This too, is a topic of interest and confusion for me, at least on an emotional real life level and what it is to be a 'man', having learned not to white knight as much as I grow up into my mid 20's. I recently went through a period of investigating the whole "red pill' or MGTOW (men going their own way) movement, and it's essentially a blanket forum for men trying to discover what being a man in this day and age really is. There was some good information in there that has helped but there is DEFINITELY some blatant pathological stuff, especially when certain individuals take it to an extreme and post blogs about how to imitate the dark triad personality traits! Yikes, I mean, we have enough of that in the world as it is! It reminded me of how pathological individuals and ideas infiltrate a group without people being aware of it, the first criterion of ponerogenesis as it were.
Here is a link to the forum and material if anyone is interested.
_http://www.mgtow.com/forums/
However, in the end, I reconciled everything and came to a similar conclusion as Psalehesost mentioned.
Psalehesost said:
The concept of the patriarchy is the result of not seeing the role played by psychopathy. Many more psychopaths are male than are female, hence the pathological ruling elite tends to be composed mostly of "men". This leads to the pathological influence filtering down throughout society from the top reflecting the "rulership" of men.
While culture takes on such forms, the pathological people actually at the top subjugate both men and women. This "elite" is distinguished by the pathology of its members rather than their sex. And so, normal men become the "workhorses" used to enrichen the elite, and they are sent off to be traumatized, maimed, and killed in wars. Women, meanwhile, become subjugated and exploited in different ways. It is hard to say that either sex is generally "in power" over the other, since everything that people believe about their societies is generally a farce and psychopaths are simply enjoying themselves playing and exploiting everyone else.
I also at the time had seen Karen Straughan's videos as Atreides has posted, and felt that she was a very reasonable and compassionate person who explained herself well. I would recommend watching some of her stuff if one gets a bit too confused and needs a voice of reason to steady their mind for a moment!
For what it's worth, in my own personal experiences, I have encountered some malicious women who are as every bit as pathological as a man could be, physically attacking me and so forth. These things are not uncommon I suspect in the world, in-fact I think there is cultural conditioning in place that prevents many, many men and women, from seeing this reality. However, at the end of the day, it really is all about Psychopathy and how that affects humanity at large. Until this critical issue and idea is understood by these types of groups, then it will remain a feeding frenzy of blame and victimhood and all sorts of buffers that prevents this fundamental key from opening up their eyes.