Manosphere misogynists love fantasizing about a coming apocalypse, invariably caused by the bad behavior of feminists and/or women in general, and invariably resulting in feminists and/or women in general lost and forlorn and realizing their mistakes, returning to men begging for help and asking for forgiveness. Like Doomsday Preppers waiting for the planet to suddenly shift on its axis due to the sudden reversal of the magnetic poles, most of the apocalyptic misogynists don’t seem to have the faintest idea of what they’re talking about.
Take, for example, one Paul Elam of A Voice for Men, who transformed himself into an environmentalist last week when he realized it would give him an excuse to rant about the evils of women spending money. Turns out that the “conventional wisdom” his thesis depends on — that women are responsible for 80% of spending — is essentially an urban legend, and that men and women seem to spend roughly the same amounts. Similarly, there’s evidence that suggests men and women in developed countries have similar “carbon footprints,” with men if anything a bit more pollutey.
But of course this is hardly the only bit of apocalyptic misogynistic fantasy that, upon examination, turns out to be based on patent nonsense. Manosphere misogynists – particularly those on the racist right – love to complain about the evils of single motherhood, especially in the “ghettoes,” which they imagine will lead to crime rates spiraling out of control, riots, dogs and cats living together, and any number of other apocalyptic scenarios.
As one commenter on Dalrock’s manosphereian blog put it, providing a pithy summary of the coming single-mom apocalypse:
Single mothers bring the very wellfare state they depend on closer to the brink of colapse with every illegitimate child they pop out, who will most likely in turn create more bastards and be more likely to commit crimes thus placing an ever increasing strain on the state’s purse stings. …
[T]hings will collapse soon enough and then it will be everyone for themselves. No more suckling at the government’s saggy dried up teet.
Of course, manospherians are hardly the only ones who like to blame single moms for everything. You may recall that odd moment in the presidential debates when Mitt Romney responded to a question about gun violence with “gosh to tell our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone, that’s a great idea.”
There’s just one tiny problem with the whole single-motherhood-means-higher-crime-rates argument: if you look at the history of the past twenty years or so you will find that while single motherhood has been on the increase, violent crime rates have been going down, down, down. Take a look at this chart, which I have borrowed from an excellent post on The Atlantic by University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen.
Huh. First single motherhood and crime rise together, then crime plummets while single motherhood continues to rise. It’s almost as if the two social trends have no correlation with each other at all.
As Cohen writes:
Violent crime has fallen through the floor (or at least back to the rates of the 1970s) relative to the bad old days. And this is true not just for homicide but also for rape and other assaults. At the same time, the decline of marriage has continued apace. Looking at two aggregate trends is never enough to tell a whole story of social change, of course. However, if two trends going together doesn’t prove a causal relationship, the opposite is not quite as true. If two trends do not go together, the theory that one causes the other has a steeper hill to climb. In the case of family breakdown driving crime rates, I don’t think the story will make it anymore.
Once upon a time, when both single motherhood and crime rates were moving upwards, you couldn’t entirely blame some social critics for suggesting there might be some connection. But with twenty more years of data we can see clearly that this just isn’t so. At this point, anyone predicting a single mother crime apocalypse is either a) an ideologue, b) ignorant about the facts or c) both.
In the case of the apocalyptic manosphere ranters, it’s obviously c.
citation please of feminists trying to stopping production of contraceptives for men.
Got anything other than assdata for that assertion?
Hahaha! Never have I heard such a stupis theory. What? Do you think that every girl over the age of thirteen is gleefully plotting out when to get knocked up so she can have power?
You’re an idiot. Trust me, women spend a great deal of time worrying about the possibility of becoming pregnant and a large amount of time and money to ensure it doesn’t happen. Feminists will be pleased to see the day men also share the burden of family planning, and can take better measures to prevent siring children that will not be wanted.
But rty23 said the magic words: “there is no denying that.” That means you can’t deny it. He wins the thread, according to THE RULES OF THE INTERNETZ.
