Mr Patten passed away some time ago. We contunue to republish his articles for a new audience. –Ed
Right now, all over the world, millions of women are searching for a “good man.” Even after decades of effort on the part of the women’s liberation movement to empower women with the mantra, “I do not need a man,” they continue on this seemingly endless quest.
The process to find a good man begins early by assuring little girls that they’ll “meet a good partner one day”. Indeed, they seem to intuitively understand that someone, someday, will take care of them for the rest of their lives. They are told, “When you’re married, you’ll be happy,” as they bask in dreams of a fancy wedding and a life with a perfect soul mate. He’ll be masculine, he’ll work hard and he’ll earn enough money to care for his woman and for her children. He will be strong, intelligent, healthy and courageous – all the while being by her side for protection and support.
For men, however, it is a different story. We don’t ask for much. We like our women to be attractive. We like them to enjoy sex, and we like them to provide us with companionship. What we don’t want is for them to try to change us.
It is these dichotic extremes that lie at the root of the modern global gender liberation phenomenon. A dichotomy where women are driving good men away.
Women and Society
The fact is that women and society at large have systematically stacked mountains of needs, obstacles and expectations in front of us men, challenging us to measure up to impossible standards of masculinity at every stage of our lives. Boys fend off schoolyard bullies, teenage males strut their stuff, and men feel compelled to protect females from even the slightest random belligerence. We are like cub scouts consigned to, among other things, helping little old ladies cross the street to earn our “real man” badge.
For the most part, women’s studies, gender studies and society at large skirt around male suicide and other related issues. But this must stop. It is time to zero in on who – and what – is corralling men into the destructive confines of hegemonic masculinity.
One obvious question is this: Where is the relentless demand for the “good man” coming from? In truth, this gender “policing” abomination is perpetrated by everyone, whether they are aware of it or not. It reflects a gynocentric society rife with the crumbling artifacts of institutionalized patriarchy. But that is not the whole story. Most of the time, those we love most – especially the women many of us spend our lives chasing – place this straightjacket of idealized masculinity on us. They are a favorite object of love and desire and in return, they expect stereotypical masculine perfection. Many hold dear those things that will elevate partners to “good man” status. Our girlfriends, wives and significant others wield this power over us like a sword, or they leave us with hurdle after hurdle to jump over.
Relationships Between Men and Women
One day every young girl grows up and finds her true love, a good man, and an exclusive relationship ensues. The couple becomes entangled and sometimes will marry. Suddenly the man’s responsibilities and demands skyrocket. Some men undoubtedly love the challenges of manhood and they experience a certain male pride when they assume responsibility for looking after a woman for the rest of her life. But for others, the burden of living up to an idealized version of manhood often leads to great stress and intense feelings of shame, anxiety, depression, and in extreme cases, suicide. These marital burdens have created an escape phenomena for many men.
Women often try to control their man by slapping, hitting, and throwing him out of their homes. Oddly, society and even many men seem to approve of this abuse. In fact, some of us do not seem to care if loving a woman is dangerous. It seems that for many females, the fear of male domination echoes incessantly inside their heads. To dodge male authority, women go on the offensive and begin subjugating and manipulating men to ensure that they won’t be oppressed.
They also try to hammer us into submission with their words. They’ll say things like, “He’s a little boy who needs to grow up and act like a man.” They make us feel guilty and shame us with ridicule. Another common refrain is, “If you were a real man, you’d…”, along with other self-serving diatribes like, “If you love me you’d man-up, earn more and help me at home”.
The woman’s weapon of choice is a sharp tongue. While the things they say might smack of moral authority and loving concern, they often cut deeper than physical violence. The intent is to strike at our inherent male core. Many women are experts at inflicting pain through words alone while others rely on tactics like bickering and nagging to stoke our insecurity even more. This has the potential to force even the most independent and self-assured of us to cower—or worse. As an example of how critical this issue has become, a 2014 study found that verbal abuse was often a catalyst for husband suicides.
Male Fear
Our worst fear is being seen as something other than male. We can be humiliated and devastated by any suggestion that, because of passivity or effeminacy, we might be like a woman. We live in perpetual anxiety about being considered weak, gay, unfit or “unmanly”; it is our Achilles’ heel. When women demand that we be a “real man,” our adrenaline spikes; when they shout, “Man-up!” we become agitated. When they undermine our masculinity, our pride is destroyed.
