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Review
. 2023 Jun 10;15(6):e40216.
doi: 10.7759/cureus.40216. eCollection 2023 Jun.

Critical Overview of Patriarchy, Its Interferences With Psychological Development, and Risks for Mental Health

Affiliations
Review

Critical Overview of Patriarchy, Its Interferences With Psychological Development, and Risks for Mental Health

Mayank Gupta et al. Cureus. .

Abstract

The systemic oppression of women and gender-based discrimination has deep roots in human civilization. As evident in both written texts and widespread practices, conscious and unconscious biases associated with patriarchy have been and continue to be interlaced with power struggles, control, and conformity enforced by the male-dominant cultures of the time. Brought into bold relief in this pandemic, recent dramatic events (the tragic murder of George Floyd and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, for example) have heightened social outrage against bias, racism, and bigotry and have also brought us to an inflection point demanding our better understanding of the pernicious and long-term mental health effects of patriarchy. There are compelling grounds to further expand their construct, but efforts to do so in psychiatric phenomenology have, until now, failed to gain momentum and substantive attention. The resistance may in part lie in misconceptions that patriarchy is supported by archetypal endowments of the collective unconscious constitutive of shared societal beliefs. While many continue to live with the adverse experiences associated with patriarchy within the current times, critics have argued that our concepts about patriarchy are not empirical enough. Empirically supported deconstruction is necessary to debunk misinformed notions that undermine women's equality.

Keywords: child developmental; feminism; gender discrimination; mental health; patriarchy; trauma.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Summary of the search strategy
**270 articles were removed as they were not relevant to the topics of patriarchy and mental health
Figure 2
Figure 2. A brief overview of addressing patriarchy during clinical encounters
Image used with permission from Dr. Matthew Galvin of the Indiana University Conscience Project.

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