By David Futrelle
Facing little legitimate oppression in the real world, modern misogynist men sometimes have to improvise in order to find something to complain about. Thus Men’s Rights Activists in the US work themselves into a tizzy over the requirement to register for a non-existent military draft. Incels convince themselves that a “few millimeters of bone” distinguish their allegedly ugly faces from Chad’s perfect visage.
And MGTOWs warn ominously of what they see as the impending danger of a “bachelor tax” — that is, a tax aimed at unmarried men like themselves, which is something that has only been attempted a tiny handful of times over the entire course of human history.
This is a topic that has come up again and again on the MGTOW subreddit. Take this typical rant on the subject, posted by a MGTOW Redditor called vhemtmgtow a year ago.
I often worry about what the gynocracy will do when they figure out how easy life is for a MGTOW who lives in peace and tranquility without any worries or anxieties.
For men living in peace and tranquility without any worries, Men Going Their Own Way sure do complain a lot.
But vhemtmgtow is convinced that the “gynocratic” government is trying to cajole these men into marriage. Not that it will work on this brave and independent herd of confirmed bachelors for life!
Shaming doesn’t work in these men. They are immune to it. Sexual temptation doesn’t work on these men. What is left for the gynocracy other than a bachelor tax?
In many countries there is a bachelor tax but single men are simply paying it because the cost of marriage is much higher than the cost of the bachelor tax.
This, like most things MGTOW believe, is not even remotely true. According to Wikipedia, there are currently a grand total of zero countries with bachelor taxes. Indeed, the most recent attempt to levy such a tax took place in the old Soviet Union, for two years, immediately before its historic collapse — and this tax started off as a childlessness tax levied on both men and women.
But what if the gynocracy increase the bachelor tax so much that men are forced to marry? It’s like choosing between two bad choices: marriage or huge bachelor tax. Hopefully it doesn’t get to the point where the lesser of two evils is marriage.
Not going to happen, dude. Even aside from the fact that such a law would be pretty blatantly unconstitutional, the plain fact is that no one on earth wants to marry any of you. Danger averted! Problem solved! Go fuck your fleshlight or something, and maybe consider not posting your fever dreams on the internet.
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The one place I know where single men are discouraged but single women are welcomed is orgies in various forms — sex parties, swinger events, BDSM play parties, etc.
Sometimes this takes the form of the men having to pay a fee while women and couples get in for free (Bachelor tax!!!), sometimes single men are excluded entirely. And sometimes there’s no restriction.
I don’t know what men going their own way would be doing at sex parties, though.
Wait a minute. Weren’t these nimrods just yesterday complaining about women being too picky and denying them marriage and kids in some bid to bring the beta males to extinction?
@Mish
That seems to be the thought process of every conservative over 30, where they assume that the economy is favorable for young adults so they can support children. If conservatives actually want people to have children, they could create free child care, improve health care, or similar. Not sure if it’s the same in other countries, but in America conservatives are constantly slashing those things and making it harder for people to raise children, while at the same time bemoaning the lack of (white) babies.
@Amtep
MGTOWs already have complained about that one, like in the meme David wrote about here.
Standing in the corner grumbling about how the women are hypergamous sluts and saying that MGTOWs are so happy not to be involved while clearly being unhappy?
I can’t for the life of me imagine feminists supporting a batchelor tax.
(Well, maybe some TERFs, but they’re not noticeably feminist)
I can easily imagine the religious reich imposing one. Of course they’d also have a spinster tax, probably first and bigger.
@Sheila Crosby
A regime run by TERFs would probably look quite a bit like one run by the religious reich, they’ve shown each other to have much in common and to joyfully link arms in order to cause suffering for others.
I kind of like the concept of needing a referendum to declare war, and everyone who votes “yes” on the referendum are the people who are required to enlist.
It’s one of thoses concept that look neat in theory but have rough edges in implementation. Like if I am a 60 year blind man, there is just significantly less stack than if I am 20 in good form. Or how to do that if time is of the essence, or if it’s the other that declared war.
Similarly, I have seen suggestion to execute the head of state and/or top general if after the wars the consensus is that it was useless, but that put a lot of trust in the public.
I am opposed to the draft on both pragmatic and moral grounds (though I’m of the view that “moral” is almost always “pragmatic”). Like most Quakers, I’m a pacifist, though not a total pacifist. (The best explanation I can give is Superman’s pacifism: Use force as a last resort, and even then the absolute minimum amount of force necessary.)
Based on experience, I fully expect that if the draft were reinstated its biggest supporters would be the Boomers that opposed the last draft so vehemently. It’s not happening to them this time, after all.
