Many theories exist as to why we are saddled with a gynocentric culture in which men, to put it simplistically, play the role of servant to women. The explanation people choose will determine whether they believe gynocentrism is a permanent or temporary fact of human existence, and will dictate how they are likely to respond to it.
The first explanation is one of biological determinism – that men have always kowtowed to women regardless of fluctuations in cultural habits, customs, taboos and beliefs. Our genes, according to this theory, make men little more than nerve reflexes primed to obtain sex with females and reproduce – that we must position ourselves as slaves in order to meet that end.
A more reasonable version of the biology hypothesis was proposed by Lester F. Ward in his “Gynæcocentric theory”1 which frames women as the dominant sex by dint of biology. Evolutionary Psychologists and Difference Feminists, who often collaborate,2 support this view via anthropological, zoological and other scientific evidence. The basic theory holds that in the underpopulated world of the past, wombs were a precious and key resource to human survival, hence a genetic predisposition toward gynocentrism was a survival advantage. With the current overpopulation, however, wombs are now plentiful and cheap but our biological predispositions still make us overvalue them – ie. a redundant gynocentrism is built into our nervous system at a time when overpopulation could wipe out our species.
Biological determinists conclude that extreme gynocentrism is a permanent feature of human existence, and thus abandoning interactions with women is the only viable option if men want to be free of it: we must drop out of male-female interactions in order to avoid inbuilt gynocentric reflexes.
A completely different explanation is that gynocentrism is an extreme cultural exaggeration of human potential, one that hasn’t played constantly throughout human history. This explanation leaves open the option to confront and potentially change gynocentric culture in the knowledge that it is not an inevitable fate for men to suffer.
The two perspectives above, one theory placing the accent on biology and the other on culture, have serious ramifications for how men conceptualize and responded to the problem – the one abandoning it, the other rejecting it and posing an alternative approach to male-female relations.
I personally wager that extreme gynocentrism, that which is based on chivalry and romantic love, is a novelty in the long walk of human evolution. And yet it doesn’t appear to be going away, at least not quickly, despite concerted efforts to dismantle it. What could be going on?
Why is gynocentrism still alive?
With the different approaches to understanding gynocentrism touched on, I’d like to use the rest of this article to deal with one question – how to destroy the beast.
I’d like to think it will come to an end through natural processes. Human beings possess inbuilt regulating mechanisms that work to achieve homeostasis in biological, psychological and social systems, and which tend to cull extreme behaviors when they interfere with the overall psycho-biological economy.
Gynocentrism is an example of an extreme, discord-creating behavior, and yet those innate balancing mechanisms do not seem to be culling it from our repertoire. Why is that?
One explanation is that media is censoring those voices calling, nay yelling, for homeostasis.
Everyone draws information from the environment, and especially from the media, to construct internal schemas of the external world. We create internal pictures of how things work. However, if the environment is not providing adequate data, or worse, something in the environment is actively censoring the available data, it severely weakens our ability to understand the world and to create a balanced way of moving through it.
Censorship of the media by gynocentrists is not new, but historically speaking appears to be the No.1 force blocking a change in gender culture.
