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.
http://i.imgur.com/vSTYVFW.jpg
The wage gape’s gaping mouth gaping loosely open.
There were FOUR responses to your last comment.
Then you post a half page teal deer.
But you try to tell us tl;dr.
Well. That explains you. Implies men=human>women. There you go.
Never mind that even a rape conviction is hardly a life changing thing. Gang rape a girl on video? Never mind you poor things, we’ll drive her and her family out of town, burn down her house, and let you back on the football team. Can’t have that hussy ruining your life, now can we?
Oooh, classicism AND racism. Aren’t you a peach?
And yet you just said, “Catcalling. I don’t think it’s a problem personally.”
“I am not a woman, so I obviously don’t notice it, but I rarely see catcalling…”
“Catcalling. I don’t think it’s a problem personally…”
“I am not a woman, so I obviously don’t notice it, but I rarely see catcalling…”
Because being intimidated, objectified, dehumanized and threatened with rape several times a day every day is just… annoying. That’s all.
All of your problems with society and ‘oppression’ of men is coming from OTHER MEN. The reinforcement of toxic masculinity and the policing of other men is a problem of the Patriarchy. But must blame women for not giving men the sex.
Your misogyny is showing.
@SSJ:
Prisons are not an environment you can compare to the general population. Prison rape therefore is a fundamentally different thing from rape outside of prison. Different causes, different motivations, different enablers.
It’s bad, but it’s not the comparable situation to rape of women outside of prison. The comparable situation would be rape of men outside of prison.
Read some feminist literature. We’ve got ideas for how to combat it; ideas that are actively fought against by MRAs and red pillers.
It’s much easier to learn about people when you read their views. It’s much harder to do so when you leap into a confrontational environment, say they’re wrong about everything, then wait for them to argue against you.
Learn about feminist from feminists, not from MRAs. It’ll do you a world of good.
So are we, gumdrop. You’re getting the sarcasm right back at ya.
Oh yay, evo psych bullshit. Prove that men are biological hard wired to protect women. And if “protecting women and children” is biologically hard-wired into men, then why do men have to be socialized to protect women and children?
Because the most dehumanizing thing in the world is to be like a woman, huh? The fact that you think Anita Sarkeesian and Jessica Valenti are examples of feminists spitting on men’s humanity is well, ludicrous, actually. Valenti and Sarkeesian have done nothing to “spit on the fact that men are human.”
You don’t understand the concept of Schrodinger’s rapist. It’s that, rapists don’t wear big signs around their necks proclaiming the fact they are rapists, and women are blamed for being raped. And, please, look something up. Look up the percentage that go unreported. And of those tapes that do go reported, what percentage actually go to trial? And of those rapes that actually go to trial, what percentage results in a conviction? And how many rape kits, that have the actual, physical evidence, are sitting in freezers right now without being processed? You go look all that up, then you come back here and we’ll talk about rape.
Well, isn’t that cute. It’s really cute how you’re coming here telling women what they should think an how they should feel about things. Don’t like strangers on the street screaming sexualized comment at you, women? Think that this makes being in public as a woman just that much less safe? Does that make you uncomfortable? Don’t worry you’re pretty little heads, it’s not a problem because SSJ doesn’t think it is!
Somebody can take the rest of that teal deer, I’m out running errands and my phones almost out of juice.
Ah ha! I figured it out!
If Patirarchy = A*Patriarchy+B*Gynocentrism, then Gynocentrism is also a combination of Patriarchy and Gynocentrism. So both expand and the ratios are preserved.
*phew*
Math still works, everyone! You can rest easy now!
@ M
Nice callback! I’m laughing so hard… there’s tears! Hahahaha!
Oh Schrodinger’s rapist…
I have in my possession a bowl of green m&ms. 5% of those m&ms contain a non-visible poison. I then reach into the bowl, grab an m&m, and hand it to you. Do you eat it?
You don’t? Why? Do you not trust this m&m? C’mon, only a small portion of m&ms are poison, and I would never hand you one of those, would I? Why are you so untrusting? Fuck you.
@ kirby
Nailed it. The math AND Schrodingers rapist.
So, is patriarchy not real? Or is it a biotruth? I know that manospherians argue both but not usually in the same post.
I really hope troll is lying about being a counselor. That’s horrifying. Although I’m not sure why he helps young women “stop prostituting themselves” if he thinks an ideal world is that in which women trade sex for protection and resources.
Also, if men are hardwired to protect us, catcalling shouldn’t exist at all. Scaring us and making us uncomfortable is against nature after all.
The Schrodinger’s rapist misunderstanding annoys the crap out of me. I think it’s willful misunderstanding, frankly.
They know we’re saying rapists look and act like everybody else so we can’t tell they’re dangerous until its too late, but they’d rather shout #NotAllMen to shut us up than have to think about (or heaven forbid, do something about) rape culture. It makes them uncomfortable to realize that by being part of the culture, it makes them (all of us) part of the problem unless we actively choose to be part of the solution.
