Sunday, October 31, 2010

What is wrong with the men's rights movement?

The men's rights movement (MRM) continues to grow in size, but politically is deeply flawed.

The average men's rights activist (MRA) is hostile to feminism. And yet he also agrees fundamentally with the feminist agenda.

This leads to the odd situation of feminists arriving at MRA websites, liking what they read, proposing a grand alliance with the MRM, before being angrily chased away by the MRAs.

How has this situation come about? It seems to me that there are two major wings of the MRM. The first is a liberal one. There are now plenty of men involved in the MRM who describe themselves not only as "very liberal" but even as being radically left-liberal.

These men, understandably, don't like the way that men are portrayed as being privileged oppressors (i.e. bad guys) on the mainstream, feminist left. Rather than rethinking leftist politics, they respond by pointing to areas in which it is men who are treated unequally.

There's the usual range of liberal attitudes amongst these men. Some of the more right-liberal ones limit themselves to calls for procedural equality. But others are more radical and want to follow through more consistently with the liberal ideal of making gender not matter.

It's therefore often assumed at MRM sites that masculinity is an oppressive construct; that the aim of the MRM is to liberate men from masculinity; that society should be strictly gender neutral, including in parental roles and in having women drafted into combat roles; and that feminist countries like Sweden are the models for the rest of the world to follow.

The second wing of the MRM are the male separatists (who call themselves "men going their own way" or MGTOW).

These are men who have grown up in an age of female individualism. Their experience is of a society which is geared toward maximising female autonomy, whether it's in terms of education, careers or family.

They have been particularly burned when it comes to relationships. Some of them have lost out in the divorce courts. Some of them are men whose female peers have been "liberated" to waste their 20s chasing a few alpha guys. For these reasons they are not very trusting of, or sympathetic toward, women.

How do men react to female individualism? One way (the traditionalist way) is to criticise a radical individualism, for both sexes, as socially destructive. But the male separatists don't do this. They respond instead by trying to imagine an individualism of their own.

How can men lead a more individualistic, autonomous life? How, in other words, do men "go their own way"? Above all, by not marrying. The male separatists vary a bit here. Some want to shack up with non-Western women (there is much hostility to white/Western women). Others promote the idea of occasional sexual encounters. Others don't want any contact at all.

In order to persuade men not to marry, the male separatists push the idea that men are harmed by marriage. They also portray women in very negative terms (gold diggers, sluts etc).

It ends up sounding uncannily like the feminism of the 1970s, but with the sexes reversed. In the 1970s, it was feminists who thought marriage was oppressive to women, who promoted separatist solutions, and who therefore painted men in the most unflattering light possible.

The liberal and the separatist MRAs get along quite well, as both groups are committed to the idea of male autonomy or individualism. The separatists aren't quite as motivated by the aim of deconstructing masculinity. Even so, they've managed to find common ground with the liberals here, since they believe that "manning up" means having to take on the responsibility of being a husband and father - which they fundamentally reject.

Both groups also react vehemently against the idea of chivalry. The liberals see it as being one reason why equality hasn't been fully implemented; they believe that conservative judges treat women more favourably on chivalrous grounds. The separatists believe that chivalry encourages men to make sacrifices for women, which cuts right across the separatist aim of men living for themselves alone. Conservatives and traditionalists are blamed for perpetuating chivalry and holding back men's rights.

Oddly, there are MRAs who are concerned about the presence of traditionalists within the movement. They believe that traditionalists will rob the MRM of respectability.

It's more likely, though, that it's the liberal/separatist alliance which will hold back the MRM from going mainstream. Just how mainstream did the radical separatist feminists become, even with the backing of the liberal establishment? Weren't they correctly perceived by nearly all men, and by many women, to be man-hating types without a realistic political program?

Where does the current strategy of the MRM get men? What are those men who want relationships with women, and children of their own, to do? You hear MRAs talk about sex with robots, or hiring surrogates to have children without the need for a wife, or developing affectionate male companionship, or hiring prostitutes. It just sounds desperate and unrealistic.

And will the average man gravitate toward a movement which takes just as grim a view of masculinity as the feminists have done?

And consider this. For years feminists have complained that men haven't gotten with the program. Feminists believe that careers are the ultimate in achieving female autonomy, but that women are restricted in pursuing careers by the fact that men haven't abandoned masculinity quickly enough. Too many men, complain the feminists, are still working away in careers rather than accepting androgynous roles and devoting themselves to childcare and keeping house.

The feminist message has fallen on deaf ears. So the latest feminist strategy has been to get men themselves to spread the message. More and more it is male feminists who are pushing the feminist line to men.

But feminists needn't have worried. Because it is now an "anti-feminist" men's rights movement which is doing all the heavy lifting for them. It is the MRM which is getting men to accept the idea that being a provider is oppressive to men; that society should be gender neutral and accept the idea of men as nurturers; that men should reject masculine norms of behaviour and so on.

It's a problem I've seen over and over. People feel the oppressive effect of liberal changes to society. They get motivated to act politically. But political clarity is lacking and so they end up trying to cure liberalism by adopting some more radical form of liberalism. And so nothing changes, despite all the expenditure of energy.

So what should traditionalists do? I think we have to accept, realistically, that the men's rights movement is likely to go the wrong way, just like feminism did (maybe MGTOW should be renamed MGTWW - "men going the wrong way").

But I don't think we should abandon it. The MRAs are, at least, open to criticisms of feminism. So there's an opportunity to make principled criticisms of feminism at MRA sites. And we will be the only alternative at such sites for those men who identify positively with masculinity.

We won't be part of the mainstream, but we can put forward a different approach. I'll outline some of the arguments I think we should be making at MRA sites in a future post.

Update:  A reader has reminded me of some MRM sites which are not liberal/separatist politically. I do believe my post accurately describes the trends at some of the larger, influential sites, but perhaps I should have recognised the existence of a third, generally non-liberal strand of thought within the MRM.

253 comments:

  1. Mark,

    I'm not saying that I disagree with you but that seems a hard criticism of the men's right's movement. If men in our society were predominantly born to be individual competitors, with society giving all sorts of subtle support to help that happen, should the support be taken away men will understandably face difficulty and look for solutions. Extreme individualism in my opinion is not a solution for men but it is something that takes a little while to get out of.

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  2. "How has this situation come about? It seems to me that there are two major wings of the MRM. The first is a liberal one. There are now plenty of men involved in the MRM who describe themselves not only as "very liberal" but even as being radically left-liberal."

    I would say that the characterization is flawed.

    Most MRAs that I have been involved with call themselves conservative,and in fact,favor a traditionalist approach to solving the challenges of feminism.

    The solution, in the eyes of conservative MRAs is neither to separate from society,nor to force complete autonomy on everyone, but to simply remove the laws enacted by feminists which are being abused by women to harm men, especially, divorce laws,custody laws, sexual harassment laws and sometimes laws that allow abortion,although the latter,many of us agree to concede,provided men are also allowed to terminate fatherhood on paper.

    It is a very realistic approach, and no one can say that it is not traditional or conservative in nature.

    It seems you have cherry-picked examples from some parts of the movement and ignored a very large sector of the men's rights movement.


    Sounds reasonable enough to me, if feminist laws are biased and are causing harm to men, remove those laws.

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  3. Anonymous,

    I'm more than happy to hear of a more conservative bloc within the MRM. But where are these MRAs to be found?

    I regularly read the very large reddit site, as well as The Spearhead site, which I believe are currently the two main MRM sites.

    For quite a long while I would have characterised the politics at such sites as being in a state of flux. But more recently there seems to be a growing consensus, along the lines I tried to describe in this post.

    The consensus includes some toxic ideas, such as that masculinity is an oppression that men are to be liberated from and that marriage is inherently oppressive to men.

    The mood is also defeatist when it comes to civilisational aims. The majority view seems to be that it's better to let Western civilisation crash and burn.

    Again, I'm more than happy to be proven wrong, but I do believe there are some powerful currents gathering force in the MRM that we're going to have to criticise, just as we criticise feminism.

    It's a pity as this was a movement which we could have helped to lead along better lines. I haven't given up trying to do this, but I have to be honest about the direction the movement seems to be headed in right now.

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  4. Anonymous,

    One further point. I didn't intend the post to be a discouragement to those conservatives who are currently working within the MRM. In particular, I agree that the divorce laws need to be reformed, if confidence in the institution of marriage is to be restored.

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  5. Mark,

    In you description of MGTOW you left out the more separatist option of going their own way and that is ghosting, going to ground. Having nothing whatsoever to do with the female species where possible outside of those situation such as work and family and minimising exposure inside of those situations.

    These are the men who don't just avoid marriage, relationships or women in general but also reduce the amount on consumerism they engage in to "starve the machine" and actively minimise tax for the same reason by reducing tax or by reducing taxable income.

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  6. There is Men's News Daily,the Elusive Wapiti,Anti-Misandry,which has a multinational membership but is generally conservative or non-political in tone,the False Rape Society, which while not distinctly conservative is also not liberal, Balance of Power,The Counter-Feminist,who doesn't necessarily describe himself as conservative but based on the tone of his writing and his hatred for liberal ideas, I assume he may be,or at least a right-leaning independent, many of the female MRA blogs are written by traditional conservative women military families.

    In fact,I have to think hard to come up with two MRAs who have called themselves "liberal" or seem to agree with liberal ideas about wealth redistribution or "social justice".

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  7. Anonymous,

    I agree with your first paragraph. The sites you mention are not generally liberal/separatist. So, yes, there are individual sites which are very much worthwhile. I guess my concern is with trends on the larger "aggregate" sites.

    (And even on the larger sites, there are still some very good posts, such as this one by Elusive Wapiti.)

    But I disagree about the absence of liberals/radical left-liberals in the MRM. If you look at what is arguably the most influential site, the one at reddit, the moderators and the leading commenters there describe themselves as liberals, Marxists, anarchists etc.

    It is sometimes assumed in the comments at reddit that the purpose of men's rights is to deconstruct masculinity and to reject marriage.

    I do appreciate your comment. It's made me think that I should do my bit to help bump up some of the independent writers you've mentioned, perhaps through a recommended MRA sites section.

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  8. Your confusing rugged individualism with autonomy.

    Individualists sacrifice, go without, autonomists get the state to foot the bill via wealth transfer mechanisms from men to women.

    Whats the point of paying for a party your not invited to, thats what MGTOW resent.

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  9. The main Men's Rights movement in the UK is Fathers for Justice. Their concern is to not have their children taken from them in divorce courts, to have at least equal rights with their ex-wives.

    BTW I think all Rights-based discourse tends to be heavily Liberal in its assumptions. It's the only language a lot of these men have.

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  10. Whats the point of paying for a party you're not invited to, that's what MGTOW resent.

    Then gatecrash!

    I always thought the best revenge against feminists was to have a happy, traditional marriage. That's what I've achieved (thus far).

    In fact, I sometimes feel guilty at MRA sites for not speaking up more about the satisfactions of a good marriage. To be loved and respected as a husband and father is one of the deeper fulfilments.

    I sometimes read a "marriage is inherently oppressive" story soon after I've been smiled at by my baby daughter and I can't help but worry about those young men who might be persuaded by such posts to forego something so important in their lives.

    And what if I'd stayed single? Would that have upset any feminists? I doubt it. How many feminists are concerned about marriage trends for white heterosexual men? A lot of feminists would probably be encouraged if marriage rates went down.

    I'm not going to walk out on what is an important good for myself and my society. I'm going to directly challenge and confront those who seek to deny this good: I'm going to dedicate myself to their defeat.

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  11. "But I disagree about the absence of liberals/radical left-liberals in the MRM. If you look at what is arguably the most influential site, the one at reddit, the moderators and the leading commenters there describe themselves as liberals, Marxists, anarchists etc."

    "It is sometimes assumed in the comments at reddit that the purpose of men's rights is to deconstruct masculinity and to reject marriage."



    In that case, I would have to say that this a terrible development and won't do our side much good. I agree with your assessment, in that this would be doing feminism's work for it.Many of us are still too smart to fall for that, as evidenced by feminism's growing fear of the men's movement.

    Rejecting marriage, at this moment, is the smartest thing a man could do, but it is not a permanent solution, marriage ultimately must be reformed in order to make it viable for men. Right now,there are greater odds that you will survive a game of russian roulette than maintain a successful marriage and never wind up financially broken by it. I can't say I blame anyone for rejecting that deal, but yes, it is a necessary institution in our society and should be reformed with robust checks against gold-digging women, rather than scrapped altogether.

    I think every MRA,right,left,or center, can agree that things were just fine before feminism tinkered with them.

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  12. Interesting post.

    A few points.

    First, there isn't really any “MRM” akin to what feminism is, or was. What you have is a combination of (1) small fathers' rights groups that are active in the real world in terms of lobbying for changes to family law and (2) a bunch of guys writing on the internet. There is no “movement” beyond that, in any meaningful sense (e.g., one which has institutional power in organizations like NOW, Emily's List, NARAL and so on, academic support in formal, funded academic programs teaching its ideology, as well as full mainstream respect – all of which feminism has long had), and there almost certainly will never be.

    Why? Because men, generally, as a group, do not band together with men, as a group, to confront problems between men and women, as groups. Women do this fairly routinely, if not uniformly, whereas among men, when a conflict arises between men and women as groups, many, if not most, men see this as a grand opportunity to tear each other down about any number of things – including their respective political positioning and ideologies, socio-economic issues, personal “rank” and power issues and so on. Men are good at collaborating with each other, of course --- against other groups of men. Try to get men to collaborate, as a unisex group, against women, however, and you just end up with one big heaping mound of failure. Unlike women, men are not wired to collaborate in this way, on the basis of their sex, and so any attempt to actually “movementize” the men's issues community is almost certainly bound to fail. This is nothing new. Men have been trying to organize other men to counter feminism since the 1960s at least. It has failed and failed and failed. It continues to fail, beyond limited, targeted legislative efforts, which again are mostly only marginal at best, as they are easily countered by the huge, well-moneyed feminist institutions which project real political power. All that you see today is that the internet, because it allows for anonymous communication and for relatively small groups to congregate together online, thereby appearing to be bigger (this happens not only for men's rights … traditionalism is another such group which “benefits” from the internet in this way) than they really are in the real world, and creating the illusion that the stuff discussed at these various internet points really matters in the real world. For the most part, it doesn't.

    The so-called “MGTOW” is not really a “movement”, either, but a coping mechanism deployed by some men who simply do not wish to engage with the current social system. I do not blame them, really. I do think that MGTOW is not a “viable strategy”, but that doesn't bother me much. I don't see any other “strategies” being viable, either.

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  13. We live in an age of extreme liberal hegemony. And that regime is solid. It's much more solid than its critics (the real critics, not the right-liberal “conservatives”, but the very small groups of real critics like traditionalists or MRAs or what have you) would like to believe. It's deeply encoded into the DNA of our civilization. Only a revolution or a revolution-like event will dislodge it. Certainly the discourse which takes place on the internet – be it traditionalist or MRA – will not dislodge it. This isn't so much to be a defeatist, as it is to acknowledge the strength and durability of the current system. Faced with that, er are left with coping mechanisms, it seems to me. Following a traditionalist approach in one's personal life and engaging in traditionalist political discourse is one such coping mechanism. MGTOW is another such coping mechanism, and so on.

    Of course, there will be much mutual recrimination between the adherents of different coping mechanisms – another hallmark of our age, politically, it seems. But, even for that, there is an unusually high degree of antipathy between traditionalists and MRAs at this point in time. Why is this?

    I think from the MRA point of view, “traditionalism” is often collapsed into “conservatism” or what you would call “right liberalism”. While many MRAs may have personally conservative views on any number of matters, most MRAs really dislike institutional conservatism because they see it as engaging in a two-step dance with left liberalism to the detriment of men. How? Conservatives engage in the conceit that old forms of relating between men and women can be supported despite the fact that the legal and social infrastructure underlying these has been dismantled by the left liberals. So, in effect, you have the left liberals engaging in legal and social engineering to beat the band, changing marriage into what many MRAs call “Marriage 2.0”, while at the same time you have “conservatives” singing the praises of marriage and family, thereby helping to herd men into a changed legal/social institution that has been well and truly rigged against them. Conservatives act as if nothing has changed about the institution that makes a difference, and if challenged about this, quickly retreat to some kind of pie-in-the-sky high ground that is divorced from the reality on the ground for most men. It's that kind of behavior from conservatives that drives MRAs nuts and feeds a huge amount of anger at conservatives. After all, it's to be expected that the openly feminist social/legal engineers of the left are anti-men. When the opposition collaborates with the left, de facto, by herding generation after generation of men into the shell of a social institution that no longer is legally or socially supported, it can very much feel like the bigger screw-job is coming from the right.

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  14. This spills over into the attitude many MRAs have towards traditionalists, as well. Even when one distinguishes traditionalists from conservatives in terms of ideology, in terms of pragmatic approach (i.e., “how should I go about living my life in brass-tacks terms?”), when it comes to women/family/marriage, traditionalists look an awful lot like conservatives. Men are to marry, despite the screwed up laws. Suck it up. Sure, it's riskier for men than it ever was, and it may crash and burn for you badly, but that's not excuse to not suck it up. Sorry, chaps, but that's not a terribly convincing approach, and that's why the hostility is there from many MRAs towards traditionalists as well.

    I am not an MRA – as noted above, I don't particularly see the point of it. I have sympathy for the issues men face in today's society, but I don't see MRA as gaining much traction at all politically. I feel similarly about traditionalism. Many of the ideas are good, but the pragmatic aspects are lacking, other than in a bubble-like fashion. What we really need in the West is a revolution – a real one. But that's also unlikely. So I plod forward on my own terms, noting the discontentment in pockets around me, but also noting that most people simply do not care and/or are quite content with the current system that MRAs and trads alike are so put-off by.

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  15. "Then gatecrash!"

    No offence Mark but you live in Eltham, (a white, upper middle class suburb) your vocation is teaching (dominated by nurturing females) and your operating from a sample size of one.

    Your defence of white westen society is honourable and commendable but the well has truly been poisoned snd its going to be difficult to find men to keep a stiff upper lip for the greater good.

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  16. Novaseeker,

    Thanks for the comments. I do have one point of divergence.

    I don't think that traditional marriage is entirely unavailable to people, at least not in Australia.

    The culture of the suburb in which I live is still based on stable marriages in which the husband is the main provider whilst the wife is the main nurturer. None of the dozen or so couples we know has divorced. The women are (with one exception) quite wifely and motherly. The husbands are respected and appreciated.

    Yes, the divorce laws do make the husbands legally vulnerable. Yes, the trend is toward making the provider role of husbands defunct. But it hasn't yet reached the point of impossibility.

    In fact, I'd say the two main problems facing traditional marriage in Australia right now are the cost of housing and overly late family formation.

    If we could bring down the average age of first marriage by just a few years, some of the dating/relationship issues that many men face would be considerably eased.

    And if housing costs weren't so high, I suspect that many more women would be freed to be at home when their children are young (a recent survey found that over 70% of Australian women had this as their aim).

    Novaseeker, you're right that traditionalists, whilst criticising modern marriage trends, still want men to marry.

    But, really, what is the alternative? If traditionalist men don't support a culture of marriage, then civilisation weakens further - threatening the tradition we are attempting to defend.

    And what are the alternatives? If men were to cohabit rather than marry they would still face the same penalties that married men face. They are still subject to the same alimony and child support laws (and given the higher break up rates of cohabiting relationships they are even more vulnerable).

    Roissy thinks that men can just be players. But how many men want to be hanging around nightclubs in their 40s trying to pick up young women? And what about men who want to be fathers and have children?

    I don't know what else traditionalists are supposed to do. As you rightly point out, we don't have the kind of political traction to change much in the wider culture.

    Sometimes you just have to have faith in the future; you have to take the chance that opportunities for change will arise and that you'll put yourself in a position to take advantage of them.

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  17. Novaseeker's post was excellent. I don't claim to have easy solutions, and without wanting to act out the point about infighting I'd like to say that if you're not willing to have children you're not helping, to say the least. The minimum has to be looking to find a solution, saying there isn't one can't be ok.

