The Rebranding of Submission is just Patriarchy with better PR

Submission is having a rebrand. Suddenly, celebrities and influencers are packaging it as empowerment, reworking it into respect, and re-selling it as trust. I’ve had enough. I’ve been pretty public on social about my standpoint on submission in romantic relationships, and I’ll say it again here: I have never regarded any of my partners, past or present, as authority figures in my life. Any partnership with an authority figure is not a partnership. It’s a hierarchy.

I grew up in a world where submission wasn’t just a word. It was the expectation. A child is to yield to their parents. A wife was supposed to yield to her husband. And as a teenager, I started to notice the cracks. The same man who raised me to be ambitious and career-driven was also the one who believed that once I got married, all of that should take a backseat to “my husband’s authority.” There was a moment when I was 15, sitting in church with my family, when I got visibly angry at a sermon about “God’s ordained plan of submission and headship for a Godly household.” My mom kept whispering, “What’s wrong?” and my dad cut in with, “She didn’t like that submission stuff again.” He was right. I didn’t, and I never would.

After seeing a series of viral videos circulating on my feed about submission, I figured it was time to actually rant in a more formal format lol — a blog. The funniest thing about all of it is most of what people are describing as submission is not even what submission means. We’re conflating words, making up new definitions, and frankly I’ve had it.

So let’s clear this up right now:

• Submission means yielding to authority.

• Trust means a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone.

• Respect means deep admiration for someone’s qualities or achievements.

You can trust your partner. You can respect your partner. But you can do both without yielding to their authority. A partner should not have authority over your life. That is literally, by definition, not a partnership.

“Mutual submission” framed as “going with the flow” and lack of resistance = trust.

The interview with Wolf Taylor tries to sell submission as trust, but what he’s really describing is compliance. He says a woman’s submission looks like a lack of resistance, just going with the flow. If he says, “I think we should do this,” she should agree because of his consistency and character. If he says, “I don’t think we should do that,” she should trust him enough to drop it.

And here’s the truth: that is what submission means. Submission literally means yielding to authority, so “whatever he says goes” is the textbook definition. What’s off here is the rebrand. He’s trying to convince us that this dynamic is trust, when in reality it’s hierarchy.

Then he throws in, “I’ll submit to her too,” like that somehow balances things out. No. That’s not how words work. If you both “submit” to each other, then nobody is the authority, which means submission isn’t happening at all. What you’re describing is listening, compromising, and considering each other’s perspectives. That’s partnership. Submission requires an authority figure. If you admit you both have equal say, you’ve already disproven your own argument.

The funniest part is that most of what he describes, like hearing each other out, taking suggestions seriously, and having dialogue, isn’t submission at all. That’s just basic partnership. If my partner suggests we start going to the gym and I agree, that doesn’t mean I submitted to his authority. It means I thought it was a good idea. If he suggests moving to a city that isn’t appealing to me, and I say that wouldn’t work for me, that doesn’t mean I don’t trust him. It means I have agency.

The rebrand here is subtle but dangerous. It praises women for not resisting, as if trust equals silence and care equals compliance. But disagreement is not mistrust, and resistance is not betrayal. Sometimes resistance is exactly what makes a relationship strong. If your partner suggests a move that would tank your financial stability, and you resist, that’s protecting the relationship from unnecessary harm. If you resist being silenced in conflict, you’re showing that honesty matters more than false harmony. If you resist compliance just to prove “trust,” you’re reinforcing that trust is built on truth, not obedience. A suggestion that requires your automatic agreement was never a suggestion. It was an order.

At the end of the day, what Wolf Taylor is selling isn’t trust, it’s obedience with a prettier label. You don’t need to rename partnership as submission to make it sound profound. Partnership already exists. It is two people with equal voices, equal agency, and equal power to say yes or no. Submission erases that balance. It replaces choice with compliance and respect with hierarchy. And if your love only works when someone yields to your authority, then what you have isn’t love. It’s control.

Submission as “respect”/“mindfulness,” ….

Ciara takes the rebrand in a softer direction. She insists submission is important, but frames it as mindfulness. She says she still has a voice, she still has confidence, but she tempers herself so she doesn’t come in “too hot” with her husband. She calls this respect. She adds that as long as a man makes you feel sure and safe, being submissive feels good.

In this particular clip, mindfulness, respect, and submission are all conflated into one blurry concept as if they are interchangeable.

This is the exact rebrand that makes my skin crawl. It’s compliance disguised as care. I know this performance all too well. I’ve been in spaces where I softened my voice, calculated how to phrase my feelings, and shrank myself just enough to keep the peace. I told myself I was being respectful. What I was really doing was censoring myself so someone else’s ego could stay intact, and that wasn’t about respect at all.

Words mean things. Respect does not mean submission. Respect means having a deep admiration for someone’s qualities or achievements. When you admire the qualities of a partner, for instance, how loving and caring they are, you are mindful of how you speak to them, especially avoiding being unnecessarily harsh or abrasive in your tone. But being mindful of how you communicate does not make you submissive, because that mindfulness does not mean you are yielding to your partner’s authority. That’s just basic communication, emotional intelligence, and care in how you show up in a relationship.

But when you take those relational skills and slap the word submission on top, you’re not redefining the word. You’re confusing it. Submission doesn’t mean choosing your words thoughtfully, it means yielding to authority. And when we blur those lines, we trick ourselves into thinking submission is something positive or even necessary, when in reality it has nothing to do with respect at all.

