Vonclauswitz on MGTOW

One of the members of GoingYourOwnWay.com spotted the following rationale for MGTOW on the “voat.co” website. It was published by ‘vonclauswitz’ – I found it so well-reasoned that I decided it’s worth repeating, with the author’s permission, here on Beyond The Sunset.

 

Here’s what I think MGTOW means:

(1) The society in which I find myself (in my case, American) has prescribed roles into which I am pressured to conform.

I’m supposed to:

(1.a) organize my life so as to be useful to women. Specifically, I must have excess resources (which mostly means, make enough money) to not only support a family, but also to afford a very specific lifestyle (sometimes called, “keeping up with the Jones'”).

(1.b) approach and pursue women. This requires an investment of time, energy, and money to learn the skills of picking up women (because even for an attractive guy, this requires some practice and effort) and time, energy, and money to actually do it (dating isn’t free when you’re in this societal role – even if it’s free for other men).

(1.c) initiate relationships and propose marriage.

(1.d) organize my life around the marriage. This substantially means giving up pursuits that I enjoy (because stereotypical male pursuits are labeled immature and condescended to with terms like “man cave” and “midlife crisis”) and take up the company of and lifestyle chosen by my wife.

(1.e) bear a disproportionate responsibility for the success or failure of the marriage. There is a long list of things that husbands are expected to do for their wives under the auspices of being romantic or adventurous or just keeping her from being bored, but little if anything that is expected of wives (indeed, the very suggestion that she has responsibilities may be labeled oppressive).

(2) I have the ability to fulfill this role. It’s completely within my power as a man. I could do it as easily and as successfully as all the generations of men before me. But in the present society in which I find myself, I just don’t see that there are any real rewards for it. It appears to be all work with nothing in return.

(2.a) The supposed benefits of following this path are either not persuasive (not enough of a reward for the amount of work required), not true, or not rewards that I actually care about.

• The promise of sex is not persuasive. Sex is available at a fixed and guaranteed cost outside of this path. But on this path, the cost of sex is greatly variable and not guaranteed.
• I don’t believe that following this path will make me happy. Surveys that find married men are happier are only finding that successful marriages are happy. No shit. Lottery winners are richer, but that doesn’t mean that playing the lottery is a good idea.

(2.b) Society does not ask what men want, or what we would consider to be a fair trade for the work required of this role.There is no negotiation here. We are derided if we express dissatisfaction, and shamed if we refuse to play along.

(2.c) Many women see this role not as a social contract between men and women for which they should be thankful, but as a safety net or golden parachute.One possible answer to 2.b above is that many men would like sexual access to a woman when she is young (for discussion, let’s say mid 20’s). And in return for that, men would be happy to bear the substantial costs laid out above. But many women ask that the type of man willing to fill this role should wait until she is a decade or more older. This of course is her right, but it substantially reduces the benefit of this path without any reduction in its cost.It also makes it clear that we are plan B, and likely prevents any real bond between us.

(3) Worse, there are substantial risks for anyone who attempts to fulfill this role.

(3.a) Too many men are falsely accused of rape.

(3.b) The majority of marriages end in divorce. Divorce is painful and expensive. Many men pay exorbitant alimony.

(3.c) Family courts are hostile to fathers. Child support is out of proportion to the actual needs of the child, is often not applied to the child, and in some cases amounts to indentured servitude (as when a judge says, “your ability to pay is not relevant to your obligation to pay” – and sends a man to jail because his 3rd quarter sales numbers are down).

(3.d) There is no legal protection against paternity fraud.

(4) Fatherhood appears to be a thankless job. I don’t believe that I’ll have much if any authority over my children.

(5) I therefore choose to deviate from the prescribed role in various ways.Each man looks at the list of things that is expected of him, and makes his own decision about where he will leave the path and what alternative direction he will go. We are united only in this core idea: none of us will follow society’s path from start to finish. We are going our own way.

 

More and more of us men are viewing Society’s norm of “love and marriage” from the same perspective. We see too much wrong with marriage, nowadays, for it to be worth the risk. I don’t see this, necessarily, as the fault of the Modern Women themselves – nor, strictly, that of feminism, though feminism has been a driving influence. I see it more as the doing of the Legislatures, who planted the minefield by giving Cupcake more and more incentives and advantages to destroy a marriage and the poor chump she married, and of Family Court, which has an incredible track record of bending over backwards to give everything to Cupcake at the expense of said chump.

Society’s bias is to hold the woman innocent-as-an-infant, and to demonize her partner, for anything that goes wrong in their relationship. It’s his fault if she’s “unhappy.” It’s his fault if she’s cheating on him, if she blames him for her “boredom” in the marriage bed, if she accuses him of “abuse,” if she attacks him with a weapon and then tells the police “she was afraid.”

Whatever goes wrong, “it’s HIS fault.” And Society will penalize HIM.

The facts of this matter used to be pretty-well hidden, even in plain sight. They were the sort of “inconvenient truths” that a young man, full of the natural love-potions that Evolution has developed over the millenia, was unlikely to consider in the intoxicating presence of his inamorata. But more and more of us are deciding that Society’s path (as Vonclauswitz describes it) is not for them. Consider this: 70% of all US men, 20-34, have never been married.  (Graph from CNS News.com – it’s part of an article, “Bachelor Nation,” shaming the young men of the USA for their “perpetual adolescence” and branding them as having “failed” because they haven’t manned-up and married-up.)

There may be millions of girls, deserving of husbands, who will be doomed by this situation to lives of solitary despair, paper-shuffling in their HR cubes by day and taking solace in their cats and Black Box chardonnay by night. It’s a terrible shame, I’m sure; in fact, I’ve been terribly shamed, and repeatedly shamed, for not donning my White Knight armor and riding to the rescue of these poor lonely ladies. But even if I didn’t analyze the perils of living by Society’s program as rigorously as Vonclauswitz has, I arrived at the same decision long ago. Too bad, so sad, Cupcake, and please recycle the Black Box box.

