This made me lol

Indeed it’s fun to call them out and show what they actually mean. So much good faith discussion. /s

Ok let me give my hot take: Patriarchy doesn't exist in the same way god doesn't: It's a bullshit way to analyse the world ultimately more trouble than it's worth because it obscures instead of clarifies social relations.

That's evidenced by the theoretical drift the term has taken, from "oh it's the men" (classical definition: rule of men) to "oh no it's certain social forces and we're calling them patriarchy even if propagated by women" (feminist definition starting whatever-wave), leading to stellar analysis such as "female beauty standards are internalised misogyny" which make my head hurt, it's women saying "look how high status I am I have so much free time to care about non-survival stuff", pure female competition, men really don't give a fuck ultimately we like you best in pyjamas and bed hair. So, uncharitable take, "patriarchy exists" means "certain forces exist and I'm uncomfortable acknowledging my own participation in them so I'm deflecting". Which is why you then see takes such as "the favourite past-time of feminists is to enforce patriarchy" from people who understand academic feminism, referring to what's happening in political feminism and somehow those sides have stopped talking quite a while ago because what they're doing is fundamentally irreconcilable as what they share is equivoke terminology, not ideology. QED.

So: Throw out the terminology, re-do it from the ground up with a focus on precision and clarity and without regards for hysterical raisins.

Wait. Sorry, I’m trying to understand, are you saying you actually don’t think patriarchy exists in the West?

Yep, extremely dumb point they were trying to make.

same way if you’re a Leftist and critique Democrats or Hillary Clinton then they think you’re really a fascist mysogynist

Two questions:

1. which critiques?
2. If you don't want this country to be fascist or misogynist, how are your critiques helping?

It's not an issue of if there's any patriarchy, but that Universal and Mattel obviously limited how much the film makers could critique capitalism, corporatism, and this general issue of forced competitiveness (of which patriarchy is a symptom - make 10 people fight over 5 sticks, act surprised when whichever people end up grabbing the sticks first use them to leverage an advantage and beat down the others, and it eventually turns into things like patriarchy and white supremacy and class systems).

So instead the film has to pretend that patriarchy is the core issue, despite undermining that notion itself multiple times (eg. multiple powerless male characters in both worlds, Ken being unable to get a job, most of Gloria's grievances about being a woman being grievances many men share or basic human insecurities, etc.) The film even tries to lampshade some of its own shortcomings ("thanks, white saviour Barbie" and the line about Margot Robbie being the wrong casting choice).

Thematically, the film is a hot mess. It degenerates into bullshit twitter mottos and catchphrases from about 10 years ago and dance numbers instead of plot resolution.

If you're using this, of all movies, to "test" your boyfriends and partners - well a) testing your partners is not a great sign in itself, but also b) you may be an idiot.

Well, maybe they do what Albert Einstein did. You just tell your woman to do your laundry and then you mail her your clothes. Afterwards, you go cheat on her with your cousin.

Do you realize that some men don't think that women should have opinions about things like movies and how others think, right? Or, even worse, is that they aren't even aware that women might have opinions about things like this.