By Tara van Dijk, DPhil
The Patriarchy Paradox
"Desire’s fundamental structure is that it needs an obstacle. Remove the obstacle, and desire collapses. The worst thing that can happen to you is to get what you want."
— Slavoj Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology
Feminism is stuck. Its rallying cry—“Smash the patriarchy!”—reveals a paradox: The Patriarchy is both the enemy feminism fights and the fuel it needs to survive. Like a mirage that recedes as you approach it, The Patriarchy is an impossible ideal—an obstacle feminism can’t overcome but can’t stop pursuing. To abolish it would collapse the movement’s very purpose.
This paradox isn’t just political; it’s psychological. The Patriarchy functions as what philosopher Slavoj Žižek calls a “sublime object”—an unattainable X that structures desire. For feminism, The Patriarchy is the ultimate scapegoat: it explains wage gaps, sexual violence, and even women’s internalized self-doubt. But like a ghost, it’s everywhere and nowhere. The harder you look for it, the more it diffuses—mansplaining, manspreading, toxic masculinity, microaggressions, and so on.
Unconsciously, feminism doesn’t truly want to win. The drive is the fight itself—the jouissance (a term from psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan for the addictive pleasure found in suffering or failing to get what one thinks they want) of battling an eternal-external foe. Without The Patriarchy, feminism would have to confront messy truths: that sex-based differences and inequalities aren’t the result of a single system but a shifting interplay of biology, capitalism, and human desire.
This essay pokes and prods: Can feminism sustain itself without The Patriarchy fantasy?
The Patriarchy as Sublime Object
The Patriarchy emerged in Second Wave Feminism (1960s-70s) as a retroactive fantasy. Feminist discourse projected it backward, rewriting history as if male dominance were a timeless, universal force. This retroactive framing turned patriarchy into a “Master Signifier”—a term from Lacan meaning a core symbol that organizes all other ideas. For feminism, it’s the ultimate, in-the-last-instance reason behind every grievance or dissatisfaction.
But The Patriarchy is also an “empty signifier”—a concept so vague it can mean anything. It explains wage gaps, sexual violence, and even why women apologize so much. The more it absorbs, the less it clarifies. Like a conspiracy theory, it thrives on being unfalsifiable: if you can’t see patriarchy, that’s proof it’s hiding!
The Bait-and-Switch
Feminism treats The Patriarchy as both:
A System (“It’s not individual men’s fault!”) when deflecting criticism.
A Moral Failing (“Men must do better!”) when demanding action.
This double standard rigs the game. Men are told to dismantle a system they’re supposedly conditioned by. If they resist, they’re “proof” The Patriarchy exists. If they comply, they’re “performative allies.” The rules keep shifting to keep The Patriarchy alive. As capitalism erodes traditional sex-based hierarchies (e.g., male breadwinner roles), feminism reinvents The Patriarchy as psychological (“internalized misogyny”) or cultural (“microaggressions”). The enemy adapts to survive—ensuring feminism never runs out of battles to fight.
The Patriarchy as the Ultimate Shape-Shifting Obstacle to Female Liberation
The Patriarchy isn’t just feminism’s enemy—it’s its petrol. Remove it, and the movement stops. The Patriarchy is to feminism what the Joker is to Batman. And like any shapeshifting villain, it evolves to survive: Legal equality? Now patriarchy lurks in “microaggressions.” Workplace parity? It’s hiding in “unconscious bias.” Each victory spawns a new iteration, ensuring the fight—and thus, jouissance—never ends. Declining sex-based disparities? Proof of The Patriarchy’s “cunning,” not its decline.
Why Feminism Needs Its Villain
Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan argued that human desire thrives on impossibility. Feminism mirrors this: its true goal isn’t victory but the chase. “Smash the patriarchy!” isn’t a call to action—it’s a mantra that sustains the movement’s identity. Imagine Coyote finally catching the Roadrunner: euphoria fades into existential crisis.
Intersectionality, a Third Wave iteration, entrenches the patriarchal fantasy by multiplying it. By intersecting The Patriarchy with race, class, sexuality, religion, etc., this move turns The Patriarchy into a Hydra. Cut one head off, another line of oppression appears—yielding a bespoke Patriarchy for every context, historical conjunction, or gender studies master’s thesis!
Feminism now peddles a paradox: The Patriarchy is everywhere yet invisible, systemic yet personal. Question it, and you’re accused of “denying male privilege.” But the real denial is feminism’s refusal to admit its addiction to this sublime object cause of desire.
Patriarchy as a Defence Mechanism
The Patriarchy isn’t just feminism’s compass—it’s its armor. By blaming every inequality or struggle between the sexes on this shapeshifting foe, feminism avoids confronting the real third rail: the messy, immutable tensions of biology, sexuality, and power.
Nature: The Unthinkable Sublime
Biology is the absolute “sublime object”—the force that resists ideology. Feminism’s fixation on The Patriarchy as the root of all oppression lets it sidestep uncomfortable truths:
Reproductive asymmetry: Men and women aren’t blank slates. Biology shapes sexual dynamics no social program can erase.
Sexual power: Desire thrives on tension—dominance, submission, attraction. Feminism flattens this into moral binaries (“oppressor vs. oppressed”), sterilizing eros into a political grievance.
Capitalism’s Double Bind
Capitalism shreds traditional patriarchy, yet feminism spins this disruption as proof of patriarchy’s fecundity. Declining marriage rates? Patriarchy. Wage gaps narrowing? Patriarchy 2.0. The enemy adapts to ensure feminism never runs out of battles.
The Escape Hatch
This loop raises the elephant in the middle of this libidinal economy. What if feminism needs The Patriarchy to sustain itself? What if its purpose isn’t liberation but eternal struggle? To outgrow the patriarchal fantasy, feminism must confront its own addiction to crisis—and ask what comes after the war it can’t afford to win.
Traversing the Fantasy
“Ideology doesn’t offer escape from reality—it offers social reality as escape.”— Slavoj Žižek
Feminism clings to The Patriarchy fantasy because it masks a harder truth: sex-based disparities are shaped by biology, capitalism, and power—forces way beyond The Patriarchy.
To “traverse” this fantasy, feminism must confront the Real it obscures:
Step 1: Confront the Fantasy, Own Your Desire
The Patriarchy isn’t a system to smash but a screen organizing feminist desire. Like chasing a horizon, “liberation” is the unattainable objet petit a—the illusory, shape-shifting obstacle that keeps the struggle alive.
Step 2: Drop the Crutch
The Patriarchy soothes existential anxiety by framing sex-based disparities as a plot, not a product of biology, eros, or capitalism. Dissolving this crutch means facing reproductive asymmetry, sexual politics, and capitalism’s disruptions head-on.
Step 3: Embrace the Real
Sex-based relations are messy collisions—no singular force dictates them.
Beyond the Fantasy
Feminism must reorient away from idealism toward materialism. The paradox? Letting go of The Patriarchy would liberate feminism. But does the movement want liberation—or just the chase?
Tara van Dijk, DPhil, is a Geographer and Political Economist. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, USA, she has lived in South Korea, China, Gaza, India, the Netherlands, and the UK. She hosts Morbid Symptoms, a podcast and Substack blending political and cultural critique with irreverence—and as much humor as possible.
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