    This is still a recent phenomena, esenitally starting in the 70's. The point I've raised before is that women had lots of legitimate beefs about older style marriage. As for me the discipline of marriage won't be easy. However, we still have to do it for the future of our culture and I would think for our personal happiness, so we have to sort it out.

    On the point about revolution unless its a popular one you'll have to maintain your regieme through force. Do you think that would work? Also where would this revolution come from? Most people are soft.

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  18. What is there to defend? Agnosticism, millions of abortions, unlimited immigration, miscegnation, no fault divorce, welfare state, corporatism, liberalism...

    Trust me, Eltham represents 10% of the broader Australian culture.

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  19. it's going to be difficult to find men to keep a stiff upper lip for the greater good

    Yes, that's true. But even so not everything is doom and gloom. I was a lot more isolated politically in the 1990s than I am today.

    And a lot of people nowadays are less glued on to liberal organisations, they tend more to float along on liberal currents without being true believer types.

    I don't think any political outcomes are settled yet. Liberalism continues to throw up waves of discontent, and maybe we traditionalists will manage to catch and ride one of them and reach a level of support that will allow us a greater influence in society.

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  20. Trust me, Eltham represents 10% of the broader Australian culture.

    Can't we then try to hold onto that 10%?

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  21. "What is there to defend? Agnosticism, millions of abortions, unlimited immigration, miscegenation, no fault divorce, welfare state, corporatism, liberalism..."

    Don't forget bad weather and rude sales clerks. You defend by contributing in the direction you want things to go.

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  22. Mark --

    Novaseeker, you're right that traditionalists, whilst criticising modern marriage trends, still want men to marry.

    But, really, what is the alternative?


    I can understand that, but as someone who has very much seen the dark side of the moon when it comes to marriage laws (and no, I didn't nearly get the worst of it by any means), I can't in good conscience urge men to take that risk “no matter what”. And, at least in the US, that risk is compounded (probably somewhat intentionally) if one has a "traditional" marriage, because in that circumstance the man is much more likely to be liable for long-term or lifetime spousal support/alimony than if the marriage is non-traditional. Just how the law works.

    And what are the alternatives? If men were to cohabit rather than marry they would still face the same penalties that married men face. They are still subject to the same alimony and child support laws (and given the higher break up rates of cohabiting relationships they are even more vulnerable).

    There is certainly a lack of good alternatives for men. The entire legal system has been turned against men when it comes to family law, and no-one is interested in revising it to any major degree, regardless of how "conservative" they are, so men are kind of screwed.

    That's why I advocate each individual man making a risk calculation for himself, based on adequate information about what the risks are. Some marriages are less risky than others, statistically. If you're dead-set on marrying then that's what you should look for, knowing what the downside risk is if things go pear-shaped. But it's a decision that each man needs to make for himself. I can't support the current institution of marriage, full stop, because of the legal and social regime around it, which is punitive to men (and which, as a result, has an impact on power dynamics within many marriages as well). But each individual man has to decide what he wants to do in light of the current environment and what his life goals are.

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  23. On the point about revolution unless its a popular one you'll have to maintain your regime through force. Do you think that would work? Also where would this revolution come from? Most people are soft.

    Jesse --

    Revolutions don't always require a huge degree of popular support -- look at the Bolsheviks. Granted, if you don't have significant popular support, you have to be willing to be unscrupulous with the exercise of power. But that's mostly an academic question, because, as I say above, revolution is very unlikely -- even assembling a "vanguard" of roughly the size and strength of the initial Bolshevik crew would be extremely unlikely in the contemporary West, because most people are pretty satisfied with the current scenario, really.

    And I guess that's where I ultimately come out on these issues. As I say, I support individual men doing what they think is in their own best interests, being informed about the current environment. However, I fully expect that most men will continue to follow the same path that they always have, regardless of the marriage laws. This is why changing the marriage laws to be anti-male was such a master-stroke, really --> men will still marry, regardless of the regime, and therefore changing the regime is a very effective way of leveraging law to effect social change in the most intimate relationship between men and women: marriage. In other words, it's nearly a perfect means for social transformation and transfer of power from men to women, because men, generally speaking (and despite the loud claims of MRAs to the contrary) are not going to avoid marriage en masse. So the feminists had more or less a captive audience when these laws were changed -- an institution that they knew men would keep signing up for, regardless of how rigged the new rules about it were. It was really a brilliant piece of social/legal engineering by the feminists, and as a result it's been remarkably effective at transferring relationship power to women. And there isn't one damned thing men can do about that. Viewed from that perspective, it was truly a masterstroke.

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  24. It seems to me that many (most?) of the writers and commenters on men's rights movement sites fully subscribe to the feminist mythology about "the patriarchy" -- and they're pissed at having been born too late to have ridden that mythological gravy train.

    And so, in their pique, they *want* Western civilization to crash and burn.

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  25. Yes I agree with you Novaseeker that it was well done, aimed as it was at men's bollocks. It is right that men should "jack up" and be dissatisfied with the situation. I for one didn't want to have to be the number two in the relationship, but as you say many men will settle for that, especially if they feel there’s no other alternative. Personally I think this process is starting to work its way through the system. 20 years ago I’m sure there wasn’t much of a men’s movement and now its bigger. I don’t think that the argument that there’s no need for a men’s movement as society is one big men’s movement is seriously believed anymore by the unideological.

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  26. You don't change the wider culure via political traction ... you change it in changing yourself and in refusing to surrender to its madness.

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  27. A Good article, even with the fundamental flaws and misconceptions.

    I agree that a traditionalist-friendly MRM will have easier access to mainstream acceptance, but that is only because the mainstream is so hostile toward men, with the brief and superficial exception of their traditional utilitarian value.

    With regards to post-marriage MGTOW's, you say:

    "In order to persuade men not to marry, the male separatists push the idea that men are harmed by marriage."

    I think the point is that men are harmed by divorce, and that is impossible to deny.

    The fact that these circumstances allow men to take a second look at whether they want to care take women as a lifestyle choice is just incidental to the original problem.

    In the meantime, pro marriage traditionalists that act as though marriage were no less sane a decision that it was 50 years ago may find favor with mainstream sensibilities, but they are still pushing bad advice.

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  28. Mark,

    The problem is the relative appeals of the sales pitches.

    The fathers rights groups are broadly liberal and interested in gaining abortion rights for men and equal parental rights for fathers.
    The MRA wing distinct from the fathers rights groups who are dominated by the 'gamers'. Finally there are the conservatives/trads who focus on the value of a traditional society.

    The major problem facing conservatives and traditionalists is that they emphasise male RESPONSIBILITIES, not male rights.
    They also, generally speaking, have a habit of primarily blaming men for abortion, illegitimacy and several of the other ills proceeding from feminism. There is very little focus on how men are negatively affected by institutionalized affirmative action and how women profit from this in the traditionalist/conservative movement and also the fathers rights movement which leads one to believe that both movements are dominated by older men who only want to focus on their own problems to the exclusion of others.

    Father's rights groups and MRAs emphasise men's RIGHTS, not male responsibilities. In this sense, they are similar to feminists. However, selling rights instead of responsibilities is more attractive to any audience.

    So if conservatives/trads want to make inroads, they would IMO have to figure out a way to logically debunk the primacy of rights over responsibilities for both men and women and sell that to the audience at adversarial sites.

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  29. "The culture of the suburb in which I live is still based on stable marriages in which the husband is the main provider whilst the wife is the main nurturer. None of the dozen or so couples we know has divorced. The women are (with one exception) quite wifely and motherly. The husbands are respected and appreciated."

    There seems to be a large swathe of the solidly well-off upper middle class in the UK, USA and Australia, who continue to marry, have (slightly below replacement numbers of) children, and *stay married*. Despite what the MRA say, IRL you do not see a lot of homemaker wives of successful lawyers, doctors, or Oxbridge academics divorcing them and running off with the cash & children.

    The anti-male bias in our laws, legal system, and society does not appear to significantly affect this group, though they often no longer have the 4 or so children common in my UMC grandfather's time; they have their typically 2 children and stay married, the man working hard and the woman initially in some frivolous and undemanding employment, often later given up for full-time motherhood.

    The impact *is* felt, but lower down the middle class totem pole. More marginal parts of the Middle Class *are* stressed, and react by not marrying, with high divorce rates, and so on. Certainly this affects the lower-middle-class, but it also affects the vast lumpen intelligentsia of mid-grade civil servants, state school teachers (outside the best schools), many managerial and administrative roles. This group makes up a huge proportion of our society, and the men are certainly feeling the pinch.

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  30. "In the meantime, pro marriage traditionalists that act as though marriage were no less sane a decision that it was 50 years ago may find favor with mainstream sensibilities, but they are still pushing bad advice."

    I saw so much of this talk on the Internet, I did a bit of checking up what would happen to me if my wife divorced me. Since she earns the same as I do, in the absence of children our assets would have been split evenly. Since we now have a child, presumably she would get the child and thus get most of our assets. But I checked the Child Support Agency website for how much child support I'd be subsequently liable for, and it was a trivial amount, less than the cost of the nursery he goes to, certainly nothing life-destroying. Considering how tough it is for me currently with contributing 50% of the childcare, it seemed like a bargain! I told my wife about it, and she seemed quite sobered - it didn't bear any relation to tales of impoverished fathers and unjustly enriched divorcees.

    Of course our circumstance of equal earnings is unusual, as is our circumstance of a very high energy child with no support network of friends and family, leaving it all on us and the nursery. I'm sure there are women indifferent circumstances who do make out like bandits from divorce. But then I didn't marry one of those women, and it didn't occur to me to want to do so.

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  31. There has been a lot of nonsense on the MRA blogs and message boards recently, claiming to discredit anything and everything in one way or another.

    One is that any 'movement' must be an organized movement, with targets, um, I mean, leaders in charge. It cannot be possible that millions of men will decide, one at a time, to do something with no organization and no targets, um, I mean, leaders shouting commands.

    Here are the facts, apparently not all writers are capable of understanding them, and I see a lot of strange rationalizations to explain away these numbers. Or, telling us though the rates have changed dramatically, the result will eventually, if we are patient, be exactly the same.



    Number of Marriages per 1,000
    Unmarried Women Age 15 and
    Older, by Year, United States:

    1922 99 (found on Web)
    1960 73.5
    1961 72.2
    1962 71.2
    1963 73.4
    1964 74.6
    1965 75.0
    1966 75.6
    1967 76.4
    1968 79.1
    1969 80.0
    1970 76.5
    1972 77.9
    1975 66.9
    1977 63.6
    1980 61.4
    1983 59.9
    1985 56.2
    1987 55.7
    1990 54.5
    1991 54.2
    1992 53.3
    1993 52.3
    1995 50.8
    2000 46.5
    2004 39.9
    2007 39.2 (Rutgers 2009)
    2008 37.4 (Rutgers 2009)


    Anonymous age 68

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  32. I don't know, Mark. That seemed pretty harsh, although I liked the general statement you were making (about traditionalism being the best path out of feminism). There are a lot of really great guys in the manosphere, even among those I disagree with politically, and I don't think you were doing their arguments justice.

    So let me do some fisking.

    Some of the more right-liberal ones limit themselves to calls for procedural equality... It's therefore often assumed at MRM sites that masculinity is an oppressive construct; that the aim of the MRM is to liberate men from masculinity; that society should be strictly gender neutral, including in parental roles and in having women drafted into combat roles

    I think here you are confusing rhetoric for true intent. Most of the guys I know eschew gender neutrality and promote complementarianism/patriarchy. What they (or most of them, at least) are saying is that enforcing strict gender neutrality would put women at a distinct and immediate disadvantage and show the innate unfairness of the current legal regime (where women have superior rights but inferior responsibilities). Only by making women uncomfortable will you spur them to supporting radical changes.

    For these reasons they are not very trusting of, or sympathetic toward, women.

    Or they are just tired of women and would rather spend their time fishing. Women take a lot of energy, time, and money. If the men feel like they aren't getting enough in return, they are apt to lose interest. Why keep banging your head against a wall if all you get is a headache?

    there is much hostility to white/Western women

    No, there is hostility toward Feminist Women, and it is assumed that Western Women are more feminist than other women. I think it is fair to say that this is probably true, with American women probably the most rabidly feminist of all. Even moving from Southern Germany to America is a shock, in that regard.

    In order to persuade men not to marry, the male separatists push the idea that men are harmed by marriage.

    No, they think men are harmed by what passes for "marriage" nowadays. I've hardly spoken with any men who are anti-marriage, but many who think that the modern-western institution of marriage is a sham. And I think they are completely correct in that evaluation. Marriage 1.0 is nothing like Marriage 2.0. The fact that you (and my husband) have managed to carve a 1.0 niche out for yourself does not change the fact that most men are stuck with 2.0 and are reliant upon their wife's whims for maintaining any sort of normal family life.

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  33. Conservatives and traditionalists are blamed for perpetuating chivalry and holding back men's rights.

    Conflating conservatives and traditionalists here is misleading, as they are distinct but overlapping groups. Conservatives lean toward female-idolization or "pedestalization", while traditionalists are more prone to take a realistic but paternalistic view of women. I.e. "we like women but we think they aren't fit to be running things".

    Conservatives want to protect women because they think they're Perfect Little Angels, while traditionalists protect women because they see women as being Dependents for which they feel responsible. So in the end both traditionalists and conservatives would tend toward wanting to cut women a bit of slack, but traditionalists would be more inclined to rule over women and keep them in line, to begin with. That is an important difference from the so-cons, who seem to only want the bits of patriarchy that protect women, but none of the restrictive bits.

    It's more likely, though, that it's the liberal/separatist alliance which will hold back the MRM from going mainstream.

    Yes, but they've been important by pushing traditionalism/patriarchy over conservatism/pandering. They've promoted a "tough love" attitude toward women, that I think is a healthy one for traditionalists to adopt, and in keeping with Christian teaching.

    It just sounds desperate and unrealistic.

    The fact that it sounds appealing to so many men shows how terrible their intersexual relationships have been in the past. But I think even most of these men would prefer a real wife who loves and respects them and is a good mother. It's just that such wives have begun to enter the realm of mythology for these guys.

    But more recently there seems to be a growing consensus, along the lines I tried to describe in this post.

    Yes, but that's because the louder hedonistic/nihilistic voices tend to drown out the moderates. Or we just get hounded out for not towing the party line on everything. Also, many of the more traditional men prefer mixed-sex forums. Traditional men tend to like women, after all, so they prefer to hang out where there are some women around. At least occasionally.

    Unlike women, men are not wired to collaborate in this way, on the basis of their sex, and so any attempt to actually “movementize” the men's issues community is almost certainly bound to fail.

    But women aren't wired that way, either. Stop laughing please, I'm serious.

    Women are wired to stick to their herd and follow the leader. Feminism didn't appeal to most women at the beginning either, because women followed their male God and their male head, and the feminists were stuck with whatever riff-raff was left over. That's why they attack marriage and patriarchal religion, to separate women from their natural leaders and divert their efforts and attentions to the female feminist leaders.

    But it doesn't even really work; the women are still chasing after dominant men and searching for a Father God. Feminists just turned women into headless chickens with the power to destroy their families, their communities, and civilization.

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  34. The majority view seems to be that it's better to let Western civilisation crash and burn.

    No, they want the US Fed to crash and burn so that the feminism-fueling social welfare state goes bankrupt. The welfare state is not civilization; it is dystopian in its destructive effects and I hope it dies a horrible, screaming death. Western civilization only has a chance to revive itself if that welfare state dies before it destroys everything under its influence.

    In other words, the instinct is not nihilistic, rather it is the libertarian urge to shrink the government down to a useful and efficient size. Basically, we're praying for the end of the dollar as reserve currency. That would change everything without violent revolution. I hope. The sooner and faster it happens, the better the result would be.

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  35. But I checked the Child Support Agency website for how much child support I'd be subsequently liable for, and it was a trivial amount, less than the cost of the nursery he goes to, certainly nothing life-destroying.

    Interesting information.

    In most U.S. states it's calculated as a simple percentage of income for the payor parent. That percentage varies by state, but is generally 12-16% of gross income for most parents -- with discretion for higher amounts for very high earning payor spouses. In most places in the U.S., this is basically an additional income tax, as the amounts paid are not deductible from the income of the paying parent, nor are they counted as income to the recipient parent. As a result of this approach, the amounts involved are often not "trivial" -- it's generally something like 25-35% of net income (or more, if you have more than one child).

    In my case, it's roughly the same as my own monthly housing expense, and that's for one child. Another guy who got divorced in Virginia around the same time I did pays about ~800 more per month than his housing cost, but he had two kids (and no, neither of these situations involves a recipient spouse who is not also a high-earner professional, earning about as much as the payor spouse).

    It would appear that the UK has a different approach, based on what you have written.

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  36. When I want to communicate with someone, I tend to avoid talking down to them, talking in a condescending manner, or otherwise treating them as a lesser being than I am. If traditionalists wish to actually communicate with the rather diverse group of men that are more or less grouped under the banner of Men's Rights Advocates, a good first step would be to actually treat them as men, rather than as wayward boys who just need a good talking to.

    On a rather regular basis, I see a definite condescending, "Oh, just man up and take it!" attitude among traditionalists, generally those with secure marriages and jobs, who grew up in two-parent families with fathers that were present.

    Your message has no meaning to a 25 year old man who knows that his oldest sibling and a younger sibling died, and that basically a whim of his mother kept him from being "Hoover food", i.e. aborted. How does a man who grew up knowing that his mother killed his little brother in her womb relate to women? What does the term "mother" mean to him?

    Your message has no meaning to another 20-something man who grew up in a matriarchy consisting of his mother, grandmother, aunt and sister, each of whom in her own way made clear that "men are no damned good" on a regular basis for his entire childhood and adolescence. When you write of how men should just marry and form families and become fathers, what do you think that looks like to a man who saw his father arrested on trumped up, fake charges of Domestic Violence and barred from the house? To that young man, "fatherhood" means "work all day outside the house and get to spend time with children for 5 to 7 years until Mommy gets tired of him, and then he packs his stuff into a gym bag and moves into a cheap apartment".

    In the US, there is now an entire generation of young men who have grown up under feminism. Feminist mothers made sure they didn't have any toy guns or toy soldiers. Feminist teachers constantly disciplined them for essentially not acting like girls, and in too many cases drugged them with Ritalin or other drugs. Feminist professors "taught" them that all men are rapists, and that's all they are. Feminist "entertainments" such as every sitcom on TV taught them that "Dad" is a bumbling, incompetent fool at best, and a sinister rapist/child molesting creep at worst.

    These are the young men you are ordering to man up, get married and live as though it's 1955. You might as well tell them to go onto a high mountain and flap their arms in order to fly to the Moon, as far as they are concerned, because what they have been force fed is that they are inherently bad, stupid, even evil creatures because of their gender, and that the only use they have is as sperm donors and walking ATM's.

    So you might try actually paying attention to what the MRA's are saying, and writing. You might actually try taking them seriously, rather than talking down to them like wayward schoolboys who took too much candy and failed to eat their lunch. You might try walking a mile, or a 1.6 kilometers if you prefer, in their shoes in order to find out why their feet seem to hurt so much.

    You might consider asking more questions, and offering fewer one-way lectures. If you actually want to communicate, that is.

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  37. I do think, in fairness to Mark (who certainly writes in good faith), that regional/national differences are not insignificant here.

    I have not been to Oz since the 90s, but my assessment then was that it was 10-15 years "behind" the US in terms of the "penetration rate" (and outing my use of that term ironically just to piss off Mary Daly and Andrea Dworkin in their respective graves, lmao) of feminism in the US. That may nor may not still be the case, but it wouldn't surprise me if it is still kind of the case. And the corollary is that peer-age relationships will be at different "feminism penetration stages" by nation.

    A similar difference exists between the US and some Euro countries, but that is more complex and needs to be looked at on a country-specific basis, because the ways and means that feminism has penetrated European societies differs quite a bit nationally and regionally as well.