Go back 200 years and newspapers were the dominant media which began with some remarkable examples of free speech. But as soon as criticism of gynocentrism increased, the censor army infiltrated – free speech in newspapers was crushed. Ernest B. Bax for example wrote;
When, however, the bluff is exposed… then the apostles of feminism, male and female, being unable to make even a plausible case out in reply, resort to the boycott, and by ignoring what they cannot answer, seek to stop the spread of the unpleasant truth so dangerous to their cause. The pressure put upon publishers and editors by the influential Feminist sisterhood is well known.3
And;
All parties, all sorts and conditions of politicians, from the fashionable and Conservative west-end philanthropist to the Radical working-men’s clubbite, seem (or seemed until lately) to have come to an unanimous conclusion on one point – to wit, that the female sex is grievously groaning under the weight of male oppression. Editors of newspapers, keen to scent out every drift of public fancy with the object of regaling their “constant readers” with what is tickling to their palates, will greedily print, in prominent positions and in large type letters expressive of the view in question, whilst they will boycott or, at best, publish in obscure corners any communication that ventures to criticise the popular theory or that adduces facts that tell against it. Were I to pen an impassioned diatribe, tending to prove the villainy of man towards woman, and painting in glowing terms the poor, weak victim of his despotism, my description would be received with sympathetic approval. Not so, I fear, my simple statement of the unvarnished truth.4
Later came TV, which dethroned the old tabloid censorship. The Federal Communications Commission (USA) began handing out broadcasting licenses in the early 1950s (with the highest concentration of license grants and station sign-ons occurring between 1953 and 1956), spurring an explosion of growth in the medium. Half of all U.S. households had television sets by 1955.5 With that advent, consider the success of Martin Luther King’s civil rights campaigning which spanned from 1955 (Montgomery Bus Boycott) through to the mid 1960s. Without TV it would not have happened. Unfortunately, forces of political correctness infiltrated public broadcasting too, applying censorship and eventually dominating TV culture completely.
In the 1990’s the new medium of the internet appeared and dethroned the old TV media with its censorship. This opened the door to thousands of revolutions gaining a voice, including the MRM & MGTOW, which have gained traction as cultural forces. But as usual, the cycle of → 1. New media technology → 2. subsequent cultural revolutions, and → 3. eventual feminist censorship, is playing out on the internet….. and we are entering the censorship phase of the cycle.
Those who say feminists will never succeed in censoring the internet are dreaming, and dare I say blind. It’s happening – Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Wikipedia, etc. all being taken over by feminist sensibilities and regulations. Free speech is experiencing a decline on most social media platforms.
The only avenue left is to grab our own domains and websites from which we can enjoy free speech, and to do it NOW before government regulators ask domain providers, hosting companies, and ISPs to institute onerous application criteria for the privilege. In short, give up on Youtube (etc) and grab a domain and website while you still can – social media is dying from censorship, and MGTOW, MRA and outspoken gamers etc will be its first casualties.
Despite the doom and gloom about impending censorship it’s not all bad news, far from it. The window opened by the internet has been seized upon and used to maximum effect. We have inserted a narrative on what gynocentrism is, what men’s issues are, and they’ve enjoyed considerable reach into the culture. Witness any comments section under an MSM article to gauge the new awareness of -and support for- these same issues. And the narrative is growing…
MHRAs, MGTOW, gamers, PUAs, antifeminists, and a growing coalition of everyday Joes, are poised to drive the nail deeper. We can continue to use social media -in spite of restrictive feminist guidelines- to drive the narrative home : gynocentrism is toxic and we want to to end. And those smart enough to grab their own domains and websites can come down harder with the message knowing there is no Hall Monitor to control our private soapboxes, at least not yet.
In fact let’s grow our private websites exponentially so they overshadow PC social media outlets and continue competing with them in the battle for cultural real estate.
This article began with a description of different ways of conceptualizing the origins of gynocentric culture, and the question was posed of why does gynocentrism continue to exist. We then looked at the transformations of mainstream media through recent centuries, noting how media is a double-edged sword, at times championing free speech, and at times censoring it, with the latter being a potential cause for gynocentrism’s longevity. Lastly was underlined how the internet currently gives voice to long suppressed thoughts, and of the need to make hay while the sun still shines – i.e. hopefully to make it shine longer and brighter. As long as we keep adding our story to mainstream media, and being the media, gynocentrism will atrophy and homeostasis will come.
References:
[1] Lester Frank Ward, Pure Sociology, (The gynæcocentric theory, pp. 296-376), published 1903.
[2] For examples of the growing marriage between Evopsychology and difference-feminism, see:
— — David Buss, Sex, Power, Conflict : Evolutionary and Feminist Perspectives
— — M. Fisher, J. Garcia, R. chang, Evolution’s Empress: Darwinian Perspectives on the Nature of Women
[3] Ernest Belfort Bax, The Fraud of Feminism, pp.1-2, published 1913
[4] Ernest Belfort Bax, Essays in Socialism New & Old, pp.108-119, published 1907
[5] History of American Television, Television in the United States
