NOTE: This page is in desperate need of revision and expansion. In the meantime, I suggest you use Rationalwiki’s Manosphere Glossary.
For newcomers to this blog, here’s a handy guide to some of the strange acronyms and lingo you’ll encounter here and in the “manosphere” in general. (For a definition of that term, see below.) I will update this entry periodically as needed.
First, the acronyms you’ll see most often here:
MRA: Men’s Rights Activist
MRM: Men’s Rights Movement
MGTOW: Men Going Their Own Way MGHOW: Man Going His Own Way.
Ok, so what do those terms mean?
MRM: The Men’s Rights Movement: A loosely defined, but largely retrograde, collection of activists and internet talkers who fight for what they see as “men’s rights.” Unlike the original Men’s Movement, which was inspired by and heavily influenced by feminism, the self-described Men’s Rights Movement is largely a reactionary movement; with few exceptions, Men’s Rights Activists (or MRAs) are pretty rabidly antifeminist, and many are frankly and sometimes proudly misogynistic. Those who oppose the MRM are generally not against men’s rights per se; they are opposed to those who’ve turned those two words into a synonym for some pretty backwards notions.
MGTOW: Men Going Their Own Way: As the name suggests, MGTOW is a lot like lesbian separatism, but for straight dudes. MGTOW often talk vaguely about seeking “independence” from western and/or consumer culture, and a few MGTOW try to live that sort of zen existence. But most of those who embrace the term have a deep hostility towards and/or profound distrust of feminists and women in general. Many MGTOW refuse to date “western women” and some try to avoid women altogether. I think the Man Going His Own Way acronym MGHOW adds another layer of confusion to an already awkward acronym, so I use MGTOWer instead.
Some other terms and acronyms you’ll run across here:
Anglosphere: Countries in which English is the primary language, or, more narrowly, those countries that used to be British colonies. They are full of evil Western Women (see below).
Incel: Involuntarily Celibate. A term, and identity, adopted by some dateless guys (as well as some women, but it’s the men we’ll focus on here). While there is nothing shameful about being dateless, or a virgin, or having a really long dry spell sexually — most of us have been there at some point — the term “involuntarily celibate” seems to suggest that the world owes incels sex, and that women who turn down incel men for dates or sex are somehow oppressing them. For those (male, straight) incels who are genuinely socially awkward or phobic, this can be a self-defeating stance that can lead to bitterness towards women. And often does.
Mangina: Derogatory term used by MRAs, MGTOW, etc. to describe guys who disagree with them — e.g., me. You can figure out the various connotations of this term yourself.
The Manosphere: The loose collection of blogs, message boards, and other sites run by and/or read by MRAs, MGTOW, and assorted friendly Pick-up Artists. The primary source of material for this blog.
NAWALT: Not All Women Are Like That. Dudes in the manosphere make so many ridiculous and untrue generalizations about women that they’ve come up with their own little acronym to describe the most common reaction to their nonsense: “not all women are like that.” Remarkably, many seem to think that making a reference to NAWALT is actually some sort of clever rebuttal of their critics.
PUA: Pick-up Artist. PUAs are obsessed with mastering what they see as the ultimate set of techniques and attitudes — known as “Game” — that will enable them to quickly seduce almost any woman they want. There is a vast literature on “game” online, though PUA (insofar as it is not complete bullshit) is at its essence simply a male version of the age-old ploy of “playing hard to get.”
Western Women: Also known as WW. Evil harpies, at least according to many in the manosphere. Contrasted with “foreign women,” a term that (in the manosphere, at least) sometimes refers to all women outside the Anglosphere, but often refers to a subset of these women from poor and/or Eastern countries, mostly Asian, who are regarded as more pliable and thus more desirable to haters of “Ameriskanks” and other WW.
I assume this means “I rubbed my leg against a woman and then she doused me in beer.”
Bienvenue à Montréal, Mother Fucker. Make sure you can find a polar bear to report it to.
Tell me, katz, for you are wise in the ways of such things: is that ever going to stop being funny?
Nyet. Perhaps we shall add a beer for man-dousing to the Welcome Package.
Seconded. The Montreal Throwing Beer is a terrifying weapon when used in close quarters by a skilled assailant. Even the mighty Valizadeh was forced to hide behind a bear to save himself from its wielder.
It’s weird how Dan chooses to advertise his (I’m assuming it’s his) shitty website on a forum mostly populated by women.
