#if op thinks this is too off topic i'll delete it but i feel a strong impulse to bring this up anytime we're talking about

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

This is kind of a side note but women are also punished if we DON'T conform, in the forms of discrimination in the workplace and carceral and medical systems, as well as interpersonal exclusion and violence including, for some women, actual physical assault and murder. This atmosphere of coercion is one reason women DO accede to patriarchy's demands despite the way those demands constrain women's lives.

One thing I've been seeing a lot is the implication that patriarchy oppresses both men and women and actually only benefits a small minority.

This position is a fundamental misunderstanding both of how capitalism uses social divides to create division among works and of basic feminist principles. Proletarian men fail to organize with proletarian women specifically because patriarchy gives them a position of power over women.

Men can find their actions constrained by patriarchy as well, which I've seen many people mistake for genuine oppression, but in reality men who can conform to patriarchal norms and standards are making a small sacrifice of emotional vulnerability in order to gain access to power and privilege women will never be able to attain within patriarchy. By contrast when women conform to patriarchal norms we find ourselves ever more severely limited and endangered, often losing basic bodily autonomy by force.