[box type=”note” icon=”none”] Some readers might notice that the style of this piece is similar to that of AVfM contributor Manuel Dexter. Several readers on the site are already aware that JtO has been publishing under the M.D. byline for about a year. The reason for this was harassment of Mr Other by individuals whose actions threatened his employment. The circumstances making this form of harassment no longer remain – and past articles previously posted by Manuel Dexter will soon be correctly listed under this byline [/box]
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]’ve been told repeatedly in person and print that in addition to my biology and sexual identity making me a bad person, I also hate women. This is the definition of a misogynist, which due to my sexual preferences; I am.
Jill F. who writes for the ideological feminist website feministe-dot-com stated in her article “Dealbreaker indeed”: men who prefer to not perform oral sex on bleeding lady-parts are misogynists. Okay, add that to the list.
It’s a long list – one which has grown continuously during my lifetime. Another ideologue recently issued a fatwa on men whose moral failures manifest in facial hair. Amanda Marcotte’s complaint is Beards. She wrote on pandagon [dot] net: “Hate ‘em. I don’t mean like a couple day’s stubble that you routinely remove, but like a full-on beard. It’s not like I wouldn’t be friends with a guy with a beard, but kissing a dude with a beard puts me way off.”
Okay Amanda, not liking beards is your choice – but you’re not really talking about what you want in a man, you’re talking about what you’d like to be socially verbotten in the larger framework of our culture. I’ll add that to the list, too. Certainly Marcotte is an idiot, which argues against taking anything she writes too seriously. But she does draw a large audience – considerably larger than anything AVfM has managed, so far.
A more aggressive inventory of supposed male failure includes the recently popular article by an anonymous ideologue titled “a man is a rape supporter if..,” This list includes a number of entirely nonviolent, normal and healthy activities and attitudes – and conflates them with rape. The list isn’t worth fisking – but serves to re-frame the old lie “all men are rapists” into a format which wont result in immediate dismissal. Debunking the individual points of the list is the intent of the author – since it is debunking which creates engagement with the underlying lie, that all men are rapists.
Meanwhile, within the media – a rising chorus of “man up” can be heard from traditionalists, social conservatives – particularly women. Men: put down the remote, go get a job and get back to paying for women’s stuff. Aren’t you a “real man?” The problem as perceived is that increasing numbers of men are opting out of the old game of self sacrifice on behalf of a feminized public discounting the humanity of male human beings.
A certain amount of shrill panic is evident in the “failure to launch,” rhetoric. Most fielding versions of this argument are themselves failing to understand why their comfortable reality is collapsing.
Almost all public rhetoric critical of men is shaming language – condemnation of men for “failure” to meet the criteria of what a real man should be, as defined by those who benefit from men’s attempts to conform. As the tenor of our culture’s “man up” message becomes more shrill, it also becomes less effective. This diminishing effect is not merely due to monotony of the “be a real man” message – it’s also because under that accusatory and shaming message is a foundation built on increasingly false assumption.
The assumption is that men should care what anyone thinks. There is growing condemnation and attempt at social shame applied to men self-selecting “un manly” choices – such as prioritizing recreation ahead of a high status, highly demanding life. And men making these choices are saying to those who would heap shame on them, get bent.
Actually, they’re not saying that openly, because for this growing fraction of men, public opinion is irrelevant. Traditionalists moaning about the diminishing number of men self sacrificing to keep everybody else’s convenience paid and running have not yet figured out that the game of shame and prestige doesn’t work when the benefits of social conformity to the role of protector and provider has no benefit except an early death and ongoing vilification of masculine identity.
Thanks to 50 years of ascendency of the faux-humanist ideology of feminism – men are increasingly despised, legally and socially marginalized and indentured as a class of disposable servants in western cultures. They are finally opting out. Meanwhile, the rest of our society is crapping it’s collective pants. Social conservatives recognize that men abdicating their role as disposable labor, money and sperm dispenser have the potential to collapse national economies. These so-cons are trying with growing desperation to shame them back onto the treadmill.
Some opponents of the growing phenomenon of “Free-Range-Men” (term coined by Zed on The Spearhead) will dismiss the characterization of feminist panic as a desperate attempt to shame men into “going back to paying for women’s shit and being disposable”.
This dismissal is easy to evaluate. Penny Nance – the CEO of “Concerned Women of America” said in an interview on Fox News “ Concerned women for America is the nation’s largest public policy organization and we love men. We support men and we’re rooting for them – we think they’re an essential part of the American family. However we want them to feel the pressure to achieve , to put down the remote, to go find a job, to get their education, to build their faith and character” (emphasis mine) … “so walk away from the remote and get busy guys.”
Nance stated clearly she knows that men are walking away from the traditionally allowed role as protector and provider, adding: “we need them, all the social science together points to the fact that dads are essential in the home, they’re essential in the family. We want them to do a great job now, when they’re young learning how to provide, so that when they are dads they can really be there for their families.”
Men opting out are characterized as if this is failure to grow up, or Peter-Pan syndrome – and this is where even alert members of the media are missing the picture.
Men opting out have not failed to grow up, in fact, they’re to be admired as the only self actualized, and self defined men in our culture. They’ve seen through the smog of lies used to con “real men” into the destructive role as feminism’s enablers and enforcers. For increasing numbers of these men, the shaming language, Peter-pan-syndrome accusations and “man up” rhetoric is actually a source of entertainment.
[quote style=”boxed” float=”right”]Under any label, I do know that proponents and adherents of big feminism, along with established social conservatives and traditionalists, while they don’t fully grasp the MRM or free-range men – they are terrified by us, and with good reason. [/quote] Whatever you chose to call them, zeta males, Free-Range-Males (FRMs), or grass-eating-boys, the panicky flapping of feminists, white knights, and other subspecies of social conservatives is hilarious to these men going their own way. The hilarity of those complaining about “boy-men” comes from watching them struggle to grasp cause and effect in shifting social landscape populated by a growing culture of free-range-men who cannot be controlled by any traditional carrot or stick.
These are men who are a self educating and organizing force of opposition to traditional social conventions which have rendered “men” as disposable beasts of burden.
Until this point in the discussion, I’ve been referring to variously named zeta males in the third person – as “them”. However, I’m one of these men, and have arrived at my present self identification through self education and participation in the still- early stage men’s rights movement; a social phenomenon which may take on a wholly new character and name.
Under any label, I do know that proponents and adherents of big feminism, along with established social conservatives and traditionalists, while they don’t fully grasp the MRM or free-range men – they are terrified by us, and with good reason. The established feminist-social-conservative framework has served to benefit, protect, and elevate women at the expense of male self actualization, and male lives. We are changing that landscape to suit ourselves, but not by educating anyone in the mainstream – or by convincing the blue pill public that male human beings are indeed also humans rather than appliances. These changes are the natural byproduct of the simple existence of a growing culture of self-actualized men.
“Manning up”, as social commentators in mainstream media would characterize it is a sick racket with no benefit except approval from a public who discount the humanity of men in favour of male utility. Refusal to buy into this worthless game requires no apology. The bleating and ridicule from anyone attempting to impose an “correct” definition of acceptable masculine identity or action is rightly treated by Free Range Men with amused contempt. To these slow moving ideologues, I’ll offer one suggestion: Cry some more.