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“Heroes” … and “Zeroes”

Keyster, a frequent commenter on several mens’-rights blogs, came out with this thought-provoking statement a while back. If I remember correctly, this was on The Spearhead:

If men are purely optional to women, then why can’t women be purely optional to men?

Because independent women are heroes.
And independent men are zeroes.

A man “needs” a woman.
A woman doesn’t need “any” man.

“A woman doesn’t need ‘any’ man” …?

I have seen a few women, in my life, who “didn’t need a man.” The only one who really stands out in my mind is my mother … and that, chiefly because she raised me without a dad.

I learned, from my mother, and my grandmother (the materfamilias of our household), that “men aren’t necessary.” This I learned by example, because I didn’t have a male role-model to “help me become a man.” Yeah, I’ve got the Y-chromosome and the danglies that go with it, but does that make me … more than just a “male” … a MAN? Read on, and judge for yourself….

I learned, after I left high-school and went to the seminary of the church where Mom had paid-up enough money for me to take the “Minister’s Program,” that my biological urges were something to be “transcended.” I’d learned this since age 12, when my gonads changed … but the Spiritual Call was supposed to flatten out my sexual urges and transmute me into an Androgynous Neutered Advanced-Being Spiritual Counselor. I did my very flat-out best to accommodate to this ukase. Honestly, truthfully, faithfully I did, and I have no idea who might have been shtupping the women I was counselling, honestly, truthfully, faithfully, really I don’t!!  I only know that I didn’t touch them.

I learned, from my religion, that I was a spiritual being who was damn-well supposed to be beyond sex.  Especially because I was in-training to be a Spiritual Counselor … and never the hell mind that my real father, not the guy whose name was on my birth-certificate, was the “exception that proves the rule” that a Spiritual Counselor in my religion was ordered to keep his paws the hell off his “preclears!”  I comported myself in accordance with the demands. I kept my own zipper zipped and locked, in accordance with The Auditor’s Code. I didn’t get ordained, though, and I didn’t do my internship, because I couldn’t afford to go on with them – I needed to get a job.

Certainly, I was a Zero when I left them and started work as a “Technical Aide” with the Federal Government. No glory in that, just a paycheck.

Some years later, I graduated past “being a Zero” with a couple of women. One of them was far, far more experienced than me “in the clinches” … the next was less-so, but circumstances after our first time eventually changed our romance into a Let’s-Just-Be-Friends situation. How swiftly I went from being her Hero … to being just another Zero.

Meanwhile, Society itself was being reshaped, to reduce men at large from Heroes … to Zeroes.

The first great reshaping was started by the Vietnam War. The previous wars in the public’s memory had been serious conflicts, taken seriously; the veterans of World War II and Korea were treated as heroes, as were the “boys in blue” of the Air Force, on the front line of the cold war. But many did not see Vietnam in that same light; and too many of the boys who got back from that campaign were treated with contempt. Treated as zeroes.

Then came the “Women’s Liberation” movement. It seemed to a lot of men that it was mostly about women liberating their vilest bad nature. The party line was that women wanted all the “privilege” they saw as being enjoyed by men – equal pay in the office, equal opportunity at the hiring time, equal access to college, to loans, to mortgages, to professions. They wanted to break down all the “artificial differences,” and ignore the differences that can’t be broken down because they’re hard-wired into male and female nature. Oh, and they made it clear that they regarded most men as “the enemy” and the top-rankers as “the competition.” They demoted a whole lot more men from heroes to zeroes.

Next came the revolution in divorce law, the “No-Fault” divorce – which is more accurately labeled as the “His-Fault” model. Along with stripping the husband of his kids, his rights, his house and most of his money in the settlement, the goal of this system is to strip all men of their last shreds of “equal treatment under the law.” And of equal compassion under Society. This stage is still ongoing, but meeting with stiffer resistance as more men recognize the battle and join forces against the new tyranny – the tyrants whose rabble march in slut-walks, or cheer as manginas from the sidelines.

I won’t bother to recount the way I went “from Hero to Zero” with either of the two following American Women on my roster, nor speak of the couple of chicas in South America who offered me their favors. I will say this: By the time I was 50 years old, I had accepted that I would never again be a Hero, and I would forever more be a Zero to the ladies.

My last couple of attempts to reach “the sweetness” have been with women who were completely and entirely incentivized by my money. Cash at the counterpane, dearie. Call them prostitutes, as they are, but you of the Femmunist Brigades will call me much worse. You’re already blaming me, and my fellow men, for the fact that some women are willing to trade their sexual favors for a man’s money; under the “Swedish model” you would jail, and prosecute, and fine, and imprison the man who offers his own hard-earned money for an hour of “the sweetness we’ve been dying for.”

A Voice for Men put it well in Male sexuality, un-demonized (4 May 2012):

We starve men, then shame them for their hunger and then when they reach for what little food is within their grasp, we smack their hand away.

The pessimist in me sees this as the final chapter in the old tale of the “battle of the sexes.” That battle is over for me, and I have left the gene pool. I am preparing to depart the land of my birth, and seek refuge from the craziness in another land. Maybe I will follow Odysseus, and Joshua Slocum, and others who have sailed away and finally vanished from human ken.

We men are less than Zero in your view, aren’t we?

I, for one, have ZERO (in honor of my social status) for you.

