"Women may gather without men. Men may not gather without women."
This is succinctly framed. Even before the 2007 change to the largest UK scout movement, I recall campaigning for male spaces, though other assaults upon men and children have taken my focus since then.
Denying masculine spaces is a decades old win for man-haters. It probably just seems normal for anyone under 35. This article is, to some extent, a history lesson highlighting WHY men today typically feel lonely compared to women.
The general misandry in society goes deeper and wider, of course. From female-only grants and subsidies to news headlines like "Ten died in tragedy, including one woman." Men are constantly, and often subconsciously, told they don't matter. And not feeling wanted is a very lonely place.
The men's movement has had many wins over the decades but is yet to stop the rot. We will, or those who follow us will.
Feminism is not responsible for the disparity in the rates of men murdering their female partners/former partners, nor are they responsible for the fact that male ppl are 33x more likely to sexually assault someone than a female. While feminism has allowed us to point these facts out - it certainly is not the cause.
Women have every reason to be/feel misandrist- but it’s my personal opinion that they don’t/aren’t, for reasons I can barely explain. It’s not misandry to loathe the type of masculinity that results in dead women and girls - that’s just rational. I bemoan the fact women are not more rational on this front. To even suggest that systemic misogyny was feminist created is just drivel.
Patriarchy has been cruel to and impacted both sexes, women in more systemic ways - men in a more social and subtle, but evidently corrosive ways. I’m still yet to see misandry on anything like the scale of misogyny, not that it’s a competition and that’s not necessarily arguing that men enjoy better outcomes - they don’t. But the argument is not symmetrical- never has been.
Okay, so you hate men and justify this to yourself by inflating cherry picked one-sided data.
So why should I care about someone who hates me already?
I do hope you get better. One start is to look into other sides of your beliefs, to challenge yourself: if I pretend I had different emotions and looked for the good in people, and the evidence to back that up, what do I find? If I wasn't so convinced by what I've been instructed to believe about feminism and instead was like most people who want equality therefore reject feminism, what do I find?
As you say of yourself: "for reasons I can barely explain". If you have it in you to care to see how others see the world, at least you would be better placed to convince them that misandry is right and misogyny is wrong. At the moment all you do is show us the result of what we seek to change as we struggle for equality, fairness, and a cohesive, healthy society.
Hilarious. If all I have to do is mention the demonstrably different rates of violence and sexual offending between the sexes, for you to take offense and believe “I hate you” then you’re seeing misandry where none exists.
The projection of “I hope you get better” is also super telling.
In a cohesive healthy society women can discuss male violence without men who presumably are not violent sex offenders(?), taking offense.
You: "Women have every reason to be/feel misandrist" and you clearly put yourself among those who do.
To try sneering at me when you openly feel able to express a form of hatred that is outlawed in some places if the sexes are reversed is an indication of your lack of awareness.
Women had about 5 minutes where sex based rights actually provided something to them before it was again subsumed by male entitlement. So forgive me if my violin is a tad smaller than the one you wanted.
I do care about men, their privacy, their social connections and their loneliness levels. Unhappy men is not an abstract concept, they are our fathers, son’s, uncles, brothers, partners and friends. I see them and want them to experience a joyful and connected experience- their whole lives - it’s a win win.
If after some millennia of zero agency over our own lives women ran out and made their presence felt everywhere- including places we had no business being in - I see that as a pretty natural consequence of what had come before.
Today women are no longer able to gather without men, in our bathrooms, change rooms, sports and locker rooms. I’d say we are paying more attention to the benefits of single sex spaces than ever before. I know personally that I’m way more understanding of the premise of male only spaces (now that they’re not parliament and the all the corridors of power). Calling women spreading their wings after so long in confinement - misandry. Is to entirely misunderstand what happened, and more importantly misunderstand the nature of women’s feeling about men.
The saving grace on your thoughts is that first word: IF this happened. Which of course, somewhere around the world, for some period of time, it did. I can even give you examples, just as I can show you far worse examples of male subjugation - often at the same time. I won't bother, though because it is not isolated pockets of anything that prove a generic statement.
Nor does anything historic create a reason to punish those alive today.
Misandry is the hatred of men or masculinity. That definition has no connection to cries of "look how bad women have it".
The feminist-created systemic misogyny you discuss is something of concern and many in the men's right movement complain of it, though naturally it is not their main focus.
But the concern for women - which is an inherent aspect of being male - says nothing about the issues that men have on not being equal under the law, suffering so much that they die on average several years younger (which is so common that it is often mistaken for being natural), being denied educational and vocational opportunity, or any of the other matters which are a result of ongoing disdain for males.
Holding every masculine virtue under a cloud of suspicion plays a part - who came up with that concept, anyway? And then if men are thought to not matter, women will come to think they don't need them (which of course they do). The way it proceeds is men caused that problem, too (they didn't). Then you notice how all this is knitted together and the naked truth allows a dismissal of the whole damn game.
No, my argument was despite the disproportion of violence, specifically sexual violence of one sex to the other, that I genuinely do not see misandry as common amongst women. That is not an expression of hatred - only someone fairly desperately looking to feel hated would believe it was.
So cheer up buddy, I’m sure someone out there hates you, just not me.