This has to be the first time that someone’s assumed that there’s mostly dudes here. (Normally it’s assumed that we’re all feeemales, David included.)
‘Course, like all men pretending to know what “all women” are like, he neglects to mention, but still makes it rather obvious, that he doesn’t know jack chicken shit about women, and instead regurgitates male-defined masculinity and sexist feminine stereotypes.
Bravo, Dan. You’re exactly like every other bag of shitty plastic dildos that claims to be male and know “what women want”.
@Paradoxical Intention
There was that shitty fucking shock humor website who did something similar by pretending to be some MRA asshat.
Can I have said chubby girl come round and give me candy? Unlike Dan, who is a piece of shit, I am totally fine with girls of all persuasions showing up, giving me candy, and telling me how much they love me (in a platonic sense, at least).
Unless it’s circus peanuts. Then I’ll pass.
Oh, and Dan can go eat a bag of circus peanuts. Or peeps. Or whatever gross sugary substance would occupy his mouth so that no one has to listen to him talk.
@Insidious_Sock
Well, first of all, tax avoidance would make them parasites, because all of us use and benefit from taxpayer-funded amenities and programs, from roads to parks to police protection to schools. No exceptions, unless you’re a hermit living off the land with no human contact. Even if you don’t have kids, it’s to your direct benefit to have an educated population. I don’t know about you, but I want to be surrounded by smart doctors, engineers, mechanics, inventors, and musicians. I want to live in a society that takes care of the needy, the elderly, and the disabled, because all of us at some point in our lives will be one or more of those things. I’m not arrogant enough to think that my luck will hold and I’ll always be able to take care of myself. We all depend on each other in various ways, like it or not.
Second of all, I think you’re overestimating the impact on society of MGTOW withdrawing vocationally. There’s nothing wrong with questioning whether ambition is necessary without family, but again, the guys who are content to sit on the riverbank and watch the world go by probably weren’t ever going to be the next Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs anyway. You’re making it sound like women are so awful, men are deliberately cutting off their noses just to spite them….like, “I was going to get a PhD and research life-saving cancer treatments, but I’m afraid some harpy will divorce me and get all my stuff, so instead I’m going to take a minimum-wage fast food job, play video games all day, and live with my parents for the rest of my life. That’ll show ’em!” A guy who would say that was never serious about getting the PhD in the first place.
It just seems illogical to intentionally screw yourself over that badly just to avoid a hypothetical catastrophe. It’s like cutting off your leg so that you never have to suffer from athlete’s foot. Congratulations, I guess?
Also, for every MGTOW that exits society, there will be someone who moves in to fill the gap. There’s six billion other snowflakes on the planet. With less competition, women will be only too happy to step up to the plate and take advantage of the available opportunities, particularly if they have families to support. One of the central tenets of MGTOW philosophy is that having a family to support financially has been the main driver of male achievement and ambition over the past centuries. Why wouldn’t that apply to women, if they find themselves in the same position?
Third, it’s absurd to blame the failure of modern-day marriage entirely on women. If marriage is such a horrible nightmare Venus flytrap for men, then why is it that most divorces are initiated by women? What is it about marriage that’s making women so unhappy? They’re not doing it for cash and prizes – most women end up worse off financially after divorce, while men end up richer:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/jan/25/divorce-women-research
I hear a lot of MGTOW guys talk about divorce as if it just suddenly came out of the blue, but I suspect communication isn’t their strong point and they couldn’t see (or chose not to see) what role they might have played in the collapse of the marriage. If they were even half as angry and misogynistic before the divorce as they are after, well…no wonder women are deciding to take the lifestyle hit and get out.
MGTOW blames feminism for the collapse of traditional marriage, but all feminism did was draw women’s attention to the fact that they were getting the crap end of the stick. Why is it that men questioning the traditional arrangement of gender roles (and wanting to opt out) is good and noble, but women questioning those same roles (and wanting to opt out) is bad and a sign that they’ve been irrevocably “spoiled”?
Fourth, you’re also ignoring the fact that women, in a sense, are going their own way and have been for quite awhile. Women are delaying marriage, they’re putting more energy into education and careers, they’re opting for sperm donors, they’re discovering that being single isn’t the worst fate in the world and can even be preferable to a miserable, lonely marriage. Women aren’t 100% dependent on men anymore for survival, and that’s as it should be. GTOW isn’t a new or one-sided phenomenon.
