Kyriarchy

[F]eminist theologies must adopt a social analytic that can break through the sex/gender system's totalizing and mystifying dualistic frame of reference. An analytic of kyriarchy rather than simply an analytic of gender, I argued, provides a more adequate conceptual tool of analysis.

The idea of kyriarchy or kyriocentrism acknowledges the complex interstructures of domination that include sexist practices and social arrangements but contextualizes and situates them within a wider scope of oppression.

I have argued that patriarchy must be re-conceptualized as kyriarchy, a neologism which is derived from the Greek kyrios (lord, master, father, husband) and the verb archein (to rule, dominate). […] Kyriarchy is best theorized as a complex pyramidal system of intersecting multiplicative social structures of superordination and subordination, of ruling and oppression. Kyriarchal relations of domination are built on elite male property rights as well as on the exploitation, dependency, inferiority, and obedience of wo/men.

As a Palestinian woman, she [Jean Zaru] has experienced what Asian postcolonial feminist theologian Kwok Pui Lan names as the multiple kyriarchies (or interlocking layers of oppressions) faced by those in colonized lands.

Kyriarchy considers the power structures that intersectionality produces (Osborne, 2015). Kyriarchy concerns structural power and refers to social systems that dominate and oppress.