The MGTOWs are trying their hand at history again. Only this time they aren’t telling stories about brave cavemen taking down huge mammoths to feed their lazy-ass cavewives. This time they’re suggesting that women’s rights are somehow incompatable with civilization itself.
In the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit, a fellow called FlameForgeD2 confidently asserts that
It’s not a coincidence that every civilization before our time has kept women in check and that MGTOW was born in a civilization which doesn’t
Well, no, it’s not a surprise that some backwards men have responded to the increased rights of women by complaining on the internet like a bunch of babies.
But that’s not the point our intrepid historian wants to make: he’s saying that civilizations can’t grow and thrive without putting women down.
Does anyone honestly think that every society ever before just magically decided to “opress” (or so they think) 50+% of it’s population? Or were there reasons for restricting women to go to school and be stay at home housewives and mothers?
There were certainly reasons women were kept down; doing so benefited men, who just happened to have most of the power in society. Now, with some of the central pillers of the patriarchy being chipped away, MGTOWs are crying over the loss of this unearned male privilege.
Of course there were good reasons for such a huge decision, affecting milions. Men and women before covered for each other’s weaknesses. Women in their own way ensured the survival of our species, while men were productive and therefore built and brought to life the very civilization we have now. They made a good team and were productive by covering for each other’s pros and cons.
Apparently, in the mind of FlameForgeD2, the only thing women can do properly is to give birth to babies?
Just how a coleric boss/entrepreneur in a company works well together with a second-in-command melancholic, his right hand. They work together because their strenghts cover for each other’s weaknesses – the entrepreneur is a very diligent and hard working man, while his right hand is the analytical smart thinker.
This is a terrible example, in no way analogous to the alleged differences between men and women, and doesn’t prove much of anything. Got another one?
Oh, crap, he does.
Just how a captain and a first sergeant work well in the military. The captain is the brains of the operation, and the 1SG is the dangerous guy who enforces his decisions by keeping the soldiers below obedient, acting as an bridge between the officer and the soldier.
Weird that none of his examples involve anyone being stripped of their basic human rights.
Oh wait, he’s got still another example.
Just how a carry and support work well in popular MOBA’s. One is weak early but strong later, and the other vice versa – and by playing around each they work well – the support “supports” the carry while he’s weak, and the carry later carries him when the support falls off (his whole team anyway).
MOBA — I had to look it up — stands for “Multiplayer online battle arena.” That’s right. He’s basing his argument for suppressing the rights of women in part on the mechanics of a video game.
But he’s not done yet:
So, what happened since the old system was abolished? The deconstruction of the nuclear family, hypersexuality, degeneracy.
Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Another is to see the last 100 years or so as a period in which half of humanity got to share in the basic human rights the other half took for granted.
Oh, and there’s no “hypersexuality” going on now; people, especially young people, are having less sex than their counterparts were a quarter of a century ago.
The modern feminist narrative is today’s society’s weakness, not it’s strenght.
“Not it’s strenght,” you say?
It is making the western “democracies” more and more decadent and inefficient, and if they continue to honor the modern narrative, they will ultimately succumb to the disciplined nations of the east.
We may be going down the tubes at the moment, but it’s not because of too much democracy, that’s for sure.
The only valiable solution for this madness is for any woke people left to GTOW [Go Their Own Way]. Focus on self defined success and happiness, and don’t help or try to save a society which doesn’t want to help itself and save itself.
Funny how the people talking about “going their own way” always seem to be the people whom society will miss the least.
Somehow the comments inspired by FlameForgeD2’s post managed to be worse than his post.
According to aniani04,
Nature tends to correct itself, every single civilization that tried empowering women ended up going to shit, and we’re witnessing the death of a great civilization just because they didn’t keep their bitches in check… Fascinating!
“Letting women vote made the end inevitable,” declares PipBoyTinkerer.
And then there’s Intp-A1, who seems to think the only solution is like something out of The Handmaid’s Tale.
[S]ociety will ultimately collapse without a sustainable birth rate in the long run. Women must be forced to perform their biological duties, it’s as simple as that. That forcing mechanism will either be before the collapse by men asserting themselves or after a collapse when society is picking up the pieces and wondering what went wrong. Either way it will happen, because the current state of affairs is simply unsustainable.
Dream on, dude.
Remind me again why the MGTOW subreddit hasn’t been banned for hate speech already?
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I wish I lived in a civilization which didn’t “keep women in check.” Once again, the fictional world in which MRAs live seems more desirable than our own world.
