From Burning Witches to Protecting Predators: It's time to say Fuck the Patriarchy

There was a time when women were accused, condemned, and executed for being “dangerous.”

It didn’t take evidence. It didn’t take truth. It took fear, control, and a system designed to silence them.

During the Salem Witch Trials, women were publicly shamed, imprisoned, and killed - some hanged, others subjected to brutal conditions - because they were seen as threats to social order. They were labeled hysterical, immoral, or unnatural.

Sound familiar?

Then: Women Were the Danger

In 1692, the narrative was clear:

• Women were accused of corrupting men

• Women’s voices were dismissed as hysteria

• Women’s bodies were controlled, punished, and destroyed

The system didn’t protect them. It punished them for existing outside of obedience.

Now: Men Are Taught How to Harm—And Protected While Doing It

Fast forward to today.

We are no longer burning women in town squares. We are doing something far more insidious:

We are platforming, enabling, and ignoring the harm being done to them.

Recent investigations have exposed online networks where men:

• Share strategies on how to drug and assault partners

• Distribute non-consensual videos of sexual violence

• Encourage each other to escalate abuse

• Normalize the violation of unconscious or trusting women

Let that sink in.

In the past, women were executed over suspicion. Today, men can openly educate each other on committing sexual assault—and too often, nothing happens.

No mass outrage. No systemic shutdown. No equivalent “witch hunt” for perpetrators.

This Isn’t Progress—It’s Repackaged Control

We like to believe society has evolved.

But control didn’t disappear. It adapted.

• Then, women were silenced through violence and accusation

• Now, they are silenced through disbelief and digital exploitation

• Then, men claimed women were dangerous

• Now, systems quietly protect men who are actually causing harm

The mechanism is the same:protect power, suppress truth, maintain control

The Double Standard Is the System

Let’s be clear:

If women were organizing online spaces to harm men - sharing tactics, distributing videos, encouraging violence—

There would be:

• Immediate shutdowns

• Criminal investigations

• Wall-to-wall media outrage

Instead, when it’s men targeting women, the response is slower, quieter, and often nonexistent.

That’s not an oversight. That’s a pattern.

Rape Culture Isn’t a Concept—It’s Infrastructure

People love to debate the term “rape culture.”

But what we’re seeing isn’t theoretical. It’s operational.

It’s:

• Platforms failing to act

• Communities reinforcing harm

• Systems minimizing survivors

• Laws struggling to keep up or choosing not to

It’s a world where perpetrators feel safer sharing abuse than survivors feel reporting it.

To Survivors: You Were Never the Problem

If history has taught us anything, it’s this:

Society has always found ways to blame women for the harm done to them.

You were:

• Not “too trusting”

• Not “naive”

• Not responsible for someone else’s violence

What happened to you exists within a much larger system, one that has been protecting abusers for centuries.

So Yeah—Let’s Say It Clearly and as Loudly as Possible

The patriarchy didn’t die with the witch trials.

It just changed tactics.

It stopped lighting fires in public squares and started building systems that let harm happen quietly, repeatedly, and without consequence.

And if that makes people uncomfortable?

Good.

Because discomfort is where accountability begins.

What Comes Next

We don’t need another moment of awareness.We need disruption.

That means:

• Holding platforms accountable for what they allow

• Supporting survivors without questioning their reality

• Exposing patterns of abuse, not just individual cases

• Refusing to normalize what should never be acceptable

Because history has already shown us what happens when systems go unchecked.

We are not going backward.

But we are not as far forward as we think.