A well-written, thorough assessment that exposes a very real phenomenon and its resulting harms. And the relational aggression practiced by misandrists has become so effective as a result of too many people preferring silence over challenging it. Over time, silence makes problems like this one worse, as it cedes control, implies consent, and emboldens adversaries. The relational aggression problem has become increasingly visible, with the proliferation of women's programs and forums that explicitly exclude men (while equivalents for men are eliminated or obstructed, on dubious grounds).
Gynocentrism, misandry, and double standards must be recognized and challenged, or they grow like cancerous tumors. Silence and withdrawal achieve little. Learning from the tactics of feminists can help. Fortunately, we are starting to see a greater willingness to tackle unsafe questions like those mentioned above, including in mainstream outlets, but we still have a long way to go.
During the MeToo period, I shared my trauma on Facebook and was targeted with backlash that contributed to me losing my job. Around the same time, I was communicating with someone who shared a name with a coworker, which led to assumptions about my intentions. I later learned I had been accused of sexual misconduct, but I was never given clear details or a meaningful chance to respond. My difficulty communicating under stress was interpreted as intent rather than what it was: shutdown and overwhelm.
Across these situations, others repeatedly assigned thoughts and emotions to me that I was not able to express or confirm, treating inference as certainty.
In childhood, I also experienced relational aggression, including death threats from someone I had feelings for, alongside a pattern of others interpreting my shutdown responses as anger when I was actually anxious and unable to speak clearly.
My primary way of de-escalating situations was visible distress—crying or hyperventilating—which tended to stop escalation, reflecting a chronic freeze response under stress rather than defiance.
An old friend relentlessly maintains that testosterone is a dangerous poison. I agree, but not in the way he means. From the time a boy enters puberty until his testosterone levels drop to something reasonable - say, 89 or so for most men - he is supremely vulnerable to being jerked around by his crank. Yes, women are smaller and weaker, but it is their control of the access to sex for a gender that has it on his mind much of the time (best data says, Median for young men: ~19 times per day (range: 1–388). Median for young women: ~10 times per day) that comprises what is known as Real Power.
They set the price. And through the police at one end and divorce lawyers at the other, they apply the pressure to keep men safely corralled.
I realized after I posted that it was unclear. I meant age 89, not blood level.
My friend was reflecting in old age about a lifetime of fighting, drinking, and chasing pu***. He and I agree that it's a miracle he survived. But his life makes for good stories, believe me...
The problems that any grievance based movement has is that it magnifies and distorts, exposing only one side of the equation. We are caught in our innate role as a defender of women and in debt to the mother who birthed us which has made pushback slow and scattered. Also we are not as adept at networking or organizing as an identity group
I am amazed at how quiet other males often are when I question a feminist talking point at the dinner table even when I am put through a struggle session.
The goal here is to awaken men to the erosion of their worth one step at a time, and achieve this while maintaining our protective role ...no easy task. Your contributions go a long way to crystallize in print what most of your readers must feel is going on.
<Relational aggression, by contrast, often remains largely invisible. Instead of fists, it uses shame, exclusion, reputation damage, moral condemnation, and social pressure to influence behavior. While less obvious than physical aggression, it can be equally effective as a tool of manipulation and intimidation.>
One point about Relational aggression, the person who is experiencing it may feel like they are imagining things or that they are going mad/crazy.
Within the field of Nursing, it is known as "Horizontal Violence". There is a substantial body of research on Horizontal Violence in Nursing, which was first identified in the 1980s.
<Girls, Bullying Behaviours and Peer Relationships: The. Double Edged Sword of Exclusion and Rejection. ... co-educational schools would also have female:female ..>.https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED460450.pdf
There is a very strong correlation between the bullying behaviour of School Girls and the Horizontal violence within the field of nursing.
So in a nutshell, the relational aggression tactics begin very early for the female gender, and as they get older, the bullies become much more refined in their tactics. They also recruit assistants, usually other females, but can involve males as well, such as encouraging a male infatuated with her to bash up another male.
i wish men were like me, don't trust women and don't get married. Feminism creates the very things they claim to be against, sexism, discrimination, double standards, there's nothing fair about women , too many of them are plain cruel.
Great article Tom. I have been trying to discuss exactly this and here you have given it a shape and appearance that can no longer be ignored or denied.
The compliance, through the silence of men specifically, is the one area every man can act on immediately. Men need to ask themselves an existential question. Are they a coward or are they not. Find your courage men. It is in us all and it has wrestled civilisation back from the brink of chaos more than once. You’ve read the histories of the great empires. You know what should be done. Stand up. It is your time in history. Stand up. Have courage.
Thank you, Stephen Baskerville, for seeing through the thought-killing pseudo-science known as evolutionary psychology, which doesn’t even rise to the level of a “just-so” story.