I agree that marriage and relationships aren’t for everyone. I have absolutely no quibble with anyone who decides that society’s expectations are unrealistic and they’re not going to spend their lives doing things that make them miserable, just to make someone else happy. What isn’t cool is the blind hatred MGTOW has for women and feminism. It’s not a live-and-let-live philosophy. Instead, it’s centered around revenge. Just look at all the hateful trolls who reguarly infest this thread, hoping to get our attention so we’ll notice just how much they no longer care.
Well, the idea that 80% of men are undateable losers can be disproven just by looking around at all the partnered men out there. I keep seeing the Pareto statistic thrown around (mostly by people who believe dating is a subset of economic theory), but I haven’t seen any controlled studies that prove it actually is a thing in the real world.
Greetings
I have been following the various videos in the man-sphere or whatever it is for some time now. Though I do agree that by and large it is petty and does little as an intellectual movement to seriously address the dynamics of the genders, I also have found quite a bit of truth to many of the claims made by the various… branches? In particularly the MGTOW community seems to to some degree attempt to understand the bi-morphemic nature of the species.
With this in mind I would like alternative views on some of the following constructs.
-Bi-morphemic sexual strategies.
-Female advantages in the legal system in regards to marriage and child custody
-The damaging effects of third wave feminism on the male/female dynamic of society
-Sexual market place value
-The objectification of men in the media (exp: men comprise the majority of deaths on television)
-Explanations of claims that women are becoming more unhappy
-Claims that the pay-gap between the genders is mythical.
-Hypergamy in female mating strategies
Personally my last long term relationship ended with “You are too much of husband.” material, and this has had quite a bit of effect on how a deal with women, and brought to question what exactly I want from them. I am hoping to gather another perspective on the subject. So this seems like it could be an interesting source.
Morpheme: a small individual unit of grammar. So I guess a bi-morphemic sexual strategy would be “Hello there” or “Dinner tonight?” or “Ugh! Grunt!”
It doesn’t seem like it would be a very fast way of getting to know someone, though.
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants:
True, but you can learn a surprising amount about someone threw a mono-morphemic sexual strategy!
Though I suppose it still wasn’t too successful…
@John Q Public:
You may be disappointed…
I’m assuming you mean sexual strategies that differ between men and women. There are none. Or rather, there should be none. Talk all you want about how different animals lacking self-reflection do in large populations over long periods of time, but it won’t matter. Just treat people like people without trying to pretend your individual actions set the species-wide evolutionary course and you’ll find things are a lot less stressful and a lot less complicated.
Mainly due to women being cast as the “nurturing” role by a patriarchal society. Growing to be less and less of a problem as time goes on, largely as a result of the gender-role bashing feminists have done.
This issue will disappear when mothers and fathers can equally hold the “stay-at-home” or “working” role.
None. Or, perhaps, massive. None in that the results are not “harmful,” they’re actually better. Massive, in that the previous male/female dynamic of “owner/property” is completely obliterated. Only old-school misogynists think that the new, more equitable system is harmful. They’re also the only ones who think that the new dynamic is “man vs woman” rather than cooperation, but that’s because they equate “feminism” and “women” and project their own adversity onto society.
Useless and foundation-less concept. To the extent that you can create metrics on dating and sex and then ascribe to those metrics the label “SMV,” the metrics are arbitrary and provide a terrible framework for approaching things. More than likely, those metrics are the result of an individual casting their personal preferences as some universal thing.
Not objectification, but a result of men being the “default.” Whenever you need an army of mooks, you don’t go for individualized or unique members but variations on a norm. That norm at the moment gender-wise is male. The fact that the interesting characters are mostly male as well indicates that this isn’t a problem with objectification.
I’ll just take a wild stab in the dark and say they are baloney. Reactionaries want to pretend that even women are being harmed by their new-found equality, and therefore this whole progressive feminist idea was a bad idea. Again, baloney.
Usually based on combating a straw-argument (or a limited form of the argument), and usually based on misrepresenting the data anyway. But even if there was no “pay-gap” in the sense that women doing an identical type of job make less money, it’s still true that women on average bring home less money than men do on average. MRAs will argue that this is women’s fault, that women are choosing to enter less lucrative positions. Feminists will argue that women are kept out of the more lucrative positions. The evidence is on the feminists’ side.
