Yes, feminism is for women. Only. Not men. We men should stop expecting feminism to say anything about men, but it kinda sucks that today's feminism denigrates men so much.
Women have no interest in gender equality, as you've noticed. Therefore, I think men can justifiably drop any public pronouncements regarding their interest in same. She's not gonna sleep with you, bro.
Men need to look after themselves, first and foremost. Can't conclude anything else at this stage of the game.
Men need to coach their brothers and sons to take 100% control of their own personal reproductive future. By that I mean, don't look at condoms etc as a negative, look at them as a positive: you will preserve your freedom by controlling where your sperm goes. The law and society aren't on your side, so you need to take control yourself. Don't leave your fate in the hands of others. Get a vasectomy if you can. Lobby your politicians for support of development of birth control for men.
Last, there's nothing wrong with being a Men's Rights Activist. Men need activists to support their legitimate causes, such as health, homelessness, suicide, workplace fatalities... I could go on.
I miss Farrell. I read his book in the 90s as a teenager and was waiting to join whatever movement he started, and then it never came. Apparently he even admitted Paul Elam had gotten more attention. I read a lot of the redpill stuff in the late 2000s and early 2010s but it seemed too extreme--they took clickbait feminism and switched 'men' and 'women'.
I had a slight variant on your story happen to me, and it was terrifying both how helpless I felt and how few fucks the women around me gave about the situation. My heart goes out to you.
Feminism was about liberating women at the top. Women at the bottom can go flip burgers at McDonald’s while their kid is SA’d in cheap child care. -
I am sorry, I have a lot to say and I appreciate this audio post but I’m sorry men are in the spot they’re in. Maybe men have to start realizing that other men put your balls in a jar, and too many men blame women. Trump has a whole political class of jars on his desk. Sometimes he shakes a jar to listen the jingle of other people’s inheritance that went straight to his pocket. Men can have babies till their 70’s. Forcing someone to have your baby is astounding unethical and barbaric. But so is feminism. I think I may be a total misanthrope at the point. I’ve yet to see any human advocate for anything new or better.
It’s more of the same, systems to propagate one owns genes. Just masculine women and men - competing. I think I’ll be a mermaid now. Walking on land was a mistake.
A good albeit long essay. But why are you still on the left? You can see how immoral feminism is, how much of a female supremacy movement it has become - they loathe the very idea of someone caring about men's issues. It's a hate movement and always was!
I don't really regard its adherents as immoral. I know too many of them personally to believe that. I think the movement achieved so much of what it initially set out to, it had to pivot somewhere and unfortunately chose 'men are trash' as that place. But I think that started as kind of harmless sitcom-y thing that morphed into an ideology and is now (for some) an identity. Advocating for women's needs is not something I have a problem with, and lot of the rank and file are still primarily there for that.
It really is a hard question, and is part of why I feel there is a level on dishonesty in the insistence of framing abortion as a women’s health issue.
I mean, yes, on some level it’s a health thing. The terrible stories of women who have been refused treatment and suffered or died because it runs foul of abortion laws are horrifying. I’m currently pregnant myself, and it’s an everyday revelation of what a genuinely huge thing it is for a body to do. The biological reality is that carrying a child is a crazy and sometimes risky thing for a woman to do, and the law should not be prioritising an unborn child over her own health.
But … that kind of skirts the issue, doesn’t it? The medical catastrophes are byproducts of the fact that these laws are drafted and supported and enforced by idiots, but the abortion of a brain-dead or fatally deformed fetus isn’t actually the scenario that bothers non-crazy voters. It’s the shocking reality of the personhood of that mystery floating being in the scan, and the horror that it can be snuffed out as a matter of personal preference. Which, ok, lots of people don’t share that horror, and why should they get to impose that on others anyway. But it’s logically hard to reconcile “women are fully entitled to abortion because nobody should have to raise a child they don’t want” with “men are always obligated to raise the children they don’t want.”