For me, it's the silent and apparently untroubled assent to feminism in toto on the part of the seemingly vast majority of women that is the real soul-destroying killer for men. The gnawing sense that, despite surface appearances, deep and abiding commitment to a relationship is just not there. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection have instilled in women an instinctive need to keep all options open. After all, we know that being a man has, in all places and at all times, been an inherently dangerous and not uncommonly lethal 'vocation'.
When one thinks about it, feminism relies much more heavily on soft coercion than violence – even considering carceral feminism etc. But your point that the characteristics look like relational aggression explains a lot about the particular tactics.
All this is very true...but we need to be honest. The majority of women use relational aggression full well knowing what they are doing. They embrace this evil as a means to power. As such, it is entirely appropriate for men to hold women accountable for the consequences of this evil. That means NEVER Believing the Woman when accusations are made and treating ALL feminist statements and conduct as toxic FEMININITY. Assume the worst of the woman's intentions and treat her accordingly. It is time that WOMEN and WOMEN ALONE bear the costs of their conduct until such time as THEY reform their behavior.
Enough of carrots to change behavior. It's time that hateful relational aggression was returned in kind. Perhaps the sticks will be more effective than the carrots.
‘I almost took my life’: Brittany Higgins details trial’s toll
Brittany Higgins, Amber Heard and a global cast of survivors unite in Silenced, a harrowing documentary about sexual violence that has opened the Sydney Film Festival.
NIKKI GEMMELL
The film is called "Silenced".
It is descriptive, using catchwords and phrases.
Harrowing
Survivors
Sexual Violence
Silenced
However, labelling it a "Documentary" leads the audience to believe it is factual and unbiased.
So the scene is set to manipulate the audience psychologically and cognitively.
Nikki Gemmell, is in my considered view the Mistress of the Spin Sisters of the Media her own sexist attitiude and gender bias permeates through out many of the emotional articles she writes.
She finish with this sentence; "The documentary is sobering, harrowing, intense – and powerful. An important watch, an uncomfortable watch."
and I am sure it does, because as Brene Brown said, "When Emotions are Driving. Logic and Rational Thought are not backseat passengers, they are locked in the trunk, (car boot).
A documentary constructed for the purpose of propagande is designed to do exactly that, Once the emotions of the mob are engaged, the mob becomes easier to manipulate.
I do not argue that feminism deploys the propaganda method of controlling the social cost of disagreement but I don't think it really had to learn it.
Back in 1550 or so, in ''Voluntary Servitude'', Étienne de La Boétie examined why populations consent to tyranny, and espoused that social conformity and the fear of standing apart works even if it is to the detriment of the people involved. This work, and others from it, probably fed into Antonio Gramsci's thinking (Gramsci rarely mentions a source of his thinking). Gramsci is one of the primary influences in the Frankfurt School that birthed modern feminism.
Michel Foucault later expanded on this work just in time for for the growth in magazines and literature reading that occured in the 1970s. In ''L'Archéologie du Savoir'' and other works he illustrated that truth itself is produced by power structures. Power and control was well understood by senior Marxists, who honed their skills (e.g. it is from this period that we see outright lies being stated by the UN - a very easy organisation to infiltrate - and propagated as facts around the world). But even that was more of a honing of skills already in place. Feminism as we must deal with has always known how to use tools like social shame and exclusion, moral labeling, victim claiming (a solid Marxist trait back to The Communist Manifesto), and individual reputational destruction and the fear of it.
Feminism didn't have to learn how to control populations. That was already understood by the globalist cultural Marxists when they took over feminism between 1940 and 1960.
A well-written, thorough assessment that exposes a very real phenomenon and its resulting harms. And the relational aggression practiced by misandrists has become so effective as a result of too many people preferring silence over challenging it. Over time, silence makes problems like this one worse, as it cedes control, implies consent, and emboldens adversaries. The relational aggression problem has become increasingly visible, with the proliferation of women's programs and forums that explicitly exclude men (while equivalents for men are eliminated or obstructed, on dubious grounds).
Gynocentrism, misandry, and double standards must be recognized and challenged, or they grow like cancerous tumors. Silence and withdrawal achieve little. Learning from the tactics of feminists can help. Fortunately, we are starting to see a greater willingness to tackle unsafe questions like those mentioned above, including in mainstream outlets, but we still have a long way to go.
It's the silence that is most troublesome.
Relational Aggression and Researchers is an article I wrote and had published at Onlineopinion.
https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=21958
Spin Sister and the Poison Pen,https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=22694.
Female journalist are the absolute artists in using the technique of relational aggression in how they frame their articles.
During the MeToo period, I shared my trauma on Facebook and was targeted with backlash that contributed to me losing my job. Around the same time, I was communicating with someone who shared a name with a coworker, which led to assumptions about my intentions. I later learned I had been accused of sexual misconduct, but I was never given clear details or a meaningful chance to respond. My difficulty communicating under stress was interpreted as intent rather than what it was: shutdown and overwhelm.