There is a lot of truth in this and is why I staunchly oppose the defense of female only sports or organizations unless male only equivalents from which women are BARRED be allowed. If you listen closely to the arguments for "women's only" locker rooms and "women's-only" sports leagues, they NEVER accept that the price of those means barring women from the male equivalents. Indeed, if one examines the history, women's athletics was created from within men's athletics using the resources men had built up through merit over years and which women "demanded" as if they were entitled to what men had built with no effort. Is it any wonder that women's athletics remains fragile and in need of incessant subsidy from men? Men need to support each other by creating men's only spaces and defending them from unwelcome invasions by women and making clear to women that that is the price of their WOMEN's-ONLY spaces.
Yes, agree. it is interesting that at one time, and I think still, it was accepted for women to play in the PGA but now allowed for men to play in the female professional league.
The irony is that women who complain about trans players on "women's teams" seem to forget that it was WOMEN who demanded the right to play on men's teams if no woman's team at the level the woman wanted to play was available. The trans players got the idea from women....not men.
This is the heart of sexism. The suggestion that women don’t deserve ‘male’ resources because historically women didn’t build the building involved. That’s because we were all stuck at home taking care of you and your children. Were all the builders born from women? Cared for by women? Indeed - only alive because of women Yes. Damn right we can ‘demand’ to be included in activities as positive and healthy as athletics.
That all said I don’t have a problem with the theory of men’s only spaces. Unfortunately men seem to ruin them with bullying and harassment of each other (boys schools, football clubs, military colleges, clergy etc) and they become so unsafe they dwindle.
Men’s clubs are still legal and common in the capital city where I live so they certainly haven’t vanished.
Joan, since no woman would exist without sperm from a man, living off the infrastructure created by men and being defended from. harm by male fire fighters, male police officers and male soldiers, your argument about the "indispensable" role of women is cancelled by the equally indispensable role of men.
It is clear that you do NOT understand the history of college athletics, reinforcing MY point about women assuming they are entitled to things they did not build. College athletics was built by students forming groups, essentially like intramurals. Any resources they had for materials/venues had to be developed on their own often by assessing themselves club dues or doing their own fundraising. As those groups began to grow, become successful and eventually developing interschool competition, they began to get support from their institutions. These early 'club' sports eventually became the official varsity and junior varsity organizations that gained institutional support. Some even became revenue generating sports. Women's "athletics" was not born by this same grass roots hard work. Most such programs were DEMANDED into existence under the idiotic Title IX notion that says that women should be given without effort what generations of men worked hard to build from scratch. Title IX required that women's sports be created from NOTHING, given the same infrastructure and facilities that the men had built over years including scholarships for sports that men did not receive scholarships for. Since university budgets did not suddenly double to pay for this women's sports were created by taking the resources the men had earned but which the women had not done a thing to merit. Many men's teams were disbanded, defunded or forced to become self supporting club sports again. One example, a century old wildly successful CREW program had to give its facilities to the rand new women's crew team which had full scholarships and support for their activities while the men had to raise money for their equipment and use volunteer coaches without scholarships. They were barely able to share the boat house that THEY had built. I had 2 roommates who were long standing women's athletes in swimming and basketball. Both were disgusted with Title IX because it created opportunities and scholarships for women who had no buy in or real interest in the sport which lowered the competition of the serious female athletes on the women's teams and wasted athletic resources that were being far better used by the mens' teams from whom the resources were stolen.
Even that was not enough for the grifting women who still demand to be allowed to play on MEN's teams if no women's team of the adequate level is available. It is this rule that trans people used to infiltrated the women's teams to hysterical horror. Even now women's athletics demand equal budgets despite producing less than 10% of the revenue of the men's teams. Quite simply, almost no women's program would be funded or survive on the merit of those participating in it. It is NOT appropriate for men's athletics to have to sacrifice scholarship or sports simply to maintain the illusion that women's athletics are competitive in the market place. As in many traditional male professions, the women are being carried by the men...not advancing on their own merit. There is a solution to this problem. Make all athletic teams coed with resources dedicated to the best athletes involved. As we saw with Riley Gaines...the #1 women's swimmer could barely tie the $462 male swimmer. Facts are stubborn things
As for men ruining their own spaces with bulling and harassment, theta show that women commit harassment and bullying at equal or GREATER rates than men with the greatest rate of domestic violence coming from...wait for it...women in lesbian relationships You can't blame men for that true assessment of the character of women.
You are absolutely right - I know nothing about college athletics. But I do know that gestating, birthing and caring for children takes longer than ‘providing’ sperm. Hence suggesting they are equivalent is ridiculous.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond fully and will review and respond myself later today.
From conception to adulthood at 18 lasts 18.8 years. Pregnancy is 0.8 years or 4% of the time required to bring a child into adulthood. Women live an average of 81.1 years versus 75.8 years for men. With women living 4.3 years longer than men, a woman would have to bring children into the world with over 5 separate pregnancies before actually having less "pregnancy-free" life than men. With these stats, women just don't have an argument that pregnancy oppresses them more than men.
Stop trying to look smart by distorting statistics. That’s an incorrect and inappropriate use of percentages.
And I wasn’t talking about only pregnancy. I mentioned child raising which most men do very little of. This takes 18-25 years. Most women have multiple children (historically many had 5-10 so 5 pregnancies is not unlikely) so that’s overlapping periods of up to 40 years whilst historically men have done stuff like athletics. It’s a considerable advantage.