I don’t have a good answer here. A big part of me also rebels at the idea that a man should be able to walk away from a child he had responsibility for creating. We were so excited for this new age of individual rights, that we maybe lost sight of what those old-fashioned society norms were actually protecting. Are all mistakes fixable or reversible? I just don’t know and I suspect the goal is to just never confront the hard bits when we can just go back to “women’s health”
Okay, I have to ask; what do you take "well regulated" to mean in the context of the second amendment? The sentence structure alone seems to rule out the meaning that you're implying, but I suspect that's inconvenient for your argument, which is otherwise pretty good.
I've seen arguments that in the language of the time it meant something closer to 'equipped', but I actually don't think it matters either way because of the structure of the statement. "A well regulated militia..." isn't spelling out a right, it's describing the reason for one, "the right of the people..." is the operative clause.
Normally, this is exactly the sort of pedantic, unpersuasive argument I would advice other gun people to avoid, like correcting people on clips vs magazines or other technical differences, *but* you brought it up, and I've always found the liberal argument for this meaning to be incredibly thin.
Incidentally, have you ever really looked into guns and the Democrats? It's genuinely weird, as it's an issue they've been consistent on since before the parties switched, actually does have connections to the old black codes and Jim Crowe type of stuff, is largely bankrolled by a handful of urban plutocrats, etc, and yet is also seen as locking the party out of being competitive in rural areas. It really brings out a ton of contradictions in their views, as they'll argue to give literal murderers second chances while wanting to lock up people who didn't properly fill out the paperwork for the stock on their rifle, while progressive prosecutors refuse to use federal gunlaws against actual violent criminals. I understand that for the vast majority of people it's not a top tier issue, but the more you look the weirder it gets.
A couple points:
Yes, feminism is for women. Only. Not men. We men should stop expecting feminism to say anything about men, but it kinda sucks that today's feminism denigrates men so much.
Women have no interest in gender equality, as you've noticed. Therefore, I think men can justifiably drop any public pronouncements regarding their interest in same. She's not gonna sleep with you, bro.
Men need to look after themselves, first and foremost. Can't conclude anything else at this stage of the game.
Men need to coach their brothers and sons to take 100% control of their own personal reproductive future. By that I mean, don't look at condoms etc as a negative, look at them as a positive: you will preserve your freedom by controlling where your sperm goes. The law and society aren't on your side, so you need to take control yourself. Don't leave your fate in the hands of others. Get a vasectomy if you can. Lobby your politicians for support of development of birth control for men.
Last, there's nothing wrong with being a Men's Rights Activist. Men need activists to support their legitimate causes, such as health, homelessness, suicide, workplace fatalities... I could go on.
Get to know Warren Farrell.
I miss Farrell. I read his book in the 90s as a teenager and was waiting to join whatever movement he started, and then it never came. Apparently he even admitted Paul Elam had gotten more attention. I read a lot of the redpill stuff in the late 2000s and early 2010s but it seemed too extreme--they took clickbait feminism and switched 'men' and 'women'.
Just chiming in to say this is a fantastic piece.
I had a slight variant on your story happen to me, and it was terrifying both how helpless I felt and how few fucks the women around me gave about the situation. My heart goes out to you.
Sorry you went through that. It was a very hard time.
I can tell your personal passion for this issue. I wrote about this over a decade ago and the comments were not kind - but well worth reading if you want a glimpse into the lack of sympathy for men. https://www.evanmarckatz.com/blog/sex/should-men-be-forced-to-pay-for-children-they-didnt-want/
Boookmarked. Thanks!
Feminism was about liberating women at the top. Women at the bottom can go flip burgers at McDonald’s while their kid is SA’d in cheap child care. -
I am sorry, I have a lot to say and I appreciate this audio post but I’m sorry men are in the spot they’re in. Maybe men have to start realizing that other men put your balls in a jar, and too many men blame women. Trump has a whole political class of jars on his desk. Sometimes he shakes a jar to listen the jingle of other people’s inheritance that went straight to his pocket. Men can have babies till their 70’s. Forcing someone to have your baby is astounding unethical and barbaric. But so is feminism. I think I may be a total misanthrope at the point. I’ve yet to see any human advocate for anything new or better.
