MGTOW have good reason to avoid women. Those who fund misandry have unmitigated gall in condemning them.
Remember “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle?”
Popularly credited to feminist icon Gloria Steinem, the slogan embodied the insouciance and independence claimed by Second Wave feminists. Women could get along just fine without men (though not without their tax money, as it turned out—more on this later) and lesbian feminists like Adrienne Rich (in “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”) explicitly called on all women to withdraw their caring from men as an act of female solidarity.
Nice, eh?
Anyone who objected to the anti-male rhetoric was dismissed as an apologist for patriarchal oppression (‘Do you have a problem with equality?’), and generations of young women were given the message that wanting to love and be loved by a man was a betrayal of the sisterhood. What else was one to make of Professor of Law Catharine MacKinnon’s claim, in her 1989 essay for the journal Ethics, that “The major distinction between intercourse (normal) and rape (abnormal) is that the normal happens so often that one cannot get anyone to see anything wrong with it” (p. 336-337).
For decades, feminists in Canada have been given a free pass to vilify men as a group. In 1978, women’s groups held the first “Women Reclaim the Night” march in downtown Vancouver. It was a raucous, aggressive, property-destroying affair culminating in the symbolic murder of a stuffed male “Rapist” mannequin who was “literally stomped to shreds” by woman warriors.
In 2012, a cadre of gender studies righteous nearly succeeded in shutting down a lecture by Dr. Warren Farrell on “The Boy Crisis” at the University of Toronto; after tearing down the event posters and blocking the building entranceways, they demonstrated their concern for equality by screaming obscenities at those who had come to hear Farrell and giving the Nazi salute to the security officers at the event. Not surprisingly, their CUPE-supported actions prompted no public condemnation or attempt at discipline from university leadership.
In 2018, feminist Meghan Murphy’s execrable Feminist Currents magazine featured an article by Julie Bindel titled “SCUM Manifesto is your Perfect Summer Vacay Read,” encouraging readers to “Bone up on your righteous man-hating this summer by rereading Feminist Classic SCUM Manifesto.” The SCUM Manifesto is a book by would-be male exterminationist Valerie Solanas, who after publishing her screed attempted to murder Andy Warhol.
In 2019, when Egyptian-American feminist Mona Eltahawy gave public talks outlining her fantasy of vigilante attacks in which “a certain number of men” would be killed every week, Canada’s state broadcaster, the CBC, gave her a respectful interview.
Women’s threatening and dehumanizing rhetoric has been tolerated, even celebrated, for decades in this country.
So it is rather rich, now, five decades into the feminist revolt, to see pundits and political commentators huffing and puffing in outrage about MGTOW, dubbed a “misogynist men’s rights movement” or a “far-right misogynistic online movement,” and calling on newly-minted Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre (who, alas, seems eager to oblige) to disavow them. MGTOW stands for Men Going Their Own Way, and it was a happy day for the mainstream feminist-left when Global News allegedly discovered that Poilievre’s team had tagged many of his videos with the acronym.
The hypocrisy is off the charts.
It’s doubtful that any of the commentators getting on their high horses knows anything about MGTOW except the hysterical nonsense feminists have cooked up. MGTOW is not an official movement, far less an “organization,” as Poilievre mistakenly called it. It has no recognized leadership, no designated spokespersons, no political program, no lobbying power, and no public presence. It is not actually interested in “men’s rights” except to point out that men don’t have any. It has no philosophical connection with incels. It is basically a loose (mainly online) affiliation of men who have decided to check out of women’s lives.
Aren’t feminists always saying that they want men to stop dominating them, subjugating them, pestering them, harassing them, controlling them, and making them uncomfortable? That’s what MGTOW are all about.
In general, MGTOW minimize contact with women, avoiding marriage, cohabitation, and even simple close interaction with any woman who might, with the support of the Canadian state apparatus, lie about or exploit them for personal gain.
Some MGTOW are rebuilding their lives after a divorce that destroyed them emotionally and financially; some are still paying child support for children they haven’t been allowed to see in years. Some MGTOW seek to withdraw their services and tax money from a society they regard (with good reason) as dangerous. Recognizing that all government ministries, every university, every police force, the entire social services industry, the censors in Big Tech, and the totality of the criminal and family court system have been captured by anti-male ideologues, these men speak to other men online about how to protect themselves.
In short, men who “go their own way” have decided that they need women even less than the mythical fish needed its wheeled transport.
Are any of these men “anti-women,” as accused groper Justin Trudeau alleges? Sure, probably, surprise, surprise. Let’s condemn all who promote group hatred. But most of these guys don’t hate: they’re simply tired of being told they’re “toxic” year after year while their hard-earned tax monies fund government programs to advantage women and demonize them. Many are fed up with being told they must take responsibility as men for crimes they have never committed and are powerless to prevent.
The latter happens every year, by the way, during the government-promoted 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (observed by every university in Canada and many unions and corporations), an event that condemns every type of violence (against women, girls, LGBTQ and gender-diverse individuals) except that against heterosexual men, even though the Canadian government’s own statistics show that men die from homicide in much higher numbers than women; and during which men are told that “Masculinity is at the heart of mass murdering,” as government-funded feminist activist Julie Lalonde stated emphatically in interview with Canada’s state broadcaster. The simple fact that violence doesn’t have a “gender” is one that feminist groups will do anything possible to hide from public awareness.
The salient difference between MGTOW and Canadian feminist groups is that MGTOW receives no funding or encouragement from any government entity in Canada, while vicious feminist organizations receive tens of millions of dollars every year to promote their anti-male platforms. At the end of 2020, for example, the Minister for Women and Gender Equality announced grants totalling one hundred million for programs to end “gender-based violence” against women and children (but nothing to aid male victims of violence). Such programs promote preposterous theories about male privilege, claiming that men are violent because they have power and because Canadian society allegedly condones their abusiveness. In reality, both men and women are violent for reasons based in childhood abuse, mental illness, poverty, and addictions.
Contrary to the panting media reports, men who go their own way have nothing in common with so-called incels (despairing celibates who complain online about their inability to find a girlfriend) or PUAs (pick-up artists who share and practice techniques for sexual success), two groups who are also constant targets of feminist fear-mongering. MGTOW simply want to live apart from women, protecting their freedom and their assets. If women put such a philosophy into practice—though few would have the balls or ability—Canadian media would never stop celebrating them as heroic role models.
I suspect that the Canadian government and feminist groups can’t stand the thought that some men will no longer allow themselves to be exploited.
And if MGTOW anger really is dangerous, it’s not at all clear how mandatory and knee-jerk disavowal by public figures will create a more inclusive and harmonious Canadian society. MGTOW already know that criticism of feminism and female behavior is forbidden in this country—because women almost always get a pass for their hateful language—while mass denunciations of men are perfectly acceptable.
If we are serious about reducing violence and online harassment, we might start by acknowledging that male victimization matters, and we should seek to understand, rather than further demonize, the marginalized men feminists love to hate.
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