Patriarchal Mythology: A House of Lies Collapsing IRT

The patriarchal mythology running through children’s textbooks.

Last week, my good friend, Nan Tepper the branding queen at Style Your Stack, asked me again about my publication’s name, Modern Mythology. Seems she didn’t like Mythology in school, and mostly, I write about spirituality, feminism, and politics. So, why call it that?

“You have to understand,” I explained, “that the word modern is doing a lot of heavy lifting.” Anyway, it got me thinking. See, like the ancients, we live inside our mythology, and ours isn’t true either.

The Myth that Patriarchy is Our Natural State

There were, and still are, many cultures on Earth that are not patriarchal. Before colonial violence, 100% of Australia, 30-40% of the Americas, and 20-30 % of Sub-Saharan Africa were egalitarian. For 95% of human history, most cultures were egalitarian. Therefore, patriarchy is not biological or natural.

So, our modern mythologizers work overtime to keep us afraid. Without terror, the whole thing falls apart pretty damn quickly. What are we terrified of? Death, of course. More on that later.

The Myth of the Gendered Division of Labor

Before violent patriarchies, there was no such thing. Neanderthal skeletons show similar wear and patterns of hunting accidents in men and women. Ostological trauma patterns show that everyone did everything. Brutal cavemen bashing each other with rocks and clubs, probably over ownership of a woman? Myth.

Paleo hunter-gatherer remains show little difference in trauma patterns or repetitive wear between the sexes, suggesting they engaged in similar activities and communal hunting, too. Everyone did everything regardless of gender. They didn’t dress girls in pink and boys in blue before they even knew they were separate from their mothers. Everyone was just human.

Ancient peoples were not like children compared to us adults. Primitive rather than complex. The human brain hasn’t evolved much in about 90k years, except, interestingly enough, they’ve shrunk 13% or so in the last 10k years. I wonder if there’s a causal link to the advent of patriarchy? Violence does terrible things to brains. All that cortisol.

Our Religious Mythology is a lie, too

Oh… Dominionism. God is not some angry war-daddy who wants men to take dominion over everything, especially women. There’s no god like that. Well, there is, but he’s a gendered mythological figure. A personification.

It’s a dangerous psychological inflation when our mythmakers conflate the religious imagination with their personal will. They actually think their god wants a specific political outcome that just happens to match theirs. So grandiose. And pathological. Some of them even hear voices telling them what God wants.

The Myth that Biology is Destiny

We live in such a gendered culture that most of us can’t even imagine anything else. But gender doesn’t have to be the great sorting hat at Hogwarts: men work, women raise babies, you dress this way, we that. That’s acculturation. The world doesn’t end when some people choose not to raise families - especially in an overpopulated world. Why is there always someone trying to limit choice while calling it freedom? Who needs us to have babies so much? The state.

The mythmakers need to keep us in line, and they do that by maintaining gender difference so males can dominate. Our Puritan Fathers were very strict about gender roles. Of course, they brought the genderbending fear with them, and like everything they touched, they made it more terrifying because they put the wrath of their god behind it. Another mythology that lingers. The last law in the U.S. against crossdressing was abolished in 2011. Some mythological underpinnings cling like chaff on a ballot.

The Women Were Happier When… Myth

Oh, and those people like Phyllis Schlafly and her ideological descendants who want you to believe that it’s feminism that made women unhappy? That’s a myth, too. A percentage of women have been miserable at least as long as women have been dominated by men, though I’ll admit it’s usually the smart ones. But all those slaves taken in wars? Unhappy. All those battered wives? Same.

These arguments about our being penned up into nuclear families being a privilege don’t take domestic violence into account at all. Never mention it. But kids like me, who grew up in domestic violence, make up at least 25% of the population. That’s just an average. When I was a high school teacher in the poorest sections of Los Angeles, that number was much higher. Poverty adds stress. Lots of it. When I gazed over a class of 36, half of them or more knew the same harsh reality I did. That’s six classes a day for 25 years. That’s a lot of kids. And that’s a seriously underreported crime. And over 80% of our mass shooters (again, a low number) grew up in domestic violence, so yes, it affects everyone, even if your white picket fence was freshly painted.