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The Broken Contract

“We’re at a warped point in history in which the feminist state has so deeply involved itself in relationships it has broken the contract between men and women.” (The Wisdom in Not Arguing With A Woman – The Spearhead, 11 May 2012)

This “contract” is not a creation of lawyers and written law. It undercuts anything written in Blackstone, any verdict signed by the Supreme Court. One could argue that its foundations are older than modern man, because it is based on the behavior that animals who live in a pack must follow if the pack is – and they are – to survive.

Homo sapiens is not a “pack animal”, you argue? We are more sophisticated than that, more advanced, with a more-complex society than the lowly “pack animal” of my comparison? I’m not talking of the Gothic-cathedral creation above the ground, I’m talking of the foundations, below the ground, out of sight, long-buried and forgotten as long as the structure will continue to stand. But can we move this structure off its hidden foundations and still keep it intact? It appears to me that we’ve tried – and we’ve failed; the attempts of our present society to move, morph, shape-shift and change the social contract have left it broken, unable to stand as it is today.

Let’s take a look at those “pack animals.” Wolves are most familiar to European and North American cognizance. The wolf pack in the wild consists of a breeding pair, the alphas, who dominate the “lesser” members of the pack – generally their “adolescent” children – and the pack works together to keep the current litter of pups well-fed and strong. (1) Situations are different when you throw a bunch of captive wolves together in a cage; their battles of dominance are the tool they use to sort things out between them, in forced company. The “captive pack” may be more comparable to the cheesy crowd in your local singles meet-market, mightn’t it?

Notice, though, the absolute biological imperative: Bring up a litter, or rather litter-after-litter, of healthy, strong pups. The same is the reproductive imperative of any mammal, any animal, any creature – to survive as a species, they have to procreate. In the case of bisexual species (just about any critter more complex than the bdelloid rotifers), they have to mate – the egg-layer must choose a sperm-sprayer to fertilize those eggs. The male must establish his value as a good sire for the female’s young; whether by display (like the peacock), by “interesting stuff” (like the bowerbird), by actual combat (like rutting deer), or – in a species as socially-complex as Homo sapiens – by “game.”

And more importantly, by what anthropologists and philosophers call “the social contract.”

Human society is incredibly broader, deeper, and more complex than the social behaviors of any other animal on Earth. This has been so since grass huts, stone tools, and tribal groups of multiple nuclear families, bound together by spoken language, common needs cooperatively met, and social hierarchy. The tribal groups that survived, got along by going along, by tradition passed down the generations, by the inculcation of internal controls on individual behavior. “In the old days, there were no fights about hunting grounds or fishing territories. There was no law then … everybody did what was right.” (2) As tribes coalesced into larger societies, into hierarchies, into city-states and nations, the customs of the people in these groups adapted and evolved to keep society running smoothly; and the customs regarding mating and family life were arguably the most important of all. Customs like marriage, sexual fidelity between husband and wife, and raising the kids to live the same way, were more fundamental and powerful than mere laws could be. The “cake of custom,” as Walter Bagehot called it (3), underlies the Law and makes it enforceable.

And it is that “cake of custom” that has been broken. The contract of custom, between man and woman, between husband and wife, between father and mother, has been torn to shreds. All that is left is the Law, and it has come down crushingly on the rights of the father, the husband, the man; and in favor of the rights and privileges of the mother, the wife, the woman.

This starts in elementary school, where the lessons are geared for the girls by their mostly-female teachers. Even the rough-and-tumble games the boys used to play, to let off steam, are taken away as “too dangerous” – and too many fidgety boys are labeled “ADHD” and drugged with Ritalin to make them passive in class.

It goes on to the workplace, where a web of Federal laws and acts and regulations promise “equal hiring, equal opportunity, equal pay for equal work,” etc., etc. In practice, though, this ends up with women hired preferentially, treated preferentially, coddled so that the organization can’t be accused of “discrimination.”

In the social environment? More of the same. Nothing has overtly changed the game where “he chases her until she catches him.” But the Law has replaced common sense and common modesty, and men have little recourse and less protection if a woman decides to re-label a casual one-night stand as “date rape.” Even if she dresses and comports herself like a sex-crime looking for the spot marked “X”. 2011, after all, was the Year of the Slutwalk.

Worst of all is “love and marriage” – from the Bridezilla opener to the rancorous divorce. Marriage is the most broken “social contract” of all, with more than half of all marriages ending in divorce. Typically the divorce settlement is ruinous to the man, because the entire Divorce Industry (and it is an industry) is geared for the woman’s sake.

There appears to be a common thread in these changes, in this shattering of the cake of custom and the social contract:

Women First.

To the women, Society awards privilege, preference, and the prizes. The men’s portion is the responsibility, the work, and the blame. Plus the fact of being expendable, in the eyes of the Law, the eyes of Society, the eyes of Women.

We men soldier on, most of us, because we do take responsibility for our loved ones, for our families, for our Society.  But more and more of us are recognizing the raw deal we are getting. More and more of us are realizing we are being used for our resources, our hard work, our earning power; and more and more of us are saying “No more!”

(1) “Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs,” L. David Mech, 2000.

(2) The Religions of Man, Huston Smith, 1958

(3) Physics and Politics, Walter Bagehot, 1872.

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The state of play for men: Domestic Violence (A Voice for Men, 11 July 2012) – “Domestic Violence” is mistakenly believed by Society to be a one-way street, one of violent men and self-defending victim women. Andy Man lays out the statistics and studies that show how false this belief really is.

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Pluribus

The Great Seal of the United States has three mottos that are worth considering. I want to call attention to one of them. If you have a USA one-dollar bill in your possession, or if you can get an image from … wherever, I commend your attention to the riband clutched in the eagle’s beak:

E Pluribus Unum.