Across these situations, others repeatedly assigned thoughts and emotions to me that I was not able to express or confirm, treating inference as certainty.
In childhood, I also experienced relational aggression, including death threats from someone I had feelings for, alongside a pattern of others interpreting my shutdown responses as anger when I was actually anxious and unable to speak clearly.
My primary way of de-escalating situations was visible distress—crying or hyperventilating—which tended to stop escalation, reflecting a chronic freeze response under stress rather than defiance.
An old friend relentlessly maintains that testosterone is a dangerous poison. I agree, but not in the way he means. From the time a boy enters puberty until his testosterone levels drop to something reasonable - say, 89 or so for most men - he is supremely vulnerable to being jerked around by his crank. Yes, women are smaller and weaker, but it is their control of the access to sex for a gender that has it on his mind much of the time (best data says, Median for young men: ~19 times per day (range: 1–388). Median for young women: ~10 times per day) that comprises what is known as Real Power.
They set the price. And through the police at one end and divorce lawyers at the other, they apply the pressure to keep men safely corralled.
Until they don't. Glad to be there.
James-a testosterone level of 89 would leave you in dire need of treatment. Functionally low levels are in the 250-300 range.
And your friend is an exemplar of what Mr. Golden is writing about-he seems to have internalized some toxicity himself.
Testosterone and Estrogen are present in all humans; it is only the levels that vary.
And Testosterone created Western Civilization-so if it's a poison, it's a Mithridatic one.
I realized after I posted that it was unclear. I meant age 89, not blood level.
My friend was reflecting in old age about a lifetime of fighting, drinking, and chasing pu***. He and I agree that it's a miracle he survived. But his life makes for good stories, believe me...
Another worthwhile article Tom.
The problems that any grievance based movement has is that it magnifies and distorts, exposing only one side of the equation. We are caught in our innate role as a defender of women and in debt to the mother who birthed us which has made pushback slow and scattered. Also we are not as adept at networking or organizing as an identity group
I am amazed at how quiet other males often are when I question a feminist talking point at the dinner table even when I am put through a struggle session.
The goal here is to awaken men to the erosion of their worth one step at a time, and achieve this while maintaining our protective role ...no easy task. Your contributions go a long way to crystallize in print what most of your readers must feel is going on.
Thank you very much Alan. Indeed we need to reclaim our masculine strengths that have been shamed and use them for good.
<Relational aggression, by contrast, often remains largely invisible. Instead of fists, it uses shame, exclusion, reputation damage, moral condemnation, and social pressure to influence behavior. While less obvious than physical aggression, it can be equally effective as a tool of manipulation and intimidation.>
One point about Relational aggression, the person who is experiencing it may feel like they are imagining things or that they are going mad/crazy.
The next point is that the Stasi in East Germany used this method very effectively. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Stasi
Within the field of Nursing, it is known as "Horizontal Violence". There is a substantial body of research on Horizontal Violence in Nursing, which was first identified in the 1980s.
<Girls, Bullying Behaviours and Peer Relationships: The. Double Edged Sword of Exclusion and Rejection. ... co-educational schools would also have female:female ..>.https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED460450.pdf
There is a very strong correlation between the bullying behaviour of School Girls and the Horizontal violence within the field of nursing.
So in a nutshell, the relational aggression tactics begin very early for the female gender, and as they get older, the bullies become much more refined in their tactics. They also recruit assistants, usually other females, but can involve males as well, such as encouraging a male infatuated with her to bash up another male.
Thanks for pointing this out Phillip. I had a quick look into the nursing horizontal violence and it is indeed the same. And yes, it does begin very early but no one talks about it. https://menaregood.substack.com/p/understanding-men-7-hierarchy
The pushback when I drew the corelation between the bullying behaviour of school girls and Nursing was enormous,
I was called all sorts of names, and a lot of effort was made to try and get me to rise to the bait.
I think the reason nobody talks about it is "Plausible deniability".
i wish men were like me, don't trust women and don't get married. Feminism creates the very things they claim to be against, sexism, discrimination, double standards, there's nothing fair about women , too many of them are plain cruel.
Great article Tom. I have been trying to discuss exactly this and here you have given it a shape and appearance that can no longer be ignored or denied.
The compliance, through the silence of men specifically, is the one area every man can act on immediately. Men need to ask themselves an existential question. Are they a coward or are they not. Find your courage men. It is in us all and it has wrestled civilisation back from the brink of chaos more than once. You’ve read the histories of the great empires. You know what should be done. Stand up. It is your time in history. Stand up. Have courage.
Stand up indeed. I am working on a piece about that right now.
