Matriarchy is not about women having power over men.
It's about power and freedom for everyone.
The literal meaning of the word patriarchy is rule of the father, and matriarchy is rule of the mother. However, patriarchal societies and matriarchal societies are very different concepts, and they are not the opposite of one another.
In a patriarchal societies, men have more power and use it to oppress women. Power is maintained in a hierarchy, with people at the top controlling those below them. In matriarchal societies, women and men share power and have mutual respect for each other's roles. Women and men are recognized as having differences, but those differences are not used as a basis for oppression.
For this reason, when many feminists talk about tearing down the patriarchy, they are not proposing to control men in the same way that men have controlled women. They are instead dreaming of a society in which they have equal power and rights.
An extreme example of patriarchy is found in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has revoked the rights and freedoms of all women in the country. Their government is 100% male and 0% female. The United States has always been a patriarchy, with men vastly outnumbering women in power for all of its history. Our government is currently 72% male and 28% female.
Importantly, while there are countless examples of patriarchal societies that have oppressed women, there are no examples of matriarchal societies that have oppressed men. Rather, in most matriarchal societies studied throughout history, women and men have been seen as equals. Matriarchy can therefore be closer to true democracy than patriarchy, because all people's voices are more fairly heard.
If you are a man who values inequality and using power to control the rights of others, then you are a man for patriarchy. If you are a man who values equality, democracy, freedom, and shared power for all, then you are a man for matriarchy.