Made up. Completely fabricated, based on MRAs imagining what a hypothetical woman could do in the hypothetical society MRAs think exist, then pretending that because women “could” do this means they do.
Also, see earlier about sexual strategies. You can’t look at humans in terms of high-level strategies and evolutionary-motivated behaviors. People just act like people do, and they make decisions that make them happy. Some women go for the rich dudes, some men go for the rich ladies (hi John Kerry). Most just try to find someone they like, and survey after survey of women state that monetary concerns are low on their priority list for a “mate.”
Long story short for pretty much all of these items; made up, misrepresented, or just plain misguided.
Is this a list of papers that got you failing grades in your introduction to gender studies course?
The question is: Kevin again, or not? I’m not seeing any misplaced Ys this time, but “Bi-morphemic” is the kind of not-quite-a-word he’d make up.
@katz:
But they’re so sciencey-sounding! His
writinggender studies teacher is an obvious misandrist.I’m going to bite the bullet here, and assume that our new friend is here in good faith (though there are red flags in his post).
Like Buttercup alluded to, “bi-morphemic” isn’t a word, and the closest thing is “bimorphemic“, so if you could elaborate as to what you mean, I’d be more than happy to converse on the subject.
Again, not a word that means what you think it means. So, if you could elaborate to alleviate my confusion, I could most likely help you out a little better.
I don’t know about “female advantages” (please don’t refer to us as “females”, it’s dehumanizing.) when it comes to marriage, to be honest. I mean, up until the last (I want to say) fifty years or so, men had to go through the fathers to even date women, and men wouldn’t think of asking to marry their sweetheart without asking for her father’s blessing.
In short, men went through other men to date and/or marry women that were attached to other men via fatherhood until very recently. So, unless you can point to some specific modern examples, I’m afraid I’m confused on this point.
However, I can talk a bit about so-called “advantages” that women have in the courtroom when it comes to child custody. From what I understand, this is part of something called “benevolent sexism“. That is to say: It’s still a form of discrimination towards women based on gender, but it’s in a way that sounds good.
In this case, it’s “women are the more obvious choice to give kids to, because they’re “nurturing” and “it’s a woman’s job to raise her kids”. This is still benevolent sexism. Not all women are suited to be mothers, and some mothers can be downright abusive.
So this is benevolent sexism towards women that hurts men and children in the long run, and it’s something that feminists do seek to address, because we also support a man’s choice to be a father to his kids, especially if the mother is abusive or unsuitable.
Examples please?
Sex is not a commodity. It’s only a service that has a monetary value when we’re discussing sex workers.
Sex between two consenting adults for their own pleasure doesn’t have a “marketplace value”. This is some bullshit made up by Red Pillers and Pick-Up Artists to hurl the toxic notion around that women need to be “bought” by buying them drinks and the like.
It’s bullshit, please put this from your mind.
Men aren’t objectified, at least not nearly to the extent as women are. They are not seen as objects to be acted upon in any capacity. Men, no matter their personality or looks, can be in just about any role.
However, women are only able to be seen as “useful” for a role if they have some sort of purpose to male characters, or to the male audience themselves. (Wife, girlfriend, eye candy, etc.)
I wanted to address this separately, because one, I would like to see some statistics, and two, I would like to point out that women dying to further a man’s story/fuel his pain is a trope commonly used in a wide variety of media, and it’s known as “Women in Refrigerators“, named after a specific example shown in the link.
Who is claiming this? Where did you see this claimed? What are women “unhappy” about? Context is important.
I’m just going to drop some links in here, because better feminists than I have said it better than I could.
Everyday Feminism: Here’s What That ’78 Cents to a Man’s Dollar’ Wage Gap Statistic Really Means
Feminist Current: All Your Wage Gap Questions Answered
Huffington Post: To Anyone Who Thinks the Wage Gap is a Myth
And, to break up this Wall O’ Text, have a comic:
http://everydayfeminism.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/1110toon.gif
Goddamn it, Blockquote Mammoth.
Following up on PI…
Yeah. See, when you generalize an entire gender based on one particular encounter, that isn’t going to lead you anywhere good. Individual relationships are hopelessly individual and unique, and the same person may not feel ready for commitment with one partner and completely gung-ho, have-all-the-babies with another. This is true even if both partners seem equally desirable (but in different ways).
