Doesn't this only make sense though if patriarchy is a priori defined by gender roles? It falls apart if any non-patriarchal system develops or prefers any gender roles. On what basis is it claimed that only a patriarchy has gender roles?

You are talking about “a patriarchy”, they are talking about “the patriarchy”. In other words this particular one we are living in with it’s built in assumed gender roles.

I understand, I am asking why the gender roles being "built in" is exclusive to patriarchy. Suppose we replace patriarchy with matriarchy. Are there no built in assumptions about gender and everyone treats each other nicely?

I’m not familiar with matriarchal societies. I aspire to a society where gender expression is independent from societal roles.

> I aspire to a society where gender expression is independent from societal roles.

Brilliant. We're all in this together struggling to be generous to each other. There will always be tension between men and women and divergent gender roles will always exist, but things can be better than they are today.

There can be less of people of one gender or another demeaning others for physical characteristics, and more celebration of variety. I hope that more people can find it in themselves to accept when an olive branch is held out to them. This huge thread with hundreds of comments is a catalog of anguish showing how much potential there is for us to do better and be better — in daenz's formulation, being less of a "mean piece of shit" — for each other.

I believe it's an emergent phenomenon, so unless there is a plan to enforce that from emerging, you're going to be very unsatisfied even if "the patriarchy" is removed. But my question that I want to understand is, are "gender roles" by definition a patriarchal concept? If so, "the patriarchy" will always be a boogeyman to blame any time gender roles emerge. If not, then tying them to patriarchy is dishonest.

I would guess that both monogamy and historical gender roles derive from the economics of an agricultural society. We had thousands of years where almost all people were agriculturalists. It’s only within the last hundred or so that we have large numbers of people no longer closely tied to agriculture. I expect both expected gender roles and our societal concept of marriage to undergo profound changes.

Thats not a patriarchy thing, it's a gender assumptions thing.

Calling it patriarchy is just another in the long stream insults to maleness that has become common, in the worst sense of the word common.