ROMNEY WORDSWORTH - Women already complain that a good man is hard to find, and the plaintive query of: “Where have all the good men gone?” is often heard. Well, if you are a woman 25 or younger today, buckle up, because the hunt for a marriageable man is going to get much, much worse very soon indeed. There are three emerging trends; one social, one political, and one technological, that are rapidly converging to create a “perfect storm” to capsize your marriage plans.
The Social Trend: Exit MGTOW, Stage Right.
If you haven’t heard of the acronym MGTOW before, you will be hearing it soon. It stands for Men Going Their Own Way, and it is emerging all over the Western World as the hottest new men’s social movement. It is the social equivalent of Eric Cartman from the cartoon series South Park saying: “Screw you guys, I’m going home.” MGTOW adherents are men who have given up on the institution of marriage, and of even trying to date women, or maintaining a relationship with women in general. In Japan they are called “herbivores”. But the movement is also strong and growing in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Western Europe. It exists pretty much everywhere that Cultural Marxism in the guise of Feminism is attacking traditional social structures like marriage and courtship. A common symbol for the movement is a highway sign showing a right turn exit off a highway.
The image symbolizes men exiting off from the expectations of our “gynocentric” society, expectations that say that men must marry women and then subsume and subordinate themselves and their fortunes to the maintenance of women and children. Another common meme used in MGTOW thought and philosophy borrows from the movie “The Matrix”. MGTOW commentators commonly refer to themselves as having taken the “red pill”. This symbolizes having checked out of the matrix of “gynocentric” society. Men who haven’t embraced MGTOW as a philosophy are referred to as “Blue Pills” or “Manginas” (I don’t really have to explain that last one, do I?) MGTOW complains about “gynocentrism” in much the same way that Feminists complain about the “patriarchy”. Gynocentrism posits that women control society, control politics, and have rigged the rules of society against men and in favor of women. In support of this view, MGTOW points to unfair and harsh divorce laws that leave men penniless, prevents men from having a continuing relationship with their children post-divorce, and at the same time puts men in indentured servitude to support their ex-wives in lavish lifestyles. They also point to changes in the workplace, in education, and in political correctness instituted by Feminists that accommodate women’s preferences at the expense of those of men. But most of all, it is marriage and divorce that MGTOW has the biggest beef with.
This argument is not without merit. Divorce laws are such a raw deal for men that it has become conventional wisdom that they disfavor men and nobody really tries to deny it. Consider that under Alimony and Child Support Guidelines, men are held to have “imputed income”. What this means is that the court system does not look at what the man actually makes for a living, but what the court deems the man should be able to earn. Thus, if an out-of-work attorney is dumped by his wife, the court will deem the man capable of earning $50,000 to $75,000 a year salary, even if he can’t actually secure such an income. There is no due process hearing regarding this issue. Alimony and Child Support obligations are then computed on the imputed salary, a state of affairs guaranteed to put the man into arrears immediately. These arrears can then be used to imprison him, creating a de facto debtor’s prison. These ideas of imputed income were instituted after Feminists complained that some men would ditch their jobs and reduce their income in order to lower their support obligations. As a result, many more men who can’t meet their imputed income expectations wind up with warrants for their arrest and find themselves imprisoned.
At the same time, the divorce process awards custody of children to mothers as a near default setting. A woman has to really screw up, like having serious substance abuse issues or a criminal history, to lose custody battles. The family courts will not lift a finger if a woman unreasonably withholds visitation with children from her ex-husband, even if he is meeting all of his financial obligations. Enforcement is an entirely one way street against men and in favor of women. Alimony and Child Support were also introduced into the divorce laws for the benefit of women, and to keep the maintenance costs of divorced women off of the State and remain on the backs of men. Traditionally, keeping women from becoming wards of the State was accomplished by not making divorce easy to obtain. No Fault Divorce was also brought about by the Feminist Movement, who wanted women to easily escape from marriage, while at the same time keeping ex-husbands on the hook to support women. It is no surprise that women by far outstrip men these days in being the party to file for a divorce.
If this were a commercial partnership agreement, would you agree to such terms for the dissolving of a partnership? No, you’d say that is crazy. A law professor (from Oklahoma) I once took a course with was fond of saying: Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. Men naturally want to have relationships with women, to take wives in marriage and have children. Men naturally are reluctant to complain. So you know things have gotten very bad indeed if men are now moving in greater and greater numbers away from marriage, and refusing to enter it. But the radical feminists just had to keep turning the screws on men tighter and tighter, until men had to cry out in pain and agony and say: Enough! No More! In their zeal to make marriage a better deal for women, the Feminists now risk destroying marriage altogether. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. There are just too many men out there now whom are themselves products of divorced parents and whom have sworn to themselves that they are not going to go through what their fathers went through. MGTOW says to men: Stop being a chump. Hold on to your incomes, savings, homes and happiness. Do not be a slave to a woman, get off the marriage and divorce treadmill and pursue your own happiness.
The MGTOW critique of the modern, post-feminist Western woman is largely a negative one. It posits that women are inherently selfish, hedonistic, and manipulative, and that Feminism has brought out these traits to an unhealthy degree. MGTOW holds that women use men for their utility, and that divorce laws make it easy for women to “climb the ladder of utility”, moving up to more and more successful men who offer greater and greater utility, disposing of each prior male partner, and profiting richly in the process. Utility is anything from changing a light bulb, unclogging a toilet, fixing a car, to a fat wallet that can fund a lavish lifestyle. Anything that is unpleasant and dirty to do, women expect men to do it. Under the MGTOW critique, women solve their problems by getting men with utility to take care of those problems for them. Children are used by women to chain men down and subordinate their income and resources to support the woman.
I know what you’re thinking at this point: Not All Women Are Like That. The NOWALT, as she is referred to in MGTOW philosophy, is hotly debated as to her existence. Some MGTOW adherents insist NOWALT’s are real, while others say they are mythical creatures, like unicorns.
But what women looking to marry need to take away from this discussion is just how far relations between men and women have soured and become so toxic. So toxic, in fact, that growing numbers of men are adopting this worldview about women. It is being fed by a persecution complex that men are feeling these days. As we will see in Part 2 of this series, the Political Trend known as Radical Feminism is giving men legitimate reasons to feel persecuted by, and estranged from, women.