Is Patriarchy Corporate America's Costliest Blind Spot? This Expert Weighs In

Forbes

2 days ago

Close-up photo of Dr. Tubbs holding book 'Erased.'
Research suggests that companies with diverse leadership teams produce over 19% higher innovation revenue compared to non-diverse teams, yet global and U.S. averages for women in senior leadership roles float between 28% and 34% in recent years. After approximately $8 billion spent annually on diversity training, the numbers haven't budged, and Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs believes that this is not a coincidence. The Cambridge-educated anthropologist and bestselling author of The Three Mothers argues in her latest work, Erased, that patriarchy isn't a relic of the past or a women's issue but a business crisis disguised as progress.
'The things that we have lost as a result of a desire to protect American patriarchy have not been by mistake but have been intentional. The erasure of mothers in my first book was not an accident but rather a deliberate omission,' Tubbs said. 'Many historians and scholars felt it necessary to exclude women from their accounts of men's lives. When we understand it that way, rather than as something that just happens naturally over time, we're more aware of what we're up against in terms of the desire to maintain a social order and to erase anything that proves we can choose other options.'
This same pattern of deliberate exclusion didn't end with history books but seeped into corporate culture, eventually making its way into boardrooms and performance reviews and strategic planning sessions.
Tubbs also rejects the idea that patriarchy is outdated and, instead, presents it as a part of a larger, more insidious system. Think about the last board meeting where a woman's concerns about market risk got dismissed as 'overthinking,' or when relationship-building skills got labeled 'soft' while aggressive negotiation tactics were called 'strategic.' These aren't isolated but collectively form symptoms of what Tubbs calls 'American patriarchy,' a term she uses to distinguish the specific system that emerged from the founding fathers' post-Revolutionary War anxiety about maintaining control.
According to Tubbs, modern patriarchy is not a personal failing but a structural problem. 'If we think about it as a system rather than a person's fault, we realize how all of us have been hurt by it,' she said. This framing avoids the defensive posturing that typically derails diversity conversations in corporate settings, and instead of finger-pointing, it redirects attention toward structural barriers, those that constrain organizational potential.
Applying Tubbs' framework to corporate settings reveals how patriarchy becomes self-sabotaging at the institutional level. When companies fail to recognize and address patterns of exclusion, they perpetuate cycles that limit their potential for growth, scaling, and adaptation. The cost of this can be far-reaching and is only reinforced because other unlikely groups contribute to it.
'Patriarchs are not only men,' Tubbs emphasizes. 'There are many women, people of color and immigrants who are protecting this social order.'
Patriarchy is not a new topic of conversation, especially not in corporate conversations, but Tubbs pushes for something that goes beyond simple recognition. She's asking executives to look at their last five major product failures and ask themselves if a more diverse leadership team would have seen the blind spots coming.
'We cannot build a nation where women have power over men because that's not what I'm advocating for, but instead a nation where we each have power vested in us,' Tubbs said.
For business, this vision translates into cultures where different voices and perspectives aren't just tolerated but actively pursued as competitive and valuable, as opposed to being yet another diversity metric.
'We have to be completely aware at all times that we cannot be neutral, because our American systems are not neutral,' Tubbs said. The observation cuts through corporate rhetoric and exposes how being neutral itself can become a form of complicity. The companies that get this right will tap into market opportunities that their competitors miss. For some companies, the biggest threat to innovation isn't in Silicon Valley but the unchecked bias around their boardroom table.