The “Patriarchy” Foundation was set up by a computer specialist, Maeusz Curzydło. He says of himself that he has achieved some success. He has money, a job, a car, an appartment – one inherited from his family, but still; he owns an allotment. And yet, in his opinion, he's in a “terrible situation”. He's 29, has no wife and no children which – according to the traditional model – is one of the characteristics of a real man.

- I had a fiancée once – he says. If I had had the same life, with similar achievements, 30 years ago, I would have been lucky enough to have the family I wanted. But not today, because today you have to give up your whole life, your whole future and hand it over to a heartless system. I cannot bring myself to do that. I’m in a terrible situation and I feel colossally bad – he admits emotionally.

Strange and unpleasant

That’s why he wants to change the world for the better – better for himself and others like him. He started with the “Patraiarchy” Association, which was transformed into a foundation a week ago. He talked about his plans in a speech that only a few men listened to, but which, thanks to the internet, became quite a sensation.

As it was explained by Curzydło, his foundation is part of the so-called “manosphere”, so a collection of various blogs, publications and websites that focus on men’s issues and cater to men. The manosphere has been penetrated by “Men’s Rights Activists” who believe they should fight for their rights with the help of typical political means. You have “Men Going Their Own Way” i.e. those who find the current world to be so hostile that they want to retreat. There are also “Pickup Artists” although the group is in the state of atrophy, as Curzydło assessed in his introductory lecture. He also explained why: – “These were men who treated male-female relationships as a game, but this branch has become immovable, so to speak, because of legal changes like the ”Me Too” action, where men are accused of very bad things for very trivial reasons”.

The lecturer pointed out that quite a movement has already emerged from these circles around the world. A movement of men who, because of the repressive apparatus of the state, “wake up in a world that is unpleasant for them”. And it is a situation that is “uninteresting and alien” to many of them, because they have been brought up in role models where the man ruled and had a large following at home. Today, their problems are so widespread that we can call it a trend.

SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE Problems in subsequent areas seem to confirm his thesis. First, the education system: – Education ostentatiously ignores men. They are seen as masculine girls with something wrong with them – says the founder of “Patriarchy” and adds: – There are no male teachers anymore, there are female teachers.

Curzydło made everyone present at the lecture understand why it was so important and unfair at the same time. – For a woman, educational success is entertainment, she doesn’t need it that much. For a man it is a necessity. To be a man, a man must achieve some success.

He went on to criticise the justice system in which “divorce is easy and lucrative for women”. As a result, men are “sending money, paying for the lifestyles of women they no longer want to be with. They also have no influence on the upbringing of their offspring”. – The courts accept this state of affairs because they can prey on their money, collected in good faith, for the benefit of the family – he claims.

Curzydło also has no illusions about men’s reproductive rights. These – as he pointed out – do not exist. The only ones that are “a proverbial glass of water instead”. It only gets worse, because after fathering a child, a man is burdened with mere responsibilities, “and he is not given the pleasure of having children”. It is also painful that “a woman has various ways of giving up being a mother, while a man has no ways of getting rid of unwanted responsibility”. He explains this diagnosis as follows: – It is debated whether women can kill on a whim, and men are expected to provide for somebody else’s children.

He ended this sentence with a deeper sigh, which took on additional meaning after hearing the complaint that when a man raises a child that is not his own and somehow finds out about it, the woman will not be punished in any way. The speaker further lamented that DNA testing after the birth of a child is illegal in some countries. In his opinion, they should be mandatory after each birth, just like a breathalyzer test is mandatory when checking drivers. – There is no shame here, because we examine everyone, and such examination always gives the father the confidence that the mother always has, he emphasized.

It’s not easy in health care either: men live shorter lives and no one cares. Moreover, doctors and nurses are women, which affects the quality of management of these facilities. Similarly, the pension system operates at the expense of men and is a “profit for the female sex”. Bricklayers’ threes and the clever Virgin Mary

Historical changes also work to the disadvantage of men. The world has moved away from elitism and towards egalitarianism. Equality, inscribed in the slogans of the French Revolution, is supposed to be the beginning of the evil that began to spread throughout Europe. – Previously, we had a monarchy, feudalism, some kind of hierarchy. It was clearly visible that they were better and worse. This is how the world is arranged, he said, adding that in the Enlightenment, although the word “equality” was already on the banners, the orders were still patriarchal. – When I was reading the Napoleonic Code, I saw who could conclude contracts and it was written that mentally ill people, prisoners, children and married women could not conclude contracts – he gives examples. – Unmarried women could, but married women could not, because they were treated as certain property. They gave up some of their freedom and received care in return, he said. And as he noted with regret, these values were washed away by the ethos of egalitarianism.

Then it got worse, but you don’t have to go that far to give positive examples, according to the lecturer. Mateusz Curzydło believes that in Poland, although communism was what it was, but it was male. – Bricklayers’ threes, fight for better grades at school, there was also the Warsaw Pact there, there were some male goals – he said.

With historical changes, the world, one could say, was going to the dogs. Women got the right to vote. For what? Just so that other male politicians could gain new voters.

The further argument showed that neither religion nor the Catholic Church, especially in Poland, spared men either. Finally, the Virgin Mary became the Queen of Poland. It was in our country that “Gaude, mater Polonia” (Rejoice, Mother of Poland) was and is still sung, and Polish knights at Grunwald went into battle with “Bogurodzica” [“Mother of God”] on their lips. – Poland is “Mary’s”, not “Peter’s”, and certainly not “Abraham’s” – the speaker concluded. The Virgin Mary herself also symbolically represents feminine cunning, because, after all, “she had a child with the best man possible, and on the other hand she also had a man on a daily basis”, which is alien to the male point of view.

