After creating programs like “How To Man” and Masculinity Mastery,” I field a lot of questions about masculinity:
What is masculine, really? (Self authorship)
Is there space for traditional masculine values in today’s world? (Of course!)
Is masculinity under attack from women today? (No.)
And what about the “Incels,” and “Red Pill” guys, and MGTOW?
Here’s the answer:
Or view on youtube: What Is An Incel?
Update: If this subject interests you, the comment storm over on youtube is interesting.
Men not taking the lead, is already an epidemic; this just exacerbates the issues. Fortunately, this leaves more for the guys who take the lead – more unfortunately, for the guys who don’t take the lead, and most unfortunately, for the women who want a man who takes the lead.
I agree, Paul, but to clarify for those who read along: WHERE the man is leading makes all of the difference in the world.
A lot of these incels are like a dog that was abused as a puppy that flinches when someone raises a hand to pet it. They interpret everything a woman does as a rejection of who they are and of their sexuality. They can’t stand up, much less lead. And they need men like you to set the example.
You know… unfortunately I believe the media machine is fairly dishonest on this topic. Not just in general but in specific. It’s very easy to wax political about the media/tech interpretive bias. It’s clear they lean (in general) toward one political philosophy. But I think that issue is largely downstream from the central problem. There is a very caustic culture that has been brewing in academia for 50 years at least. It has accelerated and picked up steam in the last 20 years… and it’s getting worse. I agree that polarization is a two-way street and I think “defining” masculinity is largely naval contemplation… but you simply cannot have a society where ideas like “rape culture” and “gendered violence” are strewn about like they’re meaningful critiques of highly nuanced and complex phenomena. Nor can you simply think that women have initiated a de facto “gynarchy” that has destroyed any ability for men and women to get along. Low resolution, infantile narratives can’t possibly account for life’s vicissitudes and complexities. I think sensible men and women are tired of the vitriol that has fomented and the social and political stakes of these narratives have been amplified to the point that people feel their entire identities are threatened when they’re approached with alternative ideas. The problem is that it’s not people who have a rational take who are moving the needle on this tug of war… it’s the radical feminists and inveterate incels that just won’t consider any alternative ideas outside of their very narrow and increasingly hostile worldview. It’s a recipe for disaster if it isn’t quelled.
Thanks T, I’m a liberal politically but I completely agree that the media is dishonest on this topic, and I think the transparency of the dishonestly does more to harm the cause they are championing than to help it, because it makes it easy for men to justify their victimized stance and even call it “proof” that the gender deck is stacked against them.
“Low resolution, infantile narratives” are not going away anytime soon. My challenge in this (particularly in more public forums like youtube, where this video is raising a polarized conversation), is that telling someone that their viewpoint is low resolution and infantile is not going to win me enough trust to explain to them the obvious: This shit is more complex than, “This is women’s fault and we have to hate women!” or “Men are to blame and we have to hate men!”
Likewise I agree that those with a rational take are not the ones moving the needle, and that it’s a recipe for disaster– and that’s why I’m rolling up my sleeves on this one.
I think the point that these guys are missing is that the minority of women of whom they speak, and they are a minority, a vocal minority but a minority nonetheless, are as much looking to spoil things for the decent women as they are for men, and it’s a crying shame to just give up and allow them to succeed. My term for it is toxic feminism. They seek to drive a wedge between women and men, and while they do so by attacking men, as you described in your email today, by misuse of the likes of the metoo hashtag, they also seek to attack women and to limit their individual freedoms by insinuating that these are making them subservient to men.
Some of the more publicized aspects of these attacks are protests against such matters as grid girls in motorsport, or page three models, claiming that these roles demean all women, but it occurs on everyday levels too. This is patently absurd, and is simply indicative that feminists want to take away the free choices of women. A feminist is a woman who tells another woman she isn’t allowed to do what she doesn’t like her doing. They like to talk about strong women, but no strong woman I have ever met has felt threatened by the choices another woman has made.
A strong woman, like a strong man, is willing to stand on her own merits as an individual, she does not seek to apportion blame towards others for her own limitations. Equally she will credit others for their individual achievements and successes without rancour or bitterness. Basically, she is trying to be what we who consider ourselves decent men are also trying to be, and at a time when the feminists are wanting to put her down and keep her from finding the path where the decent will meet up which each other, this is not the moment for men’s groups to be doing the feminists’ work for them by hiding away and giving up.
Thank you Dami, this is one of the most well considered and incisive comments I’ve seen on the radical end of the feminist movement. At it’s base level, feminism is quite simple: Women and men are of equal value and we ought to run our society and all of its institutions as if that were in fact the case.
But once you get into the idea that men and women are the “same” you run into impossible knots that our biology and child-bearing simply can’t get around.
And once you get into ideas around demonizing men for their nature, e.g., “a man looking at me because I’m attractive is an aggression,” then there is no way to arrive at a policy stance, a social norm, an ethical frame, or even an emotional handle on how that could possibly play out.
QUESTION: My youtube audience is alive and growing, and I’m very much concerned with nurturing the dialog there. Can you either click over and copy/paste the comment or give me permission to post it there anonymously?
Sex dolls to the rescue!!
I find this video very much on point on a psychological level; but in my own personal experience I’ve found psychological factors very overrated in terms of their effect on human behavior, and biochemical factors very, very underrated. The physical and mental are very much interconnected, and feed back off each other.
Where I live in the US, at least, we are literally living in a very toxic society, with people’s hormones and cognitive function being disrupted by a bombardment of toxic influences such as plastics, pesticides and herbicides (especially in food and drink, as well as just plain poor food and drink), and even everyday toxic chemicals such as fabric softeners and “air fresheners”.
I got very noticeably stronger as a man and better able to let ridiculous things “roll off my back” by simply minimizing my exposure to these poisons. Such factors rarely get mentioned in discussions such as this, but I’m convinced they are a great influence.
An interesting point, Frank. I good friend of mine who spends half the year overseas mentioned to me that he always feel much better when living in Europe, and believes it has to do with the more restrictive laws on pesticides in their food. I tried to pay attention to it when my family spent the summer in Paris and Moscow. I think he/you might be right.