I'm aware of the concept. I don't really care too deeply what the ideological underpinnings for their personal justifications are as long as people do actually treat people equally. Personally, conceptually, I don't think patriarchy theory is great, but it doesn't, like offend me. Stuff like that whole #killallmen thing and some of the stuff you see around places like reddit mocking male victimization, though, does bother me. It's when people take it to the point that they start treating some people poorly or ignoring the things that happen to them simply because of their gender that I think there's a problem.

"Patriarchy theory" isn't a feminist theory. It exists almost exclusively as a concept in anti-feminist arguments. It is designed to discredit feminism by twisting logic and painting a straw argument, a "straw feminist" so to speak.

So who are all these feminists defending patriarchy theory then? Are you saying it's not a theory that's essential to feminism? Because I most certainly have conversed with buckets of feminists who believe in the patriarchy.

If we're discussing whether or not power is socially stratified along gender lines what are we discussing?