“From many, one.” From many different people, many different identities – from people of different nations, from rich people and poor people alike, and nowadays from black and brown and yellow and every national identity that may have found its way to these shores with a will to immigrate and join with this nation – from many, one. One self-identification. American. Americain, in French. Estadounidense, in South America. Amerikaner, in German. And similar translations and transliterations from every country in the U.N.

The point of “Out of many, one” is one of strength in solidarity.  When a group stands together, their strength is more than added, it is multiplied. When a nation stands together, when a people stands together, its power and influence are multiplied in the same fashion. The proudest parts of the history of the United States were those times when the American people stood together, and worked together, and built our own national identity as ‘America’ – and ‘Americans;’ not as ‘Irish-Americans.’ or ‘German-Americans,’ or ‘African-Americans,’ or any other of the ‘hyphenated-American’ identities that are so popular today.

But today, more and more, we are tearing ourselves apart by those ‘hyphenated identities.’ We identify more with our differences than in that which brings us together, as Americans. We search angrily, anxiously, to point out the ‘differences,’ the ‘special privileges’ of this group or that; we compete viciously for Federal money to benefit our own group, and retreat into our own labels, our own enclaves, even as we paint ‘The Others’ as our enemies.

Class warfare, you could call it. Racial and ethnic tensions. Rejection of the ‘Unum’ in favor of the ‘Pluribus.’

I can’t hold my head above it. I see how my own ‘demographic’ is scorned, spurned, villainized and victimized; I can see similar forces brought to bear on other ‘demographics,’ and I’m aware of my own scorn and villainization of those other ‘demographics’ who scorn and villainize me and mine.  I admit my own hands aren’t perfectly clean. But can I get my hands dirty in the interest of cleaning things up?

Maybe. Maybe not. And maybe the Ways of Today have made it less than worthwhile to even try and clean things up.

The smallest minority in the universe is one. One man, by himself.

And when your trust has been betrayed enough times, when you have been tarred enough times with the labels and the scorn that ordinary men face more and more in our professional lives, our home lives, our love lives, there comes a time when all one can rely on any more, all one can trust, is oneself.

I’m not happy to have gotten there.

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Equalism

A few days ago, A Voice For Men posted “To the women that aren’t like that” – Dan Moore’s paean to those very-few women who ‘get it’ about Men’s Rights and offer articles and commentary to AVfM and other such sites. The comments included a bit of debate (or maybe just banter) about a better name for ‘Lady MRAs’ to use to describe themselves – with one reply, from a woman who uses the screen name ‘One Hundred Percent Cotton,’ that caught more than my attention and approval:

I am comfortable referring to myself as an “equalist”, rather than looking my daughter in the face and telling here I am a Men’s Rights supporter, or telling my son I support feminism as long as it doesn’t interfere with his rights….

…not to mention there are men demanding preferential treatment and entitlements over other men because of race, sexual preference, or physical ablilites…

All any of us have the right to demand is equality.

Equal opportunity and equal treatment under the law is really what the Men’s Rights Movement is all about.

I’m an Equalist. I support an unqualified Equal Rights Movement.

And when I look at it, Equalism is exactly what I’m after.

Equal rights under the law – under criminal law, first and foremost, where men are arrested, charged, indicted, convicted and punished heavily for their crimes and ‘alleged crimes’ – whereas women get The Pass for equal or worse wrongdoing. But also under Family Law, which is nowadays all about plucking Mr. Gander to feather Ms. Goose’s nest.

Equal RESPONSIBILITY. I don’t just mean “equal level of blame,” but that’s part of it. I mean equal expectations of responsible, rational action in the conduct of one’s life.

Equal time for equal crime. If a man would be hung for it, so should a woman be hung for it – figuratively speaking, of course.

Equal requirements for any job that has physical-fitness requirements. If you can’t roll up and stow the fire hose, you can’t ride on the fire truck. If you can’t do the job, you don’t get the job.

Equal pay requires equal work. If you can only work at an ‘apprentice/helper’ level, for example in the construction trades, then you should earn ‘apprentice/helper’ level wages – not ‘journeyman’ wages. If you work 40 hours a week, and 20 of those are filled with ‘personal business’ such as extended lunch breaks and extensive chatting with your co-workers, then you have no reason to complain when the guy at the next desk (who works 60 hrs/wk with NO ‘personal business’) earns a bigger paycheck.

How about equal risk on the job? Men are the victims of some 95% of all workplace deaths. Isn’t this an area of ‘equality’ that Fem-Lib should be working on? There should be parity here, shouldn’t there? We can’t consider women ‘liberated’ unless they’re the victims of 50% of workplace deaths, can we?

Equal chance to be drafted into the Armed Forces. I had to register for Selective Services (the draft) when I was 18 years old. Every 18-year-old woman should put her name and SocSec number into the pot, too, with similar penalties if she evades this responsibility.

How about ‘equal treatment’ in the educational system? Nowadays, it’s heavily, HEAVILY biased in favor of girls (pre-pubescent women) and young women. Boys and young men are pushed under the bus. Where are you ladies going to find higher-status men, at this rate?

Equal access to medical care would be another item. A branch issue is “equal funding for medical research,” for such things as prostate cancer; just about as many men die of prostate cancer, each year, as there are women dying of breast cancer. And yet breast-cancer has many multiples as much money thrown at it, and raised for ‘research’ and ‘support’ and ‘awareness’ and all of that. Is that just because breasts are up-front while prostates are buried in back of a man’s junk?

(By the way, ‘junk’ is such a lovely description for a man’s genitalia. To me it implies trash, refuse, litter, useless discards and the like. I guess it fits, seeing as Society now regards men and maleness as trash, refuse, litter, useless discards and the like.)

