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.
Katz:
“Which is why you’ve been spending days adamantly defending those roles.
How did all this societal degeneration you’re so worried about come to be if everyone naturally
gravitates to their ‘correct’ roles?”
Yes, for the same reason I’d spend all day defending private property in the face of communists.
—-
“If your position is actually “a tiny minority of the population overtook the government and
orchestrated a massive brainwashing campaign that successfully overrode the natural instincts of the
vast majority and no one was able to stop them,” then you might as well admit that we have the more
successful evolutionary strategy and that your kind is on the rocks, O biological determinist.”
No, anymore than the spread of communism is proof of it’s rational success.
Some evil movements come and go and create havoc, and feminism is one of them.
By contrast, YOU feminist are the ones who always feel the need to use tv, movies, government, and
schools, to brainwash people. Becvause you know without that brainwashing people would revert back to
their natural roles.
Zeb Berryman:
“Dar: Since Katz sand many others have already eloquently deconstructed the Biological determinism argument lets talk about the exceptions that proves the rule. Firstly that’s a lot of exceptions to the rule. I only brought up three examples but there are many more.
Secondly Your the one who brought up older societies views being superior in the first place. By your own logic we could easily say that homosexuality is the natural state of humanity and its only because of years of mass brainwashing that people are now opposed to it. Now obviously I don’t believe all people are bisexual, but you certainly haven’t given any proof that heterosexuality is some kind of natural state. Evan your counterexample is a natural state. You admit that it can happen in nature therefore it is natural.”
They haven’t deconstructed anything. We are who were are on a macro level BECAUSE of our biology.
I shall re-state it AGAIN in simple terms: When you see a pattern of behaviour across nearly all societies around the wor,d and through-out human history, a pattern that is even replicated among close primates, THEN that says that is biologically based.
MOST men and women are attracted to the opposite sex. Same with animals. Therefore, it is safe to assume that I (or most of a population of a given culture) being attracted to the opposite sex can be assumed to be biological and NOT due to teaching.
I didn’t need anyone to tell me to be attracted to girls.
Further, than SOME are attracted to the same sex means nothing, as it is an exception.
Now, feminism is analogous to a movement that declares that being attracted to the opposite sex is due to societal pressures, and that people need to be taught to be attracted to the same sex.
Argenti Aertheri:
“So that was actually an interesting read. Kinda 101/201 stuff, but hey, a radfem saying TERfs are hurting their own cause? Always refreshing.
In other words, Dar didn’t read his link. Cuz he wouldn’t have tried to claim I didn’t know about feminism’s transphobia by linking an article ending with…”
Still proves my point. Ask yourself WHY do they hate transsexuals? It is because they see them as re- inforcing the “gender stereotypes” that feminists believe are bogus.
How can you be a feminist and support transsexuals when that is what they’re doing?
If gender is just an oppressive social construct, then a transman seeking to become physically a man and transwoman seeing to be physically a women, why way of surgery and hormones and dress and voice and mannerism, IS re-inforcing the idea that THERE IS a difference between men and women.
If there is none, why and how would a man “feel like a women” and “want to be a women”?
Transsexualism proves that reality of inherent maleness and femaleness, which feminists hate.
Not to mention that transsexuals offer testimony yo things feminists deny, liek women having a lower sex drive than men. Transwomen who go on female hormones and testosteron-blockers experience lower sex drives and lower muscle build-up….but wait! I thought according to feminisst these are all societal artifacts forced on women and really men and women are the same?
SO yes, feminism by the very nature of its ideology is opposed to transsexualism.
Oh hey, he’s a literal neo-Nazi too.
I mean, that’s less surprising than the sun rising in the morning, but it gave me a BINGO on my card!
I vote for banhammer at this point. He’s just repeating already refuted nonsense, but with more caps.
Yeah, tl:Dar is long past boring. He’s also really obsessed with Bedouins for some reason. I did enjoy the massive projection involved in accusing us of spamming though.
Teal Dar Troll keeps teal deering?
Well, I watched the Super Blood Moon with my daughter in our garden and we made some magic and then we just lay on the grass watching.
I need to get some sleep now because we went to sleep super late -.-
If you’re looking for non-feminist bullshit, you might have come to the wrong community…
@M:
What’s the connection between “most Jews aren’t semitic” and neo-Nazidom? Evidently I’m not as up on my neo-Nazi lore as I thought I was. Is it a Khazar thing?
@ EJ
The whole ‘who is semitic?’ thing gets abused in lots of ways. Ironically it’s a matter of semantics.
