frightening thought

You know Mercedes Lackey's Five Hundred Kingdoms, where The Tradition goes
about trying to make people's lives conform to Traditional stories? Which
generally look like familiar (to people of that tradition) fairy tales,
folklore, and mythology?

These are not stories that are known for their feminist bent.

That storyverse could easily be one in which the kyriarchy has attained
sentience, maybe even sapience, and is deliberately
self-reinforcing.