In response to your other sketchy points:
Most women are not lesbians anymore than most men are homosexual. Therefore claims about female behaviour in all relationships based on lesbian relationships are statistically invalid. In contrast stats about how awful many men are in heterosexual relationships are well documented. Hence women are simply choosing not to have these relationships. It’s a free market after all.
In relation to your other claims you are making broad unsupported assumptions.
1. That all men who contributed to the colleges over hundreds of years made a deliberate and forever choice that those resources only be used for men rather than that just reflecting society at that time. You can’t know this as no one can ask these long dead people.
2. None of that contribution was made by you or any current athletes. You are basically a parasite claiming the achievements of others.
3. My taxes go to men as well as women so I’m already subsidising you. We are all entitled to expect equal services as we all are equally important. Unfortunately as men have greedily dominated athletics in the past we are currently in a period of equalisation.
4. Redistribution via legislation will always be imperfect. Sharing resources generously would be much better. But your argument is a perfect example of why the legislation is required. Because you just don’t want to share. Like a kid with a toy shouting ‘mine mine mine’.
If you were prepared to support the establishment of equally resourced programs/clubs for women you could keep your boys clubs (which still exist in most places) as far as I’m concerned. If you don’t want to share then really you are bringing this onto yourself.
The statistics are completely correct. Men also have an important role in raising children once the child is born despite women's incessant attempts to down play its existence. Indeed, all your arguments suffer from the same gynocentric point of view that women's contributions are vastly more important than those of men when that is demonstrably false. Indeed...women actually have NO right to demand equal "rights" until they are prepared to fulfill equal responsibilities. That means registering with selective service and being drafted to fight wars. That means men having the same right to abortion or to have their unborn child born as women. In terms of the data on domestic violence/abuse in relationships...women commit just as much as men do. The fact that lesbian relationships have the HIGHEST rates of abuse suggest that if either sex is more prone to domestic abuse it is WOMEN not men. As for your numbered points: 1. The history of how athletics arose and its facilities were developed is quite clear. The men organized a team, began with limited resources and gradually built the justification for more resources by fundraising and popular support by producing something of value. A leading sports league took decades to develop. The people who funded those teams and leagues were funding the existing MEN's team...NOT a hypothetical women's team that did not exist so we do indeed know their intent and should be honoring it. Then women claim that Title IX requires that they not be given equal opportunity to start at the bottom and build their sports/league by the same incremental process as the men did. but that they should be given what the men achieved over decades of effort on day 1 with no effort at all. That is not achieved by merit. It is theft, especially when the resources to create the women's league are taken FROM the men's league. This is same attitude when bring into marriage. A man spends 20 years building a career,. The woman marries him, then wants a divorce in 5 years. She bough little to the relationship in the way of assets or work effort but thinks she should get half of everything he ever owned int the past and in the future despite no longer contributing anything to the relationship. 2. Incorrect, the past and existing athletes built these leagues. The women demanding they be given what others built by taking it from those who built it are the parasites. We see this again in marriages where the woman presumes she should be given half or all of the man's home despite heriot bringing a home into the marriage to begin with. 3. Athletics is not paid for by general tax dollars but by athletic fees paid equally by students, donations and revenue from the sports. Men's sports being in vastly more revenue than women's sports. Without Title IX redistribution women's sports would not exist either in colleges or professionally. Women's athletics are the parasite on men's athletics. As for taxes, men pay far more in taxes than women who not only pay less overall but consume far more in tax funds in social services and health care than men do. 4. What women call sharing works as follows: What is yours is mine when she wants something from the man but what is mine is mine then it is something that women have. Women do not share...they steal. I agree with having an equal society which means women have to do equal work to expect to get equal pay and should receive benefits based on the value they produce.
I raced Rutgers in college before they went club, so it was top of mind for me.
It's wild how much money is pumped into women's rowing as a Title IX dump. Our spring training camp was in Clemson, and I had the chance to tour their boathouse. With the gear their women's rowers received, you would have thought they were a revenue-generating sport or that they had a strong donor base. But it was only to balance out the spending on football.
This is true across women's athletics. I was at UNH during the period when baseball, wrestling and lacrosse were all cancelled to comply with Title IX and replaced with programs for women that had trouble fielding teams despite full scholarships because there was insufficient interest from the female "athletes". Male athletes who had dedicated years of their lives to their sports and were willing to pay despite having NO scholarships lost those opportunities to create "equitable" options for lazy women who would not even come to practice or get in shape despite getting a full ride scholarship. My 2 roommates at the time were serious female athletes working as assistant coaches for the women's basketball and swim teams and found the whole thing an embarrassment. Interestingly the same folks DEMANDING equitable access for women athletes had no problems with the funding spent on the Women's Commission, Women's Studies Department and many other programs for which NO male equivalents existed or were funded. It is very clear that women generally are NOT interested in equal opportunity...only expanding opportunities for women at the expense of men, often far more qualified men.
You stupid cow: babies are started by men, women are just the incubators in which babies develop without any effort by the mother. That aside, women have no right to anything they cannot build and defend for themselves and they have no right to expect us to do that for them. Now get back to the kitchen and make those sandwiches.
Women never want anything until men have built it because they are incapable of imagining and producing anything and then they feel entitled to the lion’s share of it because they see men as nothing more than protectors and providers for them; their safety and security, comfort and convenience is all we are for in their minds.