Equal dignity would be nice, too. When I think of a ‘homeless woman’ I picture her in a shelter with all kinds of support to get her back on her feet. When I think of a ‘homeless man’ he’s out on the street with a battered cardboard sign begging for spare change. I’m not asking for more homeless women on the street, I’m asking for more support for the men who are ‘sleeping rough’.

Then the biggie, the real scandal:

How about ‘equal opportunity’ in Family Law?

How about ‘equal parenting’ in child-custody law? Mommy gets two weeks a month; so does Daddy. They’re spending equal time with the kids, so neither one gets ‘child support’ either. And alimony? That is so 1950s!

How about an equal split of the family assets? Sell the house, split the proceeds, both parties move. Rather than ‘she has the privilege to live in the McMansion, he has the responsibility to pay the mortgage.’

How about an equal chance of getting arrested and hauled-off for domestic violence? And an equal level of government support for battered-men’s shelters? If Charlene can take the kids to “Ruth’s Place” or whatever, why isn’t there a “Roy’s Place” where Charlie can take the kids when his Lady-And-Mistress clocks him out with a handy blunt instrument or carves him up with a kitchen utensil?

(Speaking of that, there was a shudder of horror even through the Men’s Movement recently at a report that a man carved off his wife’s lower lip in revenge for adultery. Shouldn’t Sharon Osborne, from ‘The Talk,’ be required to make wisecracks and giggle hysterically about it on live TV – as she did when Catherine Kieu chopped off her husband’s cock and put it down the garbage disposal? Wouldn’t equality-of-hilarity be appropriate?)

Equalism.

The radical notion that men deserve the same rights and privileges that have been lavished on women, and that women themselves are responsible for their own sierra-hotel-india-tango.

Equal rights, and equal responsibility, under the law.

That’s what I’m after – call me an Equalist!

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13 reasons it’s unlucky to be a man (A Voice for Men, 22 Jun) – Glen Poole, former PR Director of Fathers 4 Justice in the UK, outlines and describes at length a baker’s dozen of issues where Society serves men short.

Regret (The Spearhead, 26 Jun) – W. F. Price reviews an article by a NY Times writer who rejected marriage until she was ready – but, by then, her partner wasn’t. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, ladies.

Meet The Zeta Female (A Voice For Men Radio, 28 Jun) – Proposing a new model for women: One of “self-defined, self-determined grown-up adults who make choices and who understand cause and effect;” of “a model of female identity which fosters actual strength, adulthood, and accountability in women, along with adult self ownership.” Are you up to it, ladies? (I know some who are, BTW.)

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Fatherless Day

Note: This article was originally published in A Voice For Men. I originally published only a blurb for the AVFM article on this website, but I have decided to post the entire article here as well.

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A few weeks ago, we celebrated the Goddess-worshiping festival that we call Mother’s Day. It’s more than a day. The build-up, in advertisers touting flowers and jewelry and day-spa packages and special treats for “the Mom in your life” had gone on practically since Easter.

For restaurants, it is the busiest day of the year, a day for expansive and expensive brunch buffets, crowded with families “giving Mom a break from the kitchen” – families who needed to get the reservations weeks in advance. Flowers, a party, gifts, general lionization – it’s almost like a mini-Bridezilla experience, all in worship of Mom, Glorious Mom.

I wouldn’t be surprised if many single moms and divorced moms feel left-out. Without husbands to take them out to brunch, buy them the choice gifts and pay the tab. With children who have so little, after Mommy does what she pleases with the “child-support” payments (from Daddy via “Child Services”), that they can scarcely give more than hugs and perhaps a few flowers rustled out of somebody’s garden.

They have only part of a thug-boyfriend’s attention; after all, she’s not the mother of his kids. And when the children are put to bed (there’s school tomorrow, after all), she is left alone, sitting on the couch that her “ex” paid for, in the house that her “ex” paid for, with nothing for solace but a bottle of wine. Or gin. Or whatever.

The day before Mother’s Day, A Voice for Men published, This Mother’s Day: Daffodils for Dumpsters – a harsh scolding for the millions of women who have abortions rather than become mothers themselves. One of the comments attached to the article went off-topic, but stung me personally:

How about instead of addressing abortion, we address the fact that mothers, even “good” mothers, do fuck-all nothing about men raised without fathers.

So we do the same thing. Hand out ribbons, black ribbons, which say, “what are you doing to make sure a mother doesn’t deny a man access to his children?”

This stung me because I was raised without a father, but it’s not just my own experience that demands my attention to this problem. Mom-only households were rare while I was growing up. “Single-mom families” and “divorced-mom families” are much more common today. The children from these disabled, dysfunctional families are growing up disabled themselves; subtly, emotionally disabled, in ways that hurt but that don’t show in a physical sense.

There’s an empty place in their hearts, a Daddy-shaped hole that neither Mommy nor her boyfriends can even patch over. There’s an empty space in their learning, too; they don’t learn the value of fathers. They don’t get the lessons that can only be taught subliminally by that role-model in their lives. And they don’t even know what they’re missing – rather I should say that I grew up fatherless with only the haziest idea of what I was missing.  But I knew that I had no one to play catch with me. No one to swat me when I messed with his tools, then help me build my Pinewood Derby car. No one to treat me like “his boy.” No one to show me, really show me, that a man has a deserved and necessary place with his children, with his family, in his home. No one to live with me and show me what it is to be a man.

Don’t even try to tell me that isn’t important. I fucking-well know how important it is.

The third Sunday in June is labeled “Father’s Day.” It sounds like a day to celebrate and lionize Father – but if past years are any indication, the main course will be shaming for the men that “should have done better,” and vituperative scorn for the “Deadbeat Dads” who aren’t with their children.

Many of those “deadbeat dads” don’t even know they have children. Many others have had their children torn from their lives in a brutal divorce.