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  38. I do think, in fairness to Mark (who certainly writes in good faith), that regional/national differences are not insignificant here.

    I second that. Mark seems sincere to me, but I think he's been protected from the worst of feminism, so far. Happily married men (like Mark or my husband) are generally baffled by all of the righteous anger, but they aren't really helping things if they just say, "Let them get married."

    The biggest attitude differences appear to be based upon the men's life experiences, rather than the quality of the men themselves. The men who have been raked over hot coals by life are more skeptical about women's intentions, which seems to be a sane and natural reaction to me. Some of them go overboard into hate, but most are just increasingly wary.

    I've thrice seen men go from "happily married traditional man" to "skewered on a pike by a woman man". It can happen to anybody, really. Game or not, religious or not, traditional or not. Every man needs to understand that he could be next, and that he should not accept a legal situation in which his wife can sacrifice him on the altar of her hypergamy. The law should not cater to women's whims.

    Even a good woman can turn, and rationalize her betrayal. It happens often, and it happens to good husbands every day. It's not until happily married men and anti-feminist women acknowledge that, and move to change the laws, that anything will improve.

    That, or the dollar finally ends with its last QE breath.

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  39. Good piece, Oz Conservative, which I shall read properly when I have more time. I think I basically agree with you.

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  40. Just a quick further comment at the moment. I think Australia is definitely less feminist than America. And I also think that this will continue to be the case for various reasons, including the ethnic makeup of the people.

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  41. Alte:

    " traditionalists are more prone to take a realistic but paternalistic view of women. I.e. "we like women but we think they aren't fit to be running things" "

    Yes. And this has implications in all areas of life, including religion, and describes well the difference in the thinking of conservative Catholic males vs traditionalist Catholic males. I think John Paul II was a conservative in this sense; but I discern a more traditionalist flavour to the thinking of Pope Benedict on women.

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  42. As a man in my 20s I can tell you that this post is another example why many young men my age are ready to build a gallows for traditionalists right next to one for feminists. Do you really think another chorus of "man up" is going to make men listen to you?

    Read what Anonymous Protestant had to say about life for men my age. I can attest to the fact he's right. I was raised in a matriarchy at home, forced into a matriarchy in a public school, and had to deal with another matriarchy in college to get a college degree. After all that I finally have a small degree of freedom from matriarchy and you traditionalists are telling me that I'm supposed to "man up" and get married to be put under the thumb of another woman so I can have a divorce forced upon me and have my kids taken away.

    If you traditionalists really want to support marriage why don't you actually do it by trying to get the laws reformed to not be anti-male and anti-freedom? Even if you traditionalists tried and failed at least we would know where you stand? Right now with your "man up" hooey I can't see how you take marriage seriously. Otherwise you would be listening to MRAs. As far as I can see traditionalists only want weddings and kids. After that you traditionalists don't care if marriages go to hell.

    I don't know where you got the idea that MRAs have leftist ideology. MRAs are not trying to deconstruct marriage. They are trying to provide men a PRACTICAL solution given the circumstances. It's not perfect but avoiding marriage (and in some cases avoiding women entirely) is the best thing that anyone has come up with. If you want to see something different give men a better PRACTICAL solution that can be used right now instead of pretending it's 1955.

    Most men who are MGTOW and/or avoiding marriage have never heard of the MRM or MGTOW. Why is this? Because it's a rational solution that an individual man can use right now. There is no thought about "separatism" or "autonomy" or "liberalism". These men are trying to live their lives without them getting destroyed by women. Again, if you want to see something different, provide a PRACTICAL solution men can implement right now.

    I can't see what the difference is between the supposed "conservatives" and the supposed "traditionalists". All of you are saying "man up" and ignoring the real problems with marriage law instead of trying to solve them. As far as I can tell you traditionalists are serious about fighting feminism since you traditionalists don't do anything that can positively impact the lives of men. Instead you traditionalists are part of the problem just like feminism.

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  43. "Do you really think another chorus of "man up" is going to make men listen to you?"

    You're so lame. If you're serious about your society then you'll look for a solution to this problem so you can have kids, not just whoreing it up. Whoring it up is an individualist rationalist response, its just a limtited one and it doesn't do anything for society. Of course you might say why should I care about society? Yeah *cough* lame.

    I agree like you that this is a serious problem requiring serious solutions. I'm not looking to hang anyone, traditionalist or mra's. Sooner or latter the attacks will have to stop and real solutions will have to be offered, see my initial comment.

    The first solution is an individualist one of understanding the issue and personally getting to grips with it. The second will involve social solutions and attitude shifts so we can get society back on track.

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  44. Anonymous Protestant, Anonymous,

    I'll probably answer your comments in a separate post. Let me say for now that I don't think you're reading things right.

    First, I'm not so old that I managed to escape the relationships issues faced by men. I was in the thick of it myself in my 20s, to the point at which I went MGTOW myself for a few years.

    Second, I've been actively campaigning on men's issues for a long time now - and I mean *actively* campaigning. It's odd to hear newbies suggest that I sit down at their feet and take instructions from them.

    Obviously I've hit a sore point in defending marriage, even traditional marriage. But I'm going to stick with this because it's the right thing to do.

    We only get to live once. Becoming a husband and father is one of the defining aspects of a man's life. It's one of the things we were born for, that fulfils us most deeply.

    It is wrong to let a bunch of lousy feminists deprive us of this good in life.

    Yes, it is right to advise men to be wary of the laws and culture governing marriage today.

    But I reject emphatically the strategy of avoiding marriage altogether. How is this meant to help anyone? It won't hurt the liberal elite, who are only too happy to see Europeans bow out of history. It won't hurt feminists, who are only too happy to see family life decline.

    And it is likely to lead young MRAs to bitterly turn on the movement a decade or so down the track, just like childless, spinster feminists have been bitterly turning against the feminist leaders in the past few years.

    Anonymous, avoiding marriage is not a "practical" solution for men. Not at all. It does not help men, in practice, to have a fulfilling LTR or to have children. Nor does it help to reform the laws and culture governing marriage.

    You write:

    If you traditionalists really want to support marriage why don't you actually do it by trying to get the laws reformed to not be anti-male and anti-freedom?

    I think you're coming in with preconceptions here. I have often stood up for these aims; there are traditionalists like Laura Wood who have courageously argued for such reforms. But our movement is too small right now to influence public policy.

    You write also:

    I don't know where you got the idea that MRAs have leftist ideology. MRAs are not trying to deconstruct marriage.

    That is true of some MRAs. But I have noticed at some MRM sites that the anti-marriage argument is being extended way beyond the original criticism of modernist, feminist type marriage. More and more the argument is that marriage is inherently a false institution, a product of a limited historical epoch, and that it is in its nature oppressive to men.

    That to me is a toxic idea that has to be opposed. Stable monogamous marriage is associated with civilisational strength. Lose it and you end up being ruled over by some other more productive and dynamic civilisation.

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  45. The first solution is an individualist one of understanding the issue and personally getting to grips with it. The second will involve social solutions and attitude shifts so we can get society back on track.

    Jesse, that's well put. The second solution is going to take some time, which is why the first solution is what we have to deal with immediately.

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  46. Like you said this is an entire generation so you're not in it alone. I joined the Army because I saw my society was deficient and there worked on my manning up. Many guys do many different things and I don’t have any problem with a men’s movement. I don't expect people with these backgrounds to become rocks over night, this is a long process and it has to be worked at. Each generation has its own issues, this is ours. I'd like there to be one after us though so that means the clock is running and solutions have to be practical.

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  47. Sorry I didn't post the top part of my comment.

    Anonymous Protestant said:

    "These are the young men you are ordering to man up, get married and live as though it's 1955. You might as well tell them to go onto a high mountain and flap their arms in order to fly to the Moon"

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  48. Interesting discussion.

    I agree entirely that men have always had problems. At the moment, our women are playing up. I think we men are clever and adaptable. I think we can solve this problem.

    I think I know the solution, and it is along the lines of a return to traditionalism. I have never pedestalised women, partly because I believe that women are at least as flawed as men. Original Sin.

    I have faced real problems in finding the right girl, including a failed engagement. My father and mother were on their way to divorce when he was killed in a road accident. Two of my three children are on the autism spectrum. My wife has suffered from depression and weight problems. And so on. But I have MADE my marriage work.

    What I want is for men to "wise up" and learn from other men's experience. I have learned a lot of very useful things from the Manosphere. But I don't want to give up on women. As Alte says, traditionalists like me actually value women for what they are.

    I have always wanted a woman, just one. I don't think I am called to celibacy. I like children. I needed to get married and make it work. I will do whatever it takes to make my marriage a success.

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  49. I will do whatever it takes to make my marriage a success.

    David, thanks for writing in. If both the husband and wife have this strong commitment, then a marriage has a chance of surviving in the long-term.

    I don't think I've been through quite what you have. Even so, there have been problems along the way.

    When I was looking to marry, I couldn't find a woman "ready made" so to speak for marriage. For some years, I consoled myself with the idea that I only had to find the one exception.

    Eventually it dawned on me that this wasn't likely to happen. So I did something counter-intuitive. I looked for the kind of woman I thought might, in the right conditions, become more wife-like.

    I looked for someone with a strong commitment to marriage and motherhood and who had a strong moral core.

    I guess my idea was that if you took a decent woman out of the modern girl lifestyle and instead put her in a more traditonal setting of being a mother and homemaker that she might develop over time the kind of qualities I was seeking.

    Early in my marriage my wife was still a bit of the modern girl type. She took a lot for granted, was unreasonable at times and had a bit of unresolved anger and resentment. I had to be resilient at times in dealing with this - I had to put to use some of the masculine qualities I had been brought up with to deal with it.

    I found it to be a high input/high output arrangement. I had to put in a lot, but I also got a lot out of it.

    It was mostly happy, though there were a couple of miserable low moments when I wondered if I had made a mistake.

    But we were both committed to making it work out. And over time things worked out as I hoped they would.

    After a few years of being at home looking after our children my wife began to become more "wifely" (more patient, kind, nurturing, gentle). She began to remind me of the women I had known of my mother's generation.

    Of course, I can't guarantee that it will last. But I've had a happier personal life over the past year or so than I've ever had.

    I feel as if I've played a very active role as a husband in creating a good family outcome. I've played the kind of stewardship role that I instinctively feel my qualities as a man were intended for.

    But, yes, it's something you have to commit to resolutely.

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  50. I had certain advantages. My wife was still at home and studying when I met her. She and I are both serious Catholics. She was pretty enough for me, my type, and I found her sexy. She was a virgin, but not a prude and she was ready for a man. She had a submissive streak, which I liked because I have a domineering side, something I have only fully realised from the reactions I get on the Internet. For example, I expect my wife to wear only skirts and dresses, and she does. People find this strange and controlling, but it seems natural to me.

    We have been married 25 years. My wife had good training from her mother as a housewife, although she had to learn to cook properly. But she is not an angel. This is where what I have learned on the Internet about "game" and hypergamy has helped. I knew some of this instinctively but I have learned much more, including from women.

    If only someone would tell a young man getting married: Don't react too much to your wife's emotions - they will always veer wildly for no real reason; keep cool yourself; if she is misbehaving, ignoring her is usually the best option - women value attention and do not like being ignored. Don't let her order you about like a maid. You will both hate it. If you want her to do something, just tell her. If she disobeys, ignore it. Keep cool. If she becomes hysterical, keep cool. She will be impressed.

    Don't supplicate. Act like the boss, and she will usually follow. Don't push her and make demands. Just lead her quietly. Do not allow her to call you rude names. Expect a level of deference.

    And so on. This is what has worked for me for 25 years and through some very tough times.

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  51. Novaseeker:
    "something like 25-35% of net income"

    The UK Child Support Agency calculator said AIR around £380/month, under 15% of my net income. Considering our cheap and fairly crap London nursery alone costs twice that, and the huge amount of effort & expense I currently put in, it didn't seem a lot - certainly not anything like half the actual cost of raising the child. I can see how someone with similar income but different circumstances could have a different perception though.

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  52. "I've played the kind of stewardship role that I instinctively feel my qualities as a man were intended for."

    Even feminist women seem to look for the 'alpha' leader man to look up to and defer from. I am not usually much of a leader, but when I have had to be so in an emergency, my wife has responded and obeyed.

    This is why 'man up' is still good advice, if men can understand what it means. It's about assuming that leader/steward demeanour, because that's what women want - they want the strong man. From what I've seen, when women divorce it's typically because they see their man as weak, not as overly strong. They seem more likely to divorce a faithful husband who's lost his job or developed an alchohol problem than one who cheats on her with 'hot chicks'.

    So I think the biggest problem for many men is that they've not had a strong male role model, and the education system has brainwashed them to act weak & submissive to women. So they act like Roissi's "Beta" doormats (not really betas in zoological terms), and are mistreated and eventually divorced by their wives. So they become bitter, unsurprisingly.

    What I have *not* seen is the ruthless woman who marries a good man with the intention of abusing and divorcing him, taking the kids and cash. Women do have feminist lies in their heads, and these can warp their behaviour within marriage, but when they marry they are still looking for the 'happy ever after' marriage. The man who acts as the strong husband-steward can give them that. And it's not about the man's income or looks, it's about his attitude, his demeanour and behaviour.

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  53. David:
    "Don't react too much to your wife's emotions - they will always veer wildly for no real reason; keep cool yourself"

    Excellent advice. Men must understand (discarding the lies they've been told) that WOMEN'S BRAINS ARE NOT THE SAME. Even my rather male-brained wife thinks and feels very differently from a man. Men must *not* react to an angry shouting woman the way they would to a man. Do not get angry, do not get into a big fight. It will all blow over VERY quickly.

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  54. Alte is right. Women look for authority. A male god, a male relative. Or, failing that, a male politician or government itself. Finally, a woman will follow an ideal, including a feminist ideal.

    Try some experiments with your wife. Give her a plain, unvarnished order. Ignore her immediate reaction, and wait. You may be pleasantly suprised. Next time she tries to order you around, or rants at you, ignore her or laugh at her. Try looking her in the eyes. She is likely to lower hers (primate behaviour) in deference. If you are really annoyed with her, tell her off vehemently. My wife almost never minds this.

    Generally, you are quite safe ignoring her outbursts. She will cool quickly, more quickly than if you argue with her. Do not argue with a woman heatedly. It makes you look like a fool and you won't win such an argument.

    The only caveat would be: if she is becoming really hysterial and looks like she might become violent, secure the safety of all the family members, leaving if necessary, at least until she cools down.

    Despite what the media dishonestly portrays, women are pretty nuts a lot of the time. Their hormones and moods swing wildly.

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  55. "And it is likely to lead young MRAs to bitterly turn on the movement a decade or so down the track, just like childless, spinster feminists have been bitterly turning against the feminist leaders in the past few years."

    Aint gonna happen, guys don't have a biological clock, despite all the media propaganda.

    Would you send your only son to Afganistan Mark? Yeh just like I thought...

    Screw the 'greater good' and let the little sisters rot on the vine.

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  56. Simon,

    Your comment (8:39) is excellent. You wrote:

    This is why 'man up' is still good advice, if men can understand what it means.

    I understand why the MRAs are suspicious of the "man up" idea. It has been used as a shaming tactic by feminists to suppress debate on men's issues.

    For instance, if a man were to complain that the divorce laws were biased against men, a feminist might tell him to man up and quite whining.

    That happened to me back in the 1990s when I first started to raise these issues on campus.

    The problem is that the hostility of MRAs to "manning up" has become general and extends to all contexts.

    That's unfortunate as men have always needed to man up in some respects in order to achieve good outcomes in life.

    It goes with the territory of having a masculine role to fulfil in life.

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  57. guys don't have a biological clock

    But, first, why think that things will be better in 15 years time if the only strategy is to "go your own way"?

    In other words, if you think that it's no use marrying at age 25, why will it be any better marrying at 40?

    And if you do wait till you're 40, then you better have something special to offer, because you'll want a woman 10 years younger than you if you want to have much of a choice about how many kids you'd like.

    And how old will you be when you become a grandfather? If your kids wait till they're also 40, you'll be in your dotage.

    And let's say things go well in your marriage. Won't you regret the fact that you haven't shared your youthful passion with your wife? That you've only found the woman you feel most closely attached to after your instincts toward women have cooled?

    And having habituated yourself to life as a bachelor for so long, how confident are you that you'll be ready to take on the challenges of marriage?

    I speak from experience here, as I married late myself. It's something I very much regret. I do wish that I'd started out with my wife earlier, at least five years earlier.

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  58. Novaseeker:
    "something like 25-35% of net income"

    The UK Child Support Agency calculator said AIR around £380/month, under 15% of my net income. Considering our cheap and fairly crap London nursery alone costs twice that, and the huge amount of effort & expense I currently put in, it didn't seem a lot - certainly not anything like half the actual cost of raising the child. I can see how someone with similar income but different circumstances could have a different perception though.


    As I said, Simon, clearly the rules are different in the UK than they are in many US states. I looked at the UK calculator -- the amounts are lower than would be the case in the US, for certain.

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  59. Yeah, I'm glad I married young (24). I just wish we'd started a family when I was young, too.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Men may not have a biological clock, but they have a psychological clock. It's the rare man who wants to *start* fatherhood in his 40s or later.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Anonymous said,

    "Aint gonna happen, guys don't have a biological clock"

    This is working on the assumption that younger women will flock to you when you want it. A similar assumption being made by the majority of feminists, we'll put forward what we want and the men will go along with it.

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  62. Mark Richardson
    I understand why the MRAs are suspicious of the "man up" idea. It has been used as a shaming tactic by feminists to suppress debate on men's issues.

    It is also used as a shaming tactic by traditionalists, to suppress discussion of men's issues. I do not have much use for the "Thinking Housewife" because while she may be a housewife, there is no evidence that she actually thinks. Her claim that feminism succeeded in the 1970's because men allowed it to is but one example.

    For instance, if a man were to complain that the divorce laws were biased against men, a feminist might tell him to man up and quite whining.

    And so would traditionalists, far too often. The article I'm responding here to borders on that, in my opinion.

    ReplyDelete
  63. Let me try another approach to communicate with Mark Richardson, via analogy.

    Suppose that a young man wants to become an adequate player of baseball (in the US) / cricket (Oz/Uk). He goes to a midlevel player and asks for advice. The midlevel player, in a slightly condescending tone, tells him "Just hit the ball. That's the ticket. Just man up, and hit the ball." and nothing more.

    So this young man goes out, whiffs at pitches, gets struck in the crotch by a deliberately cruel pitch, scores no runs and is humiliated. Then his "friend" comes up to him and says, "Just hit the ball! Man up, and hit the ball!".

    Do you think this form of advice will work? Or will the young man soon look for another source of advice, someone who will coach him on proper stance, proper grip of the bat, how to anticipate various pitches, strategies of the game, how to deal with nasty pitchers, and so forth?

    In my opinion, the MRA's are discussing cricket/baseball in a variety of ways. Some say "to heck with it, just take your ball and bad and go your own way", others suggest finding a good batting coach, and so forth. But none of them, not any of them suggest just standing up and flailing away without a clue. And for this, you criticize them? For actually having a genuine, sometimes rather heated, dialog on what is to be done, you dismiss them?

    At least they offer a young man coming up to bat some concrete options, something more than "Just man up, and hit the ball", which is pretty much what you are saying.

    Is this any clearer? If not, I'll try explaining it a different way.

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  64. to the point at which I went MGTOW myself for a few years

    Yeah, my husband gave up on the dating scene for about 6 years, until he met me.

    I have to say that my Catholic inclinations lead me to be sympathetic to the MGTOW-ers (the real ones, not the promiscuous ones). The Roman Church has a long history of that sort of thing, from both sexes. Marriage is only one of many vocations, after all, and we're not all called to it. People who don't marry can accomplish things that the rest of us can't.

    I don't think we necessarily need a lot more marriages, but the ones we do have should be more stable and fecund. And if marriage is a vocation, it will only be an appealing vocation if we clean it up and return it to its true nature. I wouldn't pressure men to become monks if that resulted in their being abused either, so why pressure them to marry? The pressure should be on the women, to finally behave themselves and honor their vows.