Leave it to MGTOWs to still believe in the four humors. I wonder if they do bloodletting as a part of going their own way.
Cue angry GamerGaters screaming that somehow this means feminists ruined video games.
Alt right bingo card players can now check off antisemitism. I think we all know who he’s referring to with “degeneracy.”
Curious how the alt right can square the circle on their hatred of “decadent” things with their fetishization of the Ancient Greeks and Romana, who were known for their decadence and indulgence.
This is one of those statements that is technically true for all the wrong reasons. The current world is unsustainable, but not because of feminism. It’s unsustainable because of capitalism and fascism, for which MGTOWs are cheerleaders.
Nothing better than pseudo-history to help miserable people feel even more miserable about themselves and participate in the weakenning of a civilisation. It’s ironic that MGTOW believe that stripping their country from one of its greatest economical asset (women’s work) and one of its most important stabilising force (women’s rights) would improve it. As if going back in time would make you more prosperous in a competitive environment which has moved beyond that past.
I mean, this would be lovely. It is lovely when we all cover for each other’s weaknesses and assist each other so that collectively we can be more safe, secure, and generally doing ok. It’s just that MGTOWs have absolutely no idea what genuinely having each other’s backs would look like. Hint dudes: it doesn’t look like treating women like garbage.
@Bookworm in Hijab
It certainly is, and I think one of the ways to achieve that is to dismantle the sex essentialism inherent to complementarianism. Toxic masculinity gets in the way because many men will never acknowledge their weaknesses, and are unwilling to help others. To create a system in which everyone is supported by everyone else, the key is individuality and allowing each individual to perform the role they do best without regard to their gender.
How the heck is going back to the mythical time when women couldn’t do anything compatible with covering for each others’ weaknesses?
@ Numerobois,
Exactly! That’s why I picked up on that phrase; it seemed so odd in the context of his overall…um, “argument” seems like the wrong word, given how incoherent it was.
@Naglfar,
I think you’re completely right about his gender-roles-essentialism nonsense. If we as a society are really going to cover for each others weaknesses (God only knows how this MGTOW meant that, but I mean it as “have each other’s backs, take care of each other, value and respect each other”) then surely we need to ditch the bullshit idea of men doing A and only A, while women do B and only B (and of course the mgtows think in binaries too ?).
I just…I want a world where we all look out for one another and help one another, and are not divided by bigotries. It’s sad how utopian and unlikely that seems. Gotta keep working for it though.
It’s so late…sorry if this is incoherent, mostly wanted to vociferously agree with Numerobois and Naglfar’s comments there…
Naglfar and Numerobois, I had a whole comment agreeing with you, and I posted it and it was there, and now its goooooone! Just to quickly say: I don’t think mgtows have the first clue about how to actually care for others. That’s why I picked up on that phrase, it didn’t seem to fit, but then I do think it was just word-vomit.
Their rigidly binary thinking is such a red flag clue. They don’t really want genuine empathy, genuine covering for/compassion for their fellow humans’ weaknesses. They want rigid structures of control. It’s sickening.
And now my first comment has been returned.
Time for bed.
Looks like he could use a dictionary, or Grammarly. If he were a professional writer (perish the thought), I’d say that he could use a proofreader, possibly even a female proofreader!
Setting aside the fact that no major western power is currently in danger of imminent collapse, isn’t it just kind of the life cycle of civilizations to rise and fall over the course of history, mostly by either assimilation into a larger culture or fragmentation into smaller ones? The idea that any society could exist indefinitely is hubris to begin with.
Yes Intp-A1, forcing women to have large numbers of children they cannot afford is so “sustainable,” as opposed to having a small number of children when they actually want to and not overpopulating the planet.
How much you want to bet that he is also a violent anti abortion fanatic who thinks that bombing clinics is justified?
@Critical Dragon1177:
They’re not referring to environmental or economic sustainability; rather, they’re referring to the preservation of the “white race”. They’re worried that if purely white breeding doesn’t go way up, white people will be a gradually dwindling (and eventually extinct) minority in a world of dark-skinned people and “muds” (mixed-race people, as “race-mixing” supposedly permanently erases one’s racial heritage, leaving one and all of one’s descendants essentially un-people). Were this actually true, it would not be a “sustainable future” for the “white race”.
No bet. There are also manospherians who are fine and dandy with abortion, so long as it’s the father’s choice.
Well, if this is true then I humbly suggest the following: Society can eff off.