Calling mindfulness submission doesn’t elevate submission, it cheapens respect. You don’t have to respect someone to yield to their authority. You do not have to submit to someone to show you respect them.

Sacrifice as a Sales Pitch for Patriarchy

Then there’s Quentin Jiles, who doesn’t even bother with a soft rebrand. He goes straight for the old script: “You are the head. You are the leader. You are the man of the home. You set the tone. You are responsible for the success or downfall of that household.”

“You are the head.” Who granted that role, and on what basis? Anatomy is not a hiring committee. Headship granted by gender is circular logic dressed as duty.

“You set the tone.” In practice, that means one person defines what counts as respectful, how conflict is handled, how budgets are decided, which church is chosen, when guests are welcome, what time the house sleeps, and what qualifies as a good attitude. Setting the tone is power over the air everyone has to breathe.

“You are responsible for success or downfall.” This framing does two things at once. It burdens men with outcomes they cannot control, which breeds control-freak behavior. It erases women’s agency, so their dissent can be labeled sabotage. In headship doctrine, disagreement becomes insubordination by default.

The bait-and-switch is sacrifice. He packages authority as burden. He implies that because a man is willing to sacrifice, he has earned the right to lead. That sounds noble. It is also a trap. Real sacrifice is an act of care, not a job title. When you take sacrifice and attach it to headship, you’re not elevating love, you’re elevating authority.

Sacrifice is supposed to be about mutual care- I give, you give, we both bend and balance for the good of the relationship. But in headship doctrine, sacrifice is rebranded into proof that men deserve control. It becomes a bargaining chip: because I “sacrifice,” I get the final say. Because I “carry the burden,” I set the rules. That is not sacrifice. That is entitlement with better PR.

And it’s dangerous because it sounds noble. Who doesn’t want a man to be responsible, to sacrifice, to carry weight for his family? But beneath that packaging is the same toxic idea: that by virtue of being a man, you get to be the leader.

At the end of the day, Quentin isn’t describing partnership. He’s describing ownership with a shiny bow on top. A marriage where one person’s authority is baked into the vows is not an equal marriage. It’s a contract for obedience.

Love doesn’t need a head. Partnership doesn’t need a hierarchy. And if your marriage requires one person to be in charge, regardless if they deem themselves sacrificial, then what you’re building isn’t a home. It’s a kingdom.

Consideration does not mean Control

Within a healthy partnership, you make decisions with your partner in mind. That’s not to say they control you. It means you understand the responsibility of what sharing your life with someone actually entails. It means recognizing that your choices ripple outward, that your actions can impact the person you’ve chosen to build with.

But here’s the key: that recognition never cancels out your agency. You both still have choice. You both still have a voice. And you can honor one another’s needs without collapsing into a hierarchy.

I’m not talking about the frivolous things like what you wear, how you style your hair, or whether you go out with your friends. Those are not up for discussion. What I’m talking about are the shared decisions that shape a life together: Do we move cities? How do we handle finances? Do we want children, and if so, how do we want to raise them? These are conversations that require input, compromise, and mutual care.

That’s what a healthy partnership looks like, not one person dictating the rules, but two people co-creating a life. It’s not about submission. It’s about shared responsibility, mutual respect, and the understanding that love isn’t proven through compliance. It’s proven through consideration.

I’m the most autonomous person I know. I’m asexual and polyamorous, and I scoff at the idea of exclusivity. I love my space. I love disappearing into new cities for extended periods of time. I love variety, newness, and the freedom to write my own script for love and connection. I thrive on independence, but here’s the thing- that independence has never made me less lovable or less capable of commitment. If anything, it has made my relationships richer, because the people I choose to share myself with know they are chosen freely, not out of obligation or control.

And in every decision I make, I consider how these things will affect my partner or partners. I communicate in a way that centers clarity, respect, and care, because autonomy and consideration can coexist. My choices are mine, but they are never made without awareness of how they touch the people I love.

so how can a relationship work without a leader?

We do it all the time.

Think about your friendships. Are you the authority of your friendship just because you planned the group trip? Or are you simply the most organized, and your friends trusted you with the itinerary? When you and a friend have to make a decision and you choose to go with their idea, are you yielding to their authority? Of course not. You’re just choosing the option that makes the most sense.

We make decisions in our friendships and family relationships every single day without needing a hierarchy. Yet somehow, when it comes to men and women in a romantic context, we suddenly pretend that one person has to be crowned leader for the relationship to function. That is not true. It has never been true.

Partnership does not require submission. It requires mutual trust, respect, communication, and the ability to both lead and follow depending on the situation. Sometimes you plan the trip. Sometimes they plan the trip. Sometimes you compromise. Sometimes you disagree. None of that requires someone to be the permanent head of the household.

Wolf Taylor tried to tell us that submission is just trust, but all he described was compliance. He also wove in describing a healthy partnership dynamic built on communication and mutual understanding but coined it “mutual submission.” Ciara conflated mindfulness, respect, and submission until they blurred into one soft-edged concept that cheapens the meaning of respect. And Quentin Jiles doubled down on headship, dressing patriarchal authority in the clothes of sacrifice and responsibility.

But relationships are not auditions for who gets to be in charge. If you need submission to make love work, what you have is not partnership. It is hierarchy. And hierarchy has no business being dressed up as romance.

Love doesn’t need submission. Love doesn’t need a head. Love needs choice.