Patriarchy is like a game in which you can’t pick your own difficulty level.
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The game loads, and you see yourself. This is your character for the entire game; there are no re-starts.
Next, your character is assigned which difficulty level he/she will be playing. Some examples: Trans* (+1 difficulty). Male (-1 difficulty). Middle-Class (-1 difficulty). Minority (+1 difficulty). You get the idea.
How the game is played
I’ve never played a girl character, so I only know about it from watching others play. So, let’s say someone is playing a heterosexual, cisgender man character in Patriarchy: The Game. That’s pretty much the lowest difficulty setting (not accounting for economic factors). This is who the game was designed for. The thing about Patriarchy: The Game, though, is that the programmers were really damn lazy. There’s pretty much only one quest line in the game. It’s this super narrow road that your character walks down, and occasionally, there are some monsters to fight, but most of the monsters are off in the forests beside the road attacking the characters on higher difficulty levels. The most insidious part of Patriarchy Parkway is how thick the woods are; if you’re not looking, you won’t even see the characters not allowed on the easy road.
Your character has fights of his own along the road, but the big boss battles take place in the woods. If you want, you can just mosey on down Patriarchy Parkway and ignore the monsters. Or, you can leave the road but, if you do, your own difficulty level is going to start to rise.
Venturing away from Patriarchy Parkway
Leaving the road happens in one of two ways: either you choose to leave the road to help the other players fighting monsters or the game forces you off the road.
The game will force a player off Patriarchy Parkway for a variety of reasons. If a guy character wears the wrong costume (a girl character’s outfit is a quick way to get booted), he can be forced off the road. Another surefire way is to pick the wrong class of character: guy characters should be warrior-class; healer-class is for girl characters. Guy characters who leave Patriarchy Parkway to help fight monsters aren’t usually allowed back; the road is very narrow. There’s only one way to play the game and stay on Patriarchy Parkway.
Some ways to gain access to Patriarchy Parkway
There are ways for characters with higher difficulty levels to get on Patriarchy Parkway, but they have to complete a few quests first. For example, a girl character can ally with a guy character in a battle with a queer character. That’s a good way. Or a gay character can refuse to ally with trans* characters in battle. A gay character on Patriarchy Parkway would be advised to ally himself with a guild that opposes alliances between gay characters. A girl character could ally herself with a guy character already on the road. When this happens, the girl character will lose many of her controls in the game, but playing will be much easier.
Other Quests
There are other roads in Patriarchy: The Game, coded by brave hackers. There’s Feminism Freeway, LGBT* Lane, Civil Rights Street, and many others. Oftentimes, these roads intersect. They’re much wider than Patriarchy Parkway; there are many ways to play. However, they’re much more dangerous. The developers of Patriarchy are constantly creating monsters to fight against characters walking on other roads.
We’re all playing this game, whether we want to or not. Now, go out and fight some monsters.