A special note to the women who own, operate, and especially the women who read The Good Men Project: you’re becoming as irrelevant as Feministing.
In terms of overall traffic to the site, Feministing was passed up earlier this year by A Voice for Men. Now Good Men Project is in our rear view mirror, too.
The web site known as The Good Men Project started a few years ago with something on the order of a half million dollars of seed money, advertisers, and a paid staff of fairly significant size. Ostensibly set up to discuss men’s issues, the project was dogged from the beginning by gender ideologue sensitivities, and over time has deteriorated into nothing but the same stale pap we’ve come to expect from most mainstream media outlets: fawning over women, and mewling apologism for the supposedly inferior character of the average male today. The message wasn’t, as some of us hoped, about what’s good about men. Oh no. It’s become pretty obvious what it really is: turning young men into a “project,” to shame and goad men to be “good,” as in “good little lapdogs who never offend anyone, especially women.”
Indeed, as time went on, The Good Men Project only got worse, as the voices of women, as well as men, who are in any way critical of modern feminist discourse, or who just plain defend the right of men to be themselves without apology, were shown the door. Those who actively defend males and maleness routinely have their submissions rejected, and even the voices of women who are critical of the demonization of men and the infantalization of women are quietly purged from the records. Anything that might offend the dominant gender discourse is verboten at The Good Men Project, and it shows very well to anyone who bothers to look. Despite its editor’s claims to the contrary, open advocacy for males and criticism of dominant feminist ideology, let alone any sort of criticism of modern women, is taboo at The Good Men Project.
Indeed, the “let’s not hurt anyone’s feelings except men’s” deterioration of The Good Men Project shows so well that yesterday, A Voice For Men, having already blown past media darling Jessica Valenti’s Feministing earlier this year, just passed the well-funded Good Men Project in the Alexa worldwide rankings as well. A Voice for Men is now more than the the #1 men’s advocacy group on the internet, and the #1 men’s advocacy site in the world. I mean yeah, sure, we’re both of those things. But we’re also now better trafficked than gynocentric, man-shaming sites like The Good Men Project even though they have far more mainstream media respectability and funding clout. Even though we work on nothing but donations and with more than 90% of our work done by volunteers, we’ve blown past “professional” publications working with venture capital and ad revenues and fawning writeups in major mainstream publications.
Now why is that, Feministing readers? Why is that, you women of The Good Men Project?
You may wonder why I keep mentioning the women of The Good Men Project. Well my dears, there’s a reason: if you’re a woman who reads The Good Men Project, that makes you typical of their readers. While you sit there wondering where all the “good men” are, and hoping to find them at TGMP, you’re spending most of your time with your fellow women. As a rule men don’t give a damn about The Good Men Project. For the most part, it’s mostly just written for, and read by, women like you.
A look at the publicly available data on The Good Men Project shows the damning truth: most of their readers are well-educated, female, and childless. Not that it’s shameful to be educated, or childless, or female. But that’s who most of you are. Even those of you who have children are likely single mothers. And that paints a very sad picture for you, and everyone who bothers reading that site, because it tells us the likely reality: you’re mostly a bunch of women wishing you had good men in your life, and hoping they will help you find one, or will help you somehow mold the men in your life like pieces of clay until they become the men you want.
I hate to break it to you, honey, but: it won’t work. The Good Men Project is pandering to you. They’re telling you what you want to hear, what you want to believe, rather than telling you the truth. They want to tell you you’re a poor persecuted victim, who is at the same time as good as or better than any man at anything, and that men who don’t measure up to your standards are inferior. Meanwhile, most men won’t bother even hanging around, because all the Good Men Project says to men is that their experiences, needs, dreams, and ambitions mean nothing, or are only meaningful when they meet female approval, and that men must subordinate their interests and their feelings to the feelings and interests of women like you.
And most of all, they expect men to apologize to women, for anything women happen to be irritated about at the moment.
Like Feministing, the Good Men Project doesn’t give a damn about telling young women that relationships are truly a two-way street. Yes, men should care what women want, but the wider culture already tells men that. It tells men that endlessly. And for the most part, historically, most men have always cared about women and what women want. What The Good Men Project won’t tell you (and what Feministing-style web sites especially won’t tell you) is that what men want matters every bit as much as what you want, and men are sick and tired of apologizing for saying what they want. They’re also sick and tired of having to lie when they’re asked about it.
In fact, arguably, in the current legal and cultural climate, what men want may matter more than what women want. Why? Because the world is full of single women whining that they can’t get a “good man,” but is also full of men who are increasingly saying “fuck it” and not caring. When faced with the fact that men are increasingly indifferent at best, ideologues of various stripes respond to by trying to shame men into being what men are “supposed” to be–supposed to be according to the ideologues–rather than doing the sensible thing and just asking those men to honestly say what they want, and asking them to be honest about why they no longer seem to give a damn what the world in general, or women in particular, want from them.
