Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW ) is a mostly pseudonymous online community of men supported by websites and social media presences cautioning men against serious romantic relationships with women, especially marriage. The community is part of what is more broadly termed the manosphere. MGTOW have "...vowed to stay away from women, stop dating and not have children". MGTOW focus on men's self-ownership rather than changing the status quo through activism and protest, making MGTOW distinct from the men's rights movement.
Video Men Going Their Own Way
History
According to Mack Lamoureux, the "...MGTOW community's history is murky, but it was most likely birthed in the mid to early 2000's by two men who go by the online aliases of Solaris and Ragnar."
Maps Men Going Their Own Way
Beliefs
MGTOW have been associated with political viewpoints. Politically, MGTOW have been variously associated with libertarianism, the alt-right, and philosophical anarchism. MGTOW use the word gynocentric to describe conditions that they claim favor women to the detriment of men, and are opposed to such circumstances. MGTOW believe that there is a systemic gynocentric bias against men including double standards in gender roles, bias against men in family courts, lack of concern for men falsely accused of rape and lack of consequences for their accusers.
Levels
According to Vice writer Mack Lamoureux, there are five levels to MGTOW:
- Level 0 - Situational awareness: This is the lowest level of MGTOW. At this level, a man is viewed as having swallowed the "red pill" and thereby, MGTOW advocates claim men at this level "embrac[e] the idea that gender equality is a lie and propaganda."
- Level 1 - Rejection of long-term relationships: At this stage, a man "...rejects long-term relationships but will still partake in short-term relationships and sexual encounters."
- Level 2 - Rejection of short-term relationships: In level 2, a man does not meet women for "...hook-ups or any form of short-term or sexual relationships."
- Level 3 - Economic disengagement: a member at this stage "...refuses to earn more money than is necessary for sustaining life. He views the government as tyrannical and is trying to actively drain money from the bureaucrats."
- Level 4 - Societal disengagement: "Here the man refuses to interact with society any more than ever", such as by living "off the grid" (e.g. in a cabin)
Views on relations with women
According to the columnist Martin Daubney, members of the MGTOW community believe that legal and romantic entanglements with women fail a cost-benefit analysis and risk-benefit analysis. Jeremy Nicholson, writing for Psychology Today, similarly described MGTOW as "guys who have been frustrated and punished to the point that they see no further incentive to relate [to dating] [...], they focus on making themselves happy".
Kay Hymowitz has stated that some self-identified MGTOW express discontent because they see women as hypergamous and manipulative. The Business Insider reporter Dylan Love wrote a "fully-realized MGTOW (there are levels to it) is someone who shuns all relationships with women, short-term, long-term, romantic, and otherwise. He eventually shuns society as a whole." Some MGTOW have many short-term casual relationships or engage in sex with prostitutes. Celibacy, however, is also an option. A MGTOW that chooses celibacy over sex and relationships is said to be "going monk" and some embrace maintaining their virginity.
It has been called an "...offshoot of the men's rights movement but rather than getting stuck in and tackling issues, these guys have vowed to stay away from women, stop dating and not have children". One MGTOW supporter states that the movement is about "...living life your way rather than trying to make a woman happy or being a slave to cultural expectations". Some "purists in the movement who are the most extreme" have decided to "avoid women entirely".
Red pill
MGTOW use slang such as "red pilled" to describe members of their movement and "blue pilled" to describe men outside, or opposed to their movement.
Relationship to other groups
Men's rights movement
MGTOW differs from the men's rights movement, in that while the men's rights movement aims at changing the status quo, such as by changing the laws, MGTOW call for focus on self-ownership and withdrawing from interactions from women. Mack Lamoureux states that while "[a]t first glance, it's easy to lump MGTOW in with typical Men's Rights Activists (MRAs) who also believe that female oppression is a myth and that it's actually males who are oppressed--but that's not the case. The two groups differ significantly ... While MRAs are out to fix the problem through action and activism, members of MGTOW hold self-preservation above all else, and because of this the majority of the community seems to have decided to bow out."
Teens Going Their Own Way
An Australian newspaper described the growing number of teen males who have decided to adopt MGTOW, which it called TGTOW (Teens Going Their Own Way).
Herbivore men
According to Roselina Salemi, writing for La Repubblica, the Japanese concept of herbivore men is a subset of MGTOW. Mack Lamoureux, writing in Vice, sees herbivore men as a consequence of Japanese socioeconomic conditions and MGTOW as an ideological choice. In a DELFI article MGTOW are described as a protest against feminist laws in the West whereas herbivore men are a response to traditional gender roles in Japan, such as those of salarymen. Isaac Simpson, writing for Animals magazine, likens MGTOW to a Western version of Japanese herbivore men with the caveat that herbivore men are typically not angry, politically motivated or engaged in criticism of gender roles. Kashmira Gander writing for The Independent, sees herbivore men serving as role models for MGTOW.
Disagreements with other groups
MGTOW see feminists, "white knights", "social justice warriors", the LGBT rights movement and support for safe spaces as obstacles to male self-ownership. MGTOW have been described as having a "serious problem with feminism."
MGTOW have a reciprocal disdain for the seduction community ("pick-up artists"). The MGTOW movement has been criticized by the pick-up artists (PUA) for being cult-like, antithetical to human nature, and likened to separatist feminism. Matt Forney from Return of Kings, a pick-up artist website, calls MGTOW a "creeping cult of male loserdom" and says it is a "lonely hearts' club for the refuse of the male species", which he calls "Virgins Going Their Own Way", and who he sees as "personally repellent losers."
Reception
An article in The Economist about MGTOW states that the "...rebalancing of the sexes has spawned 21st-century misogyny", with slogans like "Save a male and stop a wedding(TM)" being an unregistered trademark of MGTOW.com.
Pick-up artists "disparage the community", calling their "'philosophy'...completely wrongheaded." The movement has been described as "hateful, militant extremists". W. Bradford Wilcox, a conservative and visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, was criticized by the MGTOW activist who goes by the pseudonym "Turd Flinging Monkey", who was against Wilcox's video about the "benefits of marriage for men", which notes that "...married men work harder (about 400 more hours), smarter (they're less likely to quit without having found another job), and more successfully (they make about $16,000 more per year) than their single peers".
"[C]ritics say there's plenty wrong with MGTOW. Researcher Barb MacQuarrie said they are misinformed. They criticize family courts for favouring women -- one of the key overlaps with the men's rights groups they claim not be aligned with." MacQuarrie states that it is "...really hard to lose custody of your children". She says men cannot "...identify the global forces that are at work in their life, so they hang the blame on feminists," and interacting with other "disillusioned, disenfranchised men" using "deplorable" rhetoric. MacQuarrie states that MGTOW advocates show "...a complete lack of self-reflection" and she states that their decision to live "separatist lifestyles" away from women is "pathetic." She states that MGTOW supporters are "... only reinforcing each other's really distorted perceptions of what's happening in the world," "...confining themselves knowingly to a life of isolation and a lot of limitations", which she calls a "sad" approach. When women are discussed on MGTOW forums, it is often "angrily".
See also
- Antifeminism
- Men's liberation movement
- The Manipulated Man
- Involuntary celibacy
Notes and references
Further reading
- Smith, Helen (2013). Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream - and Why It Matters. New York: Encounter Books. ISBN 978-1-59403-675-0.
Source of article : Wikipedia
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