I never realised how intolerant I’ve become of patriarchy until recently.

My dad and step-mom have been staying with us for the past two weeks. My ever graceful, considerate, kind-hearted step-mom has been diligently ensuring that a hearty breakfast is delivered to my home office every day.

What I had assumed was that everyone was having the same breakfast, until one morning I came out my office only to realise that just my dad and I had this breakfast prepared for us.

Not since the riots earlier this year have I had a sudden rush of a concoction of debilitating emotions all at the same time. How could this happen in my own household, I raged internally? Simultaneously, I knew my step-mom had done this with all the best intentions. It felt like the stench of patriarchy had kicked me hard in my stomach.

Here is the thing: a few years ago I would not have made much of this. It’s amazing how we, humankind, have the capacity to be so blinded by injustice hiding in plain sight, right before our eyes.

Anyway, later I spoke to my wife about this. I told her I could never allow this to happen in my household. To my astonishment, my wife told me to leave this to her. In her words, I was trying to use a patriarchal mindset, “not in my house”, to sort out a patriarchal injustice issue.

She was right, of course. I would probably have failed to get my step-mom to understand my point and would most likely have left her in a state of dissonance as well.

Once more, I realised that I still need to develop a language to get people to understand the cost of patriarchy to our society.