We need to stop explaining ourselves. We can create spaces without waiting for women to catch up. When we do they will hardly notice and certainly not care.
Would you like to bet? The 'Mens Sheds' movement. A misnomer if there was ever one. Set up as a low level way for men to meet and 'chew the fat'. 30% of Mens Sheds now accept women in the interest of inclusion. There are however exclusively womens sheds. I think men yield too easily.
I’m trying to get my amazingly talented, recently retired husband to attend the local Men’s shed, but he won’t go. Says it’s for doddery old people. It’s probably because I suggested it, lol.
A quarter of the way through the 21st century, our public discourse (in western societies at least) seems to have reached an awful point. If we just blame men for everything, then we don’t need to confront difficult realities and life’s nuances ... Another thought-provoking piece, thanks @Tom Golden
Thank you, Tom. Psychology Today might as well be called "Feminism Today". Back in the early 1980s, they were a respectable publication, but those days ended a long time ago.
In 1950, the ratio of women's colleges to men's was 267:228
There are now 33 non-religious colleges exclusively for women in the U.S.
There are 3 for men.
Men need to get back to the business at hand because the feminization of the power structure in this nation as caused far more damage than islamization or any other pestilence, and the proof is before our very eyes.
IDK but maybe the college ratio is because women are much more likely to be sexually assaulted than men? Therefore a women’s only college is much safer for young girls than a mixed residential college. Ffs.
Following your logic wouldn't a male-only college also be safer for women than a co-educational one? It would remove men from shared spaces making said spaces safer for women.
This has happened here in the UK. The 'Mens Sheds' movement. A misnomer if there was ever one. Set up as a low level way for men to meet and 'chew the fat'. 30% of Mens Sheds now accept women in the interest of inclusion. There are however exclusively womens sheds.
I’ve long suspected that the men who vote to allow women in are simply using the place as a dating app, which is the opposite of the ostensible purpose. One of the things that has put me off joining a men’s shed is the real possibility of having not just to tolerate what I would go there to get away from but also to spend my time there dealing with the problems the women bring with them, which I’ve heard is not uncommon; the men find themselves unable to work on their own projects because the women are constantly pestering them to sort out some problem they’ve created, either deliberately to monopolise male attention or inadvertently through their incompetence.
Men who need the company of women shouldn’t join a men’s group.
There are plenty of men only spaces, just not in the pseudo intellectual environments where they’re analyzed. Men barbecue, and bond around it, men go into their garages and fix old cars and bikes. Men certainly play video games where they interact with each other. Men broadcast and listen to bro podcasts, and there are many of them, starting with the most popular of all podcasts, the Joe Rogan Experience. They (you, since the writer is a man) play sports, go to bars and wars and put out fires together. Hunting and fishing and endurance racing. I could go on. Uber liberal men, who process are few. They have quietly resisted the female pressure to become more vulnerable. Don’t believe everything you read in Salon, Psychology Today, Medium and other liberal and feminized media. It only reflects its own bias and ignorance. I’m all for men’s as well as women’s only spaces and friendships. We’re different and connect differently. Quietly.
I tried attending a religious men’s group activity recently and heard the phrase “I just don’t understand the need for a men’s group anymore”. I am 30 and the median age of the men’s group is 68(estimate). I compare this liberal group to a more conservative version I associate with that is all about starting a men’s club. And believe you me, the married men are great husbands. But the more conservative group doesn’t question the need for a “men’s space”
Two social spaces that are missing from society:
A public space for men to unapologetically court women for marriage and a “man-centric space”
The only places I’ve found that mostly work for the latter are gun ranges and MMA mats and God can’t figure out the former unless you go really conservative.
Sadly, when men's spaces appear, like your example, they are all to often run by men who are totally blue pill and as the plumbers creed states: "Shit runs downhill."
Gun ranges indeed! They have to be masculine spaces, no room for wishy washy crap.
Your excellent post makes me think — is the popularity of fantasy football largely filling two voids: a need for men’s space and the dopamine hit that comes from gambling?
Great article. Another intrusion was by female reporters being allowed in male locker rooms whilst the reverse was/is not allowed for safety and privacy. Men have a right to privacy too and not all women are honourable.
Free from all the stupid shit of civilization, we are free to return to the Forests of Wilderness Earth! The road to glory will begin in Forest! Civilization is a death trap!
We are starting to see some male-only spaces, especially golf courses. Some will not permit women to even leave their cars in the parking lot. There is a delivery box they can use.
The best thing men can do is abandon these previously male-only spaces that ended up being captured. Take your sons out of Boy Scouts.
Create new male-only institutions. And if women complain, let 'em.
Thank you Tom.
"Women may gather without men. Men may not gather without women."
This is succinctly framed. Even before the 2007 change to the largest UK scout movement, I recall campaigning for male spaces, though other assaults upon men and children have taken my focus since then.
Denying masculine spaces is a decades old win for man-haters. It probably just seems normal for anyone under 35. This article is, to some extent, a history lesson highlighting WHY men today typically feel lonely compared to women.
The general misandry in society goes deeper and wider, of course. From female-only grants and subsidies to news headlines like "Ten died in tragedy, including one woman." Men are constantly, and often subconsciously, told they don't matter. And not feeling wanted is a very lonely place.
