—
If you’re not familiar with the MGTOW movement, you’re about to get a crash course.
MGTOW stands for “Men Going Their Own Way.” It’s an ideology that has gained traction in recent years, one that espouses the belief that women are the root of many (if not most) male problems. They believe that modern society is gynocentric. This is especially true in the realm of marriage and divorce, which MGTOW proponents claim is just a vehicle to rob men of their money and offspring.
Indeed, the MGTOW movement views women as the “scheming, insane sex,” whose only purpose is to leech off of males, who are (according to MGTOW) the only real innovators and force behind progress in the history of the world.
In summation: the whole movement is about as absurd as the NO MA’AM club Al Bundy created on Married…With Children.
♦◊♦
One Nation, Under Scapegoating
In countries around the world and the U.S. in particular, the rise of so-called populism (or a toxic version of it) has also produced an increase in scapegoating. National crises are being blamed on foreigners, minorities, the poor, and other traditional boogiemen trotted out by ultra-conservatives.
This faulty, disempowering logic has been diffused down through society to the personal level and taken on by ideologies like MGTOW. If a country’s problems can be blamed on “the outsider,” then can’t the same be said of an individual’s issues?
This trend is troubling not only for the targets of the “other-blaming,” but also for the blamers. The scapegoating rhetoric is the ultimate crippler of personal agency. How can someone expect to solve their problems if they blame someone or something else for said problems?
If you give your personal power away, you may feel better temporarily because you absolve yourself from responsibility for whatever troubles you in life. But in the long-term, you have convinced yourself that self-improvement through hard work, discipline, and making personal changes is not possible.
Because, in the scapegoating mindset, the source of your problems is not you, but rather someone else. Therefore, the only logic remaining is to “get rid of” or distance yourself from the imagined source of the problem: other people.
♦◊♦
The Real Definition of Toxic Masculinity
Part of the MGTOW belief system is that men are “under attack.” They believe the phrase “toxic masculinity” refers to ALL aspects of masculinity as being unwholesome. This boils down to an imagined “war on men.”
But wiser heads know that toxic masculinity refers to male behavior that emphasizes the more detrimental, male stereotypes into which Western culture has pigeonholed men. This is the image of the man as aggressive, emotionally distant, in constant competition with other males, and a “rugged individual” who doesn’t need anyone else to succeed in life.
Is it any wonder there’s an epidemic of male isolation?
♦◊♦
The Simple Belief System Litmus Test
Here’s a simple litmus test for any life philosophy: take a long, hard look at your beliefs. If any of them are founded on scapegoating other people for your problems, you need to rethink/replace that belief.
Let’s face the facts, guys. The world is a place of opportunity. It has hardship and comfort, ugliness and beauty, failure and success. The world is a blank canvas for the creation of the life you seek, as long as you set your intentions and take conscious, willful action toward your goals.
You will encounter roadblocks and disappointments. But these are not part of some hokey “conspiracy” to hold you back. Rather, our failures are the necessary “contrast” that allows us to see our success, just like you wouldn’t appreciate the day without the dark of night.
In other words, you can’t sit back and wait for the world to give you what you want. You can’t remain static and stagnant, making no attempt to fulfill your dreams, and then wonder why you aren’t getting what you want. You MUST take action.
No one else is holding you back. Only YOU can hold you back.
Men, it’s time to reclaim our power. Not from some imagined, insidious female “threat.” We need to take our power back from faulty societal programming that wants to keep us locked into a harmful stereotype.
Get out there and live beyond the norm. Don’t be a carbon copy man who keeps other people at arm’s length, doesn’t ask for help, and doesn’t feel. Suppressing what makes you human is killing you, slowly.
Take back your power. Take back your life. Don’t be MGTOW or any other type of scapegoater. Your life and the world around you will be all the better.
—
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join like-minded individuals in The Good Men Project Premium Community.
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Sign up for our Writing Prompts email to receive writing inspiration in your inbox twice per week.
♦◊♦
We have pioneered the largest worldwide conversation about what it means to be a good man in the 21st century. Your support of our work is inspiring and invaluable.