    And I think it is perfectly legitimate for a man to marry a foreign woman and leave his country. If his country wishes for him to stay, it should make him welcome and respect his societal contributions as a husband and a father, rather than treating him like a criminal-in-waiting and a tax-bank.

    It won't hurt feminists, who are only too happy to see family life decline.

    Married men are our nations' providers and producers. The fewer of them that there are, the less resources the feminists will have. Feminists only care about money but don't earn any themselves, so starve the beasts.

    But, first, why think that things will be better in 15 years time if the only strategy is to "go your own way"?

    Economic collapse or reform. Feminism is an unsustainable economic model and the math never lies. Somebody, somewhere has to start producing something, or we don't eat.

    I just went grocery shopping this morning. We have a fixed budget, so I spend the same amount every month and have the same shopping list. This month many of the packages are smaller (shrinkage) but the end total was $154 more. That means our groceries have gone up about 25% in price. And this during a recession where almost 1/4 of the population is either unemployed or underemployed. People are going hungry in this country.

    The math doesn't add up. A credit-financed feminist economy will go broke and then women will be clamouring for marriage. A girl's gotta eat, and husbands tend to feed their wives and children. You'll see, Mark. We can't mock nature's laws indefinitely. God will not allow that.

    Forget 15 years. More like 15 months.

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  65. Ah! so young men are wanting to play baseball, but all that the "Gamers" of the "manosphere" are interested in is either:
    1) telling them that baseball sucks and that they really ought to be playing cricket, or,
    2) telling them how to play cricket while leading them to believe that they're telling them how to play baseball.

    Got it!

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  66. It's obvious that the decline of Western civilization has already entered its terminal phase. Therefore the more we do to accelerate this process, the better. It shortens the agony. Trying to save its remnants by resuscitating traditional marriage is absurd. If you want to have a traditional marriage, convert to Islam or move to isolated Christian communities - in other words, join the people who, unlike our brilliant forefathers, have enough common sense to keep women on a very short leash.

    Höllenhund

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  67. "Would you send your only son to Afganistan Mark? Yeh just like I thought"

    The funny thing about this comment is that in the current environment, fighting in Afghanistan is less risky than getting married for the average Western man.

    Höllenhund

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  68. Also, there is no such thing as a "Men's Rights Movement" along the lines of the "Women's Rights Movement". There is a broad collection of men (and a handful of women) who are dissatisfied, or unhappy, or frustrated, and/or angry about the current combination of cultural mores' and legal structure that penalizes men no matter what they do, while overtly benefiting some women.

    It's leaderless resistance. A better analogy would be the US "Tea Party", which despite media claims, has no real leaders. There are people such as Palin, Beck and others who speak at Tea Party events, but they aren't the leaders. There are no leaders. There are groups of people coming up with their own strategy, and applying it, while communicating with others. That's closer to the MRA's, a group of men and some women who are engaged in a huge brainstorming effort to find solutions.

    There's no central control. That's good, because if there were, the feminist-media-government complex would locate, fix and neutralize them.

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  69. Ilion said:
    Ah! so young men are wanting to play baseball, but all that the "Gamers" of the "manosphere" are interested in is either:
    1) telling them that baseball sucks and that they really ought to be playing cricket, or,
    2) telling them how to play cricket while leading them to believe that they're telling them how to play baseball.


    This is an ignorant statement. It is evident that you have no clue what Game is about, or what MRA's are actually saying.

    Man up, actually learn something, and we can have an adult discussion. This childishness may work well with your feminist/traditionalist friends, but it's useless with me.

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  70. "And what if I'd stayed single? Would that have upset any feminists? I doubt it. How many feminists are concerned about marriage trends for white heterosexual men? A lot of feminists would probably be encouraged if marriage rates went down."

    In other words, average men should line up as lambs to the slaughter and try to form traditional marriages, regardless of the risks - because that will make feminists angry. That right there is just a fantastic piece of propaganda.

    Höllenhund

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  71. "It's obvious that the decline of Western civilization has already entered its terminal phase. Therefore the more we do to accelerate this process, the better"

    The last time Western Civilisation collapsed, it was the men who fought hardest against the Dying of the Light who preserved something worth passing on to future generations. Those who embrace nihilism, who embrace death, are the friends of our enemies and have nothing of value. Their names will be dust on the wind.

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  72. Simon in London:
    What I have *not* seen is the ruthless woman who marries a good man with the intention of abusing and divorcing him, taking the kids and cash. Women do have feminist lies in their heads, and these can warp their behaviour within marriage, but when they marry they are still looking for the 'happy ever after' marriage. The man who acts as the strong husband-steward can give them that. And it's not about the man's income or looks, it's about his attitude, his demeanour and behaviour.

    Why don't you tell that to William Hetherington? Yes, this is an extreme case, but please note the various forms of perjury that Mrs. Hetherington clearly committed, for which she has received no punishement.

    Also note that there is nothing in law or society to prevent any woman in the US from doing the same thing. Nothing but her conscience...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hetherington_case

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  73. Höllenhund,

    It's also a safer place for a black man than an American inner-city.

    ReplyDelete
  74. Anonymous Protestant,

    I really do disagree with your analysis.

    I can understand the idea of young men wanting practical guidance. But such men aren't going to find it at MRA sites like reddit, where they'll just be told that women are worthless exploiters of men and that men should avoid marriage and wait for the Japanese to perfect fembots instead.

    Second, I *have* offered some practical guidance to men at this site. It's advice along the lines of how best to adapt to unfavourable conditions in dating and marriage - with the goal being to have a good marriage.

    Nor have I ever simply told men to "man up". Again, you are coming in with preconceptions here or projecting some internal dialogue of your own onto the politics of this site.

    Really, I understand when people are frustrated and angry that they want to find the people responsible for their difficulties and lash out. I've been in that place myself.

    But you're picking an unusual target. I've had no influence in creating current dating and marriage difficulties for men; was very much subject to the same difficulties myself; and have spent nearly 20 years actively campaigning against those conditions.

    Anonymous Protestant, let me try to put this in perspective. I've spent four years on campus as an MRA distributing thousands of copies of a free magazine to students criticising feminist trends in dating and marriage. I've spent six or seven years running this site, have posted several hundred columns criticising feminist trends in dating and marriage, with many hundreds of thousands of readers from across the globe; I've distributed tens of thousands of brochures to homes in my area campaigning on the same issues; I've set up local and national networks for distributing information on MRA issues to interested conservatives; I've made sure local candidates in elections have known my views on MRA issues; and I've taken on feminists in my workplace (losing one job along the way, but gaining the upper hand in another).

    Can you claim to have been this proactive in trying to change the situation for future generations of men?

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  75. Mark Richardson:
    I really do disagree with your analysis.

    Obviously. But do you understand it?

    I can understand the idea of young men wanting practical guidance.

    That isn't obvious from the latest posting.

    But such men aren't going to find it at MRA sites like reddit, where they'll just be told that women are worthless exploiters of men and that men should avoid marriage and wait for the Japanese to perfect fembots instead.

    It's already been pointed out to you that reddit is hardly the only MRA site on the web, and I have pointed out that there is no coherent, organized MRM at all. There is a loose group of men and some women who disagree on a lot of things but do agree on a few things. So rather than engage with the larger universe of MRA sites, ranging from Spearhead to Dalrock, you persist in basically bashing a strawman.

    You're not convincing me that you even understand the issues beyond no-strings divorce.

    Second, I *have* offered some practical guidance to men at this site.

    Not since I've been reading. If I can make time, I'll go look into your archives.

    It's advice along the lines of how best to adapt to unfavourable conditions in dating and marriage - with the goal being to have a good marriage.

    There you go again. In the US on uni campuses dating is dead, killed by the hookup culture. You might as well offer advice on the best way to build a buggy. If you would pay attention to what men under 30, and especially under 25, have to say you would know this.

    Nor have I ever simply told men to "man up".

    I disagree, and point to the article "What's wrong with the men's rights movement" as the most recent example of this.

    Again, you are coming in with preconceptions here or projecting some internal dialogue of your own onto the politics of this site.

    I'm sure that's how you see it. But that's not how I see it, and I bet you a cookie that's not how the young men would see it.

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  76. Mark Richardson:
    Really, I understand when people are frustrated and angry that they want to find the people responsible for their difficulties and lash out. I've been in that place myself.

    Nice example of shaming language. Another thing traditionalists share with feminists. But the fact of the matter is, you put your foot in it with this post bashing the MRM in a very myopic and one-sided way. I'm offering constructive criticism, by suggesting that your view of things is out of date. It is no accident that the majority of MRA weblogs and sites are USA-centric, because that's the epicenter of feminist damage. But from what I can tell, everything that I see in North America is coming to a theater near you. What our college men are going through now, your Oz men are likely to get hit with in ten years. Bear that in mind, and learn to take criticism like a man.



    But you're picking an unusual target. I've had no influence in creating current dating and marriage difficulties for men; was very much subject to the same difficulties myself; and have spent nearly 20 years actively campaigning against those conditions.

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  77. Anonymous Reader,

    One of the problems of running a blog rather than writing a book is that you can't fit everything into a single post.

    I wrote this post to criticise emerging trends on some of the larger MRM sites.

    I did accept early on in the comments that I could have given more weight to some of the smaller, indepedent MRA sites.

    But you are hardly disproving my point that one of the trends is a hardening attitude against marriage from the MGTOW types.

    The discussion has brought out how deep the emotions run on this issue.

    BTW, you are wrong in asserting that men under 25 are experiencing something that men of my own generation have missed.

    I am part of the transition generation. I experienced the older, more stable culture as a very young man, but it was gone by my mid-20s.

    In some ways, the adaptation was harder for someone like me who was raised in a different culture. It was more confusing and confronting because we knew something different.

    Obviously I am aware of a hookup culture. I did not mean "old-fashioned courtship" when I used the word dating. I simply meant the process of trying to meet women. I thought that would be understood.

    But there is one last thing that has to be recognised. Things are more difficult than they ought to be but not entirely impossible.

    People are still getting married and having children. My suburb is full of couples with kids. So is my workplace.

    And, as I wrote earlier, nearly all of the couples I know run the relationships either on traditional lines or on some variation of a traditional marriage (e.g. the wife goes back to work part-time when the children are at school).

    I'm not sure how your analysis accounts for the persistence of marriage and parenthood amongst sections of the Western population.

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  78. Mark said,

    "Can you claim to have been this proactive in trying to change the situation for future generations of men?"

    Absolutely. Mark I didn't realise the full extent of your commitment and would like to say that you should ABSOLUTLEY be commended.

    On AP's point,

    I don't think that "just hit the ball" should be advise but that it should be the end state. I get frustrated with that kind of advise too. In days gone by that may have been sufficient, the subtext being "figure it out for yourself young man and then demonstrate your skills in competition". As each man was competitive with the other, and took pride in being in charge of his own life, so it wasn't exactly "manly" to give too much advise. There was also a pro man background culture which assisted this.

    In today's day and age that isn't enough. Men have to work harder to counter the inappropriate messages they receive. I like the Army for one because they don't just say "be a soldier" but help break it down. A good soldier/trainer can really transform his guys. A not so good one may force change but will require the endless threat of force to make it happen. In our more individualist society we can't exclusively rely on outside force to make things happen.

    Ultimately giving men advise isn't inconsistent with a traditional approach or exclusive to a Men's right's approach. If the problem with traditionalism is that it "assumes" that men are on top and therefore don't or shouldn't need advise then I agree it may not be helpful. Ultimately, however, being a man involves braving some of the elements on your own rather than relying on others for everything.

    Hollenhund (5:00) said,(forgive the spelling)

    "The funny thing about this comment is that in the current environment, fighting in Afghanistan is less risky than getting married for the average Western man".

    That's true but marriage isn't easier for regular soldier's who I would say have a higher rate of divorce than the average. In part because of the pressures of the job and the continual movement and absences of the spouse. Marriage wise you're better off not going.

    Alte (3:21) said:

    "And I think it is perfectly legitimate for a man to marry a foreign woman and leave his country"

    However, I think we need white men to predominantly marry white women. This is the end state. I'm not saying men should marry a white feminist to be slaughtered. The "take your bat and ball and go home permanently" approach, whilst it might be understandable is ultimately not a winning strategy. If the idea is that by doing so you're hastening collapse, remember that means you're sitting at home hoping for failure, which is not very productive, also there’s no kids for you to pass your legacy onto. Additionally you can't predict that collapse will necessarily be a good thing. The West went through a long dark age at the end of the Roman collapse. So reform if possible is the more efficient strategy. What we don’t want to do is ape the environmentalists who didn’t want to have kids anyway but now claim a justification not to do so.

    Alte,

    Additionally if you're hoping for starvation to kick in and take women home you'd better start smashing machines because all of our technological progress is making survival factors less of an issue rather than more. The bigger likelihood is that white people will stop having kids, as there is not enough security on their investment, rather than that women will go home for food and shelter.

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  79. Mark Richardson
    And, as I wrote earlier, nearly all of the couples I know run the relationships either on traditional lines or on some variation of a traditional marriage (e.g. the wife goes back to work part-time when the children are at school).

    Do you understand the concept of selection bias? I could "prove" that Australians are all blue-eyed, or all Moslem, or all Asian, by preselecting my data. And all that "proof" would be irrelevant, because the sample is biased. What you are telling us is that upper-middle-class Australians are not living the same way as lower middle class Australians. Not yet, anyway.

    So? Is it your opinion that's a condition anyone in the Anglosphere can accomplish, just by "manning up"?

    The message I get from you is this: "I'm all right, Jack, just marry and you'll be all right, too". Is that the message you mean to send?

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  80. Anonyomous Protestant (8:52) said,

    "Nice example of shaming language. Another thing traditionalists share with feminists."

    If you do away with shaming language you have to do away with shame. I don't think any of us wants that.

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  81. Anonymous Protestant said,

    "The message I get from you is this: "I'm all right, Jack, just marry and you'll be all right, too". Is that the message you mean to send?"

    Maybe its I'm allright/not too bad because I worked hard at it, and you can too.

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  82. As for MGTOW, it seems to be a small, vocal, and differentiated group of men. Some of them are divorced men who are bitter about women, and who are likely to remain lifelong bachelors, or perhaps some will live with a women but not marry. What do you suggest a man who is making child support payments to a woman who refuses to let him see the children do in the future? If he marries again, it's quite possible his second wife will have to work for money because of the income he is required by law to send to his first wife. Think that will contribute to marital stability? He can't get out of the obligation, the divorce wasn't his idea, he was faithful to his first wife right up to the end. What do you suggest he do, if not Go his Own Way as much as he can afford?

    I know a couple of men in their 40's in this group. Some of them seem to be never-marrieds, men who for whatever reason were just not attractive enough to women. I know a few men in their 30's and 40's that fit in this group. Men who "go ghost" and stay there will likely remain in this group. What would you suggest they do, given they weren't attractive to women before now, and likely aren't attractive now? I'm thinking of one man who has worked a lot of different jobs, but never made much money. He has a lot of different interests, and is neat and tidy, but women don't notice him. He's not a brash "player" type, so he's pretty much been invisible. He's definitely childless, so he's clearly MGTOW. What would you have him do now?

    Some of them appear to be never-marrieds who are determined to be "players" as long as they can. I do not know any personally, but can easily understand why men in some urban areas such as NYC, Washington, DC and other places would do this. I don't approve of it, I don't think that in the long run they will benefit from it, I do believe they will likely hurt other people emotionally, but I understand how it could happen.

    So what do you suggest for MGTOW's that are not "players", but just ordinary, decent men who have either been badly damaged by the divorce industry, or just never were worthy of a woman's attention? Another of my friends is 45 years old, works for a city government, is witty and well read, of above average intelligence (he made a lot of money finding and fixing Y2K bugs, but spent a lot of it as well) but also about 40 pounds overweight and recently diagnosed as diabetic. I'd say the chances of him finding a modern woman in the US willing to marry him are approximately zero. What do you suggest he do?

    And I haven't even gotten to the younger men yet..

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  83. I wrote:
    "Nice example of shaming language. Another thing traditionalists share with feminists."

    If you do away with shaming language you have to do away with shame. I don't think any of us wants that.

    Totally missing the point.
    The only time shaming language is used nowadays is to defend liberal shibboliths, or to silence critics of liberalism/feminism. Shame is gone (see any newspaper for details), shaming language is now just a club to beat up designated targets (white men, traditional Christians, etc.) with.

    And yes, it is my considered opinion that traditionalists are far too quick to use shaming language against MRA's, a trait that is shared with feminists. Sometimes it seems like the traditionalists and conservatives spend more energy attacking men than they do feminists, but that could be just a perception on my part...selection bias, as it were.

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  84. "The message I get from you is this: "I'm all right, Jack, just marry and you'll be all right, too". Is that the message you mean to send?"

    Jesse_7
    Maybe its I'm allright/not too bad because I worked hard at it, and you can too.

    Could be. But if that is what he means to say, it needs some refinement in my opinion.

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  85. Additionally you can't predict that collapse will necessarily be a good thing.

    You don't seem to get it, Jesse. You talk about a collapse, as if it were an option to be considered. The collapse is here. Right here, in the USA, right now. The game is over, the feminists have won and bankrupted the entire country. The only thing for American anti-feminists to discuss is:
    1) Do we want it to happen within a few months, rather than within a few years? Since it is happening anyway, speeding it up is the least-destructive way to go about it.
    2) How can we place ourselves in order to take full advantage of the collapse to reform society in the manner we see fit?

    because all of our technological progress is making survival factors less of an issue rather than more.

    No, it is precisely the opposite. America doesn't produce much of the "technology" it uses anymore, a large portion of it's food, and most of it's energy. We are now a bazaar economy, where we trade debt and the use of our currency for resources. All China has to do is stop sending us supplies and products and we would shut down within a week.

    It is a national Ponzi scheme whose collapse will send commodities shooting up in price and leave people hungry. This is already going on as we speak. I think you do not realize how dire things have already become over here.

    The bigger likelihood is that white people will stop having kids

    Secularists will stop having kids, you mean. Maybe they'll decide to buy a Winnebago instead of reproducing. Oh, the tragedy of it. *yawn*

    I don't really care about racial politics, which I see as a mere distraction from the promotion of Western civilization's greatest prize: Christianity.

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  86. This is not the first time I see the line of reasoning that the "MRM just plays into feminist hands" and "the breakdown of the family and widespread misogyny is exactly what feminists want".

    Well, no. Feminists obviously don't want Marriage 2.0 to fail - it's their creation after all. And they don't want men to hate women either. They want them to believe their propaganda and become obedient slaves of the current system to be milked for money - because they need the money. For this simple reason they don't want men to delay or forego marriage either. They are happy when ignorant men march to their fate like lemmings.

    Feminists want us to remain in the dark. They don't want men to judge women according to their sexual history. They don't want them to know the truth about female hypergamy, the DV and divorce industry, AA etc.

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  87. Anonymous Protestant,

    First, let me agree with something. I do think lower paid men have been hit harder.

    But I'm not exactly a Packer or a Murdoch. I support a family on a teacher's wage. There would be plenty of men out there better off financially than me.

    Second, my advice to men is not just to "man up". Look, when I was in my 20s and confused and disoriented about relationships, the only advice I got from my father was something along the lines of "What are ya?"

    He thought things were the same as they were ca. 1960. As Jesse has pointed out, back then the culture was more favourable to men who wanted to marry and form families.

    In fact, even in 1980 things were still relatively favourable. When I first started to meet girls, they were still respectably feminine and they did a lot of heavy lifting in terms of making relationships happen. As a boy, you didn't even have to think about that side of life too much.

    But did things change! I witnessed it all - the development of a ladette culture, the effects of "sexual liberation" on female partner selection, the effects of a long-term deferral of marriage on female partner selection, the coarsening and androgynising of both female behaviour and the culture of relationships, the rise of the divorce rate and the illegitimacy rate, the growing use of the state to prop up female individualism and so on.