We can’t go back to the way things were in the 50s and 60s. See, during the mythological golden age of women’s happiness, 75% of all lobotomy patients were women, and women were prescribed tranquilizers at double the rate of men. My mother was in and out of mental institutions for being suicidal during that time, but sure. Her subjugation was a privilege. Her intelligence an unfortunate abnormality. She was a one-off, a statistical outlier, as women always are when men are gathering data.

I just have to say here that all people are significantly less happy now, and the reason for that is not the simplistic argument: “Feminism told women lies.” Please stop saying that. Our mythology is the liar. Anyway, no amount of nostalgia is going to bring back the middle class I grew up in, so all you patriarchal apologists out there can just be quiet. The old ways are already dead. There’s no choice but to move on.

Economic Mythologies Including Crony Capitalism

We effectively lost this golden age in about 50 years, and sorry, Mrs. Schlafly, patriarchal economics killed the good ole days, not feminism. It was crony capitalism and big daddies like Mr. Reagan and his pals. And they are still giving themselves big tax breaks at our expense.

First, economies don’t trickle down. In 1980, a CEO earned 30-42 times as much as the average worker he employed. That’s a lot, but today, it’s 280-350 times as much. And, we haven’t even factored in how big a cut the shareholder class takes. And it all comes out of workers. Now families need two incomes, but childcare costs as much as a mortgage.

Patriarchs oppose social services by starving us and pointing to our dire straits to tell us we can’t afford anything. Clever. The middle class is squeezed dry and admonished not to complain. So, no. Feminism isn’t the monster here. It’s the patriarchs and their greed. There’s always money for war, though. They just find it.

There are many more patriarchal myths surrounding our Father Knows Best culture, specifically those around voting, campaign finance, and justice. But this is turning into a screed. And that might make me unattractive to men. Wait. I’m over 60, so…

Beyond Mythologies

I was shocked to my core when one day, my spiritual teacher asked: “Who are you if you are not your gender, your race, your body? Who are you if you’re not what you think you are? Who you’ve been told you are? What if none of it is true?” Then she laughed. That was the beginning (not the end) of letting go of conditioning, something many of us are going to have to do before this shit-show can be over.

If I were a spiritual teacher, I could say, “Throw off the shackles of your conditioning.” Instead, I’ll say it as someone who has healed the deep psychological trauma caused by the patriarchal conditioning of my father, mother, and surrounding community. One thing I know from decades of silent retreats and Self-Inquiry is that conditioning is not true. No culture is right. The story is not who you are. If you want freedom, see through your conditioning. Don’t stop looking until you can see the truth for yourself.

It’s hard for modern people to even imagine a world where there aren’t strict gender roles. Hmmm. Can you imagine a culture that is not so obsessively gender conscious? Where people just choose what suits them? One where you are your own authority when it comes to what you dedicate your “one wild and precious life” to? I can, but it’s taken years. Who are you if you are not your conditioning? Let’s find out.

Here’s the gist: The more egalitarian the government, the better off the people.

Right now, we’re facing our collective shadow, the “wreckage of our past.” Cultures heal in the same ways as individuals. It just takes longer. Sometimes, in my mind’s eye, I see the G8 Summit and the World Bank at a meeting. “Hello. My name is United States, and I’m addicted to power.”

Naturally, not everyone wants to heal. Some birds like their cage. Some alcoholics will drink themselves to death. That’s sad, but it’s okay. We only need a tipping point.

Right now, we are expressing deep, generational trauma caused by our belief that patriarchal violence is the only way we can be safe in a heartless world. We’ve yet to see who the heartless ones really are. That’s how projection works. Before anything can change, we have to tell the truth about the pain we’re in and the pain we cause.

Our culture is based on the lie that men are inherently superior and women are inherently inferior, and we are sick because of that lie. In the U.S, we have the added lie of white supremacy and a belief in global hegemony and American exceptionalism. Pure mythology.

