What's rising as patriarchy melts?

Lori Kane

04 Mar 2026 — 11 min read

We envy boundary-crossing butterflies these days and we celebrate all beings who play and work for freedom for themselves and neighbors simultaneously.

What's rising as patriarchy melts away? It's not matriarchy, exactly. Because matriarchy never left. She's already here... Some days, we sing with community or we create and exchange what we create, or we write in community to heal. Some days we have tea, supper, or long conversations with neighbors, friends, and extended family. We gift as a way of life now. We walk in the woods, taking advice from trees. We mentor and love parents here. We read and share great books, love our community centers and libraries, dance when we feel like dancing, we see great plays and support the arts and children, and we go to great concerts and hear amazing people who write hilarious songs of resilience and protest (go to 4:10 in this video to listen to my favorite hilarious resilience/protest song this year). We gather and feed those who need to eat with joy and without judgement, and we accept help when we need help. We're aware that we ourselves always need and receive help– we're a social, interconnected species– and that we're not alone. In good years, we plan our gardens, farms, orchards, foraging, habits, and lives so we can share abundance with neighbors. Or we train and learn to stand with vulnerable neighbors against well-armed fascists battered, bruised, and trained to not recognize themselves and other humans as human. We fight for the rights of neighbors and of children close to home and everywhere. We recognize the young as teachers, elders as beloved friends, and those lashing out as lost, alone, exhausted, abused, wounded, or starving. We follow and deeply appreciate the seasons, the sun on our faces, and the rain for forests and gardens and wildlife and all the rest of our selves. We never stop grieving and never stop playing and celebrating together, like life herself. We never for one second stop feeling grateful. Except, of course, in the moments we do...

In those moments, I try to silently hold the immense horrors of right now alone. Alone with all these horrors, can you imagine? That's patriarchy within capitalism in a nutshell today: handle it all alone, hide what you feel, shut up about it, and keep working and producing no matter what until you die exhausted having made billionaires richer. Some days, I try to hold all the genocides alone. The greedy billionaires, weapons makers, and oligarchs openly experimenting with population control, eugenics, and even mind control via bot farms and fake accounts online. I try to hold the existence of pedophiles who drop bombs on some children to distract us from their twisted need to rape and murder other children in private. And the ICE agents ignoring the constitution and laws, tinting their windows and covering their faces and license plates, and abusing, disappearing, and murdering our neighbors and families. For-profit prisons that make slavery possible for white supremacists. The people whose standards have dropped so off-the-charts low that they're content to profit from increasing the suffering of others. On those days– when I try to hold things alone– I often just need to scream. The patriarchy says I shouldn't feel and definitely shouldn't scream. But I'm not the patriarchy. Almost none of us are anymore. Huzzah! So sometimes, I do scream. And far more often than that, like a ship captain facing her ship into the wind, I write or singing directly into that feeling that I want to scream at all the man-made horrors. Create while screaming. Connect with others while screaming. Writing and singing both together and alone are my reliable boats in the storm. Community– especially community that sings, creates, plays, values sensitivity and gentleness and nonverbal communication, protects the vulnerable together, or offers tea, food, and a place to rest– is my both my lighthouse and my grounding anchor.

Who or what is your boat? Your lighthouse and your grounding anchor?
What are your natural ways of facing the winds of change that have become whole country- and planet-threatening storms?
What are you doing to drop the demands of patriarchy (or unreasonable demands on you and humanity in general, if you don't happen to believe in the particular word I'm using here)?

This poem– Patriarchy, Melting– began as a scream over the weekend. Our president was partying in his Florida castle while 175 girls in their school died pointlessly at the hands of the American military obeying his orders. Screaming with grief and sorrow is my body's true response to this. So I screamed– trusting my body far FAR more than the long-dead men who made the rule that screaming isn't ladylike or manly or whatever the fuck those assholes were thinking. I love writing poetry because poems show up like friends, gently and welcome and they walk right in and don't bother knocking. Poems stay with me into, through, and out onto the other side of a scream. Fully present. Like women and non-binary folks and trans folks, and like more and more men, I've noticed, tend to do now– one of the many strengths of softness + togetherness. This poem gets dark in the middle, because it's reflecting what's happening in our country and other genocide and war zones, and some of what's come to light in the Epstein files, and also this past weekend's bombing of yet another country and a girl's school to try to distract us from the fact that so many of our world leaders– the oligarchy or billionaire class or the parasite class as some bravely honest people call them now– are pedophiles. They're the most self-loathing, abusive, and cruel among us: people taught to believe and then who never had the true community to grow out of believing that being either the abuser or the abused are the only two options we humans have in this life. People who revel in the pain of children. They're not elite. They're not lucky. They're certainly not people we want to be anything like. They're just pedophiles and pedophile protectors. They're each still trapped in their own far-too-tight childhood straight jacket of horrific cross-generational abuse.