(These are generally the same Boomers who dismiss young people unable to pay for college with “Just work your way through college flipping burgers over the summer the way I did,” because everything is EXACTLY like it was in 1970, right?)
@Allandrel
They’re also the same people who were nature lovers in the 60s but now deny climate change and are down with fucking over the world for a profit.
I’m opposed to the draft because I think it’s morally wrong to force 18-year-olds to die while the people who actually created the war (corporations, senators, presidents, other government officials) sit comfortably at home.
Or, in song form:
Likewise, in a recent Finnish poll, our male only conscription got a slightly higher support from men than women. Of course, nearly all of the men polled would have already served (or skipped their service one way or other) and most would be too old to be drafted in a case of war. There’s probably some effect of passing the shit bucket to younger generations.
The problem of saying “I am against drafting”, is that most people think it’s drafting vs staying in peace, when in actual practice, it’s drafting vs other mean of getting more soldiers, and a metric shitton of them are shadier than drafting.
Nagflar incarnate that problem to the caricature, because while it’s possible that a war will be created by the people she or he talk of, in both WW1 and WW2 the young population was completely on board for the carnage. The idea that the populations are alway peaceful and that war is forced upon don’t stand to history.
And, similarly, war can be thrust upon a nation because of the action of the other nations. The US saved the day in WW2, and, really, for once, they had absolutely no hand in starting all that mess. It’s arguably even a case of superman’s pacifism on their case
Currently, the main reason to not have drafting in so-called developped country is that draftee are an horrible fit for the mercenary operations western armies are famous for : too long to train to fitness, not really any less expensive than career soldier, and they aren’t lacking soldier, at least yet. Warmongers don’t actually support drafting, because that don’t serve their purposes.
(also, isn’t the recruitment of career soldier in the US pretty much as big a scandal as the worse hour of drafting ? I am not entirely sure, but last time I heard of US recruiter, it … wasn’t positive. If memory serve well, they convinced some poor sod to enlist by bribing them with a playstation)
Ohlmann – Those are good points.
A while ago I saw an article on Time Magazine, discussing a hypothetical national Service in US. I only half remember the conclusion of that piece, but it was something along the lines of “it would be useless for military purposes, but possibly good for equality and social cohesion”.
Meh. As a French-Canadian* I may have higher-than-average dislike for military draft. Though if one happened and I knew me getting swept up in it (unlikely given my rather lacking physical fitness) meant some other poor bastard who’s in a relationship/has children can avoid it, I’d do it, if somewhat reluctantly.
*Bit of historical context: French-Canadians (or at least Quebecois) have been historically opposed to drafts, both in WWI and WWII. However, despite both anglos and francos consequently fixating on the high number of draft dodgers, albeit coming from different directions (anglos saying it made us untrustworthy cowards, francos saying it was a courageous form of conscientious objection and refusal of a conquered people to die in their colonial overlords’ wars – yeah, it’s really complicated), both sides tend to conveniently forget in their respective narratives that French-Canadians made up a completely disproportional number of voluntarily enlisted personnel compared to Anglo-Canadians, on an almost 2-to-1 basis in both conflicts. Also of interest is that in both those conflicts French-Canadians were IIRC largely barred from officer commissions, which were pretty much anglo-only (must have been fun times when neither officers nor grunts fully understood each other – bilingualism was rather less prevalent then than now, and even today it’s not that prevalent on the anglo side if my experiences are anything to judge by).
@Paireon:
I still remember the shocked reaction of a friend of mine who had grown up speaking French but hadn’t mentally connected the ‘Van Doos’ nickname with the fact that they were the Royal 22nd (Vingt-deuxième) Regiment. Certainly reading up on some of their history when I was in Quebec City for the 400th anniversary celebrations gave lots of good reasons why the Quebecois would be more skeptical of the draft than most English Canadians.
Well, the Newfoundlanders would fully agree with the Quebecois on that as well, and for similar reasons tied in with what Ohlmann was saying above: a lot of it ends up with the poor folks getting used as front line troops and dying as a result.
In at least one case, you can thank Pierre Trudeau for increased bilingualism in the country, since he was the one who pushed that all federal government employees would need to be able to speak both official languages. (Though it’s also understandable for other reasons why Quebecois might not want to thank Pierre Trudeau for much of anything.)
I don’t know, a 20% tax for all men seems fair to me. For SOME reason.
I don’t understand this at all.
Why are they worried about being forced to marry?
I thought all the lobster boys were in favour of ‘enforced monogamy’ and the state providing all single men with a wife?
It’s confusing why they would be against the very thing most of them want?
MGTOW: Bachelor Tax Is Here Already