Almost no one ever just asks men this–or when they do ask, it’s a loaded question they’re afraid to answer. The browbeating gets old, and most men want no part of it.
Indeed, gender ideologues often grossly mischaracterize what modern men say about their experiences, stereotyping the crap out of them and never even bother apologizing for it. Oh, but it’s not just “liberal” feminists who are in the business of trying to shame men into being what they want them to be, conservative ideologues love doing it too.
Now put yourself in men’s shoes: why wouldn’t you say “screw that and screw you” too?
Let’s face it, you ladies of The Good Men Project (because, once again, we know most of you are women; men mostly don’t read The Good Men Project, because they have no reason to): in this society, being female makes you the privileged one. Schools have greased the skids to make your life easier, workplaces all over the country have greased the skids to make your hiring and promotion easier than it is for men, laws and policies are in place everywhere to protect your delicate sensibilities, and still all you can do is whine about how tough your life is and how oppressed you are because of the choices you made.
Nobody gives a damn about men’s higher unemployment, men’s higher suicide rate, men’s higher work-related death and injury rates, men’s downward spiral in education, men’s growing health decline compared to women, men’s desires, men’s civil rights in family and criminal courts, or the children who desperately need their fathers but are denied them by selfish single mothers and a socipathic family court system, or the men in debtor’s prison who are broke and destitute and put there at the hands of a system that doesn’t care and claims to be acting in “the best interests of the children.” No one over at The Good Men Project much wants to talk about any of that if they can avoid it. They don’t much want to talk about paternity fraud either, even though it’s another good reason why a sensible man should think twice before even having sex with you, let alone a relationship.
Even when these people grudgingly admit that there’s a problem with fathers not being around their children, no one wants to talk much about women’s role in that, even though it’s patently obvious to anyone with a brain that the #1 thing keeping most men away from their own children is those children’s mothers. Well, that and a family court system that enables psychopath mothers to get away with such child abuse. (Those courts enable other kinds of child abuse too. By the way, did any of these sites you’re reading ever tell you women commit most child abuse and most child homicides? I imagine not. But they do you know. Does telling you that hurt your feelings? Ask yourself why, and why it should matter that it hurts your feelings if it happens to be true. And it does happen to be true. So much for the brutal man stereotype, huh?)
No, no one you’re reading over at The Good Men Project dares speak up about these things, or if they do it’s only in the most delicately couched, careful, “sensitive” terms designed to “protect” you from thoughts and ideas and facts you may need to hear about. And why are they so cautious about bringing these things up so carefully, if they bother to bring them up at all? Because the person who cares least about these things apparently, is you. They assume that about you anyway. They assume you would prefer to believe that men are the privileged class, when for decades now it’s been the other way around. In fact, if you’re like the typical reader of the Good Men Project, you’re female, under 35, and have lived in a world not just of legal equality but of legal superiority for your entire life. Which may come as a shock to you, but is true nonetheless. And they assume you’ll be incensed at being told that, and avoid bringing it up.
They don’t really think much of you when it gets right down to it, do they?
Now here’s an interesting thing the statistics also show: not only is A Voice for Men now a more popular site than The Good Men Project (or the even more irrelevant, man-hating site Feministing): A Voice for Men actually has more gender symmetry.
That’s right, there’s a bigger female readership at A Voice for Men than there is male readership at The Good Men Project. AVfM also has a boatload more female readers than a lot of feminist web sites, in raw numbers if not percentages. Most of our readers are in the same age range as The Good Men Project, 18-35. The big difference is, The Good Men Project is mostly read by women like you, whereas A Voice for Men is mostly read by men, but is also read by a lot more women than any other genuine men’s advocacy site and more women than a ton of “gender neutral” sites. In fact we’ve even got better gender symmetry than internet giants like Reddit, let alone any feminist web site or any pseudo-men’s site like The Good Men Project.
How is it possible that the ragtag group of volunteers working in their spare time that make up the staff at A Voice for Men has managed to not only eclipse these much higher profile, much better funded enterprises, and is full of the young, theoretically eligible men who rarely go to The Good Men Project? And how is it further possible that a good third of us over here are also women? What’s the difference?
I’ll tell you what the difference is: we respect men and have compassion for who men and boys really are, not for how you want them to be. Moreover, unlike feminist web sites that pretend to be for men but aren’t, we actually respect women. We respect them, and we show that respect by telling them the truth, rather than convenient lies–convenient lies that may make you feel better about yourself but don’t actually do anything to make your lives, or men’s lives, better.
See, here at A Voice for Men, we don’t care about your feelings. We care about the truth. And if you don’t like hearing the truth, too bad. You’ve been sold a bill of goods, girls. A bunch of pernicious, man-hating lies: that men are privileged, men are pigs, men are greedy, men are rapists, men are sex-depraved, men are selfish, and oh, by the way, possibly the biggest whopper of all: that your grandfathers and great-grandfathers oppressed your grandmothers and great-grandmothers.
