# Is Western Society a Patriarchy? A Debate on Gender and Power - Original post: https://www.twitter.com/i/status/2070035015006588973 - Source account: [@elonmusk](https://x.com/elonmusk) - Source language: English - Duration: 3:23 - Published: 2026-06-25 - Canonical URL: https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power ## Transcript [0:00](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power) Well, that's my idea of the patriarchy which is a system of male dominance of society [0:04](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=4) Yeah, but that's not my sense of the patriarchy. So what's yours? Well in what sense is our society male-dominated? [0:11](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=11) The fact that the vast majority of wealth is owned by men the vast majority of capital and is owned by men women do more [0:18](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=18) Unpaid labor a very tiny proportion of men and a huge proportion of people who are seriously Disaffected are men most people in prison are men most people who are [0:27](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=27) On the street are men most victims of violent crime are men most people who commit suicide are men Most men most people who die in wars are men [0:37](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=37) People who do worse in school are men. It's like where's the dominance here precisely? What you're doing is you're taking a tiny substrata of hyper [0:46](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=46) Successful men and using that to represent the entire structure of the of Western society. There's nothing about that But I could say equally well the most rape victims are women [0:56](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=56) Terrible things happen to people of both sexes and you could say that with with perfect utility But that doesn't provide any evidence for the existence of a male-dominated [1:05](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=65) Patriarch well there just means the terrible things happen to both genders which they certainly do but there are almost no women who rape men [1:12](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=72) For example, so that is an asymmetry there in sexual violence Well, yes There's an ace there's an asymmetry in all sorts of places [1:18](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=78) But that doesn't mean that Western culture is a male-dominated Patriarchy the fact that there are asymmetries has nothing to do with your basic argument [1:25](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=85) No, but you might even this is a trope that people just accept Western society is a male-dominated Patriarchy it's like no, it's not that's not true [1:34](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=94) and and even if it even if it has a patriarchal structure to some degree the The fundamental basis of that structure is not power. It's competence. That's why our society works [1:46](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=106) it's only when it's when a Structure degenerates into tyranny that the fundamental relationships between people become dependent on power [1:54](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=114) It's not power if you hire a plumber who's likely to be male It's not because there's roving bands of tyrannical plumbers forcing you to make that choice [2:04](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=124) And it's the case with almost every interaction that you have at the face of our culture You're dealing with people who are offering a service of one form or another [2:12](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=132) who are usually part of the broad middle class and who offer and what you're looking for is the person who can offer the [2:18](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=138) Best service and you can find it. It's not a consequence of being dominated by anything That's tyrannical and and then again our culture Western culture [2:27](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=147) which is by no means perfect and certainly has tyrannical elements like all cultures do is [2:33](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=153) The least tyrannical society that's ever been produced and certainly the least tyrannical society that exists now this whole patriarchy thing [2:41](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=161) I think you have no idea how pernicious and dangerous it is. Well, no, I don't [2:46](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=166) throughout history have fundamentally cooperated to push back against the absolute catastrophe of existence a [2:54](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=174) Terrible death rate that the probability of chronic starvation early death disease the difficulty of raising children with all the death that was associated with that and to [3:04](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=184) Look backwards in time and say well Basically what happened was men took the upper hand and persecuted women in this tyrannical patriarchy [3:12](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/oxQOrJl1q4Ka/en/is-western-society-a-patriarchy-a-debate-on-gender-and-power?t=192) So it's absolutely dreadful misreading of history It's a terrible thing to teach young women and it's a horrible thing to inflict on men