How completely ridiculous is it to live like that when life is short, and we are going to die? Honestly, our lives are so short, we’re like fireflies in the woods. Perhaps the first step is to stop pretending we’re going to live forever or that some of us are naturally better than others by virtue of where we are born or what bodies we are born into.

Mythology’s Job is to Mollify the Fear of Death

Terror of Death has been the primary feature of our culture since we were Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Why do we need a big, patriarchal daddy in charge? We’re terrified. What’s he protecting us from? Death. How’s that working?

The truth is 180 degrees from the lie. Let’s turn and face it. Death is actually our best friend. There is no greater teacher on earth. Death says love is the only thing that matters, and we should live accordingly. As long as we refuse to acknowledge death, we’re going to miss life by being lost in a web of lies.

If we embrace our impermanence, we can wake up from this nightmare of scarcity, domination, and war. There’s enough of everything. We are inherently free. All we have to do is set aside our mythologies and look, really look, at the state of the world while accepting that we are only here briefly. In other words: Tell the truth.

Who are we really? Without the scrim of patriarchal mythology telling us in advance. What’s true without spin? Who should go to jail? Let’s send them. Who among us should lead? Let’s elect them. What if our government were egalitarian and… finally represented… us?

For one thing, 51% of all elected officials would be women, and hopefully not patriarchal women with an irrational mythology to promote. That’s the Senate, the House, all state legislatures, school boards, and the Supreme Court, though if you’ve read The Grandmother Class, you know that because I’m a radical, I think we should course-correct by having 100% of the Supremes be rational women for the next 50 years. We were fine with it being self-serving patriarchs for centuries. And look at the common-sense-and-constitution-defying decisions they have made - and still make. Because… culture.

It’s time to stop drinking the poison. Just put it down. Sober up. Consider our culture a disaster site. Take stock of what can be saved and what must be thrown out. Rebuild with fire-safe materials.

If we strip away the conditioning, as any good spiritual practice will have you do, what’s left? At the end of life, all our castles crumble, and most people only wish they had loved more. We can love more while still young. We can love more now.

Who are we if we are not this lying, thieving, war-mongering, rape-academy culture of violence? Who are we REALLY?

Let’s find out. One step at a time. Starting with the Epstein-Maxwell files, let’s take a fearless and searching moral inventory. We are up to our eyeballs in blood, from the past, sure - but also in Gaza, Venezuela, Iran, and coming soon to a Cuba near you.

It’s time to tell the truth.

Those of us standing on the other shore, who have seen through our own version of this reckoning, are here to tell you life is better on the other side. Every single thing can be better. We can’t go back; we’ve seen too much. So, let’s go forward.

How long will this take? Seven years? Five? How dark does it have to get before we become willing? IDK. But here’s something I do know. We can wake up now with a simple intention-setting.

I am willing to __________. Fill in the blank with “feel this,” “see this,” “know this,” or “do this.”

Nothing will change until we’re willing. How terrible will the unraveling be? Well, it’s no longer hypothetical. Will we all survive it? Of course not. People are already dead. Can they lie to us again about white male supremacy? They cannot. Can they force it down our throats anyway? We’ll see. I’m betting that all the big guns are blazing now, and the more they blast away, the more horrified we become. So, no. I don’t think so.

We must demand that all people be given human dignity. There is no one we will sacrifice on any altar. No one, no matter their gender or how pigmented their skin. No one deserves to be bombed back to the Stone Age for something their patriarchs did without their consent. The old days of lies are over. This epoch of the myth that we need patriarchy to save us from the violence they create is going the way of the divine right of kings. That lie governed the world for centuries, too. What was so divine about the noble class? Nothing. What’s divine about our billionaire class? Nothing. These are carefully maintained myths. But they’re falling apart now.

Everything that seems to be blocking peace and prosperity is not real. We can step out of our conditioning. We have to stop being so terrified of death so we can say NO. That’s the key. This myth keeps us participating in all these abuses and wars, all the things we don’t approve of, because we are afraid of dying. Without that, patriarchy has no power. That’s what this trip into the shadow is about: seeing how we give our power away and then taking it back. Yes, it’s going to get rocky, but my money is on us.

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