The Good Men Project is an Amazon.com affiliate. If you shop via THIS LINK, we will get a small commission and you will be supporting our Mission while still getting the quality products you would have purchased, anyway! Thank you for your continued support!
—
Photo credit: Getty Images
—
Also, watch this from Jordan Peterson, as he instructs us not to blame others for our problems: https://youtu.be/o73pqQ9Gzt4
I’m curious about thoughts on this article: http://www.returnofkings.com/91186/4-ways-to-stop-being-a-mgtow
Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases Sonja Starr (University of Michigan Law School) This paper assesses gender disparities in federal criminal cases. It finds large gender gaps favoring women throughout the sentence length distribution (averaging over 60%), conditional on arrest offense, criminal history, and other pre-charge observables. Female arrestees are also significantly likelier to avoid charges and convictions entirely, and twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted. Prior studies have reported much smaller sentence gaps because they have ignored the role of charging, plea-bargaining, and sentencing fact-finding in producing sentences. Most studies control for endogenous severity measures that… Read more »
Thank you, I’ll take a look.
The author is using “sandman” as a reference? Dear lord…. Sandman is a joke. He’s only making videos for adverting traffic and monetization. He doesn’t speak for anyone but himself and isn’t trying to help anyone in mgtow/mra/manosphere… He’s probably one of the worst on Youtube you could be watching.
You want stats? Visit avoiceformen DOT com.
Okay, see, this is good information, as well as hearing someone speak out against Sandman. I get it. Just like Alex Jones or mainstream offerings like The Today Show, they’re focused on ratings and income rather than solely on content. Sensationalism is their goal, not informing people. Like Sandman, they’re just stirring the chaos up. Thanks for pointing out that site, I’ll take a look.
There are so many examples of MGTOW followers who talk about how women “evolved” to be manipulative schemers. — What about you saying that any bias against men is their own biology, but if a man says that about women its not cool? Either we can use these kinds of arguments or not.
(i can’t reply to your comments, so im posting like this)
I think you’re “rage-reading” and not really reading the article. I never said anything about male biology. I’m talking about nurture, not nature, in this article, i.e. the indoctrination of men into the negative male stereotype of the unfeeling, aloof, hyper-aggressive, and hyper-competitive testosterone robot (note: though I used the word testosterone, I’m not talking about actual biology…I’m referring to a behavioral stereotype that assumes men are so loaded with testosterone they must therefore be hyper-aggressive). I’m all for strong, independent, competitive, free-willed men, not the caricature of manhood that has men ignoring their emotions and seeing all other men… Read more »
“Get out there and live beyond the norm. Don’t be a carbon copy man who keeps other people at arm’s length, doesn’t ask for help, and doesn’t feel. Suppressing what makes you human is killing you, slowly.” Living to entertain and provide for women doesn’t sound like “live beyond the norm.” In fact, if we really want to talk about “carbon copy” men, we’d have to start with men who become husbands and fathers. In fact, your version of humanity sounds boring.
Speaking for myself, I don’t really have any dislike of woman, but the truth is it takes a tremendous amount of work to make a woman happy to be in a relationship with you and an individual has to decide if the benefits are worth the cost. Personally I would rather have peace of mind and free time then be in an endless battle for scraps of affection and respect. I really don’t see any relationships around me I would want to be part of.
Thanks for the lucid response. If that’s the right life choice for you, all power to you my friend! I wish you all the best! We’ve evolved far enough, I think, that people who don’t want long-term relationships or get married or have kids should not be considered abnormal. It’s a shame that people often give folks a hard time for not getting married, not having kids, etc.
