. That women themselves have grown hard and overall unhappy from the shift. And that on the whole, men’s and women’s roles are a balanced, fair division of labor.

My response: Women fought fiercely, for centuries, for access to roles traditionally reserved for men. And men have generally shown no interest whatsoever in the roles traditionally assigned to women. Why do you think that is?

Why wouldn’t there be as many men stepping into women’s roles as there are women choosing men’s roles?

Doesn’t it seem more true that there’s one strongly preferred gender role, and one to be avoided?

Maybe that’s because traditional women’s roles have always been low-status, physically and emotionally taxing roles that carry none of the…