It isn’t true, though. While I share a negative outlook as to where we are going as a society, it has more to do with global warming, capitalism and the growing influence of fascist thought.
I want to marry this comment.
Naglfar says:
Right? Don’t they need a sanguine secretary and a phlegmatic head of HR to round things out and achieve true synergy?
I wonder if they realise they’re using the same arguments as fundi-evangelical types when it comes to bio-essentialism and complementarianism? There’s nothing new in their beliefs and they can’t articulate them well. Or humorously. I do wish they’d make an effort to try to be interesting, or at least amusing.
@Talonknife
I somewhat question this assertion. In the US it seems like we’re getting closer to either collapse or absolute fascism every day.
@CrtiicalDragon
He probably only opposes abortion when it’s something the father doesn’t want, as that seems to be the usual manosphere position.
@A. Noyd
I’m disappointed that “Intp-A1” didn’t point out how the four humors are old and busted. Maybe using classical humorism makes you seem more erudite than referencing Myers and Briggs who were after all… women.
Anyway, aren’t the “dark triad” the most important personality traits to measure in manospherology?
@ pie
Wait, are you saying I don’t need these leeches?
@Alan Robertshaw
Isn’t everyone into cupping these days?
Ironically Rome, which a lot of these dudes idolize, was MUCH more liberal for women than its democratic predecessor Athens was. Even after going imperial, Rome was still better for women than Athens, as was Sparta (another oft-idolized society).
Part of this was because if you’re gonna have a good chunk of your men off fighting and conquering (or training to be ready to do so for a lot of their time), that means the ladies are going to have to step up like they did in the US during the World Wars and Civil War. And therefore you’re going to have to allow them into the public sphere to a certain extent. Meanwhile in Athens a woman was to almost never leave the home unless it was to go to a woman’s only place like a beauty salon or such–even shopping was delegated to men most of the time. For a wealthy woman, leaving the house at all was unusual, since they were supposed to have services come to them, and a LOT of philosophers at the time used those societal rules as reasons to scorn them.
The thing is, generally when women have gained more rights in a western society, it’s because the society was in some form of upheaval that demanded more of them, commonly war (WW1 work by women was used as leverage for the 19th amendment). More nomadic/warrior societies often HAD more liberated women specifically because if the men had to be off fighting/patrolling/hunting, that left even more work to the ladies who could then leverage that into influence and power.
Seems to me violent assholes going on random shooting sprees is far more destructive to the fabric of society than women working outside the house. How can students be expected to learn and innovate when they live in constant fear and have to keep interrupting the school day for active shooter drills? How are the arts supposed to thrive when concerts, festivals, and movies are open season for mass shooters? How can new ideas be heard when the second amendment is used to suppress the first?
Conversely, where do these men propose to get the time to build civilization during their busy schedule of anxiously patrolling Starbucks with AK-47s, lest a woman be found out in public having an independent thought?
For all their talk of being world-builders, the manosphere has never had a single original thought. It’s a stagnant ideology that’s old as dirt. All they ever talk about is white grievance. All they ever think about is how to force the world to acknowledge their (thoroughly unearned) superiority. They can’t even cook a simple meal without putting it on a misogyny float and having a parade for it. I doubt they’re going to be solving cold fusion anytime soon.
@Kereea
Because people don’t say “fuck sparta” enough: Fuck Sparta.
They were shit at war, they were shit at art, they were shit at diplomacy, and they were shit at equality.
Something like 5 in every 6 women in Sparta were Helots, which is to say they were literal slaves whose only purpose was to support the household of the sixth woman. Women of the Spartan equivalent of the aristocracy had it good, certainly better than their Athenian counterparts, but their lifestyle was built on brutal slavery with far more slaves treated far more badly than they were in Athens.
@Pie
Oh, true. I’m not super well versed in how the various Greek city-states handled their slaves other than they just about all had them and Sparta’s generally had it the worst. I was more talking about how the socieites treated women they saw as “their” women (given othering was very in vogue in the time period of the Greek Citystate Heyday) but you do absolutely have a point.
@Bookworm in hijab:
They want a society where “there’s a place for everybody— and everybody knows their place.”
@Pie:
IIRC Sparta got into a vicious circle where their citizens spent all their time on military training, which meant they kept slaves to do all the everyday infrastructure tasks, which led to the number of slaves required being vastly greater than the number of citizens, which led to the citizens living in constant fear of a slave uprising and deciding they needed to step up their military training, rinse and repeat.