Seven commandments

There were still a good many threads confirming the plight of men but eventually the host moved from words to action and presented the seven commandments of “Patriarchy”.

• First: Be a man. And men are the ones who will make decisions in a group of other men.
• Second: Focus on yourself. Don’t be envious that someone has achieved greater success than yourself.
• Third: Don’t help. Give me a fishing rod, not a fish. Help is just one step away from stealing because it has no added value.
• Fourth: Stay away from harmful people. This means move away, among other things. from egalitarian behaviour.
• Fifth: Enforce feminine behaviour.
Here’s a slightly longer explanation. According to the author of this thesis, women are divided into women (well-behaved) and femoids aka female humanoids (a term taken from the above-mentioned manosphere, meaning women behaving badly). With a woman who is cool and nice, there is always a man who influences her “with his behaviour, with his presence, with the fact that he is there, that he is better, that he supports her, that he is able”. And this is how she enforces her feminine behaviour.
• Sixth: Actively defend the masculine nature of “Patriarchy”.
This is important because, as the lecture shows, the worst couple is the one in which the man listens to the woman. The worst are men who “betray” other men in order to achieve success thanks to their work. It is men who have a different set of skills and, using the work of other men, give rights to women. The best example is granting women the right to vote. And everything that is given, not earned or won, is of poor quality. – That’s why we are not for all men, we are for a certain type of men. You have to look at how men behave towards women. If they cannot be assertive, then they do not add value to “Patriarchy”. We have to weed out such people, says the host of the meeting uncompromisingly.
• The seventh commandment is simple and functional: Be not a burden to anyone in “Patriarchy”.
Which translates briefly: If you’re in trouble, no one will help you here. This will make you more careful in the future.

”It’s relatively nice in Saudi Arabia”

After an almost hour-long lecture, the audience could enter into discussion with the foundation’s creator. The first to speak was Janusz Korwin-Mikke, a veteran of the Polish political scene, considered Poland’s leading misogynist and… he was considered too progressive. Korwin-Mikke soberly noticed that everything cannot be blamed on women, because after all, men have granted them new rights. There was even a polemic between the two gentlemen, because Mateusz Curzydło considered Korwin-Mikke to be too progressive a thinker. Why? Although the politician does not agree that women should have the right to vote, he agrees that women should be able to be chosen by men. Meanwhile, the host of the meeting believes that it would be a bad example for other women, and what’s worse, a woman chosen by men would be followed by other women.

Ultimately, both interlocutors concurred that there are still countries where it is “relatively nice”. They included Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Well, in the Sultanate of Brunei, everything is great.

In subsequent conversations, Mr Mateusz objected to defining the behaviour of today’s men as effeminate or warned his guests against talking about the crisis of masculinity. Instead, he encouraged them to show men a little warmth so that they do not break down completely in this world full of evil.

Perhaps the most daring views were presented by political scientist and journalist of radical right-wing magazines, Ronald Lasecki. His words, of course, immediately found their way to most left-liberal portals. Lasecki recalled nothing less than that “women were part of the household, although with a status higher than livestock or movable property, but nevertheless not participating on equal rights in decision-making processes”.

At this point, the leader of the foundation placed both hands on his chest, making it clear that he was wholeheartedly on his interlocutor’s side. He admitted that such a relationship between a man and a woman was healthy because, after all, “we care about the woman, but we treat her as part of our possessions”.

The longer the debate lasted, the more passionate the discussants became: when talking about the incident in Leszno, where a man hit a woman on one of the streets because she was allegedly behaving aggressively towards him, Lasecki said that the institution of “not beating” women is quite new, and in Islamic countries, a husband has the right to corporally punish his wife.

The host of the meeting couldn’t have missed this comment: – Yes, it’s really something recent, men have always managed somehow, there was one law, but you know, it’s like spanking. The lack of spanking is also something completely new, and the same is true of the ban on any unwanted contact with a woman – concluded the thread.

Parallel worlds

It is worth noting that the discussion was led by educated, well-read people who more or less freely exchanged names of authors and titles of unusual books. Some of them have considerable literary achievements of their own. They can therefore easily take the place of opinion leaders, in the circles to which they address their message. Can their narrative really succeed?

Judging by the comments posted under the recorded debate, the response was considerable, but the vast majority of them were critical - and not just from women, but from men too. Janusz Korwin-Mikke himself admitted that his tweets receive comments mainly from men, mostly along the lines of: “what nonsense you are typing...”.

The movement therefore remains marginal. And it will probably continue to be so. However, there are groups that take full advantage of similar publications. These are the aforementioned liberal-left media, which are already shaking with indignation, and extreme feminists using equally sophisticated arguments on their other pole. They also have their own set of orders and prohibitions that regulate the lives of “real women”. Just as in the patriarchal bubble, militant feminists want to purge the female environment of women who don’t follow their progressive agenda. Because the worlds of “real men” and “militant feminists” actually have more points of tangency than meets the eye. Both groups also demand warmth and understanding for each other, as mentioned by the founder of the “Patriarchy” Foundation.

Does this mean that there are no real conflicts between the sexes? Of course, there are, and there are also serious dramas. One of the men at the “Patriarchy” meeting told about his ex-wife, who told him when she was leaving: – If you kick up a fuss, I will take your children away in court and you will die alone. What should an employee say when she receives a text message from her boss with a coarse joke: “Come here soon, make me some coffee and perform something else...”

But are the fighters of “Patriarchy” and the fighting feminists really able to deal with these real, not imaginary, problems?

– Sławomir Cedzyński

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists

– Translated by Dominik Szczęsny-Kostanecki

The author is a journalist at the i.pl portal