Your opinion is just your opinion but unless you tell me that, I’ll think you think it’s a fact.
We live in a world where men’s opinions are powerful. What men think, like, want, and prefer are what we’ve all been socialized to revolve our lives around.
I feel the weight of men’s opinions around me every day. Because of patriarchy, I tend to doubt my own opinions even when they’re clearly sound. And because of patriarchy, I tend to take men’s opinions seriously even when I might have more knowledge or experience in the matter.
The other night my partner (who is a man*) and I were talking about something entirely inconsequential. We’d passed by a martial arts studio and through the front window saw a class wherein punching each other is part of the practice. I asked my partner if he’d ever done this sport, and he said, “Yeah! It’s awesome. It’s very useful to learn how to hit one another and be hit by each other without getting seriously injured. And it’s fun!”
It’s important to note here that I do not think this sport sounds awesome or useful or fun.
Now you could argue that by virtue of him saying it, I can assume that these statements are simply his opinion, and that I can engage with them as such.
But the problem with this argument is that it pretends we’re not both living with patriarchal expectations hanging over us all the time.
He has been trained to think that his opinions matter, are relevant, and hold weight.
I have been trained to think that his opinions matter, are relevant, and hold weight.
We have been trained that his opinions are probably more correct than mine, and perhaps more correct than other men’s opinions as well.
We have both been trained not to question his opinions.
So when he simply states his opinions without qualification, he reinforces this training to himself and also to me.
And because I’ve been looking at and unlearning my own patriarchal conditioning for more than 2 decades now, I bristle under this reinforcement.
I want him to qualify his statements. I want him to position his own opinions as both opinions and as his own. I want him to shuck off the weight of patriarchy in our conversations, for me and also for himself.
Listen to the difference between these statements:
“It’s awesome” versus “I think it’s awesome”
“It’s very useful to learn” versus “I found it useful to learn”
“It’s fun!” versus “I have fun!”
The first sentences state his opinion as fact. They position him as an authority. It makes him hard to disagree with. This is by design. This reinforces his power.
If I have a difference of opinion and he’s used the first sentences, my opinion becomes a power struggle. “It’s awesome.” “No, it’s not awesome.”
If he’s used the second set of sentences, my opinion is valid without going against him. “I found it useful.” “I didn’t find it useful.” We can disagree but stay on the same team.
Patriarchy is about increasing men’s power. For most feminist men, this happens subtly, slowly, in nearly invisible ways.
Undoing patriarchy is about divesting from that power, making choices in your daily life to call attention to it, to interrupt it, and ultimately, to abdicate it.
This might seem like a level of minutiae not worth quibbling over, but this pattern writ large looks like men’s opinions seeming more credible as writers, professors, and politicians. When men’s opinions about everything are taken seriously, men’s opinions about pregnancy and abortion are written into law. When men’s perspectives are given more importance than everyone else’s, a government with a vastly disproportionate percentage** of men in office seems inevitable.
Noticing this pattern is the first step.
Then we must acknowledge its impact.
Interrupting it is next.
What comes after that are interactions rooted in shared humanity rather than unconscious power hoarding, and relationships of reciprocity not extraction.
What’s next is life lived in liberation.
These kinds of patterns are what I teach men to see in Undoing Patriarchy.
The men who take this class are often astounded at how much more often patriarchy is at play in their lives, minds, and conversations than they’d previously realized.
They are kind men who have thought about patriarchy. They are nice men who consider themselves feminists. They are not bad men, mean men, men who want to argue about the validity of women’s perspectives. But they are people who have lived inside patriarchy for a long time. It has had an impact on them and the people around them. And they want to undo that.
If you are a man like this, sign up for Undoing Patriarchy.
If you know a man like this, send him this link.
Here are all the details.
Undoing Patriarchy
6 week online course teaching relational skills for feminist men+
April 1-May 6, 2026
Wednesdays from 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm Eastern time
Limited to 15 students
$600
Payment plans available for all
Limited need-based solidarity discounts are available too
You can read all about it here: undoingpatriarchy.com
*He is a gentle, kind man. He is a queer, cisgender man. He is a man who has taken Undoing Patriarchy as a student (after we were dating, lol.) He is a man who is actively working to undo patriarchy in his daily life, in all his relationships, not just with me. I love him. And this story was shared with his permission.
**In 2026, men hold 72 percent of seats in US Congress and 75 percent of Senate seats. This trend is echoed at the state level as well.