The men's movement has had many wins over the decades but is yet to stop the rot. We will, or those who follow us will.
Feminism is not responsible for the disparity in the rates of men murdering their female partners/former partners, nor are they responsible for the fact that male ppl are 33x more likely to sexually assault someone than a female. While feminism has allowed us to point these facts out - it certainly is not the cause.
Women have every reason to be/feel misandrist- but it’s my personal opinion that they don’t/aren’t, for reasons I can barely explain. It’s not misandry to loathe the type of masculinity that results in dead women and girls - that’s just rational. I bemoan the fact women are not more rational on this front. To even suggest that systemic misogyny was feminist created is just drivel.
Patriarchy has been cruel to and impacted both sexes, women in more systemic ways - men in a more social and subtle, but evidently corrosive ways. I’m still yet to see misandry on anything like the scale of misogyny, not that it’s a competition and that’s not necessarily arguing that men enjoy better outcomes - they don’t. But the argument is not symmetrical- never has been.
Okay, so you hate men and justify this to yourself by inflating cherry picked one-sided data.
So why should I care about someone who hates me already?
I do hope you get better. One start is to look into other sides of your beliefs, to challenge yourself: if I pretend I had different emotions and looked for the good in people, and the evidence to back that up, what do I find? If I wasn't so convinced by what I've been instructed to believe about feminism and instead was like most people who want equality therefore reject feminism, what do I find?
As you say of yourself: "for reasons I can barely explain". If you have it in you to care to see how others see the world, at least you would be better placed to convince them that misandry is right and misogyny is wrong. At the moment all you do is show us the result of what we seek to change as we struggle for equality, fairness, and a cohesive, healthy society.
Hilarious. If all I have to do is mention the demonstrably different rates of violence and sexual offending between the sexes, for you to take offense and believe “I hate you” then you’re seeing misandry where none exists.
The projection of “I hope you get better” is also super telling.
In a cohesive healthy society women can discuss male violence without men who presumably are not violent sex offenders(?), taking offense.
You: "Women have every reason to be/feel misandrist" and you clearly put yourself among those who do.
To try sneering at me when you openly feel able to express a form of hatred that is outlawed in some places if the sexes are reversed is an indication of your lack of awareness.
Get well soon.
Women had about 5 minutes where sex based rights actually provided something to them before it was again subsumed by male entitlement. So forgive me if my violin is a tad smaller than the one you wanted.
I do care about men, their privacy, their social connections and their loneliness levels. Unhappy men is not an abstract concept, they are our fathers, son’s, uncles, brothers, partners and friends. I see them and want them to experience a joyful and connected experience- their whole lives - it’s a win win.
If after some millennia of zero agency over our own lives women ran out and made their presence felt everywhere- including places we had no business being in - I see that as a pretty natural consequence of what had come before.
Today women are no longer able to gather without men, in our bathrooms, change rooms, sports and locker rooms. I’d say we are paying more attention to the benefits of single sex spaces than ever before. I know personally that I’m way more understanding of the premise of male only spaces (now that they’re not parliament and the all the corridors of power). Calling women spreading their wings after so long in confinement - misandry. Is to entirely misunderstand what happened, and more importantly misunderstand the nature of women’s feeling about men.
"If after some millennia of zero agency..."
The saving grace on your thoughts is that first word: IF this happened. Which of course, somewhere around the world, for some period of time, it did. I can even give you examples, just as I can show you far worse examples of male subjugation - often at the same time. I won't bother, though because it is not isolated pockets of anything that prove a generic statement.
Nor does anything historic create a reason to punish those alive today.
Misandry is the hatred of men or masculinity. That definition has no connection to cries of "look how bad women have it".
The feminist-created systemic misogyny you discuss is something of concern and many in the men's right movement complain of it, though naturally it is not their main focus.
But the concern for women - which is an inherent aspect of being male - says nothing about the issues that men have on not being equal under the law, suffering so much that they die on average several years younger (which is so common that it is often mistaken for being natural), being denied educational and vocational opportunity, or any of the other matters which are a result of ongoing disdain for males.
Holding every masculine virtue under a cloud of suspicion plays a part - who came up with that concept, anyway? And then if men are thought to not matter, women will come to think they don't need them (which of course they do). The way it proceeds is men caused that problem, too (they didn't). Then you notice how all this is knitted together and the naked truth allows a dismissal of the whole damn game.
No, my argument was despite the disproportion of violence, specifically sexual violence of one sex to the other, that I genuinely do not see misandry as common amongst women. That is not an expression of hatred - only someone fairly desperately looking to feel hated would believe it was.
So cheer up buddy, I’m sure someone out there hates you, just not me.
There is a lot of truth in this and is why I staunchly oppose the defense of female only sports or organizations unless male only equivalents from which women are BARRED be allowed. If you listen closely to the arguments for "women's only" locker rooms and "women's-only" sports leagues, they NEVER accept that the price of those means barring women from the male equivalents. Indeed, if one examines the history, women's athletics was created from within men's athletics using the resources men had built up through merit over years and which women "demanded" as if they were entitled to what men had built with no effort. Is it any wonder that women's athletics remains fragile and in need of incessant subsidy from men? Men need to support each other by creating men's only spaces and defending them from unwelcome invasions by women and making clear to women that that is the price of their WOMEN's-ONLY spaces.
