US law long wrote patriarchy into the rules. Under coverture, a married woman's legal identity was absorbed into her husband's, limiting her right to own property or sign contracts. Women won the federal right to vote in 1920. Until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, lenders could refuse credit to a woman without a male co-signer.
Historian Gerda Lerner traced the system's origins in her 1986 book "The Creation of Patriarchy." Black feminist thinkers have shown that patriarchy in the US never worked alone. Enslaved Black women were denied the protections that white womanhood was said to deserve, and white women also held power over enslaved people.
Patriarchy harms people of all genders. It shapes pay gaps, who does unpaid care work, gender-based violence and rigid expectations of men. Anti-racist analysis looks at how patriarchy and white supremacy reinforce each other, which is the core insight of intersectionality.