One definition of Semitic makes it a synonym for Jewish. Then there’s the ‘desended from Shem’ ethnicity categorisation.
If you use the latter a National can say they’re not anti semitic because a lot of people they want to kill aren’t actually semite.
It’s similar to how people who would be happy to see Israel destroyed can say they’re not anti semitic because Palestinians are semites under one definition.
@EJ
Couldn’t give you the why behind it, but it seems to be used by Nazis trying to deflect with technicalities and literally nobody else. Same as Islamophobes and their “I’m not a racist! Muslim isn’t a race!” bullshit.
@ SHFC
I would class Islamophbia as religious hatred rather than racial hatred. Islam isn’t correlated with any particular racial group and no racial group is especially correlated with Islam.
Of course someone who classes any brown or Arab person as Muslim may well be racist and using the religion thing as a smokescreen, but if someone had a downer on a Punjabi Muslim but was fine with a Punjabi Sikh or Hindu then I wouldn’t categorise them as racist.
Thanks Alan and M.
Heinrich von Treitschske has a lot to answer for, then: not only did he invent modern Jew-hating, but he also popularised a confusing term that gets misused a lot and lends itself to semantic arguments. Had he no shame?
@ EJ
Hey, you’re not being anti-semantic are you? 😉
@Dar:
“Social construct” doesn’t mean “imaginary and of no consequence.” It just means “culturally constructed” rther than being a result of biology. Trans men and women feel the same pressures to perform their gender that cis men and women do, maybe even stronger because our culture’s concept of gender performance is fragile and people are looking for any small hint of a reason to dismiss a trans person’s attempts at being themselves.
“Gender being a social construct” doesn’t mean that gender doesn’t ‘exist’ in any form, it’s referring to the fact that the actual implementation of gender, the way women behave vs the way men behave, is a product of cultural learning rather than pre-ordained biology.
Bout to blow your mind here, so prepare yourself.
*ahem*
There is a difference between men and women.
Boom.
Feminism just holds that that difference is largely a product of culture, rather than the current cultural performances of gender being the inevitable result of biology. There are some obvious biological differences, like men gaining muscle mass more easily on average, but for the most part we don’t know how biology shapes culture, so it’d be better to assume it doesn’t and just treat people as individuals. Judge people on their properties, not the properties belonging to statistics on their gender.
How could we not? There is no difference between a trans woman performing gender in a stereotypical way and a cis woman performing gender in a stereotypical way, besides the fact that the trns woman faces additional pressures to act stereotypically lest she not “pass” according to society’s narrow conception of how women should look and act.
Gender is a performance. That doesn’t mean it isn’t important. Feminism can work to reduce that particular pressure on trans people as well as work to broaden the ways it is acceptable to perform gender while still not begrudging people for trying to survive the current cultural climate.
I don’t get it; if being submissive and staying at home barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen is the natural state of women, then where the fuck did feminism come from in the first place? If women were perfectly happy with holding no social, political, or monetary power, then why would feminism exist, and be as popular as it is?
And no Dar, I’m not asking you, because it’s clear that you would just spout something about unnatural exceptions to the rule, just like how homosexual people are also unnatural exceptions to the rule of “all hetero, all the time!”
This is what’s called a ‘ rhetorical question’.
Short and highly simplified version: Gender identity is biological, gender roles are social.
@Catalpa:
It’s funny, that came to mind in a way when I was writing my spiel. I was thinking about how someone could argue that gender roles were a product of biology, and I just… couldn’t. Not when acceptable dress, professions, and behaviors change so drastically across time and cultures. Even traditionalists arguing that women aren’t women anymore know that gender performance is cultural, unless they think moderen women have been bred to reject their biologically-mandated place in society somehow…
@SFHC:
Much needed and succinct clarification, you mean. Thanks. 🙂
@Dar, more mind-blowing stuff: I am naturally submissive in certain circumstances and want to be a stay-at-home wife, but I am also earnestly feminist. Why? Because I know that people are actually different and not everyone has the same instincts and urges that I have. I want everyone – men and women alike – to have all the options available to do whatever they want to do, to pursue their own version of contentment and fulfillment. Why is it that you don’t want that?
Also, just caught up on the conversation… prolly should have done that first. Then I would have stumbled on the profound fact that Dar appears to be a “traditionalist” but with modern concepts like trans* thrown in. As if he partly learned about how modern society operates and partly picked up traditional “traditionalist” rhetoric about 1950s gender roles, then mashed them together and declared the result biological imperitive.
