The hard thing to imagine is the in-between time. These two plots are so opposite one another that in the middle of switching between the two the patriarchy must’ve had a coup, or had a meeting where the head of the patriarchy laid down the law and everyone tied the line, or there was mass confusion. Did the old patriarchs get replaced by new patriarchs with a new plot? Did they purposefully change their plot and women currently are unwittingly playing their game? Did they just give in to the inevitable and then devise a new plot?
Or, less succinctly -- that there isn't an actual literal plot, there's just people reacting to incentives, and those incentives change?