Some of them languish in prison because they could no longer pay ruinous child-support demands, set when they had a much better job – and before their reputations, and their employability, were ruined by their former wives’ mendacious and malicious charges of “domestic violence” and “child abuse.”

Yeah, there are thugs who don’t care, but they are very much in the minority, as are the “dads” who are not merely “deadbeat,” but actually dead; leaving, perhaps, some photos, some shiny trinkets, and a flag folded in a triangular display case.

Most fatherless kids, though, are fatherless because their mothers pushed the fathers out of their lives.

I’d like to propose some recognition for these fatherless children, and the men who would have been with them as fathers if their mothers hadn’t kicked them out. Let’s call it “Fatherless Day.”

It should be a day to remind women everywhere that their children need their Daddies, too – and all the time, not just two weekends a month. A day to remind children just how important and precious their fathers are. A time to remind fathers, themselves, that they are worthy of having a major role in their children’s lives.

And a time to remind “Daddy Government,” and its enabling whores in the Main Scream Media, that fathers are important – not just as sperm donors and ATMs, not just for paying the fuckin’ bills, but for the sake of the children.

——————–

This is the original blurb I posted here for the A Voice For Men publication of this article:

Today I am honored by the doyen of the Manosphere, Dr. Paul Elam.

He has published my article, Fatherless Day, on A Voice for Men. I’d written it for this, my blog, but when I sent it to him – hoping that maybe he’d see it as fit for his use – he accepted it enthusiastically. (I’d thought of publishing it here. I shall not. Go read it on AVfM!)

And – by wonderful chance – it appears on the anniversary of the self-immolation of Thomas James Ball.

I’d like to dedicate ‘Fatherless Day’ to his memory.

———————

My high-seas adventure starts tomorrow – I’ll be heading up to New York to join the S/V Avocation, and sailing to Bermuda with Captain Tania Aebi the next morning. Tania Aebi is one of my acknowledged heroes, as she went and did what I’m dreaming of doing – and she did it as a teenager. I hope I can learn a lot from her – I’m certainly going to try!

———————

With my own article published on A Voice For Men, I’m not going to single any others out from Dr. Paul’s website today. I am going to say this: Go there and read anything. I’m in awe of the writers he gets; I am but a croaking crow to them.

Force, Control and Responsibility (The Spearhead, 14 June 2012) may be the best article I’ve seen there. If you think about it, you may find yourself visualizing the backlash that Feminism International will likely receive at the collapse of the Misandry Bubble. If you think it can’t happen here … don’t be so sure.

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Ten Thousand Generals

This is my first article to be published on the Manosphere. It appeared on In Mala Fide, 5 April 2011, and the comments I got from it were part of what encouraged me, finally, to start my own blog. With IMF’s passing, I’ve reposted it here – and I thank Ferdinand Bardamu for publishing it.

(I’ve appended the original comments to the end of this article.)

by BeijaFlor on April 5, 2011

in Philosophy

“When is the Men’s Rights Movement going to get up off of its keister and DO something about Men’s Rights?”

You’ve heard that complaint. You might even have uttered it, or screamed it while you were shaking your fist at the image of some fresh outrage, glowing on your computer screen. You feel called to action, ready to paint up signs and charge down to the public square, like the flash-point mobs who took over Tahrir Square last month. The righteous wrath is upon your brow, and you’re ready to DO something. But … what? Where? Isn’t there someone to call for the STRIKE!!!…?

Finally you shake your head, as your choler ebbs. What is there to do? Isn’t there someone to gather us together, tally us off, give us our place in the Order? Where are the leaders, now that we need them?

They’re spread across the world. Quiet and anonymous, most of them; known to you only by their blog names and screennames on sites like The Spearhead; A Voice For Men; The False Rape Society. Some leaders have their own blogs, like Pro Male/Anti-Feminist Tech, Whiskey, Jack Donovan, Elusive Wapiti, Angry Harry, Roissy and many others. Some leaders are guest-authors on others’ sites. Some just give comments that make sense.

Some of our leaders may be unaware of it – because in cyberspace, you don’t have to stand out or strut to be a leader. You just have to share a line of thought that others find worth following.

A Galaxy of Directions, Infinite Paths

Aside from a following, a leader has to present a path – and take a look around you in the manosphere; there can be as many paths as there are people looking. We are in the realm of all-that’s-possible here, after all; there’s no Horace Greeley pointing out the one obvious direction, “Go West!”

Let’s pick on three obvious directions that get a lot of attention: legal reform, go-your-own-way, and Game.

We all agree that the feminist agenda has suborned the courts, the lawmakers, the governments of Western civilization. We have an immense literature of cautionary tales; from the barely-pubescent boy whose teacher seduced him into impregnating her and now demands child support, to the husbands who have had all they built and saved and amassed for family and future seized by the courts and awarded to their no-fault divorcing wives, to the college girls who turned consensual sex into rape accusals to avoid looking like a slut (the Duke and Hofstra cases). These are spectacular, but there’s also the quiet gnawing at the workplace, from “equal opportunity” rules that disdain merit in favor of diversity … to harassment rules that recast innocent banter into a “perceived threat,” as rehearsed by an “empowered victim” who twists a man’s words into something at which she can “rightly assume horror.” And what a tiny selection this makes of the whole rotten game!

There is plenty to fight in that Gorgon-headed legal monster, and you can find plenty of strategies in the manosphere from people who have been in those trenches. Are you vulnerable to the attacks of The System? Almost certainly. Is there help, is there advice, that can help you? Definitely. Can you help out here; can you make a difference? Probably. Is this your fight? … Is it?

That’s up to you, isn’t it?

