Feminism Isn’t Coming for Your Balls, Bro—It’s Coming for Patriarchy
Thoughts from the trenches of a Gender Studies MA
In my gender studies course last week, I shared a thought in one of my seminars: too many people think that because “feminine” is positioned as the opposite of “masculine,” that feminism must be in opposition to masculinity. In reality, feminism is in opposition to patriarchy. And those two things are not the same. The fact that we’ve been taught to collapse them together is one of patriarchy’s cleverest tricks.
Patriarchy is not just “men being men.” It’s a system—a political and cultural order—that hands men authority, keeps women obedient, and punishes anyone who doesn’t play by its rules. It’s the badly written script that insists all men must be John Wayne: stoic, unemotional, dominant, with a six-shooter on one hip and a flask on the other. Everyone else gets stuck as a supporting character. Women get cast as damsels. Queer folks don’t even make the credits. And if anyone dares improvise? Patriarchy yells “Cut!” and reminds you who’s really in charge.
Masculinity, however, is far bigger, more flexible, and more interesting than the narrow, grim caricature patriarchy calls “real manhood.” Masculinity can look like Ted Lasso, leading sing-alongs in a locker room and handing out biscuits while talking about feelings, before he hustles a misogynistic prick.
It can look like Prince, draped in purple sequins and bending gender lines without apology. It can even look like Jason Momoa, skipping gleefully around in pink silk before throwing an axe straighter than you. None of that undermines masculinity—it only undermines patriarchy’s monopoly on it.
The problem is that patriarchy doesn’t protect masculinity—it strangles it. It tells stay-at-home dads they’re “emasculated.” It mocks teenage boys for loving poetry or art. It convinces men that the only safe emotion is rage, and then punishes them when that rage boils over. Patriarchy is the toxic relationship that catfishes men into thinking it’s on their side, when really, it’s robbing them of their full humanity.
And here’s the bitter irony: when feminism comes along and says, “Hey, you don’t have to live like this. You don’t have to prove your manhood every second of your life,” it feels like a threat. That’s how deep the brainwashing goes. Patriarchy has trained men to think their cage is home. But feminism isn’t trying to tear down masculinity—it’s trying to set it free.
This is the choice on the table. Patriarchy offers John Wayne masculinity: grim, lonely, armored in silence, drinking and shooting your problems until your liver gives out (unless syphilis gets you first). Feminism offers Ted Lasso masculinity: still strong, still competent, but also kind, goofy, vulnerable, and actually allowed to feel joy. Who seems like the happier man? The guy mumbling around a cigar, or the one leading karaoke with his team?
Feminism isn’t anti-men. It’s anti-patriarchy. And patriarchy is the system that insists masculinity must equal dominance, violence, and control. Feminism says you don’t have to audition for that role anymore. You already got cast as a human being.
So no, feminism isn’t coming for your manhood. It’s coming for the cage patriarchy built around it. And if that sounds scary, maybe it’s because you’ve been told for too long that your cage was the only thing keeping you safe.
What feminism offers instead is freedom—for men, for women, for everyone whose humanity has been squeezed into categories too small to contain it.
Music for the week: “Good Boy” by Paris Paloma