Well, I got a divorce and now I don’t really have problems, so hey it works for some people
@ Anthony Simeone: Glad you asked. Let’s start with this; 1)5 Reasons Women Are More Likely to Ask for a Divorce Source: https://goodmenproject.com/divorce/5-reasons-women-are-more-likely-to-ask-for-a-divorce-dg/ 2)-One of every six custodial parents (17.5 percent) were fathers.. # of custodial mothers in 2013: 11,069 # of custodial fathers in 2013 : 2,350 # of mothers awarded child support: 5,879 # of fathers awarded child support : 739 source: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/P60-255.pdf 3)- Almost 24% of all relationships had some violence, and half (49.7%) of those were reciprocally violent. In nonreciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases.” Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/ That… Read more »
Interesting. Thanks for providing these stats. For me, the evidence begs the question, though: is it really that the laws are unfairly skewed against men? Or are men being habituated to be aloof and aggressive, making them seem less “suitable” to be custodial parents? I accept the statistics you put forth, but I’m still not convinced they mean the courts and laws are biased against men for no reason, or because of some “gynocentric” conspiracy. I’m wondering if men are shooting themselves in the foot because of male societal programming that makes many of us angry, cold, and aggressive. If… Read more »
Want facts? I would suggest you watch a beautiful documentary called The Red Pill. It may change your life.
This is an easy argument to kill. Let both parties present concrete evidence in the form of numerical facts and statistics. Then we can decide which party comes up short in their logic and reason.
*Note: I fully suspect that the OP will come up short here. Anyone can present shaming language as an argument. Hard numbered facts? Totally different beast…
I agree. I replied to a comment on this post with the same sentiment: give me facts, evidence that the laws are skewed against men. Evidence that is not hearsay and anecdotal. Give me numbers of court cases that ended with extremely damaging results for men and show me that women make out better in the vast majority of cases. And even then, words like “better” are subjective. What constitutes coming out “better” at the end of the court battle?
I need evidence. Concrete evidence. Otherwise, you might as well be telling me the Earth is flat…
But when someone makes that life choice NOT from a level-headed place, but from some philosophy that says “women are evil,” that’s pretty unhealthy. You disagree? — but they are not making their decisions from a wrong perspective as you suggest, nor it is “women are evil”. Its that the laws are biased against men, and actually the unhealthy thing to do would be for men to participate in such practices.
I need to see concrete evidence of the laws being biased against men, though. Where’s the evidence? I know a couple guys getting divorced and their court battles are going very well for them. So again, what’s your evidence for that claim, other than anecdotal?
MGTOW is about rejecting the gynocentric institution of marriage. And it is gynocentric. So- yes- men reclaim their lives by not marrying women and not being subjected to gynocentric marraige laws.
Uh, what about all the YouTube videos I can show you that go way beyond this narrow definition of MGTOW? There are so many examples of MGTOW followers who talk about how women “evolved” to be manipulative schemers.
Here’s an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jxtpkJFkME
This all just seems like a lot of energy spent on complaining and weaving conspiracy theories rather than on self-improvement. Also, I’m not a feminist if that’s your next argument. I’m a humanist. I support the betterment of men and women. That betterment is achieved by collaboration and kindness, not scapegoating.
Quote: “…espouses the belief that women are the root of many (if not most) male problems. They believe that modern society is gynocentric. This is especially true in the realm of marriage and divorce, which MGTOW proponents claim is just a vehicle to rob men of their money and offspring.” The unfair divorce, alimony and child supports laws in favour of women are the root of most male problems, not the women themselves. Selfish women without law enforcement backing them wouldn’t be an issue. Or are you about to imply that women don’t initiate most divorces these days and then… Read more »
“They are not sitting back though. They are making the life they want, it just doesn’t include women. Why is that a problem for you?” I don’t have a problem with men going about their lives without women. That’s up to each individual man. If you choose not to have long-term relationships with women, that’s fine by me. But when someone makes that life choice NOT from a level-headed place, but from some philosophy that says “women are evil,” that’s pretty unhealthy. You disagree? I’m not sure you really read my article, or you’re just having a knee-jerk reaction and… Read more »
You need to reevaluate MGTOW beliefs. This article shows you know very little about the movement.
I’d love to hear a level-headed, rational explanation of the movement that doesn’t resort to hyperbole and generalization. Please let me know where I can read or watch a video published by someone who is using their real name, and is not just scapegoating women and complaining about life. I’d like to hear from a successful, dynamic male who swears by MGTOW.
Revolting, nauseating article that isn’t even deserving of a formal refutation