Female commentary on so-called Passport Bros is not hard to find on the internet: women are angry, contemptuous, and incredulous that men are looking for women overseas and encouraging other men to do the same—not for sex tourism (which feminists loved to criticize until they discovered that women are doing it too, in which case it is acceptable), but for a long-term relationship, including, in many cases, marriage and children. These men will partially or entirely relocate to the women’s home country in order to start a new, non-western (and non-feminist) life. The angry internet women claim not to care personally: let the losers go is their expressed attitude. Yet the sheer number and vehemence of their responses suggests they do care.
The angry commentary follows a standard pattern in which the women claim to know why a significant minority of men are giving up on western women as mates. The reason never has anything to do, of course, with faults in western women or their unrealistic expectations (see Tyler Durden’s summation here).
Likewise, the reason never has anything to do with western divorce laws—in which a man can be ejected from his home, imprisoned, forced to undergo a psychiatric exam, fleeced, and deprived of his children by a grasping ex-wife—or with the fact that women are the ones who initiate divorce in upwards of 70% of cases (and are often applauded for doing so).
The reason has nothing to do with women’s openly expressed attitudes of superiority, resentment, and anti-male bigotry, which are rampant in western cultures, especially Anglophone ones. It has nothing to do with the #MeToo/Believe Women climate of baseless accusation that regularly sees men accused and disgraced purely on a woman’s say-so. It has nothing to do with the institutionalized discrimination of “equity” hiring that makes it difficult for men to find and advance in careers in order to be acceptably successful to the kind of women who now deride them for their failure.
According to the angry women online, men are leaving the west (particularly North America) to find partners because they aren’t good enough for western women. The men are allegedly “terrible, and don’t want to stop being terrible,” according to one gleefully irate commentator. Their only chance is with women so poor as to be grateful for a “terrible” man; in return, such women will have to “subject themselves to [his] advances,” according to another critic’s Victorian-style phrasing.
Always choosing the worst possible interpretation of the men’s actions, these women assume that a man who wishes to have a long-term sexual relationship with a woman is by definition a bad man wishing to exploit someone “unable to fight back.” The implication that sex is a form of degradation (thank you, Andrea Dworkin) and that “fighting back” is the sine qua non of the western woman suggests something of the western man’s plight.
Most of the angry commentary simultaneously mocks and accuses the men. Often it seems the women can’t decide whether to be outraged on behalf of the overseas women allegedly exploited, or whether to ridicule the men for having to get a passport in order to find a willing partner. Gales of laughter—with the women doubled over in giggles—are spent on men who mistakenly think they’re “so important” as to announce their “pathetic” decisions on YouTube.
In a clear act of psychological projection, such women assume that the men’s statements about going overseas are threats directed at western women. It doesn’t seem to occur that the men’s decision and choice to share it are not directed at them at all. Most men who take to the internet are speaking to like-minded men, having already concluded that western women aren’t going to change.
The question is: if these women don’t want these men for themselves (which they clearly don’t), why do they not send them out with a blessing? If such men may find a legal and consensual arrangement that suits them in the Dominican Republic or Thailand, why should western women worry about it?
(The question of whether the situation elsewhere is better for men cannot be decided here: men are exploited by women all over the world; but in some countries it may be possible for them to exert greater control over their lives (for an example, see YouTuber Mike’s pros and cons of Philippine life).
What seems to bother Passport Bros’ critics the most is the thought that the men are trying to get something that they don’t deserve: a chance at a sex life with a “submissive woman” (a phrase repeated in many of the videos) and a modicum of freedom. The mere thought of these men finding women willing to partner with them in exchange for long-term financial support drives the commentators into paroxysms of outrage. Their anger shows the deeply punitive mindset of many western women.
Let’s grant that some of what critics say may apply to some Passport Bros. Perhaps some of these men are seeking a (gasp) “transactional relationship” in the short or long term. Some of these men are indeed turned off by the volatility and “high standards” of western women. Tired of trying to please such women, they want a woman who will try to please them.
It’s a matter of opinion whether there’s anything contemptible in the above, yet it’s far from the whole story. Some of the men thinking of an overseas life have spent years fruitlessly searching for a happy marriage. The last thing they want is to exploit anyone. They want to love, marry, and perhaps raise a family. They want a long-term companion. They’re willing to work hard, compromise, provide. In some instances, they are reluctantly divorced, perhaps more than once, and can’t afford to get burned again. They’re willing to give up a comfortable life in the west for the one thing they believe will complete their lives. Misguided or not, there’s nothing abusive or creepy about them. Yet the women mock and condemn ceaselessly.
It seems that a large number of women can’t bear the thought of any man finding an escape route from the hell of sexual loneliness and daily contempt that many women—without knowing anything about the men—have already decided is men’s due. Such women are furious that Passport Bros are seeking something more than feminist culture allows.
They are also enraged, it seems, that there are women in other parts of the world consciously willing to make a relationship work: willing to cook and rear children, willing to be sexually available and perhaps generous with compliments.
The angry women know that, whatever they say about it, the existence of these women, and the fact that many men prefer them (even if they aren’t yet willing to go to Thailand), is a condemnation of western womanhood. The women won’t say so, of course, but some of them must suspect that it’s not their “independence” that the men can’t bear. It’s not their alleged intelligence, nor their career-mindedness, nor their liberated determination to “fight back.” It’s their mean-spiritedness, selfishness, and bottomless self-love.
A lot of men don’t care whether they find a “traditional” woman. They just want one who isn’t a bitch on a regular basis.
Sit in on any all-female beauty salon, coffee klatch, or women’s group, and the casual anti-male avowals are impossible to ignore. Many women don’t seem to like their husbands or partners very much; even fewer respect them. I’m not talking about feminist women only. Many non-feminist women act this way too. They are the women who loved it when Michelle Obama said that men needed to “Be better.” They’re women who applaud the classic female response to the question, “What do you bring to the table?” that “I am the table.”
Their attitude to their men combines weary forbearance with amused contempt, exasperation, or outright disgust. Many speak openly about husbands’ alleged ineptitude, mess, failures of manliness, need, incompetence, and emotional immaturity. They divulge embarrassing personal details and tell stories, with relish, showing their husbands in a poor light.
By contrast, they claim their own emotional power, allegedly superior practical sense, and indispensability.
It is impossible to imagine groups of men discussing their wives and girlfriends with such jocose belittlement, and doing it as a regular pastime.
A few years ago, I watched some videos by Cat and Nat, two self-styled Moms who “share everything,” who made videos in their cars about the collapse of their sexual interest, openly jeering at their husbands’ so-tiresome love-making.
Many such women—protected by our pro-woman culture and deferred to by men terrified of female wrath—reach adulthood without ever having received any serious criticism. If and when they are criticized, their response is a howl of outrage and wounded self-regard. This is precisely what is happening in reaction to the Passport Bros.
Underneath the anger, there is perhaps a hint of fear. It’s not fear that men will leave the west in droves (they don’t see that happening yet, and neither do I), but it’s fear that men are not, after all, entirely under female control. Not yet, and maybe never. Some men are sick of the anti-male abuse and starting to do something about it. They are critically examining women’s characters and attitude; they’re drawing back from the acquiescence they’ve always been expected (and been willing) to give. Some are walking away and telling other men to do the same.
These women are used to dishing out the denunciation, reveling in justified grievance; they are infuriated to find that now they are the ones being judged and found wanting.
Don’t be that girl.
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