    I expected someone in authority to take a stand against it but no-one ever did - not even the churches.

    I was in completely new territory, was not favoured by the changes, and really did need advice on what to do. My father's "just do it" wasn't good enough.

    I did eventually land on my feet - but after much unfortunate delay.

    Again, Jesse put it well earlier on, that we need to work long-term for political reform, whilst doing what we can at the personal level in the meantime.

    This website is devoted to the political part of the task. It is not intended to be an advice site, though I have written a few articles on the theme and I do read other advice sites with interest (I want to try to keep up with the changes in the culture better than my parents did).

    I'm happy to have a go at putting together a post summarising the advice I would give young men, but it will never be the focus of this site.

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  88. Jesse,

    "The point I've raised before is that women had lots of legitimate beefs about older style marriage."

    Like what?

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  89. The comments at 10:21 AM and 10:32 AM are mine.

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  90. "The last time Western Civilisation collapsed, it was the men who fought hardest against the Dying of the Light who preserved something worth passing on to future generations."

    Who are you referring to? The Church fathers?

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  91. it seems like the traditionalists and conservatives spend more energy attacking men than they do feminists

    AP, I wish you'd take some time to look through the archives. There must be 500 posts attacking feminists.

    I think I've only written two posts criticising MRAs. This one and an earlier one criticising Roissy (when he cheerfully admitted to sleeping with other men's wives).

    As for other traditionalists, it's true that Lawrence Auster has written a few posts critical of Roissy.

    But he's written a lot more frequently on the corrosive effects of feminism on modern women.

    And you can hardly be surprised that a traditionalist would criticise someone who recommends the "player" solution to men.

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  92. Alte,

    America will tick on for some time and has not collapsed. If you doubt that look outside of an urban window. America is not bankrupt despite the size of the debt and I don't really pay too much attention to projections that say that things can't be turned around because we've sort of been there before. If you take away war fighting and collapsing banks the US financial postion would be much better. I for one do not support the idea that the US should shoulder alone so much of the burden of protecting the West as it has and if the US is in finacial trouble other countries should kick in more. All China has to do is pull the rug? Maybe but their economy isn't that strong either and if they stop growing they're in trouble. We don't have to be entirely self reliant to have a strong economy.

    Also Christianity is great but Korea is strongly Christian and not entirely Western. They certainly wouldn't see themselves as European. Christianity is one of the things we have in our arsenal.

    Hollenhund says, what concerns about older marriage have I raised? Well we've had some disagreement on this site before and my position is that general equality in the relationship is a good thing. This doesn't mean that men should subordinate themselves to women or cease to be men. If older marriage worked against equality than I think there is a legitimate grievance against it. Although many good points have been raised I don't take the position that women are entirely as irrational as has been suggested and I've seen plenty of evidence to the contrary.

    Having said that equality is an ideal and not easy to practice in real life. Since the rise of feminisim we've seen social confusion and the obvious rise in divorce and slowing brith rates, which are obvious social negatives. So I have no problem with people who disagree with me and I have plenty of concerns about getting married in this day and age.

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  93. Jesse_7
    Ultimately giving men advise isn't inconsistent with a traditional approach or exclusive to a Men's right's approach. If the problem with traditionalism is that it "assumes" that men are on top and therefore don't or shouldn't need advise then I agree it may not be helpful.

    Such advice is more than "not helpful", it is quite likely to be destructive. For a start, it sets up a man for failure in marriage, by loading him with flawed expectations about how his wife will/should behave. It also is likely to be incomprehensible to younger men.

    Consider a 20-something man who has been brought up to regard "masculinity" as a bad thing, maybe the result of "testosterone poisoning". Telling him that he should be more masculine with women is absurd, he's been taught that's a bad thing to do.

    So far as I can tell, a majority of people under 40 in the US and most of the rest of the Anglosphere have been force fed feminist dogma for well over half of their lives. That kind of damage can't be wished away, or waved off with a few words. Quite a lot of people in the US seem to still be carrying around the notion that men and women are essentially the same, except women can bear children, for example. There's no discussion about whether women are really suited to be police officers, or prison guards, or in military roles that are likely to put them into combat zones. It's just not debated.

    So given that reality, it is certain that a whole lot of MRA's, both men and women, are laboring under mental baggage. Little surprise, therefore, that they run off in various political/philosophical directions; they have a whole jumble of ideas, some true, some false, and they can see that things are wrong between men and women, and getting worse.

    Now, to be specific: from what I can tell, some of the MRA's who vex Mark Richardson so much are basically calling the bluff of feminism; "So, you say you are equal? Deal, here's what that means...". Some others appear to be so burned by modern women that they want nothing to do with them. Still others have seen what marriage did to men in their own family, all bad, and still have that feminist claptrap in their heads so they wind up saying things with a feminist vocabulary such as "marriage is oppression".

    There's a lot to discuss, and argue about, and criticize, provided it is done between equals, rather than via finger-wagging, "Shame! Shame! Bad MRA's!" talk.

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  94. Mark Richardson, let me ask a question. It is a sincere one, and I'm not trying to put you on the spot. But it is germaine to this topic. Here it is:

    I went to a church social function at lunch a week ago Sunday, and all the high school & college aged people sat quietly with their hands in their lap. In your opinion, why did they do that?

    I request no one else answer this.

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  95. Anonymous:
    Well, no. Feminists obviously don't want Marriage 2.0 to fail - it's their creation after all. And they don't want men to hate women either. They want them to believe their propaganda and become obedient slaves of the current system to be milked for money - because they need the money. For this simple reason they don't want men to delay or forego marriage either. They are happy when ignorant men march to their fate like lemmings.

    Exactly. Proof of this can be found at any "sex-positive feminist" blog, where promiscuous women celebrate their "inner slut" and berate men for preferring women who have had few or no sexual partners.

    The modern version of marriage guarantees a man's resources to his ex wife, even if she cheated on him, even if she cuckolded him, therefore she gets his resources no matter what. He has responsibility, she has choices. And feminism has always been about increasing choices for women while retaining responsibilities for men.

    So long as a man is willing to submit to "equalitarian marriage", where he is constantly being required to act as feminine as he can, feminists are happy. And when his wife tires of him and divorces him, why, that's just "her choice", and see above.

    No, feminists like modern marriage. It provides women with resources without responsibility.

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  96. And you can hardly be surprised that a traditionalist would criticise someone who recommends the "player" solution to men.

    LOL. Yeah, I get lambasted regularly for being pro-chastity for both sexes.

    Although many good points have been raised I don't take the position that women are entirely as irrational as has been suggested and I've seen plenty of evidence to the contrary.

    But that is irrelevant to the structure of marriage. The discussion isn't even about whether "men are better than women" (although we could all debate that ad nauseum). The discussion is about what form of marriage is most conducive to longetivity, stability, productivity, and fecundity. All evidence points to the complementarian model as being innately superior.

    Marriage is only attractive to a woman if the woman considers her mate superior to herself. It doesn't matter if the man considers his wife his equal, it only matters if the wife thinks she "married up". She should feel as if her husband is a bit better than her, otherwise she will be inclined to trade up to a better husband. Women don't want to marry their equals, they want to marry someone better.

    The state used to make all husbands "better" than their wives by granting them special legal powers and social priviledges. This satisfied most women and made their husbands seem quite intimidating (i.e. "hot"). Take away those legal powers, and the man is left to prove his superiority through Game, wealth, influence, or physical prowess. That is not a tenable, long-term solution for creating healthy marriages.

    Watch the news, Jesse. Watch what happens in America and then brace yourself. Oz is about 10-20 years behind us, so make good use of your time.

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  97. Anonymous Protestant said,

    "Little surprise, therefore, that they run off in various political/philosophical directions; they have a whole jumble of ideas, some true, some false, and they can see that things are wrong between men and women, and getting worse."

    I agree the misdirection has been shameful and too many men have sat back and allowed it to happen because it didn't immediately affect them.

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  98. Alte (11:48) said,

    "Marriage is only attractive to a woman if the woman considers her mate superior to herself."

    I agree. It is a constant push I think for men to stay ahead of their wives. However, the points that you referred to wealth, physicality etc are not nothing. I might also be able to stay ahead of her in terms of reason, self development or confidence. It seems also many career oriented women will be happy with a competent tradesman. Women also want stability in their life and men can provide that. They do want children and probably a long term stable married life which means by necessity the trading of possible increased benefit and risks for certainty. I'm not saying this is easy. This is ridiculously hard. Especially as was stated our young men are not entirely prepared for this. Its still the case though that people will learn to swim in this environment. I think its also probably not easy for women because they're seeing a lot fewer smiling faces out there. Lastly “superior to herself” can mean differences he won’t be superior to her in everything nor she to him.

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  99. Alte:

    "Marriage is only attractive to a woman if the woman considers her mate superior to herself. It doesn't matter if the man considers his wife his equal, it only matters if the wife thinks she "married up". She should feel as if her husband is a bit better than her, otherwise she will be inclined to trade up to a better husband. Women don't want to marry their equals, they want to marry someone better.

    The state used to make all husbands "better" than their wives by granting them special legal powers and social priviledges. This satisfied most women and made their husbands seem quite intimidating (i.e. "hot"). Take away those legal powers, and the man is left to prove his superiority through Game, wealth, influence, or physical prowess. That is not a tenable, long-term solution for creating healthy marriages."

    ------

    Absolutely. This is my theory too. When men had higher status in general, women were more satisfied with their individual man.

    As I never tire of saying, it was culturally assumed until VERY recently that men were the natural bosses in a marriage. Ads, TV sitcoms, all the rhetoric, was in that direction. I clearly remember popular advertisements as recently as thirty or forty years ago that assumed this was the case. Some of them would be quite shocking by modern standards. I often tease my wife by quoting some of the choicer lines.

    I still know some husbands who "intimidate" their wives. Older husbands, more religious husbands. They don't do anything bad. They are just husbands, and their wives respect them purely for that reason.

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  100. Jesse 7

    "This is working on the assumption that younger women will flock to you when you want it. A similar assumption being made by the majority of feminists, we'll put forward what we want and the men will go along with it."

    Which part of Australia are you from Jesse? Take a walk around the shopping strips and tell me how many white middle aged Aussies are supporting young nubile East Asians.

    My neighbour married at 50 had his first at 52 and now the kid is a lawyer in a top tier firm.

    Go to the pubs Jesse and you won't see a shortage of plus 30 women starving for a man.

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  101. Anonymous (12:32),

    Sydney. Are you're saying that 50 year old men should marry female 30 plusses because by then the women have been sufficiently chastened to settle down and get some discipline? On the young east asian thing sure, but their kids will not be fully white. They will then find it harder to identify with Western culture. Should their half asian son's then do the same thing and marry asians? The culture will keep getting attenuated. What we have here I think are temporary solutions.

    The feminist "revolution" is largely an experiment which is being played out. The consequences are here now and as they're not satisfactory, for all parties, some change and a new accommodation will be necessary.

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  102. I imagine white women will start marrying foreigners if they haven't already. I think its a little sad that maybe because both men and women want high standards of living within marriage they're willing to look for outsiders who are willing to do what they're told. Rather than settle for someone of their own and continue the existence of the culture.

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  103. Some fool said:This is an ignorant statement. It is evident that you have no clue what Game is about, or what MRA's are actually saying.

    Man up, actually learn something, and we can have an adult discussion. This childishness may work well with your feminist/traditionalist friends, but it's useless with me.


    ‘Fool’ isn’t about stupidity; it’s about the disinclination to reason properly or to reason by a consistent standard.

    The fact is, I *do* understand -- great numbers of self-proclaimed “men’s rights activists,” and if they start praising “Game” it’s all but guaranteed, aren’t really interested in correcting and healing the destruction wrought by feminism upon our society and the persons who comprise it. For, the road to correcting and healing society and its members runs through each man’s (and woman’s) heart.

    These people (including the aforementioned fool) have many problems; non-exhaustively, and in no particular order:
    1) they’ve bought into the feminist lies about what society used to be like when its mores were explicitly/intentionally Christian … and they’re pissed-off that they missed out (on something that never was);
    2) they *want* the modern-day carrousel of easy promiscuity to continue;
    2a) but, they’re pissed-off because the culture of promiscuity isn’t working in their own personal selves the way they were lead to believe it would;
    3) they’re pissed-off because no one has made provision to reserve a box of “good/quality women” on some top-shelf for when they’re finally ready to “settle down;”
    4) they’re actually quite feminized in their minds and thought-patterns … and they tend to combine the worst stereotypically feminine character flaws with the worst stereotypically masculine character flaws.

    x) they’d rather believe a lie (i.e. “Game”) will solve their discontent than admit their error and admit their sin, and submit to Christ’s transforming of their minds and lives.

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  104. Ilion,

    Game is a specialized form of rhetoric, not a license for promiscuity. Let's not conflate the two and disparage a perfectly good and ancient tool for creating a harmonious relationship.

    I might also be able to stay ahead of her in terms of reason, self development or confidence.

    Yes, I mentioned Game, and the others apply as well.

    Lastly “superior to herself” can mean differences he won’t be superior to her in everything nor she to him.

    Of course.

    Women will tend to judge men most harshly in the areas where men and women's abilities most overlap. For instance, I think my husband is just a bit cleverer than I am. The difference is not great, but it's something I'm more prone to notice because we are so closely matched.

    A woman won't care if a man isn't superior to her in sewing, for instance, but will be skeptical if he's an inferior driver. In the same way, many woman are jealous of men who are superior to them in aspects they consider more womanly, such as cooking or keeping house. Complementarianism is innate, and women -- regardless of egalitarian rhetoric -- know very well what the "girly stuff" and what the "manly stuff" is, and judge men accordingly.

    At any rate, this is all very interesting, but I fear that we are now derailing the thread from the OT.

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  105. Ilion

    There are different kinds of MRA men. Some are bitter betas, who never get the attention of the pretty girls, and fear that all they will have one day is those girls as discontented wives, years after other men got them "younger, hotter, tighter and for free" as the man famously says.

    There are bitter betas who got dumped by wives and screwed in the unfair American divorce courts.

    There are also angry alphas, who find that abusing and hating women does not get them the "quality pussy" in an LTR that they expected.

    And there are alpha cads, who are doing quite well, but want to do even better using "game" and bag even more hot chicks, as they would say.

    Then there are interested onlookers like myself, in a long marriage, who want to use "game" to make their marriages more tolerable and successful.

    For the record, I am a traditionalist, I believe in patriarchy, I am a Catholic, I believe that fornication and adultery are wrong for both men and women.

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  106. Simon in London:The last time Western Civilisation collapsed, it was the men who fought hardest against the Dying of the Light who preserved something worth passing on to future generations. Those who embrace nihilism, who embrace death, are the friends of our enemies and have nothing of value. Their names will be dust on the wind.

    Indeed.

    Those who cheer the collapse, those who imagine they can escape the effects of it (and so, give it a nudge) are Enemies of Mankind (and are surely damned of God).

    Hundreds of millions of people, if not billions all across the world, will die if Western Civilization collapses.

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  107. Women naturally excell at rhetoric and men at dialectic. Dialectic is a discussion in pursuit of truth. Rhetoric is the art of manipulation.

    Game is therefore something women inherently possess and expect in their mates, so only a man with superior Game will impress her. Encouraging men to "work on their Game" is not about them bringing a foreign concept into their relationship, but to point out an aspect of it that they have been neglecting. It is merely a technique a man can use to further tip the woman's mental scales in his favor.

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  108. Those who cheer the collapse, those who imagine they can escape the effects of it (and so, give it a nudge) are Enemies of Mankind (and are surely damned of God).

    You are promoting the idea that those of us who believe in mathematical law are damned to Hell. LOL. And you wish to be taken seriously by those of us who can add? The numbers don't add up nor have they ever, the financial collapse is here, GET OVER IT AND FACE THE FUTURE.

    You, sir, are fiddling. Navel-gazing and feeling self-righteous while Western Civilization burns down around you. I suppose I will see you in Hell after the burning stops. Till then, sir, and good night.

    "Hope and Change" indeed.

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  109. David Collard:There are different kinds of MRA men.

    Which is why I carefully phrased what I said.

    I always attempt to carefully and precisely phrase what I say … and it’s almost always seems a wasted effort, for very people read carefully.


    DC:Some are bitter betas …

    And there you go, right off the bat, into the insanity of “Game.”


    DC:Some are bitter betas, who never get the attention of the pretty girls, and fear that all they will have one day is those girls as discontented wives, years after other men got them "younger, hotter, tighter and for free" as the man famously says.

    In fact, these “bitter betas” are just every-day men:
    1) who were indoctrinated into feminism (and “liberalism”) their entire lives, and cannot (or will not) see that you can’t fight “liberalism” (or feminism) by bowing to it;
    2) whose attitudes/behaviors have been feminized to an unprecedented degree, putting them continually at odds with their own natures;
    3) whose appreciation and understanding of, and approach to, sex -- the act itself and fact that we are two sexes, and how one navigates and incorporates the implications of that fact into one’s life -- is shaped mostly by pornography;
    4) who have internalized the “feminine” message that “everyone is a winner” … and so have vastly inflated and unrealistic expectations and self-images, including the expectations that Good Things just fall into one’s lap without effort on one’s part;
    5) and so on.


    DC:There are bitter betas who got dumped by wives and screwed in the unfair American divorce courts.

    And I already explained (at Haley’s blog, when I still cared to read it) how/why most of those situations come about. But, you fellows didn’t want to understand what I said.

    And, as far as getting screwed by the divorce courts, while the presumptions are stacked against the man, it seems to me that getting screwed isn’t so much a matter of one’s sex, but rather of one’s desire to get it over with at a minimum of pain and recrimination. That is, the spouse who tries most to be mature about the dissolution of the marriage is the one most likely to get screwed.

    And, of course, divorce courts, as will all courts, are intentionally set up to benefit and enrich lawyers at the expense of society.


    DC:Then there are interested onlookers like myself, in a long marriage, who want to use "game" to make their marriages more tolerable and successful.

    What sane person has the goal of a tolerable marriage? Can’t you see that your very language betrays the problem?

    “Game” is about manipulating other persons; and it’s especially about using the sorts of passive-aggressive manipulation that immature grade-school girls work at perfecting on those same girls when they are chronologically older, but no more mature.

    What sane person defines a successful marriage as one in which he (or she) “makes it work” by means of passive-aggression and manipulation of the spouse?

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  110. Second, I've been actively campaigning on men's issues for a long time now - and I mean *actively* campaigning. It's odd to hear newbies suggest that I sit down at their feet and take instructions from them.

    I read your description of what you have done later in the thread. I noticed the lack of real issues that affect the lives of individual men particularly men my age such as no fault divorce and losing half OR MORE of your assets in a divorce, losing your children because of divorce, sexual harassment law, affirmative action, paternity fraud, etc.

    We only get to live once. Becoming a husband and father is one of the defining aspects of a man's life. It's one of the things we were born for, that fulfils us most deeply.

    I am a member of a religion with a strong monastic tradition. Are you saying that the men who became monks aren't "fulfilled"? That's bollocks.

    But I reject emphatically the strategy of avoiding marriage altogether. How is this meant to help anyone?

    It helps me by keeping me out of jail, by preventing a woman from stealing half or more of my assets, by preventing children from being used as pawns against me. It helps me a great deal. It's not the best option, but you haven't given men especially men my age any better options.

    It won't hurt the liberal elite, who are only too happy to see Europeans bow out of history. It won't hurt feminists, who are only too happy to see family life decline.

    It does hurt them. It means my consumption is minimal which both feminists and the elite are dependent on. It prevents feminists from gaining control of 50% or more of my assets.

    And it is likely to lead young MRAs to bitterly turn on the movement a decade or so down the track, just like childless, spinster feminists have been bitterly turning against the feminist leaders in the past few years.

    Most men who are avoiding marriage are not doing so because a MRA told them to. Most men avoiding marriage have never heard of the MRA. They are avoiding marriage because they have seen women destroy their husbands. They have even seen it happen to married traditional men.