I love how manospherians think they are so wise and logical and yet they’re the ones who apparently think that The Flintstones was a documentary.
kirbywarp:
So, if I’m following this correctly , would that also mean that, if gynocentrism is a combination of patriarchy and gynocentrism, then when feminists say they are fighting the patriarchy they’re also fighting gynocentrism?
” I can also state that not all MRA’s are like that. The problem though is that many are like “that” and the moderates of the group don’t call out the extremist enough.”
Sounds very much like the “moderate” gamergaters, and the general consensus there is that if you’re a moderate belonging to a toxic group, with toxic figureheads, maybe you should distance yourself from it and work towards your goals outside of a group that hates women. Feminists may even help, lots of feminists oppose things like infant circumcision and the draft.
Also, from what I’ve seen, feminists have lots of men’s issues covered in their opposition to toxic masculinity.
Thanks, sunny, though the math took awhile and I got the m&m analogy from elsewhere.
It’s funny, actually. I’ve been reading up on quantum mechanics because I found a guy who could explain some of the fundamentals in a way I can actually sorta kinda understand.
Wanna know how Schrodinger’s cat really works? No? Oh, ok then.
… Just kidding. Quantum mechanics ho!
So, according to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, particles can inhabit a “superposition” of states at the same time. When they are “observed,” they collapse into one state or another more or less at random. The Schrodinger’s cat thought experiment tried to show how strange this is by saying that something as complex as a cat can be in a state of living and dying simultaneously until the box is opened.
Not.. quite…
The better interpretation these days is called the Many Worlds interpretation. It doesn’t assume there are many worlds. Rather, it derives the fact that there would be many worlds from basic assumptions. Even more fun, the “many worlds” are basically like if two people took a plane to different islands and never talked, never went to the same websites, never had friends of friends of friends of friends in common, and basically never could interact or be affected by the actions of the other.
Same “world,” but essentially separated.
In the Many Worlds interpretation, particles don’t exist. Waves don’t exist. What we think of as particles are basically like little spikes on a bedsheet; all part of the same fabric, and no real way to apply an identity to them unless they don’t come near each other. Even a “single” particle can be made of multiple spikes (called “amplitudes”).
So the radioactive atom in the Schrodinger’s Cat experiment is made up of “amplitudes” that occupy the “decayed” and “not decayed” positions. When that particle then interacts with the detector (which releases the poison if it detects the atom decayed), the amplitudes of the particle get entangled with and cannot be considered independent of the particles of the detector.
Because the detector does two extremely different things depending on how it interacts with the decayed/not-decayed atom, both things happen and it creates a situation like the two people flying on planes. Initially they go to the same airport and can talk to each other, but then they go to separate gates (which are physically close) and start a reaction of events that take them very far away. The two possibilities travel far apart from each other and no longer are able to interact with each other. They become two different worlds.
In one world, poison is released and the cat dies. In the other, poison is not released and the cat lives. Both happen, it’s just that the two worlds become separate, like a movie film being split into two, each carrying the same image. One version of the experimenter will find the cat dead, the other will find the cat alive.
Quantum physics is fun!
@Sparky:
That’s exactly what it means. 🙂 Both in math and in real life (at least, feminists are fighting the things that MRAs label “gynocentrism,” like only men being required to be drafted, or chivalry).
It’s kind of cool actually… What MRAs think of as gynocentrism is really just a component of patriarchy in reality, and this math reflects that.
I think the thing that is being missed that men and women are different (still equal) in the sense that they operate and think differently. Everything that I’ve posted has been put down, or told it doesn’t matter cause this is worse and women have it worse. Things like male suicide, males being raped, male sexual abuse, male genital mutilations. All these things instead of trying to find a solution or some help, we are told to suck it up cause it’s other men’s fault. Everything is men’s fault, so male issues don’t matter.
What do you want men to do then? We want to help men, so what do we do? I help boys 5 days a week, boys that have been raped, boys that have social issues, boys with drug issues, boys with attachment issues. I’ve seen men grow up shattered, go on to abusive relationships where they get abused cause they have no self esteem. I’ve been to funerals of boys who commit suicide because they fail to see value in their lives. The resources aren’t there, and I live in Canada. You see privilege, I see a curse.
I’ve worked with a man who killed himself because he couldn’t deal with his mental illness ; he lusted after children. He knew it was wrong, and didn’t want to do it, so he killed himself instead of becoming the monster he didn’t want to become, never once did he ever even touch a child and he didn’t didn’t want children because he feared, he stayed very far away from any children. There is no help for people like this. Do you think that he could get any help from a feminist, with their biases, their mysandry?
Domestic abuse against men is real, it’s not just a women’s issue. I’ve lived it in my childhood, and I’ve had women hit me but I am unable to go to the police because I’ll be shamed. When I tell people, I broke up with XXX cause she hit me, they have the nerve to ask me what I did to deserve it. So I leave, I take back control of my life, I give up on women and I go MGTOW.
