Holy Heretics: Losing Religion and Finding Jesus · The Sophia Society

Nice Churchy Patriarchy w/Liz Cooledge Jenkins

·49 min·3 clips

Patriarchal masculinity can be "violent" and based in domination, aggression, and competition.

Gary Allen Taylor opens the conversation with Liz Jenkins around a straightforward question: how patriarchy gets dismantled without pretending the harm is abstract. The episode frames patriarchy as a system that centers men at the expense of women and pushes aside people who do not fit white, cisgender, male, heteronormative expectations. Liz argues that most people do not fit the gender boxes patriarchy builds, and that the boxes themselves cause real damage. She describes the dominant model of masculinity as violent, competitive, and shaped by domination. That model hurts women, but it also harms men by pressuring them to perform traits that are not good for people or communities. The discussion stays close to ordinary life. It moves into marriage, chores, and the division of labor at home. Liz and Gary talk about how egalitarian values can sound clear in theory but still need constant checking in practice. A couple has to keep asking whether the arrangement actually feels fair to each person. That means paying attention to the beliefs absorbed from family, the wider world, and everyday social pressure. Even people who did not grow up in particularly conservative homes still inherit those scripts through TV, movies, books, and ordinary cultural life. The episode treats that inheritance as persistent, not mysterious. It takes effort to swim upstream against it, and the work does not end once a couple has named its values. Gary shares a personal example from his own marriage. In his house, he folds clothes and irons while Jennifer and her father handle tools, repairs, and cabinet work. The family history around that arrangement is not entirely smooth, since his father-in-law initially resented and mocked it. Still, the story lands as a small proof that nontraditional labor patterns can become normal when people live them openly. From there, Gary pivots toward a biblical angle on patriarchy and egalitarianism. The conversation asks whether those categories support faithfulness or prop up a hierarchy of oppression. The episode closes by framing patriarchy not as an isolated issue but as part of a larger web of power and harm.

As heard by us

A clear-eyed conversation about patriarchy, masculinity, and the work of making egalitarian values real.

The discussion treats patriarchy as a lived system rather than a slogan, and it asks what happens when gender roles harden into moral law. It moves from the obvious harm of domination and aggressive masculinity to the quieter injury done when people are forced into roles that do…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play if you want patriarchy named plainly and masculinity taken apart with care in a Christian frame.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Holy Heretics: Losing Religion and Finding Jesus