Some of us are relatively immune to Family Law, or at least we conceive ourselves so. There are the boys, the young men, who have watched the young women about them start to turn skank … turn privileged … and start growing snakes in their hair (I can’t get away from that Gorgon image, can I?) There are men, somewhat older, who see the predatory nature of the women in their environment, and want naught to do with them. And there are even older, embittered men, who bear the scars of cougar-bitch treatment on their hearts and their souls. These are men who turn their back on the women, who retreat, the Men Going Their Own Way.

Is the MGTOW movement a cop-out, an ignominous retreat – or is it a valid response to a society gone as bat-shit crazy as ours? Have you read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand? The whole premise of that book was “the producers go on strike” – leaving the world of business and industry to the parasites that kept digging new pitfalls for the entrepreneur, and simply saying “I quit.” The spirit of John Galt has gotten more infectious among men, who look at the price of taking a wife or even a girlfriend in today’s world, and decide that the game is no longer worth the candle.

But then, there are the men who differ … who value success with women as their great pleasure and their motivating force. Unfortunately, the “Liberated Woman” has become harder and harder to hunt. They’re out there, they’re sluttier than ever, but they “shoot back” and they’ll cut you off in a New York second – unless you have Game.

Even before Neil Strauss wrote his blockbuster book The Game, there have been books and secret methods that promised to help even the shy guys get ahead with women. Paradoxically, the “liberation” that was supposed to free women from the slings and arrows of Mrs. Grundy encouraged them to set higher and higher barriers to their romantic favors; “she doesn’t NEED men,” in today’s world, and she only goes for the ones who tickle her fancy (as our Victorian forefathers might have said). Multitudes of men are buying into the Mystery method, the Game, to learn how to get past the defenses of these women, to take them to bed, to pump ‘em and dump ‘em and go get some more.

Is that what excites you? Are you good at Game? That’s leadership, too.

And those are just a few of the issues faced by the Men’s Rights Movement.

Lead, Follow, Or … What?

So … where are the leaders? Is there any one right path; is there any one overriding just cause? And with so many voices, so many advocates, so many different “projects” to compete for your attention … who should you be following?

I’ve been saving mention of one men’s-rights bloggers to explain my view: Leonidas, with the twin sites In Mala Fide and Fighting on the Shade. He took the name Leonidas from Greek history – the Persian wars, and the Battle of Thermopylae, where three hundred Spartans under the generalship of Leonidas stopped the Persians at the cost of immense heroism – and their lives; but these are men to whom FREEDOM was worth their last, full measure of strength, warcraft, and devotion.

Feminism’s incursion and invasion into our society, with the backing of the State, looks as daunting to us as Xerxes’ vast army looked to the Spartan few. And some of us are ready to stand and die opposing it. But is that required of all? Remember that the original Leonidas had an army from all over Greece, but he sent away all but his three hundred fellow Spartans – men of his own polis, of his own history and traditions, men who thought like him and would fight like him, and would stand and die like him.

Thermopylae is not the only great story of the indomitable Greek against the greatest of odds. Another story has room for all of our different urges, abilities, goals and vision … Xenophon’s The March Of The Ten Thousand.

Xenophon is one of a band of mercenaries, fighting for one of Xerxes’ sons, in support of his campaign against another son who sits on Xerxes’ throne. Their patron dies in a great battle, and when the Greek’s general Clearchus goes to parley with the victor, he and the Greek leaders are treacherously slain; one manages to return, and dies giving the news to the band. The next day is bleak, but Xenophon stirs them into action … and rather than assume the mantle of leadership, he tells his compatriots that each and every one of them will have to contribute and bear responsibility for their safe return. Where the Persians had only the one general to slay, he said, now they will face ten thousand generals, each ready to take the initiative, all working together to pull the band through to their goals.

I would like to suggest that we are in the same condition. We have many leaders, but no generals; we have no explicit organization, no headquarters, no central target to be attacked by those who would lose when we win. This empowers each of us to look and think for ourselves, rather than wait for orders; to take the initiative where we see an opening; to act together where we can, but to act on our own – perhaps choosing our own path; but also, this demands of each of us the discipline and responsibility of a leader, and to be mindful of the greater goals of Men’s Rights.

Every one of us a general. They face ten thousand generals … and more.

I salute you.

{ 18 comments… these are the original comments from In Mala Fide.}

 1  The Fifth Horseman April 5, 2011 at 5:29 pm

Some men ARE taking action, in a very targetted, amplified way.

The URLs @ Urinals flyer campaign has a very amplified effect against feminism. Some men have already been taking action, but not enough.

It will take just 1000 hours of flyer-posting to set a sequene of events into motion. So go out and DO it.

 2  Ryu April 5, 2011 at 6:00 pm

We were talking on another thread about Agent Provacatuers.

Heirarchical structures tend to be infiltrated easily. Those higher up on the pyramide may be bought and sell out their fellows. Alot of people think the Tea Party has been subverted.

This is why the cell structure is recommended. There is no central leadership. There is no heirarchy. The common goal is understood, and each cell pursues the goal in the way it sees fit.

 3  Firepower April 5, 2011 at 6:16 pm

The internets give a soapbox to every crackpot – and genius – which is why the proliferation of 10,000 Generals.

Problem is, there’s only two worth following.

 4  Leonidas April 5, 2011 at 6:41 pm

“Problem is, there’s only two worth following.”

Who’s the other one?

 5  Jack Donovan April 5, 2011 at 6:44 pm

Laconic answer, Leonidas. Well played.

 6  Workshy Joe April 5, 2011 at 6:58 pm

The author is right.

Grass roots political action is NOT required to address men’s issues. Just the spread of information.

The institution of marriage is broken. It won’t be fixed. Simple solution: DON’T GET MARRIED.