    All MRAs have to show that they are right to men is to take them on a field trip to any divorce court.

    It does not help men, in practice, to have a fulfilling LTR or to have children.

    Neither does getting married now.

    I think you're coming in with preconceptions here. I have often stood up for these aims; there are traditionalists like Laura Wood who have courageously argued for such reforms.

    I have been to Laura Wood's blog. It's clear that she talks out of both sides of her mouth. While she claims to support anti-feminist reforms sort of, when it comes to men actually taking action she shoots down every practical action men could take while offering no alternatives. This seems to be true of traditionalists in general as well.

    But I have noticed at some MRM sites that the anti-marriage argument is being extended way beyond the original criticism of modernist, feminist type marriage. More and more the argument is that marriage is inherently a false institution, a product of a limited historical epoch, and that it is in its nature oppressive to men.

    Maybe if traditionalists stopped telling men to "man up" and calling them "lame" for trying to find real solutions for their lives, traditionalists and traditional marriage wouldn't be viewed with such suspicion. Frankly, traditionalists seem to effectively do nothing but support the current feminist system and welfare state. Traditionalists would have men do nothing but get married and work to keep society "stable" which does nothing but prop up the feminist welfare state. Traditionalists shoot down every action for actually fighting back against feminist while providing no alternatives for fighting feminism. As a result traditionalists seem to be nothing more than anti-abortion feminists.

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  111. But, first, why think that things will be better in 15 years time if the only strategy is to "go your own way"?

    In other words, if you think that it's no use marrying at age 25, why will it be any better marrying at 40?


    If things are worse in terms of getting married 15 years from now, they will also be worse in terms of BEING MARRIED 15 years from now even if I get married right now. Many men got married under the "marriage 1.0" system but got divorced under the "marriage 2.0" system. Everything was changed out from under those men without their consent. The fact that these men started out with traditional marriages did not help them. Getting married now does not lock in marriage as it is now either in the traditional or not traditional sense.

    Second, I *have* offered some practical guidance to men at this site. It's advice along the lines of how best to adapt to unfavourable conditions in dating and marriage - with the goal being to have a good marriage.

    No you haven't provided (good) advice. All you have provided is a path to the divorce slaughterhouse.

    However, I think we need white men to predominantly marry white women.

    And here we have another example of traditionalists shooting down a practical solution men can use right now without providing an alternative.

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  112. I think traditionalism is the only practical response. I can't change the laws, but I can change myself. I can see myself as a traditional husband and attempt to achieve that goal. In the process I become happier, and so does my wife.

    I want a happy marriage. I can't change the whole of society, only the tiny piece which I control.

    Ilion, I don't know what to say to you except that "game" (or whatever name you prefer) works. One cannot argue with success. What, pray, is manipulative about simply not responding to a woman's hysteria? How is it unmanly to behave with calm, dignity and firmness, and to establish oneself as the rock in the relationship?

    One of the traditional great Christian vices is "Folly" or "Imprudence". If a Christian man invests in a relationship with a woman, why should he not act wisely to protect and nurture it. It is foolish to deny reality, including the reality of women's nature, because if you do, you will end up divorced or cuckolded.

    I will do whatever it takes to make my marriage a success. I speak from 25 years of married experience. What is the basis for your claims, Ilion?

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  113. There are bitter betas who got dumped by wives and screwed in the unfair American divorce courts.

    Why are you attacking victims of feminism as "bitter betas"? Wouldn't your energy be better spent on providing some options for men if you are really against feminism as you claim?

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  114. llion (3:00) said,

    "...who have internalized the “feminine” message that “everyone is a winner” … and so have vastly inflated and unrealistic expectations and self-images, including the expectations that Good Things just fall into one’s lap without effort on one’s part;"

    I agree with this partially. Unrealistic/high expectations aren't just pushed by feminism though and are more prominant in the culture. Also it would be good to have achievable pathes to walk to sucess. I think a lot of the frustration today is that people aren't sure what is the best way to get where they want to go frequently seem blocked.

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  115. Anonymous

    You think I am not against feminism? Go to my website.

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  116. And here we have another example of traditionalists shooting down a practical solution men can use right now without providing an alternative.

    But it's not a solution. The divorce rate for white men marrying Asian women is slightly *higher* than the divorce rate for white men marrying white women.

    Anonymous, I wrote this post partly as an act of conscience.

    There's not much that compares in life with a happy marriage. A single smile from my baby daughter justifies all of the work I have to go through.

    There are ways to marry that minimise your risk of divorce. I wrote a post recently that showed my own 10 year risk of divorce was only 10%, perhaps even lower if other additional factors had been calculated.

    I know that's not a complete solution, but it's better than the option of never trying.

    In the meantime we can continue to work toward marriage law reform.

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  117. Anonymous (3:34) said,

    "However, I think we need white men to predominantly marry white women...

    And here we have another example of traditionalists shooting down a practical solution men can use right now without providing an alternative."

    I don't have an immediate practical solution apart from get stronger, more attractive to women, don't settle for crap and be of good character so you can attract someone of good character, and then expect it of them.

    Nonetheless if you throw yourself into an immediate solution, eg asian wife or being determined never to marry, then that distracts focus away from effective solutions and it also has obvious social consequences.

    Ultimatly the solution is for women to:

    1. Stop being bitches.

    That is realise they will have to play ball with men and not assume that they'll be able to get everything they want, or in a vague fashion blame men for everything. Aslo that they must develop consciouses and realise that not everything they do is justified simply because they're a woman.

    In addition it has been said earlier that women are highly sexualised creatures amd have relatively little control over their impulses. Well that could be argued of men as well. If given the choice I'd rather sit on cushions in a harem than have a monogomous marriage (probably) nontheless I push onto marriage because I realise that this isn't appropropriate, let alone right. Also that women generally won't put up with this, I'm not convinced women want to be part of an alpha's harem. Consequences, circumstances and requirements result in my desires or impulses being tempered and good behaviour being encouraged. Women will have to go through this too. If women are desperate to marry in their 30's it is because in a similar way biological imperitives have overtaken their desires.

    2. For there to be less potential damage to men.

    Either through game, greater emotional resilliance or solidarity in men (if you ask me it is the psycholigical shock of divorce that is of great issue), or some other mechanism/legal check, have it so men not so vulnerable to the potentially destructive behaviour of women.

    Men have the advantage of having less pressing biological time limits. Therefore we do have more time to reach appropriate resolutions and ride out this maddness.

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  118. Jesse

    It is true that women are no more sexual than men in normal life, and indeed can be quite asexual at times, when they get going, they are highly sexual. This comes as a shock to men. Many men never discover this.

    This is the truth behind the stories of dull little housewives married to dull husbands who come alive sexually with a dominant male they meet one day, and really slut it up with him.

    I haven't had a very exciting sex life, but even I have seen a married woman give it up for me only months into her marriage, cuckolding her unsuspecting young husband. And I have seen a very prudish seeming, arrogant young woman do things you would not believe sexually to keep me interested. And seen the girl I eventually made my wife do stuff that her parents would have found unthinkable to please me early in our relationship.

    I am not saying this simply to boast, but to say that women's sexuality, once it lights up, is explosive. In earlier times, people knew this, and they controlled women accordingly. I believe there is a Sicilian saying: women are more dangerous than guns. Quite so, and they can go off more explosively too.

    ReplyDelete
  119. "Women are more dangerous than guns. Quite so, and they can go off more explosively too."

    lol.

    ReplyDelete
  120. Ilion,

    "Those who cheer the collapse, those who imagine they can escape the effects of it (and so, give it a nudge) are Enemies of Mankind (and are surely damned of God)."

    The collapse is a question of "when", not "if". Whether anyone cheers it or not is immaterial. Although I personally definitely won't shed a tear - any society that permits feminism to exist deserves to implode into oblivion.

    "Hundreds of millions of people, if not billions all across the world, will die if Western Civilization collapses."

    Boo-hoo. Tectonic historical events are unavoidable and always come at a price. That's the way humanity always behaved. Accept it. Most people are dumb and therefore destined to be lemmings anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  121. The last comment was by me.

    ReplyDelete
  122. David Collard,

    "but even I have seen a married woman give it up for me only months into her marriage, cuckolding her unsuspecting young husband."

    I find it hilarious that you would do something like that (I suppose you haven't told the husband about it) and then go online to complain about the loss of moral values and say that "traditionalism is the only way forward". If you really believed that, you would have reported that Jezebellian cheating whore to her husband.

    ReplyDelete
  123. Jesseed: "Unrealistic/high expectations aren't just pushed by feminism though and are more prominant in the culture."

    I *explicitly* didn't say feminism.

    There are character traits, both strengths and weakness, which are characteristically feminine or masculine. And, frequently, the weaknesses or flaws are twisted applications of a strength or virtue.

    The whole self-esteem mindset and culture, which has all-but replaced the masculine culture and mind-set of self-respect, is the flawed/twisted (both morally and socially) and over-the-top expression of a number of feminine virtues.

    And, it probably wasn’t women who got the self-esteem band-wagon rolling in the first place; and it certainly wasn’t mature women. It was probably feminized-and-over-schooled “men.”

    ReplyDelete
  124. David Collard:Ilion, I don't know what to say to you except that "game" (or whatever name you prefer) works.

    Murder “works,” too.


    David Collard:… What, pray, is manipulative about simply not responding to a woman's hysteria? How is it unmanly to behave with calm, dignity and firmness, and to establish oneself as the rock in the relationship?

    Please! Do you intentionally behave like this?

    And, in any event, that wasn’t invented by the “Game” people; and it’s contradictory to the over-all “Game” mindset.

    ReplyDelete
  125. Hollenhund:
    "Who are you referring to? The Church fathers?"

    Primarily, yes.

    However: even after the West had fallen, Men kept fighting on. Charles Martel turned the Islamic tide at Tours. The Byzantines didn't give in after Manzikert. Half of Christendom was lost to Islam, but most of Europe was preserved and in the end Western Civilisation rose again, in a new form but with recognisable continuity from the Classical world.

    ReplyDelete
  126. Ilion, some of my male stoicism is natural and some of it I have learned.

    Hollenhund, I am 55. I fucked that bloke's missus when I was 26. I think he probably knew I was up to no good with his wife when he found me in my college room with his wife with her skirt up.

    I regret what I did. He was a nice guy and we had a lot in common (not just his wife!)

    Bitch got me drunk.

    ReplyDelete
  127. Hollenhund said,

    "The collapse is a question of "when", not "if". Whether anyone cheers it or not is immaterial. Although I personally definitely won't shed a tear - any society that permits feminism to exist deserves to implode into oblivion."

    That's a pretty speech but its not vaguely likely. Western society doesn't show any sign of going anywhere, petering out maybe but not exploding. Alte at least gives a scenario of a debt that can't be paid back. We in Australia, however, run balanced budgets and there's no reason other Western countries can't do that too.

    ReplyDelete
  128. Alte:
    "You are promoting the idea that those of us who believe in mathematical law are damned to Hell. LOL. And you wish to be taken seriously by those of us who can add? The numbers don't add up nor have they ever, the financial collapse is here, GET OVER IT AND FACE THE FUTURE.

    You, sir, are fiddling. Navel-gazing and feeling self-righteous while Western Civilization burns down around you. I suppose I will see you in Hell after the burning stops. Till then, sir, and good night.

    "Hope and Change" indeed."
    _____

    From what I can see (and am hearing on the radio right now this moment!), our civilisation does appear to be on a collapse path. That doesn't mean that one should cheer it or wish to hasten the event.

    Looking at past civilisational collapses, it looks to me that the ones that collapsed fastest are the ones that vanished most entirely (eg Aztec & Maya). By contrast the collapse of Western Roman civilisation was sufficiently drawn-out that elements survived and were passed on to the future, ultimately the West rose again in a new form.

    What's currently happening in the West looks closer to the Roman experience - declining fertility, a declining tax base, massive barbarian immigration.

    Rome nearly collapsed several times before the final Fall. If she had gone down earlier, the barbarian conquerors would have been more savage, the eradication of civilisation would have been more complete.

    Here in Europe, it looks to me that in a fast-collapse model, the likely barbarian victor would be Salafist Islam. Who will be the victor in a slow collapse model - in two hundred years? Well, I don't know, no one can.

    Of course the best case scenario would be a complete turning of the tide - the women have more children, the men rediscover reason and faith, non-Western immigration is ended and the existing immigrants assimilated. I think a no-collapse model is less likely than slow-ish collapse, but not yet impossible.

    ReplyDelete
  129. There is no Men's Rights movement. There are just a bunch of men withdrawing from Western Civilization.

    They're leaving because every institution has been turned against them. Culture, movies, marriage, divorce, child custody, alimony, child support, news, CPS, TV, the laws, the courts, lawyers, institutions of higher learning, K-12 schools, churches, any organized religion, etc. Men have been thoroughly demonized to justify the abusive treatment of an entire sex.

    They're leaving not due to lack of loyalty, but because they've been driven out with curses upon their heads.

    Not one, not one institution dares to lift so much as a finger to defend them.

    Men are going their own way because there's no other way open to them.

    ReplyDelete
  130. The financial markets are not the whole of Western civilization.

    Bank reform does not mean that Islam is going to take over Europe. There aren't even enough of them there to take over, and there will be no spoils for them to steal, anyway. Many will probably even leave Europe to seek employment elsewhere, as the social state that supports them folds and the locals become stingier with the invading welfare recipients. There has already been a net-decrease in Mexican immigrants here since the economy tanked. They were here for the work, so they are leaving now. They're like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Adios!

    We in Australia, however, run balanced budgets and there's no reason other Western countries can't do that too.

    Jesse, you do realize that Australia is a commodity-rich nation with a small, wealthy, well-educated, and homogeneous population? Sort of like Norway, but with kangaroos. You guys could make your own money hole and burn half the GDP every year for 5 years and keep going strong. You are an exception, but most certainly not the rule.

    America's corrupt and usurious financial system is in its last days, and wheezing on life support to the tune of $4 billion in new debt per day. America has more debt than there are dollars in the whole world. Even if we started paying back the debt right now, with every bit of income for infinity, we could never pay it back because the mathematics does not allow it (due to fractional reserve banking). Our total future liabilities already exceed the combined GDP of the whole world. Even to run a budget surplus, we would have to cut spending by 60%!

    For the past 25 weeks, Americans have been quietly and steadily removing their money from the banking system (my family included -- we are holding all savings in cash or foreign accounts now). The new Congress will have to raise the US debt ceiling to $14.357 trillion in early spring, or default on its debt.

    The shit is hitting the proverbial fan, Jesse. It is not an explosion with a bang, but an implosion with a wheeze. China is going on an international dollar-spending-spree; buying up all the land, property, technology, and commodities it can before the dollars it holds become Funny Money.

    It is like a drowning swimmer, taking down its rescuers with it. If the dollar collapses and loses reserve status and/or we default on our debt, then Americans will feel great pain and so will the rest of the world. Every day that pain is delayed, the resulting potential damage grows for everyone, everywhere on the planet. Unlike the Azteks or even the Romans, America is a Superpower reigning financially and politically over the entire planet. There is no single person anywhere who will not be negatively effected by the imminent collapse. Nobody anywhere truly benefits financially from an American collapse, which is why the whole planet has spent the last 10 years trying to keep America's Fed alive.

    ReplyDelete
  131. Commodities prices are already climbing so high that people are getting restless. Do not think that postponing the collapse will help anyone anywhere; it will merely prolong the suffering. What we need to do is face up to the truth, take our medicine, and work to have a sane and competent restructuring of our unprecendented debts and a reform of our currency. That can happen peacefully and successfully, and even the head of the Bank of England is considering the possibilities now. The last hold-outs are Bernanke and Merkel -- i.e. the largest holders of the Western world's debt.

    That is the current state of things. The numbers don't add up, they never added up, and the markets have finally decided to stop pretending that they add up. The end. I am not crazy or nihilistic, I am merely highly observant and analytical.

    The financial system is dead. Long live the financial system!

    ReplyDelete
  132. Men are 'culture', without them there is no culture. The slow withdrawal from marriage is a boycott against the status quo, which for whatever reason the conservatives want to continue.

    ReplyDelete
  133. Jesse_7,

    „Well we've had some disagreement on this site before and my position is that general equality in the relationship is a good thing.”

    ’Alte (11:48) said,

    "Marriage is only attractive to a woman if the woman considers her mate superior to herself."

    I agree. It is a constant push I think for men to stay ahead of their wives.’

    Time to make up your mind, Jesse. Either equality in a relationship is good or it isn’t. Since by now we have safely established that women worship power and despise any sign of male weakness or lack of superiority and dominance, it’s fair to conclude that it isn’t.

    „That's a pretty speech but its not vaguely likely. Western society doesn't show any sign of going anywhere, petering out maybe but not exploding.”

    1. implosion!=explosion
    2. You’re blind.

    Simon in London,

    ’"Who are you referring to? The Church fathers?"

    Primarily, yes.’

    Funny you should be saying that. The Church Fathers condemned the hypergamous, amoral, beast-like nature of women („Woman is a temple built over a sewer” etc.), rejected the morality of their times and many of them lived as hermits. (I see parallels with some MRAs there). They didn’t try to save the Roman Empire, in fact they hastened its demise by spreading the Christian faith.

    Traditionalists like you don’t remind me of the Church Fathers. You remind me of the thugs of Diocletianus: trying to preserve the old system when there was no point in it anymore and fighting the emerging and popular religion of its time (back then: Christianity, today: Islam).

    „However: even after the West had fallen, Men kept fighting on. Charles Martel turned the Islamic tide at Tours.”

    Charles Martel was fighting for a new feudal monarchy, not the Roman Empire. The two had little in common. 200-300 years from now there may be new centers of stability emerging in Western Europe and North America long after the current system has collapsed, and many men will be willing to fight to preserve them.

    David Collard,

    „I regret what I did. He was a nice guy and we had a lot in common (not just his wife!)

    Bitch got me drunk.”

    Yeah. She „got you drunk” because you needed intoxication. Right. As we all know, that’s what women routinely do. Blame anyone but yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  134. Jesse_7,

    „Well we've had some disagreement on this site before and my position is that general equality in the relationship is a good thing.”

    ’Alte (11:48) said,

    "Marriage is only attractive to a woman if the woman considers her mate superior to herself."

    I agree. It is a constant push I think for men to stay ahead of their wives.’

    Time to make up your mind, Jesse. Either equality in a relationship is good or it isn’t. Since by now we have safely established that women worship power and despise any sign of male weakness or lack of superiority and dominance, it’s fair to conclude that it isn’t.

    „That's a pretty speech but its not vaguely likely. Western society doesn't show any sign of going anywhere, petering out maybe but not exploding.”

    1. implosion!=explosion
    2. You’re blind.

    Simon in London,

    ’"Who are you referring to? The Church fathers?"

    Primarily, yes.’

    Funny you should be saying that. The Church Fathers condemned the hypergamous, amoral, beast-like nature of women („Woman is a temple built over a sewer” etc.), rejected the morality of their times and many of them lived as hermits. (I see parallels with some MRAs there). They didn’t try to save the Roman Empire, in fact they hastened its demise by spreading the Christian faith.

    Traditionalists like you don’t remind me of the Church Fathers. You remind me of the thugs of Diocletianus: trying to preserve the old system when there was no point in it anymore and fighting the emerging and popular religion of its time (back then: Christianity, today: Islam).

    „However: even after the West had fallen, Men kept fighting on. Charles Martel turned the Islamic tide at Tours.”

    Charles Martel was fighting for a new feudal monarchy, not the Roman Empire. The two had little in common. 200-300 years from now there may be new centers of stability emerging in Western Europe and North America long after the current system has collapsed, and many men will be willing to fight to preserve them.

    David Collard,

    „I regret what I did. He was a nice guy and we had a lot in common (not just his wife!)

    Bitch got me drunk.”

    Yeah. She „got you drunk” because you needed intoxication. Right. As we all know, that’s what women routinely do. Blame anyone but yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  135. Jesse_7,

    „Well we've had some disagreement on this site before and my position is that general equality in the relationship is a good thing.”

