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.
@kittehserf
Maru looks so bored when he’s doing the high-five XD
Originally I was annoyed by andi, but after watching how many times they’ve failed to stick to the flounce I am just mildly amused.
Feminism has lost a powerful ally. ::sad face::
XD
Did you read this site’s FAQ?
“Q) Are you against men having rights?
A) No. I’m a man. I like having rights. I’m opposed to the so-called Men’s Rights Movement, a reactionary movement driven largely by misogyny and hatred of feminism. (For proof of this, read the Man Boobz archives.)”
Or you could look around at the A Voice for Men Web site, as Andi suggested.
(I’m not a man, but I agree with David and I think he and other men should have rights. The thing is I think other women and I should too, so I’m a feminist and therefore automatically the enemy of AVoiceforMen. I think Andi has a few things backwards).
Has Andi really gone?
*pokes at squeaky toy with paw*
I want to point and laugh and Andi and talk about projection, and the difference between advertising a rational position and holding one… but there’s an ice cream van parked outside my house… like, on my doorstep. Mmmmmm, ice cream.
The ice cream van drove away… I sad.
1) So? They say we’re scared, so what? Max Q. Bullyingsworth (not his real name) used to tell all the kids at school that I was scared to fight him… so what?
2) Of course, the fact is simply that, when given the option to debate on neutral ground where they didn’t have silencing privileges, they weren’t interested. This is, of course, often the tactic of those who will crow about how their opposition are scared, but let’s ignore that.
3) I often do
waste my timedebate with MRAs. Their arguments are vapid, self contradictory, and built upon misunderstandings of feminism, human history, and what the term “human rights” means.In summary, so what?
“anyone interested in men’s rights” =/= MRA
“[genuine] dialogue on men’s issues” =/= MRM dialogue on men’s issues
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all know you’re out for blood! 😛
Totally neutral!
Thinks feminism is a vast conspiracy to silence dissent.
I R totes convinced!
Cute. One of my facebook acquaintances pulled a similar statement on me once. “What feminist group do you associate with?” he asked me. I had to think about it, and said so, because I’m not really associated with any group in particular. I guess I’m associated with Manboobz now? Are we a feminist group, or just a group of feminists? Anyway, he gave me a while to do some background research to figure out which feminist organisation best matched my own views before running out of patience and saying, “I don’t ally myself with any organisation, I just follow where the evidence leads.” Funny how that option was not implied by the question… it’s almost as if the desire to win at rationality Top Trumps is more important than honest discussion for some of you guys.
Well, I’m flattered that I come across as mature enough to have been a student forty years ago – I wasn’t even born until ’86!
I haven’t always been a feminist.
Until five years ago, I could’ve been manipulated into falling in line with the MRM. One particularly distressing encounter with an individual feminist almost pushed me that way, actually. Of course, now I understand that she was probably far more distressed than I was, given that I was engaging in the ol’ “what about teh menz!?” crap in a serious discussion about women’s rights, but if I’d utterly failed to do any reflection on the matter, I may well have been pushed that way.
Until two years ago, I didn’t realise there was any problem regarding feminism and the atheist and skeptic movements – that’s when I started properly thinking about feminism, and how it turns out that we still need it.
Until one year ago, I didn’t realise that there was a movement of people who are actively opposed to the progress of gender equality who use the language of human rights to pretend that theirs is a movement of defense rather than offense. Who lay claim on me and my humanity and rights as a tool to attack the humanity and rights of half of my friends, my mother and aunts, half of my cousins, my niece – half of the world’s population. Who stand not only for social conservatism, but social regression.
In my lifetime, feminism has moved from an aspect of history, a movement that gained equality for women before I was born and a shining moment in human history, to women overreacting to the way men behave, to a vibrant and necessary tool whose job remains unfinished.
I am biologically male. I am a skeptic and a rationalist. My reason stands before my feelings, and is under constant scrutiny for creeping fallacies. I am a feminist. Not because it feels right, which it does, but because the facts support it. Because the arguments follow, one from the other, to say that an equal world is a world in which we all thrive to a greater degree than is possible for any of us in an unequal one, and that our world is not equal. More than that, I am not a “Men’s Rights” Activist because the facts do not support it. Because the arguments not only fail to follow, but actively contradict one another. The MRM starts with the desired conclusion and builds the arguments to suit without consideration for logic, rarely even bothering to hide the fallacies.
The “Men’s Rights” Movement does not stand for men. It stands against women and uses us as a tool to do so. To stand behind that, you must first discard your reason. I will not.
As for your own neutral and logical approach, lie to yourself however you wish, but don’t think you can lie to us and be believed. At least, not without a little work to hide your biases and preconceptions. (You give yourself away when you demonstrate utter ignorance of feminism.)
And yes, I am being hostile. Every time “skeptic” is used to mean “denier,” every time “logic” is used to mean “defending my assumptions,” every time “theory” is used to mean “crazy idea,” hell, even every time “emotional” is used to mean “irrational,” I get hostile. Why? Because it makes a mockery of rationality. It makes a joke of honest inquiry, a punchline of reality. It makes skeptic a bad word, an insult. Every time the language of rationality is used in support of irrationality it loses worth. “The only logical explanation is UFOs!” is a phrase taken seriously because people like you shit all over reason in order to defend trash. That’s why I’m being hostile to you, not because I think you’re a troll. I fully believe that you believe the shit you’re spewing.
