Conspiracy Theory 2 - Feminism

You probably hadn't realized this, but the feminist agenda only met with success in the last century when it was promoted by men. That's because men wanted to trick women into doing more work and feminism was a useful tool for that purpose. At this stage in economic history it is fairly clear that the capacity for economic output in the West far exceeds any definition of need -- that's why men perpetrated the Great Recession during which women barely lost any jobs but lots of men got to stop working. It's brilliant.

It is historical fact that female employment really took off in the West during and after World War II when the feminist movement was actually at a nadir. However, once the stated feminist goal of equal employment become something of a reality, men a) split feminism into warring camps with internal battles, b) distracted feminists with political-correctness debates, and c) made many politically active women in the West feel bad by highlighting other groups that have it even worse, e.g. non-whites, homosexuals, the poor, and the colonized. This prevented women from getting any real power while maximizing their contribution to GDP.

Nowadays, women get to work full-time AND do the majority of childcare and housework in the evenings. Somehow women have been expected to be equal contributors in the workplace for 50-plus years but "stay-at-home Dads" are still a news story. And even though women do work full-time, they still somehow manage to get paid less. Hurray for feminism!