    ’Alte (11:48) said,

    "Marriage is only attractive to a woman if the woman considers her mate superior to herself."

    I agree. It is a constant push I think for men to stay ahead of their wives.’

    Time to make up your mind, Jesse. Either equality in a relationship is good or it isn’t. Since by now we have safely established that women worship power and despise any sign of male weakness or lack of superiority and dominance, it’s fair to conclude that it isn’t.

    „That's a pretty speech but its not vaguely likely. Western society doesn't show any sign of going anywhere, petering out maybe but not exploding.”

    1. implosion!=explosion
    2. You’re blind.

    Simon in London,

    ’"Who are you referring to? The Church fathers?"

    Primarily, yes.’

    Funny you should be saying that. The Church Fathers condemned the hypergamous, amoral, beast-like nature of women („Woman is a temple built over a sewer” etc.), rejected the morality of their times and many of them lived as hermits. (I see parallels with some MRAs there). They didn’t try to save the Roman Empire, in fact they hastened its demise by spreading the Christian faith.

    Traditionalists like you don’t remind me of the Church Fathers. You remind me of the thugs of Diocletianus: trying to preserve the old system when there was no point in it anymore and fighting the emerging and popular religion of its time (back then: Christianity, today: Islam).

    „However: even after the West had fallen, Men kept fighting on. Charles Martel turned the Islamic tide at Tours.”

    Charles Martel was fighting for a new feudal monarchy, not the Roman Empire. The two had little in common. 200-300 years from now there may be new centers of stability emerging in Western Europe and North America long after the current system has collapsed, and many men will be willing to fight to preserve them.

    David Collard,

    „I regret what I did. He was a nice guy and we had a lot in common (not just his wife!)

    Bitch got me drunk.”

    Yeah. She „got you drunk” because you needed intoxication. Right. As we all know, that’s what women routinely do. Blame anyone but yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  136. Jesse_7,

    „Well we've had some disagreement on this site before and my position is that general equality in the relationship is a good thing.”

    ’Alte (11:48) said,

    "Marriage is only attractive to a woman if the woman considers her mate superior to herself."

    I agree. It is a constant push I think for men to stay ahead of their wives.’

    Time to make up your mind, Jesse. Either equality in a relationship is good or it isn’t. Since by now we have safely established that women worship power and despise any sign of male weakness or lack of superiority and dominance, it’s fair to conclude that it isn’t.

    „That's a pretty speech but its not vaguely likely. Western society doesn't show any sign of going anywhere, petering out maybe but not exploding.”

    1. implosion!=explosion
    2. You’re blind.

    Simon in London,

    ’"Who are you referring to? The Church fathers?"

    Primarily, yes.’

    Funny you should be saying that. The Church Fathers condemned the hypergamous, amoral, beast-like nature of women („Woman is a temple built over a sewer” etc.), rejected the morality of their times and many of them lived as hermits. (I see parallels with some MRAs there). They didn’t try to save the Roman Empire, in fact they hastened its demise by spreading the Christian faith.

    Traditionalists like you don’t remind me of the Church Fathers. You remind me of the thugs of Diocletianus: trying to preserve the old system when there was no point in it anymore and fighting the emerging and popular religion of its time (back then: Christianity, today: Islam).

    „However: even after the West had fallen, Men kept fighting on. Charles Martel turned the Islamic tide at Tours.”

    Charles Martel was fighting for a new feudal monarchy, not the Roman Empire. The two had little in common. 200-300 years from now there may be new centers of stability emerging in Western Europe and North America long after the current system has collapsed, and many men will be willing to fight to preserve them.

    David Collard,

    „I regret what I did. He was a nice guy and we had a lot in common (not just his wife!)

    Bitch got me drunk.”

    Yeah. She „got you drunk” because you needed intoxication. Right. As we all know, that’s what women routinely do. Blame anyone but yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  137. MRA's are warning men off marriage for the simple reason that that's the only effective action left to them.

    That's a testament to the utter failure of the West's cultural and political institutions.

    As for whether this makes feminists happy or not, that's completely irrelevant compared to saving men from the disaster that is currently marriage in the West.

    ReplyDelete
  138. So you all rather live in the Dark Ages?

    It won't be women only falling prey to some barbarian warlord; women at least will have a chance to survive as pleasure slaves, while a lot of men will get killed.

    Be careful what you asking for, you may end up getting it.

    ReplyDelete
  139. "So you all rather live in the Dark Ages?"

    As far as men are concerned, the West is already in the Dark Ages.

    ReplyDelete
  140. As far as men are concerned, the West is already in the Dark Ages.

    We are living in an age of neo-feudalism, supported by peonage.

    Starve the beast.

    ReplyDelete
  141. So you'd rather live some place like this:

    http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/pictures/filthy-india-photos-chinese-netizen-reactions.html

    You simply don't know what you are talking about.

    ReplyDelete
  142. So you'd rather live some place like this.

    LOL.

    So is that how low the West has fallen? It is now only to be preferred over a putrid, stinking, hell-hole of starvation-level poverty? It obviously has much to recommend it. In comparison to living in a dung-hut and eating nothing but lentils and rice... yes, the West is definitely the superior choice. You are so right and you make an excellent point.

    AMERICA IS BETTER THAN A CESSPIT!

    Satisfied?



    On the day of the US midterm elections, the Social Security Administration admits that it miscalculated the average wage for 2009. It's $39,055, not $39,269 like originally announced. They got tripped up by Bloomberg checking their numbers. Their story is that they had 2 mega-filings that threw off the national average. Not that we live in a banana republic where the elite make so much more than the median that 2 filings can throw off the national average, or anything.

    Nothing to see here, folks... Just keep moving... Look! There are some non-detonating bombs from some UPS plane that came from Yemen... except that no UPS planes take off from Yemen...

    Nothing to see here, folks... Just keep moving... Look! Merkel got one of those scary bombs, too! And Sarkozy! Call out a state of emergency and send armed security guards to all unemployment agencies immediately! We need another Patriot act to protect us from... angry Americans who are tired of putting up with this shit. And those crazy pro-lifers who are already on the national terrorist-watch list.

    Nothing to see here, folks... Just keep moving... QE2 tomorrow. Bernanke will save us by issuing tons of debt-based money and flooding the credit markets to fuel speculation and drive up commodities prices to increase inflation and... make some bankers a bit of money.

    This whole government has turned into a total farce and has lost all legitimacy. People don't even bother to vote because they know it doesn't matter who wins.

    Let it burn. Good riddance to bad rubbish. I, for one, have had enough already.

    ReplyDelete
  143. Hollenhund:
    "Traditionalists like you don’t remind me of the Church Fathers. You remind me of the thugs of Diocletianus"

    That's an interesting insult. I don't think I'm really a traditionalist though, being second-generation atheist makes that kinda difficult.

    I just want my People and something of the good bits of their culture to survive into the future. The Traditionalists are the only people I've seen who offer anything like a path towards that. The opposite of yourself.

    anon:
    "It won't be women only falling prey to some barbarian warlord; women at least will have a chance to survive as pleasure slaves, while a lot of men will get killed."

    I agree - female lines in general are a lot likelier to survive, and it's even more true during times of Collapse. The MGTOW seem quite happy to die out anyway, though.

    ReplyDelete
  144. Alte, since you seem to hate USA so much why don't you go back to your country of origin? I thought it was Germany?

    I'm tired of immigrants complaining that their new place of residence is not to their taste.

    ReplyDelete
  145. I am a US Citizen from birth. I do not hate America, I love America, which is why I moved back here and now despair at how low it has sunk. It is the people who are apathetic to its decline who hate it. Neglect and indifference is worse than anger because it denotes a complete lack of interest.

    You just don't care. Got it. Go back to your fiddling and pretend not to notice. That's been a good tactic up till now. It's gotten the country real far. Everyone should just get married, and make babies, and act like nothing is going wrong.

    Nothing to see here, folks... Just keep moving... Look! "Dancing with the Stars" is on. That is so cool! Ooh... bright and shiny!

    Bread and circuses for you, my man!

    My forefathers fought for what they believed in, and rebelled against tyranny. Modern American men have turned into a string orchestra and lapdogs for their corporate masters. I offer you evidence of decline and you complain that I am complaining about the decline. What are you trying to say? Woman up? Ha!

    Go hide little man. Perhaps if you go look, you'll find both the balls and the brains you have misplaced. Good boy! Always do as you're told and never question your betters. Woof!

    See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

    ReplyDelete
  146. Again, many MRA voices in this discussion are simply opting to opt out of marriage.

    It won't work either politically or personally.

    It won't work politically because your place will simply be taken by some other guy. There are millions of men willing to migrate to the West to take your place.

    Personally, you will miss out on the defining experiences for a man of being a husband and father.

    One commenter claimed that traditionalists simply want to accept the status quo. That's not true.

    We look at what is causing the decline and we find that the driver of government policy is political liberalism.

    So it's our job to wage war on this belief system. It's not easy as so many members of the political class cling to it like a religion, and as many ordinary people, whilst less attached, have learnt to float along with it.

    If people were to opt out of a commitment to liberalism, to repent of it, then we'd get to see a genuine change of politics.

    That's one reason why I noted with dismay in this post the trend toward rather than from liberalism in some parts of the MRM.

    It indicates that we still have much work to do; that young men are still looking at society through the prism of liberalism, even when it comes to criticising feminism and the place of men in society.

    There is an active political fight to be had. We need to get people in our society to have a major rethink about political fundamentals.

    ReplyDelete
  147. "Again, many MRA voices in this discussion are simply opting to opt out of marriage.

    It won't work either politically or personally."

    You're assuming that it is always meant as a means of pressing for political change.

    "It won't work politically because your place will simply be taken by some other guy. There are millions of men willing to migrate to the West to take your place."

    And they will marry Western women?

    "Personally, you will miss out on the defining experiences for a man of being a husband and father."

    And you will definitely miss out on the even more defining experience of getting ass-raped in divorce court.

    Oh, and you can have children outside marriage BTW.

    *

    "So you all rather live in the Dark Ages?"

    It's upon us whether we want it or not. It's not a matter of personal preference.

    "It won't be women only falling prey to some barbarian warlord; women at least will have a chance to survive as pleasure slaves"

    That will be a rather fitting and richly deserved turn of events after 40 years of feminism.

    "while a lot of men will get killed"

    Not without a fight. And there are fates worse than death.

    Barbarian warlords also need soldiers, not just pleasure slaves BTW.

    ReplyDelete
  148. Look at this:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-11676804

    Even the Pashtun tribes have a legal system more just than this.

    ReplyDelete
  149. Mark as always made a good point about the preponderance of liberal ideas and solutions. I'm personally inclinded to agree that its not all political thinking though and economic and other factors are preponderant too.

    Alte,

    Yes your calls for action are gripping. Time for everyone to take the debt seriously. No more dancing with the stars distractions.

    Hollenhund (3:06),

    "Time to make up your mind, Jesse. Either equality in a relationship is good or it isn’t. Since by now we have safely established that women worship power and despise any sign of male weakness or lack of superiority and dominance, it’s fair to conclude that it isn’t."

    I think that's a fair point and as I said its not an easy dance, "Its not easy its ridiculously hard". We can fault women certainly, but I'm not an angel either. If one of the biggest criticisms of feminism is that its based on misandry I don't think adopting misogyny is a true solution.

    I would like women to adopt more of the personal responsibility shown by men and I don't see why this can't happen. Women I would say are certainly cable of responsibility when it comes to child raising, although we’ve seen abuses there. We have heard arguments that women have quite a different makeup than men I'm not entirely convinced of this. Biologically yes, but I don't see why reason should be a male only preserve. We've heard that women like to naturally submit to men. There is a fair bit of truth to that but if you asked that of a female partner in a law firm she'd laugh her head off.

    One of the reasons I think women have acted irresponsibly is because they're not fully adults yet. If you're a wife and look to your husband and are fairly dependant we often see irresponsible criticisms and then no serious follow through. This is evidenced by children. Women then jumped to feminism, where you can do no wrong, you've been oppressed, everything you take is legitimate. This is the attitude of teenagers. Like teenagers they still look to the State to bail them out and blame everything on the oppressive other, parents for teenagers, men for women.

    Like teenagers women have to grow up. I'm not really sure that that isn't impossible. Men, however, like parents of teenagers, can't let women have the keys to the beemer or an unlimited credit card or they'll stuff up. Most responsibility is shown by women in the realm of childbirth and this is obviously because of the biological necessity but also because I think women have been conditioned to this role for centuries. I'm sure upper class women who handed everything off to nannies and tutors were frequently irresponsible.

    So I'd like marriage to be a relationship between two adults, with complementary skills and mutual commitment, but I don't pretend that's easy. This is my take and you don't have to agree with it.

    Anonymous (11:54) said,

    "They're leaving because every institution has been turned against them. Culture, movies, marriage, divorce, child custody, alimony, child support, news, CPS, TV, the laws, the courts, lawyers, institutions of higher learning, K-12 schools, churches, any organized religion, etc. Men have been thoroughly demonized to justify the abusive treatment of an entire sex."

    I agree if I didn't have things like the army I'd go nuts. Nonetheless I look around and there are still real men out there. I can use the mental confidence I get from the army, and things like this site, to leverage into the rest of society and do well there. Women, as well as the workplace, want confident, leader type of men, which is contrary to what feminism produces.

    Nonetheless not marrying or having kids, and without being too black about it, is like saying that putting a gun to your head is a solution.

    ReplyDelete
  150. In my last post I said, "I'm personally inclinded to agree that its not all political thinking though and economic and other factors are preponderant too." That was poorly expressed.

    ReplyDelete
  151. "Barbarian warlords also need soldiers, not just pleasure slaves BTW."

    Nothing is easier than being an armchair warrior, but real life is different from computer games.

    Considering fates worse than death, are MRAs protesting in the streets? I have an impression from reading their blogs that they live in fear of the government getting them, they don't even dare to post under their real names.

    Whether theý would make good soldiers is doubtful.

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  152. Hollenhund (8:25),

    "Oh, and you can have children outside marriage BTW."

    If you do that your children will grow up with a grudge and be poorly suited to be good contributors to society.

    ReplyDelete
  153. Alte what are you doing in real life to change the situation?

    Outside of spending hours on internet forums complaining.

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  154. Jesse,

    I think something big is going to happen soon. Obama's moved his 12-day trip to India up a few days (he now leaves on Thursday -- right after QE2 is announced) and he's taking his entire family, most of his top advisors, 40 aircraft, and 6 armoured cars.

    When I read that I nearly threw up. I have the day off from work because of the election and I've been monitoring the news. It's crazy out there.

    They've been slowly trickling out data revisions and apologies all week (not that the public notices or cares) concerning the inaccuracy of government data. I think they realize that the incoming Republicans have every political reason to skewer them with the lies they've been spewing, and they're busy playing CYA.

    they don't even dare to post under their real names.

    Said "Anonymous".

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  155. Alte what are you doing in real life to change the situation?

    Wait a minute... I'm confused. Did a man just tell a woman to go out and fight his political battles for him? Will you hide behind me, sir? Shall I bring the stroller for my toddler? Perhaps you could then crouch down behind us and hope nobody sees you. A sign of our times, indeed.

    And they wonder why the West is declining. E.g.

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  156. Alte said,

    "Wait a minute... I'm confused. Did a man just tell a woman to go out and fight his political battles for him?"

    Lol Alte. However, you're clearly suited to the realm. You might say I have a stroller but a man might say I have a job. Politics has to be done by someone ;).

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  157. "There are millions of men willing to migrate to the West to take your place."

    No evidence of that to date. Stats on the Marriage Strike.

    There's no mistaking that trend line.


    "Like teenagers women have to grow up."

    Reports are that Gen Y women, having been immersed in the feminist education system their whole lives, from kindergarten to grad school, are a step beyond even the most radical sense of entitlement seen to date. We haven't seen anything yet.

    As for the USA, Obama's still got some promises to keep, like the destruction of the coal industry and the de-development of the country.

    Those photos of India could well be in America's future, and sooner than you think.

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  158. Jesse,

    so, in your opinion, why should women not be dominated and not be forced to submit? Creatures who fail to grow up - and Western women, as you stated, have failed to grow up so far despite 40 years of feminism - and refuse to assume full responsibility for their actions deserve neither freedom nor equality. I find it hilarious that the ancient Romans and Greeks, the Church fathers and even Asian desert nomads understood this simple truth, yet modern man is oblivious to it. It is certainly a better option than waiting for women to somehow magically grow up while they ruin everything around them.

    "Nonetheless not marrying or having kids, and without being too black about it, is like saying that putting a gun to your head is a solution."

    Saying that Western men should keep marrying despite the odds is like saying that playing Russian roulette is a good idea.

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  159. Traditionalism is the only viable solution. Religious traditionalism. I have seen my own Church become a bit too modernist, and I have become more of a Traditional Catholics in response.

    I believe in hierarchy in marriage, tempered by common sense and charity. I don't think women are meant to rule in the church or family. I think women do respect power. I have never - almost never - gone wrong by being firm with my wife.

    BTW, she found a lot of my comments on these blogs recently. None of it seems to bother her.

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  160. Mark,

    You still don't get it. You don't get what I am trying to explain with all of my revolutionary rhetoric. The polarization, hopelessness, and despair you see in the MRA movement is not limited to that movement. It is a reflection of the polarization, hopelessness, and despair present throughout our society.

    People are bunkering down and waiting for the end. Both marriage rates and birth rates are dropping as people struggle economically and wait to see what is coming next. You are witnessing the despondency at the end of an empire. People who are watching their currency be debased, their politicians head for their bunkers, their militaries fight in pointless wars, and desperate men setting themselves on fire or shooting up their former workplaces are not in a mood to get married and reproduce. They just aren't. This is not a time for romance, this is a time to go out and procure some lead.

    They are acting like it is end times because it feels like end times.

    Politics has to be done by someone ;).

    :-) Yeah, I know. I'm politically active, and becoming more so as the kids get older and I have more free time. But I found his comment facetious, so I wasn't going to grace it with a real answer.

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  161. Give up Mark, the barbarians are inside the gate.

    You are secluded from reality, hit the streets and see whats happening. The 'damsels' are giving it away free to Middle Eastern, Balkan, Sub Continetnal and African thugs.

    The rest are overseas getting 'experience'.

    "You remind me of the thugs of Diocletianus..."

    Reading this whole thread was worth that line.

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  162. "Norway with kangaroos". Not a bad description. I think - for Americans - a reasonable guide would be, Australia has weather like Arizona, culture like California, and social attitudes like Texas.

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  163. Mr. Richardson,

    Couldn't help by notice that this will probably be the 163rd comment on this blog thread. I can't remember when you had more comments in a debate. It looks like OzConservative is breaking through the glass ceiling of popular/regularly-read blogs ;-P

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  164. Give up Mark, the barbarians are inside the gate.

    You are secluded from reality


    There are still some country towns I could live in to be secluded from what's happening. But I live in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. I know how things are changing.

    But it's way too early to give up. Even now there is another generation of young Australians being born. There is still the chance to salvage something if only we don't succumb to defeatism.

    Politics is made by a relatively small number of people. We don't need masses of people to get things going. The task, really, is to gather together the remnants and attempt to build from there.

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  165. "they don't even dare to post under their real names.

    Said "Anonymous"."

    I gather Alte is YOUR real name?

    "Wait a minute... I'm confused. Did a man just tell a woman to go out and fight his political battles for him? Will you hide behind me, sir? Shall I bring the stroller for my toddler? "

    Did you just tell me to man up? Isn't it what is called "shaming language"


    Alte why don't you put your money where your mouth is? A traditional woman is busy with housekeeping not teaching grown up men how to live their life.

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  166. It looks like OzConservative is breaking through the glass ceiling of popular/regularly-read blogs

    Thanks, Kilroy. It's true that the scale of the debate is at levels seen at the large sites. I'm not yet at that rank, though readership continues to grow year by year.