…anyway.
I can’t decide what would be worse, now. It’d be really sad if he really is gone and I’m just shouting at the wind, here…. but ugh, I really don’t want him to come back.
“Yes, I do.
Because invariably ‘men’s rights’ is code for ‘hate movement dedicated to tearing down women’s rights,’ not anything to do with actually helping men who need it.
Every. Single. Fucking. Time.
You don’t think so?
I think you’re so wrong that it hurts my teeth. Re-examine your life; you’re defending a hate movement.”
No, I wouldn’t want to defend a hate movement. Not at all, ever. I’m just trying to work out what’s really going on. Actually I see a lot more hatred expressed around here and feminism itself certainly has no shortage of hateful people.
Not that anyone here is ever going to take me seriously but it looks to me like feminism is a protest movement that can’t handle the fact that it’s won. It guages itself by who it’s against and it’s against “The Man” without realising or giving a stuff that it is now mainstream. Feminism is now “The Man”. So sites like this are invented to big up the relative minnow that is the mens rights movement and keep all the drones fired up. To what end I don’t know.
I’ve looked at the mens rights movement and am not fully convinced. I’ve looked at todays feminism and am very unconvinced. As has been pointed out, as a single individual I don’t really matter but many people are now questioning feminism and it’s tactics and just shouting “misogynist” very loudly at anyone who disagrees isn’t really a good enough response from a movement that now shapes government policy throughout The West.
Not caught up, cuz I was asleep. “Where’s Argenti when you need something translated into Latin?” What’d you want in Latin? (Bearing in mind that things like “screw you” are idioms and would have to be translated literally)
Viscaria — I use zir’s as the possessive of zir 🙂
Argenti, I think it was “fuck that noise.”
A. Pointing out misogyny where it exists, and mocking it, is what we do here. Sorry that makes you feel bad. Maybe you should go away?
B. Man Boobz =/= the feminist movement, although actually I think if the regulars here shaped government policy throughout the West we would actually do pretty well.
We want fuck to be translated as a literal sort of screwing, like in construction, or copulation?
“That noise” can go a few ways, I’m leaning towards iste vox. That, contemptuous // pejorative, voice.
So silentia iste vox would be a command to silence this/that contemptuous voice.
Given that you think that the claims of misogyny that feminists make are really just attempts to silence the other side, I’m not going to believe you when you say that feminism is hateful. You already have a shitty understanding of prejudice.
If you think that feminism is now mainstream as opposed to just being more prevalent in society, then I think you need to stop living under that rock of yours.
Many people are NOW questioning feminism? Uh, feminism has always been criticized and mocked. Ever since the days of advocacy for women’s suffrage.
Also, the fact that there have been policy changes influenced by feminists doesn’t mean that feminism shapes all government policy. That’s far from the truth, even though a lot of improvements have been made.
Also, mainstream feminism is not just a movement aimed at fighting for legal rights. It’s a social movement, too, and it’s still in the process of attempting to eliminate misogynistic social norms that oppress women.
Andi sound like yet another guy, who thinks that women having some rights now, and men sometimes being inconvenienced by this, means that he is living in a feminist utopia and misogyny was over ages ago. :/
I’m giving the initial flounce 6/10 because it was pithy and concise…but with the standard penalties, he drops to a net score of -4/10.
And you know where he’s from.
“If you think that feminism is now mainstream as opposed to just being more prevalent in society, then I think you need to stop living under that rock of yours. ”
Sorry but it is. Feminism is vastly influential and feminist influenced thinking is now the norm I see around me every day. Politicians daren’t say anything that might offend feminism because anyone who does is immediately branded a rape apologist, misogynist or whatever and they calculate it’s best not to open that can of worms.
Result is a distinct lack of honest dialogue.
Let’s talk about the pay gap, and how Hispanic women make 60 cents to a white man’s dollar, shall we? (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0882775.html)
Yeah, that sounds like we’ve totally overcome all vestiges of racism and sexism, yup.
(the chart is really interesting because it clearly demonstrates how the pay gap has shifted over the years… you can tell when a Democrat is a president, when a Republican is president, when the right-wing demonization of Hispanics began…)
“Also, why is feminism shaping the government a bad thing? Oh no, men can’t rape their wives or use a woman’s clothes as an excuse for rape anymore!”
That comment is just strange…
Do you need us to explain it in smaller words?
@Argenti
Haha, yes, sorry my second comment was supposed to clarify that. I had just woken up in the middle of the night and somehow forgot the word “zir” but then remembered afterwards. I don’t know what I was thinking XD
cloudiah – How small are we talking?
You haven’t been listening to many politicians in the past two decades, have you? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s this teeny-tiny movement among American politicians to block access to all reproductive healthcare, which has seen a shocking degree of success in several states. And, yes, it is all reproductive healthcare. They’re talking about limiting abortion, and claim it’s about making it safer, by imposing unnecessary limitations, but the result is the closing of reproductive healthcare clinics. Seems to me that this “might offend feminism.”
Then you’ve got nonsensical statements about “legitimate rape” and how the female body has “ways of shutting that whole thing down.”
For people who “daren’t say anything that might offend,” they sure are saying a lot that offends.
I’ll grant you that one. Not in the context you intended, but I’ll grant it anyway.