@SSJ:
Boring, weeping rhetoric is not welcome here. If “everything that I’ve posted has been put down, or told it doesn’t matter cause this is worse and women have it worse,” then provide quotes and respond to those individuals or leave and go do the things you think are important.
“Think of the men” is just as irritating as “think of the children!” You’re attempting to guilt people for something they don’t actually believe.
@SSJ
The things you are describing (male suicide, men being shamed for showing emotion or reporting abuse) are all due to toxic masculinity, which says that men shouldn’t show emotion. Thus, men end up without support systems or outlets for emotion when they find themselves in terrible situations, regardless of how they got there.
The problem with your argument, though, is that toxic masculinity is a product of the patriarchy, which constantly tells boys to “man up.” By breaking down traditional gender roles, feminists are working to eliminate this toxic masculinity and solve some of these problems that are facing men. Yes, we focus on problems facing women, but feminism benefits men too.
Yes, because finding out what the root of the problem is and what is actually causing the harm is never the first step to actually solving the problem! /sarcasm
Heaven forbid we suggest what the source of the problem is and ask you to solve that instead of tilting at windmills.
Patriarchy and toxic masculinity being the source of mens’ problems isn’t saying that mens’ problems don’t matter, it’s saying, “We know! We’ve been fighting this shit all along!”
How about you help? Instead of making it worse by reinforcing the same old harmful shit like;
“Biologically, men are protective of women”
or
“It is natural for men to sacrifice themselves for women”
or
“Catcalling is generally done by men of low education”
That shit right there, that’s throwing other men under the bus in a big way. You, sir, are part of mens’ problems.
If MRAs were actually helping men instead of just saying misogynistic things all the time, feminists wouldn’t have a problem with them.
Ssj,
We point out that feminism isn’t to blame for men’s problems because the manosphere is constantly blaming us for them.
Because despite the fact that (according to red pillers) men are physically stronger, more logical and built all of civilization, somehow we’ve managed to oppress them. Because butts.
We’re not telling mentally ill men to suck it up. We’re telling you guys to stop blaming us for problems we didn’t create.
This is a derailing tactic. Truth is, feminists do more to help and support victims of abuse and rape of all genders than any other single group. Feminists removed the gendered language from rape law, bring men and boys under the protection of the laws against rape. Same thing with domestic violence. Most shelters, even ones that accept men, are run by feminists. It isn’t feminist to victim blame.
A feminist would have been much less likely to ask you what you did to deserve ‘it’. I had a housemate who was raped walking home from class very late one day. He was trying to buy some weed and was attacked instead. I’m the only person who didn’t scold him for being out late or walking alone or buying weed, or try to shame or blame him at all. I’m also the only one who identified as a feminist. I was his entire support system while he dealt with the trauma. Even his family rejected him.
There’s even a study that shows that feminists are less sexist towards men than the general population. http://pwq.sagepub.com/content/33/2/216.abstract
You need to get your head out of the sand.
I’m reading “waaaaah, the straw feminists in my head are saying male issues don’t matter, bias and misandry!”
Anyone else reading that?
Fully realizing the futility of it, I’ll just pop in to say to SSJ: I originally discovered feminism after observing a case which MRAs might call “misandrist”, that is, where a male victim of domestic violence calling the emergency hotline about his wife physically assaulting him was shamed by the operator for “not being man enough to handle his woman.”
The person taking the call? Not surprisingly, they were not a woman or a feminist, but a male cop holding outdated, conservative, patriarchal values regarding gender roles. Roles MRAs, and apparently you, are taking for granted instead of challenging. In the cop’s mind, the man was not living up to the male ideal, and deserved to be ridiculed and to have his plight ignored because of the crime of being “the woman in the relationship”, that is, the victim. Do you not see how deeply that worldview is steeped in misogyny? Do you not see how fucked up that is?
Turned out feminism offered the most coherent, most thoroughly researched, most realistic model that explained this predicament perfectly while requiring no conspiracy theories or ad hoc solutions that MRAs love to rely on in their fight against equality. I suggest you sit your butt down and actually read about feminism before offering your misinformed views on it to people who are much more well-versed in social justice than you. There are a lot of feminism 101 sites to get you started.
Going to MRAs to get help is like going to a quack to get help with your back problems. At best, you’ll be throwing away your money (to Paul Elam). At worst, you’ll end up with an aggravated back pain. These guys are not your friends.
@Spindrift:
I know I am. I’m also getting a bit of whiplash from this:
To this:
You can really see the work of that “everything” word, erasing all the positive aspects that he was originally taking away from his time here. It’s like a different person started using the same name.
I find it interesting how our latest mansplainer has separated ‘going to jail for sexual activities’ and ‘false rape accusations’. Why is it that these types always jump to the conclusion that sex has to be something degrading and hateful towards women? It’s like they have no baseline for sexual activities aside from rape and boundary pushing.