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  167. One of the USSR’s deputy prime ministers was the scientist Vladimir Kirillin, appointed in 1965. He warned the CPSU Central Committe’s Politburo numerous times that the country has deepening economic problems (a rapidly decreasing growth rate of industrial productivity, a bloated military-industrial complex, terribly inefficient agriculture etc.) and structural reforms are needed. Nobody listened to him. The Politburo removed his set of proposals from its agenda in 1976. Three years later he criticized the regime’s idiotic economic policy in a public speech and was subsequently deposed. Years later he warned that Perestroika will not reach its aims and will in fact lead to collapse. Yet again, nobody listened. The rest is history.

    There are dozens (if not hundreds) of Vladimir Kirillins in the West today. Peter Schiff is one example. Many others are MRAs. Sensible people, the Cassandras of our time are yelling from the sideways, warning of the impending collapse, and nobody pays attention. This is the routine course of events during the terminal decline of any empire – because people behave like lemmings.

    In fact, not only is the leadership not paying attention, it is actually doing everything in its power to make things even worse and in no way can they be compelled to do otherwise – to me, this is the most obvious proof that nothing can or should be done to avert the coming collapse. The same happened in the USSR in the ’70s. Now paternity testing is banned in France, giving men yet another huge reason not to marry as if there weren’t many in the first place, and feminists are demanding the same be done in the US. Divorce laws and sexual harassment laws are becoming even more unfair and I’m sure we will see some form of bachelor tax passed in the US. Feminists are loudly proclaiming their final victory and the innate genetic inferiority of men while the political leadership bloats the budget deficit.

    Maybe all this could have been averted by right-wing dictatorships 70 or 80 years ago. Maybe. By now it’s obviously too late.

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  168. Höllenhund raises an interesting point re paternity laws being baned in France, and feminists desiring similar "reforms" in the US. The laws are made by men, and are a direct attack against men by facilitating female sex-fraud. Whether one is an MRAist or whatever is a secondary issue - what is needed is a form of male consiousness forming among the professional class.

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  169. Kilroy said "Höllenhund raises an interesting point re paternity laws being baned in France, and feminists desiring similar "reforms" in the US. The laws are made by men, and are a direct attack against men by facilitating female sex-fraud. Whether one is an MRAist or whatever is a secondary issue - what is needed is a form of male consiousness forming among the professional class."

    You're four years too late. Medical "ethicists" had already decided by 2006 to lie to cuckolded men about DNA paternity tests.

    See here.
    http://www.overcomingbias.com/2006/12/the_conspiracy_.html

    The consciousness has already been formed among the professional class, and it's rabidly feminist.

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  170. "it seems like the traditionalists and conservatives spend more energy attacking men than they do feminists"

    What a very feminine, or perhaps it's merely feninist, way of thinking and "arguing."

    This reaction ... this plaintive plea for parity-of-criticism ... demonstrates one of my criticisms of "Game" ... it further feminizes already feminized men.

    ReplyDelete
  171. ... ALSO, criticizing the fallacy of "Game" is not "attacking men" any more than criticizing the fallacy feminism is "attacking women."

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  172. Ilion,

    I'm afraid you have yet to show that Game is a fallacy, although you are quick to heap scorn and denunciations on those of us who disagree. Evidence please, as many of us have found it to be both effective and moral when put into practice.

    Isn't it what is called "shaming language"?

    Of course it is, as I was responding in kind to your own tone. Are you not embarrassed at derailing a serious political thread by questioning a woman on her housekeeping skills?

    First I'm an ignoramous, then I'm an impertinent foreigner, now I'm an uppity female who is shamefully missing the natural urge to spend her free time knitting. Don't think that I haven't noticed that you are incapable of besting me in debate or countering my arguments, so you've reduced yourself to personal attacks.

    I am now turning the other cheek and have put you on mental "Ignore". So go argue with yourself, if you please. Or do whatever else you enjoy doing to yourself, if you prefer. Or just continue to insult me. As you wish.

    ***********************************

    In other news:

    Republicans sweep the House and the Governorships! They owe their win largely to the Tea Party, Catholics, Independents, and (drumroll please) Conservative Women. Women voted for Republicans in the largest share since 1982. The ladies didn't let me down and the political map is a sea of red today.

    If only the Republicans can get their act together and finally clean house, there's still time to turn this ship around. There's hope yet, for America.

    QE2 at 14:15 today. Things are getting interesting over here and I'm feeling a bit more optimistic. The win was bigger than I expected.

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  173. Alte you are one of those who clearly feels the need to always have the last word.

    I wasn't questioning your housekeeping skills, just pointing out your hypocrisy.

    AS for insults didn't someone tell me to search for my balls in one of the previous comments? How's that not insulting?

    What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

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  174. Mark,

    I apologize sincerely. You were right. I've been away from the Spearhead for a bit now. I just went back to look and the amount of misogyny and nihilism in the comment threads is astounding. It seems a different crowd is taking over.

    Novaseeker left this comment there, which I found pertinent to the discussion here:

    It’s all well and good for married guys like Dave and Athol and Dalrock and so on to advocate the use of Game in marriages, but why bother getting married at all if you are good at Game? I mean what is the real advantage of being married if you have the ability to constantly pull attractive women? Companionship? Maybe, but it seems like that’s conditioned upon maintaining good Game. Children? Sure, but that can be done outside marriage, too, and often is done so even if you start out married anyway. Stability? How stable is current marriage when it must rely on something like Game in order to succeed anyway?

    Game is the main destabilizer of this generation. It’s like acid, really. The more men who learn even a bit of it and deploy it in their lives, the faster this whole construct comes crashing down, I think.


    That is precisely why the law has to change. If Game-and-Tingles is the only glue holding marriages together, then the situation will quickly unravel. Marriage has to be about more than sexually titillating the wife. The man's superiority has to be defined by the society, not limited to his personal efforts.

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  175. "I apologize sincerely. You were right. I've been away from the Spearhead for a bit now. I just went back to look and the amount of misogyny and nihilism in the comment threads is astounding. It seems a different crowd is taking over."

    Funny you should be saying that. The loudest misogynists have already been banned but otherwise the tone of the comments hasn't radically changed in months.

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  176. Perhaps I was merely desensitized before.

    I am now dropping my support, after seeing one thread in particular that turned my stomach. They will have to find a new useful idiot now. It is men like Mark, David, and my husband that are actually reproducing, and the future belongs to their prodigy. Let the others repeat their mantra of "Girls are stupid, throw rocks at them". I, for one, will no longer bother to read it.

    The problem with that portion of the MRM is that a movement based upon denouncing women for being women will never appeal to women or to men who don't hate women.

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  177. "I am now dropping my support, after seeing one thread in particular that turned my stomach."

    Which one?

    "They will have to find a new useful idiot now."

    Hah! Funny how you took a word out of the vocabulary of the Bolsheviks. So were you fooled by their propaganda, or what?

    "The problem with that portion of the MRM is that a movement based upon denouncing women for being women will never appeal to women or to men who don't hate women."

    Women are perfectly comfortable with denouncing men "for being men" in the same sense MRAs are denouncing women "for being women" (i.e. cuckoldry, false rape charges etc.)

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  178. The one with the edifying exchange between rob and julie, of course. I didn't even bother to read any more threads, as that was quite enough for me.

    So were you fooled by their propaganda, or what?

    Precisely. I think the true misogynists over there are hiding behind the others for credibility. They are no longer hiding behind me, that is for sure.

    Women are perfectly comfortable with denouncing men "for being men" in the same sense MRAs are denouncing women "for being women" (i.e. cuckoldry, false rape charges etc.)

    Yes, they are. So if those particular men do the same then they are merely showing that they are no more fit for leadership than those women are. You know very well how I feel about such topics, and that was not what I was referring to. They are busy denouncing women for their very nature, not for their misbehavior.

    That is a distinction with a difference. They are demanding submission when they are not offering love. That is not submission, that is oppression. Why would any woman in her right mind sign on to such a system? How many husbands want to view their wives that way? How man fathers would wish such a man on their daughters? How many brothers would search out such a mate for their sisters?

    Not many, that is sure. It is a movement that is DOA, if it can't drop the hate, moral relativism, and sex-divisions. Otherwise, they really are only a mirror-image of the feminists.

    I am not a feminist for a reason!

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  179. You should add to this that many of those men seem to hate housewives and they denounce them nearly in the same terms that feminists used, e.g. calling them parasites, lazy, presuming that they are bored and unfulfilled etc.

    With such friends one doesn't need enemies.

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  180. Yes, many of them despise housewives. That much is for sure. Unless that housewife spends all day yoked to a plow, licking the toilet clean, or has 18 children. It's the "housewife as dim-witted doormat" meme. They think women are meant to be ever-pleasant regardless of the abuse they receive, asexual but slutty, industrious but stupid, and wealth-bringing but constantly tied to their home and hordes of children.

    In addition, the women should never disagree with them on anything of substance and are only meant to communicate with other women. But then they criticize women who have blogs or meet up with their friends. They are, in short, ogres that no normal woman could possibly please without living in a vale of tears. And then they wonder why they are single or only attract low-quality women.

    When they ask me, "How do you find the time to write?" I explain all that I have done that day and that I find the time to write in-between those tasks. To which they reply, "But that's impossible!" I never answer but I think, "No, it is improbable. You only think it's impossible because you wouldn't be capable of the same level of productivity or mental velocity." I suspect many of them write V.E.R.Y. S.L.O.W.L.Y. and have to think V.E.R.Y. H.A.R.D. but are loathe to admit it. My husband doesn't wonder at it, but then my husband has me reviewing his MATLAB simulations and design presentations because he doesn't trust his male coworkers to be up to the task.

    It is clear from their writing that most of these men don't know many housewives, or at least not the sort of housewives I know. Most of the housewives I associate with have college degrees, many in the natural sciences. They are indisputably more intelligent and productive than the majority of the population (both male and female), so they would be bewildered by such disturbed rhetoric. As would their husbands be. As would my husband be.

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  181. I think we will have to make a distinction here.

    For the sake of keeping this short, I'll cite two thoughtful comments from Chuck's blog:

    "I can understand why men resent hypergamy, but we resent men’s strong desire for variety. The true nature of women isn’t all that great, but neither is the true nature of men."

    http://glpiggy.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/men-resent-hypergamy-because-it-makes-them-sweat/#comment-5058

    "Female sexual selection strategies have been liberalized while male ones have been deliberalized. I have no legal mate-guarding strategy except socially outcompeting other males at the command of my Harpy Queen, on a perpetual basis for the rest of my life.

    Older and non-Western modern societies allow men other mate-guarding strategies to compensate for female hypergamy, where as ours actively promotes hypergamy and discriminates against mate-guarding. Men are as evolved to guard their mates from other males and guard themselves from competition for those mates as women are for hypergamy.

    I can’t compel my wife through my evolved greater physical strength, nor can I use my aggression and lack of empathy for interlopers to kill them. I can’t dictate what she wears out in public or even her ability to go out in public at all, without letting her take a vast sum of my resources, my children, and then tax me for the rest of my life. No man in any functional hunter-gatherer unit nor in any historical civilization is forced into such an evolutionarily maladapted niche. There are virtually no evolved male gender specialized traits that are useful in our society. We are evolved to deal with hypergamy, but are legally barred from doing so with all but one facet of our masculinity."

    http://glpiggy.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/men-resent-hypergamy-because-it-makes-them-sweat/#comment-5228

    This is the core of the problem. Women resent the true nature of men and vice versa. The huge difference is that the male desire for sexual variety has always been severely constrained (discounting rare events such as the mass rapes committed by the Red Army in 1944/45) whereas female hypergamy is given a completely free reign today. Men have zero legal protection from it.

    If you look carefully, this is what some men are angry about - not women's nature itself.

    "So if those particular men do the same then they are merely showing that they are no more fit for leadership than those women are."

    Leadership is a non-issue here. MRAs aren't seeking either leadership or political power. In fact, many of them argue that there is no need for a "movement" to begin with - simply spreading the truth to young men is more important.

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  182. It must be great up there Alte....

    Ubiquitous me, me, me.

    As per usual Höllenhund and Nova take a bow.

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  183. Who's Nova? You guys must be talking to each other off site.

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  184. If you look carefully, this is what some men are angry about - not women's nature itself.

    Yes, that is what some men are angry about. And I've always supported their righteous indignation at the unfairness and destructive nature of such an imbalance, as has Mark.

    But Mark's original point was that the balance of power has shifted away from from such men to the rest of them, who are mere nihilists or hedonists. And I am now, reluctantly, agreeing with that evaluation. Yes, he is right and the balance rests with the destroyers and the indifferent.

    MRAs aren't seeking either leadership or political power.

    Of course they are. Attempting to change the culture and influence a group of people, whether obviously or through stealth, is an attempt at taking over a leadership role in society and politics. They wish to alienate men from women so that the men will later not be unnerved by the abuse and neglect of said women. They consider married men "aligned with the enemy", so they discourage marriage in order to isolate their enemies and increase the size of their own group.

    This is the exact same tactic that the feminists used. It is simply the male version of "going on household strike" or abandoning your family to go "discover yourself". Disengaging as a political move. Even the "taking the red pill" rhetoric is identical to the "click moment" stuff. This is simply gender-identity politics, which is not compatible with my faith.

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  185. Hollenhund (9:21) said,

    "The huge difference is that the male desire for sexual variety has always been severely constrained (discounting rare events such as the mass rapes committed by the Red Army in 1944/45) whereas female hypergamy is given a completely free reign today. Men have zero legal protection from it."

    But isn't a certain degree of female hypergamy adaptive? If men have to continually work to stay attractive to women they have to be productive, better themselves, attempt to stay stronger than men, and that is good for society?

    You say men's desire for variety has been constrained but women fear getting old or unattractive and having men leave. To counter men's potential "straying eye" wives would have to work to please their husbands, eg be pleasing or try to stay attractive.
    In both cases I think its the "effort" shown by the partner to please the other which is attractive. If he/she is willing to work for me he/she likes me. Rather than necessarily the outcome, you might work hard but someone else is better.

    In today's society we're much less willing to work for another person or see doing so as oppression. We’re also less tolerate of difficulties and want things to be good all the time. I understand totally the idea of "giving your best years/energy" to the other person to be betrayed. But until more recently this predominantly was the complaint of the wife who was left for a younger woman. In modern society we're seeing both men leave their wives for younger women and wives leave their husbands for something else.

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  186. I think this movement of individual focus has occurred partly because of political/individualist philosophy but also because of economics and technology. A woman can earn a living on her own today as a man can. Neither are tied to the land or need children for economic reasons. So today everyone CAN go their own way, but it would seem they can't really go their own way and raise children effectively. The idea that you can realistically give birth to functional children out of wedlock is fanciful. If you could it would be the State who raises them rather than families.

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  187. So feminist women want to have it both ways. They want easy divorce to allow for hypergamy along with financial support from the previous husband, or else the complete disappearance of the previous husband. They presumably also want to punish men for cheating and require total faithfulness from their husband. Men not wanting to play by that adopt things like game or refusal to marry.

    Men in contrast want their wives to be highly sexually stimulating and non demanding and presumably turn a blind eye to affairs.

    Were we go from here I'm not entirely sure I'm still figuring it out. Alte, I'm one of those guys who types s.l.o.w.l.y hehe.

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  188. What precisely is the Gameist's/MRA solution? Novaseeker says game is the acid to eat at the feminist structure, to be replaced by what? Marriage were its recognised that you're sleeping with the enemy but they still must be forced to do it? So you deny women the opportunity to work and say they must stay at home, but without the traditional supports of a monogamous husband ideal because men should still be able to cheat?

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  189. Yes, the MRAs hate women for not being men with tits. They don't want to work with women as they actually are.

    Why get married if you have "game"? In my case, because of my religious beliefs.

    It would be nice if society would support men as superior in the home, culturally. Such values are not dead, but they are definitely on the defensive, even in Australia. And I don't see them coming back any time soon.

    Any attempt by a prominent man to promote Christlike headship in the home will be met by feminists with metaphorical pitchforks and gelding irons descending on him brandishing pictures of battered wives.

    BTW, Alte, I am unable to access your discussion group for technical reasons.

    It is as hard for a man today to "come out" as a Christian patriarch as it used to be for a homosexual to "come out" in society. I do not exaggerate.

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  190. My husband also types (and speaks) very slowly but he's much smarter than I am. You know where I was going with that one...

    Jesse, if you want to know what the country's political mood is like, watch these videos. My husband and I were just watching them and we were both amazed that someone was so blunt on national TV. I don't really like Glenn Beck, but he's definitely on the right track with this.

    David,
    Do you get into the group and then receive an error message in the discussion section? If so, click on the link next to the title. It always works, even if there's an error written underneath.

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  191. Alte, I think you set up an adult content warning and that flummoxed me. I shall try again tonight.

    What was the name of the thread with julie and rob? Who is julie?

    I gave up on The Spearhead because I felt persona non grata. I am just some annoying Aussie dude, but I was surprised that they dumped on you so much, seeing as you are one of their contributors.

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  192. What precisely is the Gameist's/MRA solution?

    Two partied, statelss, Equity and contract law.

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  193. "What precisely is the Gameist's/MRA solution?

    Two partied, statelss, Equity and contract law."

    Can you elaborate?

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  194. Alte,

    "You know where I was going with that one..."

    Of course. I'm watching the Glenn Beck piece. I don't agree with a lot of what he's saying but its good so see an economic analysis. His audience though I'm sure isn't that economically literate, I'm certainly not. Nonetheless if you devalue the currency your life savings don't crash, only in relation to other currencies. Currencies have been devalued periodically throughout human history. There's too much noise and threading together of different targets. The Soros (read Jewish) puppet master I don't think is particularly helpful. Wow Beck sure is more confident now than when I last saw him around 2008.

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  195. Jesse,

    Nonetheless if you devalue the currency your life savings don't crash, only in relation to other currencies.

    Yes, but that was one of the points he was making. Because our currency is now our main export (thank you, service economy!), we trade based upon it's value and live based upon it's value. We buy so much now from overseas (trade imbalance) that a collapse of the currency will leave us hungry, cold, and naked. The only thing we have left to sell is the promise that our currency will retain its value. If we forsake upon that promise, what do we have left to sell? Nothing much, that is what.

    Neither my husband nor I were particularly economically literate until we began planning for our move over here. Then we started watching currency markets, reading about stocks, etc. I've been picking up on more and more of this stuff, as I've gone along. I'm still confused by a lot of it, but I understand enough to know that we're all being royally screwed.

    David,

    Here's the thread.

    I knew they would run me out sooner or later, and I was actually surprised at how well I did for a while. I was steering the conversation in a traditionalist direction, which many didn't approve of. I think their head nearly explodes at the thought of an anti-feminist woman who doesn't think all men are infallible or devoid of Original Sin. They see the world in terms of gender, so they can't understand that I could be anti-feminist without being pro-male. I am not anti-male, but neither am I anti-female. I simply don't view the world that way.

    That all taught me to assume the worst when attacked, immediately go on the offensive, and then refuse to continue the argument. Otherwise I just end up embroiled in a never-ending debate with someone whose entire argument is: Catholics are stupid. Girls are stupid. Catholic girls are really stupid. Or something similarly enlightening. Arguing with an idiot really does make you sound like an idiot.

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  196. Jesse_7

    Black letter law, where the contract defines the terms of the agreement, not where the state can administratively change the terms and conditions at will.

    Theres a reason why the court benches are being stacked with lesbians, gays and pedophiles (justice Kirby for goodness sakes touched up a boy in a public toilet).

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  197. Just wanted to highlight this comment from Van Wijk, in the previous Tea Party thread (which I just noticed). I thought that was well-said, although I think there is still a last-chance to turn things around.

    For a bit of a laugh: the Onion's take on the election results. My husband says they're now his most-trusted news source. Satire is the new news.

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  198. Anonymous said,

    "Black letter law, where the contract defines the terms of the agreement, not where the state can administratively change the terms and conditions at will."

    So a marriage contract should be unalterable except by the consent of the parties?

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  199. I'd like to see the thread where you take them on Alte. Yowsers, the thought of having all your comments rated by others, no thanks.

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