The Threat Americans Ignore—Say Patriarchy

How unnamed gender norms are harming collective well-being.

Updated May 30, 2026 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

Part one of a two-part series.

On a subway ride for my son’s second-grade field trip, a girl wanted to sit with the boys. For a moment, this seemed unremarkable (the endearing character Anybodys from West Side Story comes to mind). Then one boy mockingly dared the other boys to sit next to her.

The mood shifted from playfulness to shame . Shame directed at the girl for deviating from social expectations ( You’re out of line! ) and shame threatening any boy who risked joining her ( Don’t you dare give up your power! ).

When my son and one of the chaperones later described this event to me (I wasn’t there), I recalled my first day of kindergarten. A boy in my class pushed me off a jungle gym, yelling, “I don’t like ‘girls!’” He was presumably punishing me for my feminine mannerisms.

Many adults continue to dismiss such cruel acts of social policing as “child’s play.” “Boys will be boys,” an educated and equality-minded friend of mine said recently, throwing up her arms in resignation as she recounted her nephews teasing one another to tears. Sociologist Cynthia Miller-Idriss , however, offers a more precise explanation for these behaviors: a proactive reassertion of patriarchal power.

In her new book Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism, Miller-Idriss effectively argues how patriarchy rehearses itself in everyday life through tiny, ordinary performances of dominance, othering, and policing of gender norms. And when we fail to identify these misogynistic attitudes and behaviors, as we often do, they become adopted and enacted by our kids.

These moments may seem small, but they gradually establish an environment in which inequality, dehumanization, and various forms of violence become tolerated if not normalized. (As I write this: A jury has, for the second time, been unable to convict Harvey Weinstein of rape charges—despite a massive body of public facts regarding his systemic abuse of women. There are still no arrests of any American men named in the Epstein files. And the U.S., in general, is experiencing a historic tidal wave of both personal and political attacks against women and the LGBTQ+ communities.)

The quick interaction on the subway illustrates Miller-Idriss’ point. It shows how sexism , the foundational belief that men and women are unequal, harms all of us. Not only was the girl exiled from the group, but each boy was warned that he too could face shameful alienation; as my son put it, “If I sat with her, my friends would laugh at me.”

Psychologist Niobe Way’s research shows how the fear of not conforming to gender norms—like my son described—keeps all men and boys on guard, limited in their emotional expression, and at a distance from one another. This has contributed to what she calls a “crisis of connection” (Way, 2024). (See the Oscar-nominated movie Close for a devastating illustration).

Most alarming, the misogyny at play in moments like this, what Cynthia Miller-Idriss describes as the enforcing arm of patriarchy, is pervasive yet insidious (Miller-Idriss, 2025). It is enacted in plain sight, but somehow remains under the radar: either through willing avoidance or unconscious dissociation by those who witness it.

Some of the same parents who were enthusiastic about giving their boys books like My First Book of Feminism when they were toddlers, dismiss behaviors like those on the subway as a “normal” part of child development . When I share stories like this, the first two words out of the mouths of fellow parents are often: “Yeah but__.” One recently said to me dismissively: “Don’t we all just want to fit in?” This silence is how patriarchy survives and grows. “What’s the big deal?” Or, “Boys and girls always play separately.” Parents who say these words wonder why their children are suddenly bullying and being bullied in increasingly sexist ways.

But our kids are not developing in a vacuum. They’re absorbing messages that we too often fail to acknowledge. Many boys spend hours online, on YouTube in particular, unsupervised, consuming ideas of masculinity that equate vulnerability with weakness, dominance with strength, connection with femininity, and femininity with shame (Thomas and Balint, 2022). The link between seemingly innocuous sexism and more harmful beliefs and behaviors isn’t theoretical. It’s happening in real time, on our watch.

Yet too many of us remain reluctant to identify what we witness. And this hesitation is only increasing, as words like “woke” and “cancel culture” are used to shut down anyone who challenges patriarchal control by naming its destructive impact. I recall watching a CNN special on bullying in 2010, after a string of suicides by gay teenagers , including Tyler Clementi. But the word “gay” was rarely used there—or in any of the national conversations about bullying at that time. One Black teenager who was interviewed on the program explained that his teachers would be more likely to protect him if someone called him "the n-word" than if the same person called him "faggot" or any other anti-gay term. This was not expanded upon. More than a decade later, Florida’s “ Don’t Say Gay ” law formalized that same implicit practice into explicit policy.

I worry that we are increasingly continuing to approach the underlying problem–patriarchy–in much the same way.

Click here to continue reading.

Miller-Idriss, C. (2025) Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press

Thomas, E., & Balint, K. (2022). Algorithms as a Weapon Against Women: How YouTube Lures Boys and Young Men into the 'Manosphere.' Institutes for Strategic Dialogue / Reset Australia https://www.isdglobal.org/publication/algorithms-as-a-weapon-against-wo…

Way, N. (2024) Rebels with a cause: Reimagining boys, ourselves, and our culture. New York: Dutton

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Mark O'Connell, LCSW-R, is a psychotherapist in private practice and the author of the books The Performing Art of Therapy and Modern Brides & Modern Grooms.

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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.