“Side effect free and reversible sterilisation” – LOL what do you think vasectomies are? What do you think condom use is, if not side-effect free? You whiny little man, you’re still not going to be doing what you want to – forcing pregnancies on women. Face it, you aren’t going to dominate women by refusing to breed. If a woman wants a child and you don’t, then the relationship will quite likely end, so you won’t be any better off. Trying to blackmail or coerce women into being subservient to you isn’t new, but this little “threat” is dumber than most. That’s without even going into the assumption that all women want children or can have them, or that most men are arseholes like you who think of children as something to threaten women with (whether by forcing pregnancy or withholding your precious sperm). Believe it or not, there are far more worthwhile human beings who don’t look on the other half of the species as an enemy, and who even – gasp! – want to have children in happy relationships.
But then MRAs are no better at observing the world around them than they are at poster design.
LOL. Yeah, feminists love the fact that the onus of preventing pregnancy is placed squarely on the shoulders of women, to the point that we are expected to flood our bodies with side-effect-laden hormones to do so. You caught us: all the books and blog posts and articles about how male BC is a feminist issue were just false flags to cover up our true goals.
WordPress, why are you eating my comments?
No, really. Why does that comment go through while my reply to rty keeps getting eaten?
Is there a particular word that might have got caught in the filter? Like the alternative spelling of “snicker” will because it includes the N word.
rty23: Every single person I’ve talked to about a chemical contraceptive for men has been enthusiastic about the concept. EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. Feminists included. More contraception options are better for everyone.
I’ll admit that my sample size isn’t huge, but I would be willing to bet that good numbers from a well designed and executed survey would probably show the same.
Don’t you love the way it has to be “side-effect free” – I bet he doesn’t give a shit that the Pill for women is anything but.
All I’m saying is that women will have babies when men want them to. You don’t think that changes anything? Think harder.
If men all over are using this it definitely changes the landscape. Explain to me how it doesn’t.
Two words: arificial insemination
Or
She could leave for a man that does want kids.
Seriously, many men and women negotiate over whether their relationships will have children. If two people can’t agree then they move on and find someone else.
It still gives men a huge power shift. It won’t be so easy for a woman to decide when she’s going to have a family like it is now.
rty – who gives a shit? Do you really think so many women (in the affluent societies where this will apply) are so desperate for children that they’d put up with any shit from a man? Or that the majority of men don’t want children, or are such arseholes as to use blackmail or threats? Or, for that matter, that this will affect the bulk of the world’s population? Grow up.
You seem to think all women’s lives revolve around breeding. Protip: they don’t. You also seem to think those who do want kids have no other obstacles or considerations to deal with about when they start. Second protip: they do.
Take your grubby little fantasies back to your bedroom, sonny.
Sorry if I’ve been offensive.
rty23: Sorry if I’ve been offensive.
No, you aren’t.
In all seriousness, why are so many misogynists obsessed with controlling women’s ability to reproduce? Look at this latest dipshit, he’s more interested in the controlling women part than the men having more options part, in fact the men having more options part is only a means to get to a position where men can control women more easily.
(If we pretend for a moment that his scenario makes any sense in the first place.)
rrty23: What you say may be so but there is no denying that feminists are trying to stop the development of new male contraceptives
Watch this:
I deny it.
That was easy.
I suspect it’s part of their notions of rape and sex being the same thing – punishing women for existing, reducing us to sex and baby-producing slaves again.
What I’m saying is that just because a woman wants to have a baby doesn’t mean that the man wants to. No one is talking about blackmail. In simple terms, it makes it harder for women to dictate to men when and how families are going to come about.
Look at the language he used.
Even if this played out the way he imagines (which it won’t, because most men aren’t misogynist control freaks), it wouldn’t give men the ability to determine when women DO have babies, just when they don’t (if we pretend that sperm banks no longer exist, there are no other men willing to get that woman pregnant, etc).