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.
And that he has to deal with multiple strips of bacon at the same time.
… Now I want a t-shirt with a fake nutrition label and the text “WARNING: Contains feminist.”
Banhammer the troll. This one’s not even interesting.
He’s one of those dudes who feels the need to reply to literally every comment. We could amuse ourselves by trying to figure out the goofiest comment he’ll answer.
Dar: Same Sex relationships are analogous across many cultures and animals. No one has to tell gay men they are interested in men ether. Look I’m not saying that you are gay yourself I’m saying that many people are and that it is natural. Feminism is more equivalent of a organization that believes that heterosexuality or homosexuality, or bisexuality or any other sexuality is perfectly natural. This is a good thing.
Paradoxy, while you’re making t-shirts…
What a great few days for astronomy nerds! Liquid water found on Mars!
http://io9.com/is-there-life-on-mars-here-s-what-the-water-nasa-just-1733381829
Okay, sorry. I’ll go back to breastfeeding and making sandwiches like nature wants.
@WWTH:
Inorite!? I am cautiously optimistic about it. I’ve had my heart broken by Mars so many times that I’m afraid to trust it again, but… holy shit, precipitation? Badass.
@ WWTH
Hey, Mars is our planet; you’ve got Venus! There was a book about it. 😉
@wwth – I’ve been known to read articles about Mars (and physics and anthropology and…) while breastfeeding.
*watches Dar’s head explode*
Are they sure it isn’t liquid gold?
I like that any examples of cultures people bring up where women didn’t conform to “traditional” (i.e. western) gender roles those are somehow obscure and therefore not worthy of the same merit as the Bedouin. How does a culture become obscure? What value system do you use?
Look, I am an archaeologist, and while it’s true that gender is one axis by which people tend to group themselves and organize themselves in a society they do not do so identically across all societies. Shockingly! these gender roles are actually quite fluid and change over time. In the culture that I study, the Moche of the North Coast of Peru, gender roles (or at least their societal importance) clearly changed even though we do not have written documents. In the period before the decline of their particular religious and political structures women (well a subset anyway) were afforded high-status as Priestesses. We know this because their religious imagery became much more prevalent and burials of women wearing the exact garments, along with lavish offerings, have been discovered. These women presided over ceremonies that involved the presentation of blood in a goblet (thought to be that of captured warriors) to the Priestess that she presumably drank. It is argued that women’s religious significance grew due to their association with the sea and this at this time there were serious environmental changes and disruptions brought on by a severe El Nino event. I don’t know how this in any way conforms to your ideas of traditional gender roles being the “natural” order of the world.
@Dan
“It’s you who is a vile moron that you’d equate a sperm cell with a baby inside a mother.”
It’s called an embryo followed by a foetus in the next stage,you moron not an infant!!!
Lady firefighter/EMT here:
Pretty darned sure I wasn’t pressured to do this by feminists. Also, pretty darned sure I got the math and bio degrees because math is the prettiest of the pretties and biology is fun.
Did not get an English degree. Never. Nope. You can’t make me. Nope.
@Dar
“Bullshit! Because otherwise why the mass propaganda to get women to be like men. Why “encourage girls” to go into sports and science and so on? Why not let them choose freely?”
That’s rich coming from a person who claimed it natural instinct for women to stay at home and not to pursue sciences and sport.The point of feminism is to let them do anything what they want!!!
You imbecile
@Dar
“Oh yes here ios the very core of feminism logic: minor tiny obscure examples, as compared to the COUNTLESS opposing examples.”
Aren’t you the idiot that provided the bedouin as your minor tiny obscure examples??
Water on Mars? Is this a new source of male tears?
@Dar
“Your movement was heavily lesbian, which explains its anti-man, anti-family, anti-marriage, pro- abortion stances.”
Oh really I thought our movement was filled with sluts,whore and hypergamous bitch??
“And no, you can never be a good mother while being a feminist, vecause then you’ll always hate your children when they (gasp!) act in typical natural fashion, boys agressively with trucks and guns, and girls more quietly with dolls.”
I’ll wait for my children to send the memo to me..