It’s more of the same, systems to propagate one owns genes. Just masculine women and men - competing. I think I’ll be a mermaid now. Walking on land was a mistake.
I really enjoy your writing. Thank you.
A good albeit long essay. But why are you still on the left? You can see how immoral feminism is, how much of a female supremacy movement it has become - they loathe the very idea of someone caring about men's issues. It's a hate movement and always was!
I don't really regard its adherents as immoral. I know too many of them personally to believe that. I think the movement achieved so much of what it initially set out to, it had to pivot somewhere and unfortunately chose 'men are trash' as that place. But I think that started as kind of harmless sitcom-y thing that morphed into an ideology and is now (for some) an identity. Advocating for women's needs is not something I have a problem with, and lot of the rank and file are still primarily there for that.
Really enjoy your Substack! And a big fan of your recorded articles—a great voice.
It really is a hard question, and is part of why I feel there is a level on dishonesty in the insistence of framing abortion as a women’s health issue.
I mean, yes, on some level it’s a health thing. The terrible stories of women who have been refused treatment and suffered or died because it runs foul of abortion laws are horrifying. I’m currently pregnant myself, and it’s an everyday revelation of what a genuinely huge thing it is for a body to do. The biological reality is that carrying a child is a crazy and sometimes risky thing for a woman to do, and the law should not be prioritising an unborn child over her own health.
But … that kind of skirts the issue, doesn’t it? The medical catastrophes are byproducts of the fact that these laws are drafted and supported and enforced by idiots, but the abortion of a brain-dead or fatally deformed fetus isn’t actually the scenario that bothers non-crazy voters. It’s the shocking reality of the personhood of that mystery floating being in the scan, and the horror that it can be snuffed out as a matter of personal preference. Which, ok, lots of people don’t share that horror, and why should they get to impose that on others anyway. But it’s logically hard to reconcile “women are fully entitled to abortion because nobody should have to raise a child they don’t want” with “men are always obligated to raise the children they don’t want.”
I don’t have a good answer here. A big part of me also rebels at the idea that a man should be able to walk away from a child he had responsibility for creating. We were so excited for this new age of individual rights, that we maybe lost sight of what those old-fashioned society norms were actually protecting. Are all mistakes fixable or reversible? I just don’t know and I suspect the goal is to just never confront the hard bits when we can just go back to “women’s health”
Okay, I have to ask; what do you take "well regulated" to mean in the context of the second amendment? The sentence structure alone seems to rule out the meaning that you're implying, but I suspect that's inconvenient for your argument, which is otherwise pretty good.
I've always understood it to mean 'organized' but am prepared to hear arguments to the contrary.
I've seen arguments that in the language of the time it meant something closer to 'equipped', but I actually don't think it matters either way because of the structure of the statement. "A well regulated militia..." isn't spelling out a right, it's describing the reason for one, "the right of the people..." is the operative clause.
Normally, this is exactly the sort of pedantic, unpersuasive argument I would advice other gun people to avoid, like correcting people on clips vs magazines or other technical differences, *but* you brought it up, and I've always found the liberal argument for this meaning to be incredibly thin.
Incidentally, have you ever really looked into guns and the Democrats? It's genuinely weird, as it's an issue they've been consistent on since before the parties switched, actually does have connections to the old black codes and Jim Crowe type of stuff, is largely bankrolled by a handful of urban plutocrats, etc, and yet is also seen as locking the party out of being competitive in rural areas. It really brings out a ton of contradictions in their views, as they'll argue to give literal murderers second chances while wanting to lock up people who didn't properly fill out the paperwork for the stock on their rifle, while progressive prosecutors refuse to use federal gunlaws against actual violent criminals. I understand that for the vast majority of people it's not a top tier issue, but the more you look the weirder it gets.