The Patriarchy is in Cahoots with the Illuminati

Oppression never looked so good.

Isaac Asimov, one of the “Big Three” science fiction writers of the 20^th century wrote in "The Relativity of Wrong":

"When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together".

In Part I of our look at “feminism”* we saw how, despite the messaging from “feminists,” women are actually doing as well, if not better than men in both education and the working world. From this we can conclude that while arguing that misogyny doesn’t exist is wrong and arguing that women are oppressed is also wrong but if you think arguing there’s no misogyny is just as wrong as arguing that women are oppressed then your view is “wronger” than the two of them put together.

However, life is not just school and work, so we need to look elsewhere to see how the sexes are doing. There’s a common heard saying – at least I hear it a lot – that “if you don't have your health, you have nothing," so let’s start there.

Health

It is a truism that we all want a long and healthy life and so, if equality truly matters then health and longevity are even more important to the “equality debate” than education and employment. There are too many topics to cover in this area, but there are a few subjects which weigh heavier on people’s minds, and which receive more media coverage than others. Let’s focus on the following:

• Cancer

• Alzheimer’s

• Deaths of Despair

• Life Expectancy

Cancer

There are few topics that touch as many lives as cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 50 percent of people will develop cancer in their lifetime and while many would argue that it is an equal opportunity killer there is a gender imbalance but it’s not men but women who have the advantage since men have a slightly higher risk (52%) compared to women (48%).

Neither men nor women are immune to it but there are two types that are largely gender specific, breast and prostate cancer. Examining how society prioritizes these two types of cancer is revealing. In a growing number of countries more men now die of prostate cancer than women die from breast cancer. Despite this, statistics indicate that while “both breast cancer and prostate cancer charities focus on research, education, and patient support for their respective cancers, breast cancer charities generally receive more public awareness and funding compared to prostate cancer charities.”

I would normally dismiss this variance in cancer rates to biological and behavioral differences, however as “feminists” argue that “medicine’s gender bias matters” and that “medical misogyny,” “the systemic bias, discrimination, and mistreatment of women in healthcare settings — has a long history, and remains pervasive,” it seems only fair to point out where women are doing better. Its much harder to argue that medicine favors men when breast cancer receives 3x the funding that prostate cancer receives.

It would seem that, like education and jobs, the feminist approach to cancer is less about equality than it is about privilege.

Alzheimer’s

At first glance, dementia, and more specifically Alzheimer’s, appear to be one of the few illnesses which inflict women more than it does men. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, the “lifetime risk for Alzheimer's at age 45 is 1 in 5 for women and 1 in 10 for men” and of the almost 7 million Americans with Alzheimer's, two-thirds are women.

However, a closer examination of the data complicates the situation. Since women live longer than men (we’ll get to that later), some postulate that women succumb to Alzheimer’s more because they live longer, a theory that is supported by at least two studies. The first found “that neuropathologically diagnosed AD cases have the same frequency of women and men, but their clinical presentations and ages at onset tend to differ.” The second concluded that while “incidence rates of any dementia and AD were greater in women than men,” the “pattern is consistent with women’s survival to older ages compared to men.”

I can find no proof that Alzheimer’s funding favors one gender over the other. If there is a disparity it may be in clinical trials. A study published in 2022 found that “women and men were equally represented in dementia trials carried out over the past decade, but women’s representation was lower than in the underlying dementia population.” Of the 1351 trials between 2010 and 2021, 58% of the participants were women but women are estimated to account for 64% of the global dementia population.

I will leave it to the reader to decide how big of a threat this is to gender equality.

Deaths of Despair

One of the first things I remember learning about suicide was that women attempt suicide more than men but men “succeed” more than women. Not something to brag about. Since that time years ago, the topic of suicide has largely been superseded by “deaths of despair” which includes suicide but also encompasses deaths “resulting from alcohol- and drug-use disorders.” The name may have changed but the gender difference remains the same. According to the National Center for Health Statistics at the CDC, the male death rates (per 100,000 U.S. population) (2019) are substantially higher than those of women for every age cohort as this graphic shows.

What’s more, this is a global issue as a 2024 study has shown:

Men “have experienced higher rates of deaths of despair across all countries over the last two decades than have women.”

The same study helps us understand what is driving it, at least within the US. Alcohol and drug use is higher for men than it is for women, but “self-harm,” or suicide, appears to be the largest contributing factor.

The study concludes that the difference “can be associated with different environmental, social, and cultural factors including lifestyle, social behaviors, and personal attributes” but also adds “for men, rigid norms regarding masculinity in some cultures may endorse engaging in risky behaviors (alcohol and substance use), whereas men's socially driven reluctance to seek help further compounds these issues and may place them at greater risk for suicide ideation.”

The study does not elaborate on why men are reluctant to seek help but the popularity of these two videos may provide some insight:

• Only Women Children And Dogs Are Loved Unconditionally

• Men's Mental Health: Brené Brown's View on Vulnerability and Shame

One can argue about the usefulness of social norms and possibly the injustice of them, but it is clear from the statistics that one social norm has a more deadly impact than the other.

Life Expectancy

As mentioned previously, it is impossible to assess every possible health related topic for signs of bias, but there is a shortcut we can take to see if one sex is doing better overall from a health standpoint and that is overall life expectancy.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave you already know that women live longer than men. This is not true everywhere in the world. There are exceptions. Well, one exception. Of the 227 countries listed in the CIA’s World Factbook, Montserrat is the only place where men outlive women (by 1.96 years).

How can this be? Some type of inverse patriarchy must exist that is keeping male life expectancies so low.

“Our World Data” argues that men have lower life expectancies for the following reasons:

• Newborn boys have higher death rates than newborn girls, as they’re more vulnerable to diseases and genetic disorders.

• In youth, boys have a higher death rate than girls, typically due to violence and accidents.

• At older ages men have higher death rates than women due to chronic health conditions, which are partly due to higher rates of smoking, alcohol, and drug use.

It seems that the gap can be explained by genetics and personal choice. Isn’t it odd that when the topic is life and death, these two reasons are okay but when it’s the pay gap those reasons are unacceptable.

“Women’s incursion into many domains of employment remains a threat to existing stereotypes, hierarchies, and long-held patterns of work–family balance. The pay gap is a visible sign of resistance to that threat.”

Conclusion

The purpose of this analysis was not to argue that men are being oppressed by the medical-industrial complex but to point out the hypocrisy of “feminists” and those who argue that women are oppressed by society. One cannot use biology and personal choice to explain away health differences while claiming that differences in pay and employment is wholly driven by the patriarchy.

The world is not a black and white place. Gender differences in health, pay, education, and employment cannot be explained through univariable analysis. However, multivariable analysis does not provide the simple explanation required for the feminist narrative and so is scorned.

Reality is, sadly, complicated. The simplest conclusion that can be reached (which isn’t driven by politics) is that gender bias does exist, but it exists on both sides of the gender divide and does not rise to the level of oppression anywhere in the Western world.

Afterward

Once again, I have bitten off more than I can chew. Or is it that my eyes were bigger than my stomach? In any event, I find that I’ve written more on this one sub-topic than I had intended and so must choose between being overly long and making this a three-part series instead of a two-part one. If you’ve been following me for any length of time you know my preference and so we will stop here.

Next time I’ll look at the final area of analysis “Crime and Violence.”