Relationships are holistic; built up not only of the personalities of the people within them but also of how those personalities play off each other.
@PI:
Long comments are attractive stomping grounds for the mighty mammoth.
@John Q Public
I won’t go over the points as kirbywarp did a quick refutation of them but I want to speak more to you directly.
I understand that when a relationship goes south you want to reflect on why it did. To be honest, normally relationships end for multitudes of reasons, and most of them tend to be personal to both of you.
There is a risk to turning to the man-sphere for answers in this regard because instead of encouraging honest self-reflection, they like to project their personal issues onto society. There are real people in the world suffering real discrimination in their lives holding them back from achieving their goals – the man-sphere wants to believe themselves to be not only one such group, but the most discriminated group, hence why their pettiness is obvious to everyone.
The sad reality is that they may once in a blue moon talk about actual issues affecting men but the majority of their talking points are nothing more than anger at self-imagined foes and dangers. They don’t want to engage in honest, difficult and important self-reflection; easier to blame the world for their problems so they don’t have to change.
You should be aware of this before turning to them for answers for your own questions. Their main goal is not to help others, but more to grind all their own axes and ferment a toxic environment of hatred that is self-justified. You may also have noticed that they also tend to be bigoted in other respects as well (racist, homophobic, etc) because once you allow yourselves leeway to outright hate/dislike a group of people, it opens the door to hating/disliking other groups as well.
I would instead recommend that you take the time off to reflect on this without referring to the man-sphere. Talk to your friends and your families about it. If needed, you may also want to confide in a counselor who are good at making you self-analyze. Consider talking more to female friends about what happened and see if they can shed some light from their prospective. Remember that the focus should primarily be on your relationship rather than how the world views men and women respectively – personal trumps external causes when it comes to issues like this.
Make sure to also look after yourself and I wish you the best.
Maybe he means sexual dimorphism? That isn’t really a strategy, though.
This isn’t a thing either. You can’t assign an objective attractiveness ranking to somebody. One person’s 8 is another person’s 4. A person at age 16 might be a 2, then in their late 20s they blossom into a 7. Someone else might be a 10 to look at, but when they’re speaking, they plummet to a 5 because they’re a horrible racist idiot. Attraction is not some kind of fixed, universal thing.
People aren’t commodities, status symbols, or objects. We don’t have price tags. The problem with “sexual market value” is that it encourages people to think of relationships in transactional terms, usually with themselves as the (discerning) buyer, and the other person as a commodity whose worth appreciates or depreciates over time. Then the “buyer” gets frustrated by rejection (because hey, a commodity isn’t supposed to turn you down if you’ve got enough money), and starts thinking that all women are “overpriced” and “overvalued”.
If someone rejects you, it’s not an assessment of your relative worth. It just means they’re not into you. Framing sex in economic terms is a surefire route to feeling empty, miserable, and anxious all the time. You’ll end up spending most of your time with the Invisible Hand.
Is there any actual evidence of bias against fathers in family court, or is this an assumption based on anecdata and mistaking correlation for causation? I know mothers are more likely to have full custody than mothers, but that’s because they’re more likely to seek it. I also know there was that research that showed that fathers are highly likely to get full custody if they actively seek it. 70% of the time IIRC.
It seems to me that there’s a tendency for men to assume a bias against them in child custody cases when things don’t go their way. But I’m unaware of any evidence that backs this up.
Usually the only “evidence” I ever see anyone link to are father’s rights blogs.
In the UK there’s a presumption for equal contact in child cases. (We’ve moved on from calling it custody)
Courts can only make an order if there’s no option; generally they prefer parents to sort things out themselves.
In practice kids tend to spend more time with mothers. That’s down to economics though. Women are slightly less likely to work full time than men, so it’s often more practical for them to look after the kids. Where both parents work the same, it will usually boil down to things like who lives nearer the school etc.
The law itself though is gender neutral, both in theory and practice. Courts don’t presume it’s better for kids to be with mothers unless it’s a young child who’s breast feeding or something like that.
Where one parent has restricted access to children it’s usually because there’s a very good reason (abuse, neglect etc.)
If anything, I’d think there’d be bias towards fathers the way society applauds fathers for performing any child care tasks at all while harshly judging mothers and expecting them to constantly be perfect child care providers.
If there is bias, that only indicates that caring for children is perceived as women’s work, so the solution is, you know, feminism.