Bless you Tom. You’re a good man…. And men are good! 💫
Thank you, Tom, for not invoking "evolutionary psychology". Your piece is more than adequately convincing without it.
Thanks Stephen, not sure how it could have been invoked but glad all the same!
Thank you, Stephen Baskerville, for seeing through the thought-killing pseudo-science known as evolutionary psychology, which doesn’t even rise to the level of a “just-so” story.
For me, it's the silent and apparently untroubled assent to feminism in toto on the part of the seemingly vast majority of women that is the real soul-destroying killer for men. The gnawing sense that, despite surface appearances, deep and abiding commitment to a relationship is just not there. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection have instilled in women an instinctive need to keep all options open. After all, we know that being a man has, in all places and at all times, been an inherently dangerous and not uncommonly lethal 'vocation'.
When one thinks about it, feminism relies much more heavily on soft coercion than violence – even considering carceral feminism etc. But your point that the characteristics look like relational aggression explains a lot about the particular tactics.
Genuinely insightful work Tom.
Thanks very much Tony. I appreciate your words of praise since I admire your writing so. That last one on feminism and liberal democracy was a brilliant piece of work. https://critiquingfeminism.substack.com/p/feminism-and-liberal-democracy?
False Rape Allegations in the United States, 2006-2010
https://jameslnuzzo.substack.com/p/false-rape-allegations-usa?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=8co0j&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
All this is very true...but we need to be honest. The majority of women use relational aggression full well knowing what they are doing. They embrace this evil as a means to power. As such, it is entirely appropriate for men to hold women accountable for the consequences of this evil. That means NEVER Believing the Woman when accusations are made and treating ALL feminist statements and conduct as toxic FEMININITY. Assume the worst of the woman's intentions and treat her accordingly. It is time that WOMEN and WOMEN ALONE bear the costs of their conduct until such time as THEY reform their behavior.
That's a hard line and I can understand your taking it. It has become beyond tiring to see our culture be dismantled. Verify. Verify. Verify.
Enough of carrots to change behavior. It's time that hateful relational aggression was returned in kind. Perhaps the sticks will be more effective than the carrots.
Gen Z will stop caring about the shame.
Their inheritance has been denied them.
Feminism cannot survive because it fails to reproduce the culture.
Feminismus delendus est.
‘I almost took my life’: Brittany Higgins details trial’s toll
Brittany Higgins, Amber Heard and a global cast of survivors unite in Silenced, a harrowing documentary about sexual violence that has opened the Sydney Film Festival.
NIKKI GEMMELL
The film is called "Silenced".
It is descriptive, using catchwords and phrases.
Harrowing
Survivors
Sexual Violence
Silenced
However, labelling it a "Documentary" leads the audience to believe it is factual and unbiased.
So the scene is set to manipulate the audience psychologically and cognitively.
Nikki Gemmell, is in my considered view the Mistress of the Spin Sisters of the Media her own sexist attitiude and gender bias permeates through out many of the emotional articles she writes.
She finish with this sentence; "The documentary is sobering, harrowing, intense – and powerful. An important watch, an uncomfortable watch."
and I am sure it does, because as Brene Brown said, "When Emotions are Driving. Logic and Rational Thought are not backseat passengers, they are locked in the trunk, (car boot).
A documentary constructed for the purpose of propagande is designed to do exactly that, Once the emotions of the mob are engaged, the mob becomes easier to manipulate.
I do not argue that feminism deploys the propaganda method of controlling the social cost of disagreement but I don't think it really had to learn it.
Back in 1550 or so, in ''Voluntary Servitude'', Étienne de La Boétie examined why populations consent to tyranny, and espoused that social conformity and the fear of standing apart works even if it is to the detriment of the people involved. This work, and others from it, probably fed into Antonio Gramsci's thinking (Gramsci rarely mentions a source of his thinking). Gramsci is one of the primary influences in the Frankfurt School that birthed modern feminism.
Michel Foucault later expanded on this work just in time for for the growth in magazines and literature reading that occured in the 1970s. In ''L'Archéologie du Savoir'' and other works he illustrated that truth itself is produced by power structures. Power and control was well understood by senior Marxists, who honed their skills (e.g. it is from this period that we see outright lies being stated by the UN - a very easy organisation to infiltrate - and propagated as facts around the world). But even that was more of a honing of skills already in place. Feminism as we must deal with has always known how to use tools like social shame and exclusion, moral labeling, victim claiming (a solid Marxist trait back to The Communist Manifesto), and individual reputational destruction and the fear of it.
Feminism didn't have to learn how to control populations. That was already understood by the globalist cultural Marxists when they took over feminism between 1940 and 1960.
I suspect a closer examination of history would show that the techniques associated with "Relational Aggression" have been used.
The Greek play "Lystereria" is perhaps an example.