@Dar
“No, your mother can never truly love you BECAUSE had things been slightly different SHE’D HAVE ABORTED YOU, YOU MORON!”
Trust me if you were a TUMOR,she should have cut you out!!!
“IF I was an MRA I’d suppoert feminism because it agree with me in hating traditional roles.”
If you are an MRA,the movement would have been so happy with you critcising the feminisst wwhile pretending to be the neutral party
Uh, dude? You do realize that I am human, yes? And you do realize that I live among other humans, yeah?
Hell, I even live in a big city where I see humans interacting all of the time. And that, along with my interactions with OTHER HUMANS online shows me that men and women would all be better served filling individual roles, rather than gender-based ones, it’s not about “men and women doing the same thing”, it’s about everyone doing what they can do to help make the world a better place.
If everyone filled the role they all thought was best, rather than being forced into a role they didn’t want solely based on a social construct that they didn’t ask for, then we’d all be in a better place.
What, do you think feminists all live isolated from everyone else and never go outside? I mean, that’s true for some people because of social anxiety and stuff, but shit dude.
http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m325lrnSfr1qf3hns.jpg
I was addressing you saying that we had to provide you citations to prove you wrong, when it is in fact your job to prove that you’re right, for fucks sake.
Do you not read? Or are you just ignoring everything I had to say and trying to use my unrelated examples as some sort of really weak “gotcha”?
And you have yet to provide those citations beyond “NATURE!”, even after that has been proven wrong, so again, scientific backing please.
Google is your friend.
Did you just call me a worm? Out of all the things you could have called me, you went for Ye Olde Villain Speak and “worm”?
http://cdn.hitfix.com/photos/5826621/Skeletor-Insults_article_story_large.jpg
I’m forever imagining Dar as Skeletor now. It makes their posts a thousand times more hilarious.
There was hardly FIFTY messages. There was twelve (that I counted in this last batch). You’re exaggerating, and it’s only making you look hysterical, Dar.
C’mon! I thought you were a big, strong, logical man! It’s only NATURAL that you use your brain while us feeeemales just sit about and discuss nothing more complicated than washing clothes (which is actually complicated as fuck and I can’t be bothered with all the minutia).
I mean, logically, you could comment to more than one person in a post, and take your time to spell-check everything instead of trying to just get your nonsense out as fast as you can, considering that people are here during different timezones and the like. Just sayin’.
In addition, if you want me to comment on your spelling, my spell-checker is going a bit wild with the red squigglies.
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The All-Mighty Penis Value System, of course! In other words, he’s a man, and he says so.
Joking aside, he’s just disqualifying answers so he doesn’t look wrong while being totally wrong.
Yeah, I’m going to call for the banhammer too. He’s spamming the fuck out of this comments section, and he’s pretty incoherent at this point with all the Skeletor talk.
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http://nik.bot.nu/o1318604.jpg
@Dar
“Becvause you know without that brainwashing people would revert back to
their natural roles.”
My parents did revert to their tradtional roles despite living without any access to tv or radios,no they’re not an exception at least in my culture..
@Dar
“So what, the beduins aren’t good enough for you, asshole?”
i guess the tibetan,the west africans,the native americans,the amazonians,the himalayans,the south east asian matrilineal societies,arent enough for you MANCUNT??
@dar
“Besides, hwo do you know they are doing this by choice? Better yet, you think that’s how they would have lives a 100 years ago before feminist brainwashing?”
What brainwashing??
They never even heard of feminism nor they are are exposed to western culture nor they know how to speak english
—-
@Dar
“Doesn’t matter, men still did the heavy work, and were called up for war, and women tended the children.”
Still matter,in my culture both men and WOMEN do heavy work and were called for war,the children was left to the elders and few nurses to care.
The vietcong was comprised of many men and WOMEN,I don’t expect an imbecile for America would know about this..
Even boadicea went to battle with her armies which comprised of men and women,but of course an asswipe like you are just gonna ignore this minor obscure minority right??
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7jhp2l5nQ1qdoy3ao2_500.gif
Says the Dar who can’t be bothered to reply to everyone in one post with each response being novellas in of themselves.