And yet, women are the ones who are often afraid. They are so frightened by our powerful maleness that they command us to submit. But many women don’t seem to grasp the emasculating impact that their abuse can have. Lacking our biology, they cannot understand our emotions at their most primal level. They only see that we react and comply. They have no real understanding of the damage their reckless behavior can cause.
The Role of the Women’s Movement
We should not have to succumb to the shackles placed on us by the women’s rights and social justice movements either. In theory, these hugely successful campaigns were intended to level the playing field between men and women. In reality however, many have been hijacked by extremists and then misinformed for nefarious purposes. While these hardline activists try to make their mission sound noble, their words often betray then, as evidenced by the popular media battle cries below:
“R.E.S.P.E.C.T.”…“I am woman”…“Hear me roar”…“Ladies first”…“This is a woman’s world”…“Nobody can hold us down”…“She dominates all access”… “You don’t own me”…“We run this mutha”… “If you like it, put a ring on it”…“Who runs the world? GIRLS!”
Over time, the drive for equality has been transformed into a crusade for female advantage and a strategy for imposing their worldview on men. Women have been given special rights and they’ve signed misguided legislation into law – legislation that benefits them at our male expense. Many of these so-called women’s movements have devolved into full-fledged man-hating struggles for gender supremacy, inspiring a significant backlash.
The Role of Sex
Unfortunately, our biological imperatives make things complicated and difficult. Even when women’s demands are entirely unreasonable, most of us will comply because we are motivated by powerful and instinctual urges, most notable of which is our male sex drive. It is still not clear why society views this as an acceptable form of coercion and something used for the purpose of harnessing masculinity’s unruly nature.
Once our male sexual appetite is triggered, we kowtow into submission, potentially sacrificing our long-term health and financial wellbeing by clinging to the false belief that physical intimacy is our reward for being “good.” We are not just compelled to ‘save the women and children first’. In many respects, we have become “vagina beggars”. Like lemmings, we follow a dangerous and potentially disastrous course. We have become imprisoned, and women hold the key.
Liberation and Discovering Happiness
As Bob Dylan once wrote, the times they are a-changin’. Years of submission to abusive treatment and acquiescing to unrealistic expectations have taken their toll, and many of us are starting to ask some very pointed questions. Do we deserve to be treated like workhorses? Are we supposed to sit back and become totally marginalized, similar to how males in certain matriarchal African villages were relegated by the female leadership to the lowest rungs of the social ladder? Will we become nothing more than “manginas,” capriciously and carelessly manipulated at the whims of our female overlords?
For millions of us, the answer to those questions is a resounding “no!” Good men around the world have decided to go their own way, and like us, they understand that there is nothing wrong with men or masculinity. They understand that they do not need to be schooled by women nor do they need to be enslaved to the family with little reward. A tsunami of male sovereignty is sweeping across our planet and we are grabbing the sword of opportunity to enlighten ourselves.
This growing movement of masculine awareness goes by many names – MGTOW, the Red Pill and Herbivore men. This new paradigm is helping us to understand our true selves, our unique assets and the techniques we can employ to end our toxic entanglements with women. We’re learning how to liberate ourselves from a primitive and self-destructive social order. We’re speaking out and helping to empower others to break free from the bonds of the biased relationship expectations of love, marriage and myopic monogamy – expectations that are enforced with female violence.
A New World
Gloria Steinman recently asked on Real Time with Bill Maher, “What’s wrong with people using their talents and doing what they want?” As men, we want that liberation as well. For many of us, this is a new and exciting environment, and it’s quickly changing for the better. It is a world where we can finally do what we want and work at the things that we love.
It doesn’t matter whether we enjoy tinkering with automobiles, flying kites, dancing in a ballet, playing sports or prepping ourselves so that we may, by choice rather than compulsion, become leaders, inventors and creators. We seek to express and enjoy our innermost interests and talents, rather than toil endlessly in the pursuit of a life of inequality and lopsided relationships. We are realizing our right to define who we are, and we are choosing our higher purpose.
As men, we are amazing; we have the qualities and drive to change the world. Only now, it is our own decision to make. No longer condemned to live a life dictated by women and their obsolete restrictions, we can shed the debilitating confines of social expectation and truly relish the fruits of our labors. It is time to unleash the full potential of men in our society. A life of freedom and happiness awaits us!
