Experience has taught me that women are considered as the glue to any social system. They are what holds it together, despite the cracks that inevitably start to develop within any political or social system. Philosopher Moira Gatens says that patriarchy considers women as the dogs outside the city gates, warning the real humans, the males inside the city, of any approaching dangers, by their howling. But that is a slightly different analogy to the one I want to put forward, which is that women are considered to be glue.
Glue has a certain texture -- it is viscous (mushy) and transforms its shape to fit between existing hard shapes to hold them together. The hard shapes are not supposed to adapt to fit the "glue" -- which wouldn't make any sense -- but rather vice versa.
I find that generally within political and social systems, women are expected to be the glue. If there is a crack in the system, a systemic quality of dysfunction within it, women can be used to hide this. One can appeal, for instance, to women's supposedly volatile nature and claim that they caused the cracks appearing in the system. That way, the system can just go on, dysfunctional as it is, with women's "nature" acting as the glue. (Of course women do not really have negative attributes, but it is necessary to suggest that they do, if you want to use women as "glue")
Women are also compelled to function as glue to the degree that they are believed to be more empathetic than male humans. They are compelled to function as glue to the degree that they believe the system is worth saving -- which, generally, it isn't.
"Watch my back, but I will not watch yours!" says the male who wants women to function as glue. "I'm sure you care that the system we are in should not fall apart and that we should act as a team. So watch my back. But I'm sorry, I'm in no fit mood to reciprocate. My testosterone is getting to me."
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