Yes, agree. it is interesting that at one time, and I think still, it was accepted for women to play in the PGA but now allowed for men to play in the female professional league.
The irony is that women who complain about trans players on "women's teams" seem to forget that it was WOMEN who demanded the right to play on men's teams if no woman's team at the level the woman wanted to play was available. The trans players got the idea from women....not men.
This is the heart of sexism. The suggestion that women don’t deserve ‘male’ resources because historically women didn’t build the building involved. That’s because we were all stuck at home taking care of you and your children. Were all the builders born from women? Cared for by women? Indeed - only alive because of women Yes. Damn right we can ‘demand’ to be included in activities as positive and healthy as athletics.
That all said I don’t have a problem with the theory of men’s only spaces. Unfortunately men seem to ruin them with bullying and harassment of each other (boys schools, football clubs, military colleges, clergy etc) and they become so unsafe they dwindle.
Men’s clubs are still legal and common in the capital city where I live so they certainly haven’t vanished.
Joan, since no woman would exist without sperm from a man, living off the infrastructure created by men and being defended from. harm by male fire fighters, male police officers and male soldiers, your argument about the "indispensable" role of women is cancelled by the equally indispensable role of men.
It is clear that you do NOT understand the history of college athletics, reinforcing MY point about women assuming they are entitled to things they did not build. College athletics was built by students forming groups, essentially like intramurals. Any resources they had for materials/venues had to be developed on their own often by assessing themselves club dues or doing their own fundraising. As those groups began to grow, become successful and eventually developing interschool competition, they began to get support from their institutions. These early 'club' sports eventually became the official varsity and junior varsity organizations that gained institutional support. Some even became revenue generating sports. Women's "athletics" was not born by this same grass roots hard work. Most such programs were DEMANDED into existence under the idiotic Title IX notion that says that women should be given without effort what generations of men worked hard to build from scratch. Title IX required that women's sports be created from NOTHING, given the same infrastructure and facilities that the men had built over years including scholarships for sports that men did not receive scholarships for. Since university budgets did not suddenly double to pay for this women's sports were created by taking the resources the men had earned but which the women had not done a thing to merit. Many men's teams were disbanded, defunded or forced to become self supporting club sports again. One example, a century old wildly successful CREW program had to give its facilities to the rand new women's crew team which had full scholarships and support for their activities while the men had to raise money for their equipment and use volunteer coaches without scholarships. They were barely able to share the boat house that THEY had built. I had 2 roommates who were long standing women's athletes in swimming and basketball. Both were disgusted with Title IX because it created opportunities and scholarships for women who had no buy in or real interest in the sport which lowered the competition of the serious female athletes on the women's teams and wasted athletic resources that were being far better used by the mens' teams from whom the resources were stolen.
Even that was not enough for the grifting women who still demand to be allowed to play on MEN's teams if no women's team of the adequate level is available. It is this rule that trans people used to infiltrated the women's teams to hysterical horror. Even now women's athletics demand equal budgets despite producing less than 10% of the revenue of the men's teams. Quite simply, almost no women's program would be funded or survive on the merit of those participating in it. It is NOT appropriate for men's athletics to have to sacrifice scholarship or sports simply to maintain the illusion that women's athletics are competitive in the market place. As in many traditional male professions, the women are being carried by the men...not advancing on their own merit. There is a solution to this problem. Make all athletic teams coed with resources dedicated to the best athletes involved. As we saw with Riley Gaines...the #1 women's swimmer could barely tie the $462 male swimmer. Facts are stubborn things
As for men ruining their own spaces with bulling and harassment, theta show that women commit harassment and bullying at equal or GREATER rates than men with the greatest rate of domestic violence coming from...wait for it...women in lesbian relationships You can't blame men for that true assessment of the character of women.
You are absolutely right - I know nothing about college athletics. But I do know that gestating, birthing and caring for children takes longer than ‘providing’ sperm. Hence suggesting they are equivalent is ridiculous.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond fully and will review and respond myself later today.
From conception to adulthood at 18 lasts 18.8 years. Pregnancy is 0.8 years or 4% of the time required to bring a child into adulthood. Women live an average of 81.1 years versus 75.8 years for men. With women living 4.3 years longer than men, a woman would have to bring children into the world with over 5 separate pregnancies before actually having less "pregnancy-free" life than men. With these stats, women just don't have an argument that pregnancy oppresses them more than men.
Stop trying to look smart by distorting statistics. That’s an incorrect and inappropriate use of percentages.
And I wasn’t talking about only pregnancy. I mentioned child raising which most men do very little of. This takes 18-25 years. Most women have multiple children (historically many had 5-10 so 5 pregnancies is not unlikely) so that’s overlapping periods of up to 40 years whilst historically men have done stuff like athletics. It’s a considerable advantage.
In response to your other sketchy points:
Most women are not lesbians anymore than most men are homosexual. Therefore claims about female behaviour in all relationships based on lesbian relationships are statistically invalid. In contrast stats about how awful many men are in heterosexual relationships are well documented. Hence women are simply choosing not to have these relationships. It’s a free market after all.
In relation to your other claims you are making broad unsupported assumptions.
1. That all men who contributed to the colleges over hundreds of years made a deliberate and forever choice that those resources only be used for men rather than that just reflecting society at that time. You can’t know this as no one can ask these long dead people.
