“They” control all the wars, the media, the banking system. “They” don’t want you to know that they, through their web of power, pull all the strings. From the highest positions of power, through global domination, nothing goes on without their permission. You already know who I’m talking about, don’t you? Our oppressors!
Men!
Don’t call me crazy, that’s just what they want you to do, that’s how they oppress us!
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, debunked a million times over that conspiracy wing-nuts keep rehashing. Similarly, “The Patriarchy” is an anti-male conspiracy. Likewise a million times debunked, that conspiracy wing-nuts also keep rehashing. Replace what you may have heard from a conspiracy theorist and substitute, Illuminati, Reptilians or Zionist for Men and bingo, you’re a feminist.
If you’ve ever met a die-hard conspiracy theorist, you may have thought that pointing out a few things that would debunk the theory might disabuse them of their paranoia. Yet, reason is rebuffed in favor of ad hoc explanations. This is because the conspiracy theorist sees through tunnel vision, cherry picks supporting data and discards what doesn’t fit their conspiracy. It does no good to argue with them. You’ll feel like wanting to bang your head against the wall, or worse, they’ll point their finger at you and start weaving you into their delusion.
For example, a person who believes “The Patriarchy” is patriarching them in their brain, might point to the fact that women are raped as proof of “The Patriarchy.” If you point out that men are raped much more often than women; more often molested as children, raped in prison, and countless males mutilated within days of being born, that’s slides right off their back. They already have a male rape apologetic ready to go for rape “against you people.” You see, they start weaving you into their delusion. “You people had it coming” because Patriarchy.
Patriarchy means there is always a man to blame. We draft our men by the millions to be slaves of war and die torturous deaths? “But that’s men fighting other men!” We might be quick to point out that they had no choice but to fight. “Yeah, but it’s men that sent them!” The anti-male conspiracy theorist often has the gendercide apologetics well rehearsed. We see that at every level, every atrocity that we see: Because of Patriarchy, there is always a man to blame, and that justifies the hatred of men and indifference to their suffering.
Let’s imagine this, just for our own illustrations. A conspiracy theorist would go into a psychotic break if you explained it this way, but just for a moment imagine some women mud wrestling. Now, this isn’t the best example, because they aren’t forced under law to mud wrestle, but it is women against women. Would the anti-male conspiracy theorist be okay with this being explained by “But it’s women against women!”
Of course not, because Patriarchy! There’s always a man to blame. Someone, some man is making money off of it. Oh, the money goes only to the mud wrestlers? “Well, they are wrestling for the men!” Just like the men dying in war are motivated to die for the women? To the anti-male conspiracy theorist, just keep going up a level until you find a man to blame.
Men constitute the majority of victims of almost all social ills; rape, murder, genital mutilation, sexual torture, suicide, assault, workplace deaths, drug abuse, depression.. That’s by no means exhaustive. All an anti-male bigot has to say is “Patriarchy” and then these transform from social ills to just desserts.
I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on a funny side to the anti-male conspiracy theories: The odd remedies to thwart or “Smash the Patriarchy.” The problem of “The Patriarchy” is simple: there’s a worldwide conspiracy of men to blame for everything. The solution is where the clearest insanity is brought out. The deluded solutions include dressing up as vaginas, smearing period blood all over their faces, shouting down church services with topless protests, and how can we forget hashtag activism like #KillAllMen.
We really can’t reach the conspiracy theorists already swallowed up by hateful anti-male bigotry. Though we can help change the culture of hate and indifference towards men. Instead of a blame-a-man attitude, we can point out when a man needs help and help him when no one else will. Men matter, men’s lives matter, their rights matter. We can remind people that men are good, men are human beings with feelings, rights and their own struggles, with issues that matter.