This poem and I– and you if you stick with us– end up elsewhere as the poem ends. We're both more present and more elsewhere together. Magic! Poetry is far more than screaming. Poetry is life pushing up from the soil toward the light. It's leaning on everything, even your own screams, as compost for beautiful life to rise. Poetry is life celebrating life. Every word. Every syllable, line, curiosity, darkness, wild hair, strangeness, rhythm, sorrow, shift, grief, scream, lilt, joy, rhyme, tangent, edit, crack, symbol, ancestor, pain, strange character, connection, space, and open light is a celebration of life. For me, poetry tends to break open my blind spots and reveal more of what's present. The joy comes not necessarily in our fumbling human attempts to heal or fix or improve things but instead simply in the unwavering insistence on being our/your whole strange, messy, wandering, and wonderful selves. I'm a poem. This is me. I may be different, they say. Deal with it. And we do. Because we're a little or a whole lot different, at heart, too. So welcome, poem. Show us what we know but can't fully see while being too well behaved. What's rising?

Patriarchy, Melting

*[drip]

Bros online and IRL
complaining about a loneliness epidemic–
screaming at young women and girls
that they’ll become crazy cat women
old and alone
if they're not careful.

But women have each other. We have
friends, neighbors, children, books, gardens, creation, joy,
play, work, sunsets, rivers, and adventure.
We have life herself.
And we love cats (and/or dogs).

We don’t grow old alone, kiddos.

- That’s abusive straight men.

*[drip]

Manosphere online
podcasters
preaching daily
that women are monsters,
gold diggers, too independent, too soft
too emotional, too cruel, too smart and educated,
sluts, and somehow, also, way too picky.
And that women can’t be raped
by their spouses once they’re married. Ew. And worse,
that men own women—property can't have free will—
so we can’t be raped at all.
"You're body. Our choice." they screech.
Then, manosphere, insisting
on brutal repeat
that
women
absolutely must
lower their standards.
That the population is declining and.
Surprise. That's our fault, too.

Yet women who love themselves
and each other
and who have each other's backs–
now and always–
don’t do that.
We don't lower our standards.
For the sake of our species (yeah, we care that big),
we really shouldn't.
And we don't have to lower our standards.
Not anymore.

- That’s chronically isolated young men
who turn to abusive, isolated, lonely older men
for answers.

*[drip]

Fascists in the streets from Gaza
to Minneapolis. Throwing nerve gas
at families, civilians. Terrorizing and murdering.
Making searches and seizures
without judicial warrants, breaking the law
of the land.

Screaming at mom brigades
neighbors and aid workers
get out of the way
just
let them take and torture and kill
the most vulnerable among us.
As if we didn't just spend
the past few years
decades
and millennia
watching that never, ever work.
Insisting women
just shut up and comply
with pure oozing evil
or look away.

Yeah, women together
and here in the streets?
We don’t do that.
Period.

- You're thinking of men.

*[drip]

Melting pile of presidential delusion
praising male athletes and
twying so vewy hawd
to dis
and dim
the women
who bring joy to the world
and who also brought home
the most gold medals
this winter.
Ha!

Dude's somehow still believing
that
free women
aka, ride-or-die sisters
of women everywhere,
give a shit about your words.
Poor Crumbling Dementor Pedophile McPoopPants.
Free women stopped listening to you
six decades ago. Women knew.
We've always known.
We pass stories of men like you on
in our speech
in our writing
in our stitching
in our cooking
in our comedy
in our songs
on the wind
across the sky
through the trees
and in our bones.

No bootlickers here, pumpkin.

- Once again, that’s men.
Specifically, your either weak or deceiving you, yes men.
(And ok, yes, a few dead-eyed Mar-a-lago-faced
plastic dolls propped up behind you.
With eerie Botox-enhanced smiles
needled onto their fronts with
blood dripping down
their backsides, the
smiling mannequins.
All will be under a bus shortly
or stabbed in the back soon enough.
Even the dead-eyed can see
if not admit
that much.)

*[drip, drip]

Billionaire pedophiles
you who think
you run
you think
the world you who
think
everything
from child rape
to cannibalism
to mass murder on a global scale —
are yours to experiment with
without accountability
or repercussions for
you
think
who install
and think
creepy clueless yes-men atop
departments of justice, health, & education
you actually think/believe
that we'll just crumble too
and not know what to do.
With the likes of you.

Sorry, big guys.
Think again.

- That’s your paid yes men
con men
and abused women,
who will turn on you
in a hummingbird's heartbeat
if given even the slightest chance.
And, oh snap, and here comes
another chance. Here comes
all your tariffs deemed illegal
other countries prosecuting pedophiles and
Minneapolis singing
It's Ok to Change Your Mind to ICE agents
and about to win a Nobel Peace Prize.
Every day's another chance.
We're coming for them with songs and open arms now.
With inflatable frogs, joy, playful elders, fully trusted children
the global love, rage, and hive-like organizing capacity of women.
Minds are changing
every day now.
Will this be the day
they turn on you?
Or maybe tomorrow?
Or the day after that?
No wonder you don't like to
think.

*[drip, drip, drip...]