No marriage certificate is required for co-habitation. Of course, even co-habitation isn’t required to get laid on a regular basis.

MGTOW and Game are where its at.

 7  collegeslacker April 5, 2011 at 7:13 pm

Gonna have to agree with Workshy Joe.

It’s Game or MGTOW all the way. Our government and laws are too corrupt to change; the Leviathan consumes all that oppose it.

It all comes down to personal preference which one you choose. Not marrying and learning Game works within the system without contributing to it. Going MGTOW says fuck you to the system and ignores it altogether. Either way, we’re all doing our best to starve the beast.

 8  raliv April 5, 2011 at 7:41 pm

In the long run, its the Men Going There Own Way and learning Game that are going to be sheltered from the fallout when the Misandry Bubble collapses. Stay mobile, learn a global trade or put together forms of passive income, and keep your passport in good order.

9  Factory April 5, 2011 at 8:39 pm

Great article. It’s important to note that the Mens Movement is, by nature, a cell-structure, grouped largely around certain websites. I would suggest that each site take a hard look at their marketing, their branding, and their message, and begin homogenizing it.

It’s already happening naturally, but it’s a no-brainer that the more well advertised and branded websites will gain more and more followers, and thus grow the movement.

Frankly, I think the days of gathering together in the town square are LONG gone, and internet based advocacy is much more effective in gaining attention. But I’m glad to see a more market-savvy approach to this movement.

 10  Lovekraft April 5, 2011 at 9:11 pm

Yeah, Firepower, I am curious too.

Who’s these two you mention?

 11  Clarence April 5, 2011 at 9:42 pm

Glenn Sacks has done some good.

Legal reform on a massive scale is hopeless for now, but legal reform in a limited manner is possible. This won’t save “the system”, who wants to save that? But it might give servicemembers a better chance at custody hearings or result in the removal of an absolutely evil (not just uncaring) DA. TFH’s urinal strategy isn’t bad either. Spreading awareness is the first step and we’ve come a LONG way in that since I got involved in the late 90′s. But there’s still a ways to go yet.

That’s still making the world a better place. MGTOW is probably the safest long term bet, but one doesn’t have to give up on everything when one does that.

 12  MeMyselfI April 5, 2011 at 9:54 pm

Don’t get married. Don’t even “date”. Don’t have children.

Don’t pay taxes (this is a biggee. Even 10% participation would overwhelm the collection agencies and send a STRONG message… but getting there is difficult)

Don’t (over)consume. Don’t do *anything* to help the economy recover. Default on anything that you owe.

Let the system collapse.

 13  Gordon Guano April 5, 2011 at 10:44 pm

There is a symbiosis between labor and capital, industry and consumer. The only reason going Galt worked in Atlas Shrugged was due to a perpetual motion deus ex machina. Rand’s work would be good anecdotal evidence of women’s inability to comprehend logic, though, I’ll give you that.

 14  George April 6, 2011 at 8:21 am

Kudos to those of you who can MGTOW and Game your way through this. For various reasons, many of us are stuck with a more serious decision regarding the legal system.

@Gordon be careful with these nuts, pointing out Alisa Rosenbaum’s illogic is nearly as much an apostasy as noting the inflection point in American society that occurred in the 80′s…

15  BeijaFlor April 6, 2011 at 9:11 am

@ Gordon, Atlas Shrugged may be a bible to some MGTOW’s, or the Prophecies to others … to me personally, it was a weighty but entertaining novel founded in Rand’s perspective and philosophy. And John Galt is a familiar symbol to many who have philosophical pretensions rooted in Rand’s era. I don’t take him seriously.

I ain’t no John Galt. Similarly, I ain’t no Xenophon. And this is a battlefield, not of spears and arrows or guns and bombs, but of ideas.

Certainly, there are “centers of mass” in the MRM of cyberspace. In Mala Fide is one; there are dozens more that get a lot of “chatter,” and many many more that are part of the show. But we are a network here; not a hierarchy, not a cell-structure, but an amorphous pseudo-organism whose bits (each one of us) can act autonomously or together. Off the net, each of us is a man alone.

A man alone.

We have each our own strength, each our own resolve, each our own courage to sustain ourselves. We don’t need to gaggle together around coffee and brownies to find agreement, “shared consciousness,” hive-think support and all that. Each of us is strong and can stand alone … and act alone, as each one sees fit.

There are causes, events, particular battles, where our combined efforts can multiply our pressure toward our goals. “State of Maine vs Vladek Filler” is one of these (check The False Rape Society and SAVE). And there are other actions (URLS For Urinals; thanks for noting it, TFH) that we can quietly go about on our own, for the price of a few milliliters of printer ink and a box of labels.

But, so far, there is no call for us to descend physically, en masse, on a courthouse square to march around in protest of a particular injustice. Will you be ready when that call comes? I hope so.

 16  Firepower April 6, 2011 at 1:41 pm

Leonidas April 5, 2011 at 6:41 pm

“Problem is, there’s only two worth following.”

Who’s the other one?

What really matters, is: If you have the stomach
to be the other one.

 17  AlekNovy April 6, 2011 at 7:59 pm

I believe mgtow is most powerful and hits things at the core. The best part about mgtow is that it’s happening all over the world. Men everywhere are doing it instinctively as if we were biologically programmed to go mgtow when society fails us.

The thing is – feminism and female privilege can only exist as long as the men at the bottom of the pyramid choose to support the system. The moment men abandon the system en masse, the entire system crumbles.

 18  AlekNovy April 6, 2011 at 8:03 pm

Legal reform – trying to prevent the asshole from cheating at the game
GAME – trying to out-cheat the asshole at his own game
mgtow – declaring the game over and creating a new game

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