Defining patriarchy and privilege

Adigo Atabo

30 January 2021 (revised 14 September 2021 after feedback from Miki Kashtan)

My intention is to show up in the world as a compassionate presence and a force for social change. As I furnish my understanding of the structural components of societal ills, mainly from listening to Miki Kashtan’s Facing Privilege and Questioning Money calls, I would like a clear definition of patriarchy and privilege. So, here are my attempts.

{ pat • ri • arch • y } n.

A pervasive, learned system of domination, submission, separation, control, practised by all genders, that arose historically from centring paternity in the ordering of society.

{ priv • i • lege } n.

In the context of societal ill, within a paradigm of dominance and submission, where society assigns material advantage to groups based on arbitrary critera, where material benefit to one group is at a cost to another group, privilege is the status of being a member of the group with greater material advantage.

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