Truth: men, especially young men, have heard this line of lies about themselves, their fathers, their grandfathers, their great-grandfathers, their uncles, and so on their whole lives, and have had it pounded into their heads since they were children that women by nature are morally superior, and they’re calling bullshit: you aren’t any better than us. It’s a lie, and because of that lie, we increasingly do not give a damn what you think or what you want. What young men want is the truth, and these days, the truth is often ugly. Deal with that as reality, and maybe you can be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Young men are sick of being told what you want. They’ve had what you want browbeaten into them since they were tiny children. And they are increasingly looking at modern women like you and wondering what the hell you have to offer–and if that doesn’t become apparent in short order, they conclude that you’re good for nothing except maybe casual sex, and maybe not even that.
Oh, did that sound sexist? Did that hurt your feelings? Too bad, it’s the truth, and until the people running places like The Good Men Project start actually asking men what they honestly think and what they honestly feel and what their honest experiences are, without sugar-coating it to protect your delicate feminine sensibilities, you’re going to be nothing but a bunch of sad, aging women wondering why you just can’t find a “good man” to be part of your life.
You want a slice of unvarnished truth? Those other sites didn’t have the balls to ask you the most important question of all, which is this: what is it about you that makes you worth it to any man?
And if you’re reaching for pat stereotype answers like “men want submission” and “men want obedience,” try again. That is not what most men are looking for. So stop assuming you know, and start actually asking. Shut your mouth and listen for a change, rather than assuming you know, or interrupting with arguments. Stop femsplaining, and just listen without interrupting, with your ears open and your mouth closed, and think about what you’re hearing without putting it through your ideological filters and stupid stereotypes.
This is a serious, non-rhetorical question: why should a man risk being with you when a false allegation from you can ruin his career and maybe land him in jail? Why should a man risk marrying you when the family courts will allow you to steal his children and turn him into “Uncle Dad” while you go off and find a new man you find more appealing, while he has to give up half his income to you and see and hear his children’s voices pretty much only when you feel like it, or once or twice a week? Why should he risk his health, his happiness, his emotional and spiritual and psychological and physical and financial well-being, possibly even his freedom and his fundamental human rights, just to make you happy until the end of his life, which will likely be much shorter than yours?
Why are you worth that risk?
And furthermore, if you can do a rational calculation and conclude that maybe you aren’t worth the risk to most men, what will you do about it?
Because calling men who look at the sorry state of legal and cultural affairs “misogynists” just because they recognize reality? It isn’t working anymore, and neither are a lot of the other old shaming tactics used to shut men up. Men don’t hate women–indeed, we arguably love women even when they don’t deserve it–and men don’t hate you in particular. Not most of you, anyway. But they look at what you have on offer, they look at the risks involved, and they ask themselves the frank question of whether or not you’re worth it.
By the way, if you’re getting your nose bent out of shape by such a frank, reasonable question? Odds are you probably aren’t worth it. Not for any sane man, anyway.
Indeed, if you aren’t woman enough to answer a blunt question without falling apart in tears because some man was mean enough to ask you an uncomfortable question, why would any sane person want to be with you at all?
Places like The Good Men Project and Feministing won’t ask you an “insensitive” question like “why are you worth the risk?” Because that would involve treating you like an adult. Those of us in the Men’s Human Rights Movement, on the other hand, will tell you the truth, and we’ll tell it to you without any lurid “trigger warnings,” and we’ll ask you tough questions without assuming you’re going to turn into a puddle of jelly or fuming, shrewish rage. Or we’ll treat such histrionics with the contempt such childishness deserves.
Because that’s how adults treat other adults who act like children.
So which did you want, convenient lies about female oppression and female superiority and male hegemony and brutality? More lies about having it all? More lies about how if your man isn’t neat enough or doesn’t achieve enough you shouldn’t feel bad about dumping him? More lies about how your needs matter more than his?
Or did you want to hear the truth, whatever the truth is? If what you want is the truth, come to the Men’s Human Rights Movement, and come on over here to A Voice for Men. Here, you will be treated like something no feminist web site will treat you like: an adult human being with agency and intelligence and the power to make your own choices and to take the responsibility for those choices. Here you get the respect that comes with being treated like an adult and being told the truth even if the truth is painful. You’ll get the respect of being told that the “good men” you’re looking for are all around you, they’re just living in a cultural and legal environment where you may just not be worth the risk of taking on as a girlfriend or wife.
And maybe, just maybe, you can even be a part of making that change.
It’s up to you of course. Let the losers of history, the “Good Men” Project and Feministing, keep telling you you’re oppressed and that if only men would twist themselves into a pretzel to please you the world would be a better place. Or you can join us, and help make the world a better place for both men and women, where there’s respect and compassion enough to go around for everybody. That’s up to you really.
Good Men Project and Feministing: in our rearview mirror. Next on our list: Jezebel. We’re coming for you too, girls. Have no doubt about it. You no longer hold a monopoly on the gender discourse. The Men’s Human Rights Movement is here, and growing. Better get used to it.