Billionaire tech bros and weapons creators and dealers
pushing AI, data centers,
more efficient concentration camps,
and all control and surveillance tech
down our throats now
like your
Epstein pedophile buddies did
to trafficked children
some of whom
had their teeth removed
so they couldn't bite.
Yes, you read that right.

We will be keeping our teeth.
We'll never stop using our voices to protect all children.
We stand with the women whose collective courage
has cast an eclipse across the planet–
larger, now, than even the sun.
We don't pull our punches for cruel men anymore.
We're kinder than ever to everyone else.
Children across the globe have suffered enough
and enough and enough and.
Enough.

You think you’ve broken us
but our strong and soft hearts connect more deeply
every time they break. And they break daily now.
We chose the heart break, as community, to not become like you.
So you, buds whose logic leads nowhere
but circling a rusty old drain
are the last
remaining
truly isolated humans of earth.
That's not strong. Think.
And it's so deluded
you don't even notice that
history is already repeating herself
and this time
teaching all the men, too.
Men who feel. Men who notice. Men who care.
Men who can see that only fools would try to hold this much bullshit alone.
You don’t seem to understand
that the life-draining fascist ways you emulate
always
implode
in the end. Fascists, like racists, are hated.
They can cheat to get ahead
but always lose big.
Fascist leaders usually die horribly,
betrayed and alone. Like they began. Having spent a lifetime
unable to learn how wonderful the living are.

So, feel.
How can humans be so sadly disconnected from
life herself, from planet,
mother, her beating heart
and the seasons?
Feel.
So disinclined to just listen, love, laugh,
believe neighbors
and even care about neighbors?
Feel.
That's what humans do!
Feel!
Do you truly believe that caring about
only one always-angry-and-abusive self
while screwing over everyone else on earth
could possible fly anymore? Wow.
That's beyond deluded. So far beyond
in fact
that that's...

- Not men. That's not even most white men. Not anymore.
Men listen. Men learn. Men grow. Men heal.
Men feel. Truly strong men feel it all– together.
Take back all the emotions and options stolen from them, too.
Men are beautiful, sensitive spirits.
People who feel what we feel
so they know when to listen,
follow, wonder, ask, weep, ask for help, learn, let go
and help.
Like all the rest of us.
Free women choose and give birth to really good men
again and again and again.
As it turns out, we all get to win in the end
if we're free.

Angry billionaire tech bros,
you’re villains. Wildly self-abusing, neglected
delusional children trapped in men's bodies
who don't learn so just keep lashing out.
Who’ve never faced and held abuse, as community, together.
Never faced and sung to your pain together
in company or congregation
until tears of gratitude fall
onto your rapidly dampening toes.
Felt empathy, gratitude, and belonging flood
through you
like a tsunami.
That’s not men.
That’s narcissists, psychopaths, abusers, murderers.
That's billionaires who think they'll somehow win
by destroying earth
and freedom
and humanity
without ever really knowing
what our true nature
is.

Even your own AI
born from imperialism and
theft from the world's online creatives
isn't that stupid, fellas.
Nobody in their right minds
idolizes slave catchers, Nazi generals,
and their faster-and-more-pointless-death-bringing doctors and scientists.
Not even machines.
They're not our dystopian future.
YOU
are our dystopian
past.
Breathing
his last
sad
lonely
greedy
breath.

Tick tock, fellas.

*[tick, tock]

- Human nature is of earth, sky, and water. We feel and we stand
with plants, animals, indigenous folks and immigrants, trans folk,
Black women, Latinas, librarians, butterflies, birds, rainbows,
learning from history, neighbors, and children. Generosity. Love.
We love to play. Wonder. Learn. We grow.
Because humanity is just life.
And life?
Baby, she grows!
Aware that she's connected
to everyone present!

Can't you hear us all singing?
We're singing almost everywhere now.
Ask your friends about singing resistance
or search for "singing resistance" online
and just listen to hear what I mean.
Join us!

We want friendship, expanding community,
connection, imagination, wonder, curiosity,
gentleness, mystery, adventure, openness, generosity, freedom for all.
Everything life on Earth both offers and requires of us.
We recognize life and power
in all people's hands.
And even more life and power
in the land we love,
tend, honor
and return to.

*[drippity drop, boys, pippity pop]

Patriarchy melting isn’t the end of men.
It’s the lived experience of true belonging
and faith in all humanity
including men
again.

It's you.
Getting to be your whole, true, real self.
Releasing the self that you were
commanded
harassed
belittled
isolated
mocked
bruised
bullied
beaten
fooled
raped
or otherwise
hurt
into being.

Men already being
your real, weird, adorable, and remarkable selves,
we’re so glad you're here.
Some have waited more than 10,000 years
for you to return to yourselves. And to us.
To join the living again.
So welcome, brave friends.
Dear brothers, come in.
Life's so much better–
life's so much more fun,
glorious even,
with you fully here
and you, finally, fully free
to be the real you.
Feels great to be a
you-get-to-do-you-too, boo.