system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
I don't believe the patriarchy exists, CMV.

I'll preface that i'm referring to first world countries, especially the US and UK.

I believe that the patriarchy theory is fundamentally flawed on the conceptual level.  People who subscribe to the patriarchy theory believe that patriarchy is a system of gender roles that privilege men over women. Therefore, men can not be disadvantaged in any way *as men*, that is, primarily because of their gender. I've often heard people try to explain away the obvious male disadvantages as being due to some more politically correct disadvantage such as race or class, or as secondary effects of discrimination against women (e.g. "benevolent sexism"). So the patriarchal explanation of male disadvantage in custody battles is that women are really the ones being disadvantaged because society that sees them only in the role of caregiver, and not because society holds bigoted ideas about men themselves.

This "patriarchy hypothesis" is also why some people deny that sexism against men and misandry exist, and why some also deny that men can be raped by women.

As long as people believe that men can not be disadvantaged *as men*  in some things primarily because of their gender, there can be no common ground between my own views and people who subscribe to patriarchy theory, I want to try and change that.

I do believe there is a social system to give power to some and not to others, but I don't believe patriarchy can possibly be correct. I believe that there is a social system that has evolved to increase the wealth and power of societies over their neighbors, and that it exploits both women and men to that end. Furthermore, I grant that economic, political, and sexual restrictions of women do exist in our society. But I also maintain that men are also exploited, especially as laborers and fighters, and that this exploitation is because of their gender, not a secondary effect of women's exploitation. 

Change my view.
gpt
I don't believe you can use that word without referring back to a particular vision of Patriarchy produced by a particular scholar, as the term isn't monolithic or totalizing in the way you would like to discuss it. Which feminist scholars' definitions of the process are you contesting? Because "there isn't a patriarchy" isn't a claim unless you can define it, and it's defined by a number of theorists in a number of ways, and while you may take issue with any of those in particular, your complaint seems to be laid against the outcomes of people grossly simplifying the criticism that "patriarchy" may bring to the table, and in doing so, you're not doing the term justice. Nobody said "men can't be disadvantaged by patriarchy", no meaningful theorist has proposed this, ever. Nor does patriarchy require that any effect on the masculine be considered a secondary effect of exploiting women, but a primary effect of a social order, but one which does create expectations and roles for both men and women.