2. None of that contribution was made by you or any current athletes. You are basically a parasite claiming the achievements of others.
3. My taxes go to men as well as women so I’m already subsidising you. We are all entitled to expect equal services as we all are equally important. Unfortunately as men have greedily dominated athletics in the past we are currently in a period of equalisation.
4. Redistribution via legislation will always be imperfect. Sharing resources generously would be much better. But your argument is a perfect example of why the legislation is required. Because you just don’t want to share. Like a kid with a toy shouting ‘mine mine mine’.
If you were prepared to support the establishment of equally resourced programs/clubs for women you could keep your boys clubs (which still exist in most places) as far as I’m concerned. If you don’t want to share then really you are bringing this onto yourself.
The statistics are completely correct. Men also have an important role in raising children once the child is born despite women's incessant attempts to down play its existence. Indeed, all your arguments suffer from the same gynocentric point of view that women's contributions are vastly more important than those of men when that is demonstrably false. Indeed...women actually have NO right to demand equal "rights" until they are prepared to fulfill equal responsibilities. That means registering with selective service and being drafted to fight wars. That means men having the same right to abortion or to have their unborn child born as women. In terms of the data on domestic violence/abuse in relationships...women commit just as much as men do. The fact that lesbian relationships have the HIGHEST rates of abuse suggest that if either sex is more prone to domestic abuse it is WOMEN not men. As for your numbered points: 1. The history of how athletics arose and its facilities were developed is quite clear. The men organized a team, began with limited resources and gradually built the justification for more resources by fundraising and popular support by producing something of value. A leading sports league took decades to develop. The people who funded those teams and leagues were funding the existing MEN's team...NOT a hypothetical women's team that did not exist so we do indeed know their intent and should be honoring it. Then women claim that Title IX requires that they not be given equal opportunity to start at the bottom and build their sports/league by the same incremental process as the men did. but that they should be given what the men achieved over decades of effort on day 1 with no effort at all. That is not achieved by merit. It is theft, especially when the resources to create the women's league are taken FROM the men's league. This is same attitude when bring into marriage. A man spends 20 years building a career,. The woman marries him, then wants a divorce in 5 years. She bough little to the relationship in the way of assets or work effort but thinks she should get half of everything he ever owned int the past and in the future despite no longer contributing anything to the relationship. 2. Incorrect, the past and existing athletes built these leagues. The women demanding they be given what others built by taking it from those who built it are the parasites. We see this again in marriages where the woman presumes she should be given half or all of the man's home despite heriot bringing a home into the marriage to begin with. 3. Athletics is not paid for by general tax dollars but by athletic fees paid equally by students, donations and revenue from the sports. Men's sports being in vastly more revenue than women's sports. Without Title IX redistribution women's sports would not exist either in colleges or professionally. Women's athletics are the parasite on men's athletics. As for taxes, men pay far more in taxes than women who not only pay less overall but consume far more in tax funds in social services and health care than men do. 4. What women call sharing works as follows: What is yours is mine when she wants something from the man but what is mine is mine then it is something that women have. Women do not share...they steal. I agree with having an equal society which means women have to do equal work to expect to get equal pay and should receive benefits based on the value they produce.
Are you referring to Rutgers Men’s Crew? One of the oldest varsity crews in the nation, and they were forced to go club.
Not specifically them...but many, many teams both crew and not have been forced to do this.
I raced Rutgers in college before they went club, so it was top of mind for me.
It's wild how much money is pumped into women's rowing as a Title IX dump. Our spring training camp was in Clemson, and I had the chance to tour their boathouse. With the gear their women's rowers received, you would have thought they were a revenue-generating sport or that they had a strong donor base. But it was only to balance out the spending on football.
This is true across women's athletics. I was at UNH during the period when baseball, wrestling and lacrosse were all cancelled to comply with Title IX and replaced with programs for women that had trouble fielding teams despite full scholarships because there was insufficient interest from the female "athletes". Male athletes who had dedicated years of their lives to their sports and were willing to pay despite having NO scholarships lost those opportunities to create "equitable" options for lazy women who would not even come to practice or get in shape despite getting a full ride scholarship. My 2 roommates at the time were serious female athletes working as assistant coaches for the women's basketball and swim teams and found the whole thing an embarrassment. Interestingly the same folks DEMANDING equitable access for women athletes had no problems with the funding spent on the Women's Commission, Women's Studies Department and many other programs for which NO male equivalents existed or were funded. It is very clear that women generally are NOT interested in equal opportunity...only expanding opportunities for women at the expense of men, often far more qualified men.
You stupid cow: babies are started by men, women are just the incubators in which babies develop without any effort by the mother. That aside, women have no right to anything they cannot build and defend for themselves and they have no right to expect us to do that for them. Now get back to the kitchen and make those sandwiches.
Women never want anything until men have built it because they are incapable of imagining and producing anything and then they feel entitled to the lion’s share of it because they see men as nothing more than protectors and providers for them; their safety and security, comfort and convenience is all we are for in their minds.
We need to stop explaining ourselves. We can create spaces without waiting for women to catch up. When we do they will hardly notice and certainly not care.
Would you like to bet? The 'Mens Sheds' movement. A misnomer if there was ever one. Set up as a low level way for men to meet and 'chew the fat'. 30% of Mens Sheds now accept women in the interest of inclusion. There are however exclusively womens sheds. I think men yield too easily.