Wonder how old he is…
Also I would have realized I preferred to tackle his abortion nonsense rather than his complete misunderstanding of non-binary stuff.
Completely made-up story time! When I was younger, my parents decided they wanted to get a dog. So we all went to a breeder and looked at the latest batch of puppies. They were adorable! Looking around, we all decided that one puppy in particular was the one we wanted. Later, after we bought him, we showed him off to our neighbors. Their reaction was a bit… odd.
“Wait,” they shouted, “you CHOSE which puppy you wanted? You CHOSE when to get a puppy at all? YOU MONSTERS! How could you possibly love your little bundle of fur if you made a conscious choice to have him? Don’t you realize that if you had just decided on that day that you didn’t want a puppy, or if you decided to choose a different one, you wouldn’t have picked him? You couldn’t possibly love your new pet as much as someone who had an animal dumped on their doorstep in the middle of the night when they weren’t even ready to have a pet in the first place. CONSCIOUSLY CHOOSING TO HAVE SOMETHING MEANS YOU COULD HAVE CHOSEN DIFFERENTLY, SO THEREFORE YOU COULDN’T POSSIBLY BE HAPPIER WITH THE RESULT!”
At that moment, they literally exploded into a rage-filled fireball of illogic. It was weird.
Well, what did you expect, charging into a heavily populated space waving your arms and slinging insults? Are people supposed to form a polite circle and respond one at a time? This isn’t a martial arts movie.
Multiple people responding to a provocation in a crowded space is just natural behavior. Now you’re trying to use natural behavior as evidence that we’re bad people.
Historically? No, they didn’t. You think the average woman 1500 years ago was literate, educated, and well-travelled? Even when women were aware that there was a whole outside world, what could they do about it, when so much of the world was explicitly forbidden to them by law and custom? You’re acting as if women had all these opportunities available back then, but decided “no, I’d rather spend my life chained to a stove, scrubbing my knuckles raw, and dying of childbed fever after my 14th pregnancy.” In the vast majority of cases, it was decided for them. Stepping outside that role meant exile, poverty, and death.
Did you fall asleep in history class? Serious question.
The equivalent of your argument from the animal kingdom is a dog who’s been trained with an electric shock collar to stay in the yard, and will do so even after the electronic fence has been removed, so therefore that proves all dogs just naturally want to stay confined in a 100′ x 50′ space. In this case, the “fence” is all the laws, all the beliefs, all the societal traditions and religious teachings from time immemorial that treat women as chattel and says their only value is their ability to get married, service men, and bear children. You’re trying to argue that all that stuff is not propaganda? What is it, then?
Ther was NO brainwashing of women to stay with the children or men to go to war, it was just the natural instincts.
Right, nobody ever had to engage in systematic propaganda campaigns about “the enemy” to get large groups of men to sign up to go slaughter other men. Men just naturally enjoy killing people. All you have to do to raise an army is say “Hey guys! War!” and there’s a stampede. No questions asked.
You certainly have a low opinion of men, don’t you?
“Live up to your full potential as a human being” has to be the weirdest, least needed brainwashing/propaganda campaign ever. Generally, brainwashing is more like, “you are worthless garbage, you are nothing as an individual, conform and do not think outside this narrow box.” Are you sure you understand what those words mean?
Oh wait, you fell asleep in history class. Never mind.
Bina was being sarcastic. Do try to keep up.
And more mindless namecalling. Seconded.
Oops, missed a blockquote up there. This was Dar’s, not mine:
Dar, you missed a trick there by implying men just love going to war. You could have brought up the white feather campaign and blamed it all on women. You’ll lose MRA points for that.
I’m guessing he doesn’t have kids, and has never had to face a difficult decision in his life. He seems pretty comfortable moralizing about what are actually complex, heartbreaking medical dilemmas.
What about a mother with existing kids who has an ectopic pregnancy, or severe HELLP, or eclampsia? Should she go through with it because otherwise she’s an awful person who doesn’t love her unborn child? Okay, but maternal death is virtually guaranteed in those situations. So now she’s left behind motherless children, a bereaved partner, and devasted family. Isn’t that selfish and unloving towards her existing children to deprive them of a mother? What about the unborn children she’ll never get to have now? Don’t they have rights too?
No matter what a woman chooses, Dar will be right there to tell her she’s terrible and wrong.
Goes to feminist website, shocked to discover it contains feminists.
Later he orders a BLT and is furious that it contains bacon.