This is sad that the shed movement that had such potential was robbed by feminists and men who failed to say no.
Don't forget the Lawfare.
I’m trying to get my amazingly talented, recently retired husband to attend the local Men’s shed, but he won’t go. Says it’s for doddery old people. It’s probably because I suggested it, lol.
That's not true in the UK at least
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg5qd9l3094o
Men's spaces are still being actively dismantled and the media continue to celebrate this as invlusive
Good Luck With The Lawfare.
Must read for all women and all men. But especially women.
This isn't accidental nor consequential but the calculated result of misindrant policy.
Exactly James.
A quarter of the way through the 21st century, our public discourse (in western societies at least) seems to have reached an awful point. If we just blame men for everything, then we don’t need to confront difficult realities and life’s nuances ... Another thought-provoking piece, thanks @Tom Golden
Thank you, Tom. Psychology Today might as well be called "Feminism Today". Back in the early 1980s, they were a respectable publication, but those days ended a long time ago.
Totally agree about the psyc today. What a rag.
In 1950, the ratio of women's colleges to men's was 267:228
There are now 33 non-religious colleges exclusively for women in the U.S.
There are 3 for men.
Men need to get back to the business at hand because the feminization of the power structure in this nation as caused far more damage than islamization or any other pestilence, and the proof is before our very eyes.
Agree. Very interesting about the women's colleges vs men's.
IDK but maybe the college ratio is because women are much more likely to be sexually assaulted than men? Therefore a women’s only college is much safer for young girls than a mixed residential college. Ffs.
Following your logic wouldn't a male-only college also be safer for women than a co-educational one? It would remove men from shared spaces making said spaces safer for women.
This has happened here in the UK. The 'Mens Sheds' movement. A misnomer if there was ever one. Set up as a low level way for men to meet and 'chew the fat'. 30% of Mens Sheds now accept women in the interest of inclusion. There are however exclusively womens sheds.
Terrible news. 30%? And people think they are doing the right thing and being compassionate!
I’ve long suspected that the men who vote to allow women in are simply using the place as a dating app, which is the opposite of the ostensible purpose. One of the things that has put me off joining a men’s shed is the real possibility of having not just to tolerate what I would go there to get away from but also to spend my time there dealing with the problems the women bring with them, which I’ve heard is not uncommon; the men find themselves unable to work on their own projects because the women are constantly pestering them to sort out some problem they’ve created, either deliberately to monopolise male attention or inadvertently through their incompetence.
Men who need the company of women shouldn’t join a men’s group.
There are plenty of men only spaces, just not in the pseudo intellectual environments where they’re analyzed. Men barbecue, and bond around it, men go into their garages and fix old cars and bikes. Men certainly play video games where they interact with each other. Men broadcast and listen to bro podcasts, and there are many of them, starting with the most popular of all podcasts, the Joe Rogan Experience. They (you, since the writer is a man) play sports, go to bars and wars and put out fires together. Hunting and fishing and endurance racing. I could go on. Uber liberal men, who process are few. They have quietly resisted the female pressure to become more vulnerable. Don’t believe everything you read in Salon, Psychology Today, Medium and other liberal and feminized media. It only reflects its own bias and ignorance. I’m all for men’s as well as women’s only spaces and friendships. We’re different and connect differently. Quietly.
Thank you.
I tried attending a religious men’s group activity recently and heard the phrase “I just don’t understand the need for a men’s group anymore”. I am 30 and the median age of the men’s group is 68(estimate). I compare this liberal group to a more conservative version I associate with that is all about starting a men’s club. And believe you me, the married men are great husbands. But the more conservative group doesn’t question the need for a “men’s space”
Two social spaces that are missing from society:
A public space for men to unapologetically court women for marriage and a “man-centric space”
The only places I’ve found that mostly work for the latter are gun ranges and MMA mats and God can’t figure out the former unless you go really conservative.
Sadly, when men's spaces appear, like your example, they are all to often run by men who are totally blue pill and as the plumbers creed states: "Shit runs downhill."
Gun ranges indeed! They have to be masculine spaces, no room for wishy washy crap.
Your excellent post makes me think — is the popularity of fantasy football largely filling two voids: a need for men’s space and the dopamine hit that comes from gambling?
Thanks, good points and the male college fraternities, that are still standing.
Great article. Another intrusion was by female reporters being allowed in male locker rooms whilst the reverse was/is not allowed for safety and privacy. Men have a right to privacy too and not all women are honourable.
So true.
Excellent article. Better than anything on this topic that I've seen in the media.
Thanks!
Free from all the stupid shit of civilization, we are free to return to the Forests of Wilderness Earth! The road to glory will begin in Forest! Civilization is a death trap!
a quiet trap at that!
I have a forest on my property - I must go down there sometime soon and walk around, bobcats be damned
Make an altar, build a fire and shift your gaze to the stars! Yes go to your wood and glade! Your friends are there!
We are starting to see some male-only spaces, especially golf courses. Some will not permit women to even leave their cars in the parking lot. There is a delivery box they can use.
The best thing men can do is abandon these previously male-only spaces that ended up being captured. Take your sons out of Boy Scouts.
Create new male-only institutions. And if women complain, let 'em.
Yes, create new spaces that are male only. Would love a link to the golf courses that are doing this. That is great to hear.