I think the central difference lies in the fact that men primarily see themselves as belonging to the group of people and not to the group of men. Women, on the other hand, driven by feminism, identify primarily with the group of women and see themselves in rivalry with men, or even as victims of men.
The fact that no manosphere is spreading like feminism supports this view.
I find it increasingly amusing as to how many women dress like women but look very mannish..short hair being one thing.
yet men cannot dress like women and have long hair.. it happens with the hair but once a man wears certain 'female designated' clothing, he is seen as 'not masculine'..... this even happens in the gay world and it pisses me off.. not that I'm dressing this way..but I know gay people who 'want tolerance' but someone with 'blue hair' is a weirdo..
There was a time when men had handbags, and purses, hundreds of years ago. Notwithstanding generation Z's man bags, this is mostly just women now.
It's been suggested that women want to be men. They have an inferiority complex, reject the responsibility of motherhood, and have penis envy. I've been told this several times by women and girls in moments of lucidity.
It would also explain how girls overtook boys in grades, and increasingly in academia, and then in young professional income levels, and owning houses.
Sometimes my question is: who sets these things into concrete?
Unless I can prove that I'm existed before, reincarnation, then I've not had the power this lifetime to set society norms into concrete - deliberately anyway.
The 'manosphere' per se has only been around a couple decades. It already has vast -- if indirect and unacknowledged -- clout in the culture.
The women's movement had the backing of many men, including extremely wealthy men like the Rockefellers, the biggest bankrollers of the gynocracy. It also had the backing of law, corporations, intel, and the international elite, largely expressed as banking (London).
Two or three times in recent years past, the government under a Demoncrapic president has admitted in public who its greatest enemy is: every one of those times, it was the manosphere that was the sole source of their rage, fear, and attention. Do not quickly forget the Disinformation Governance Board and my ole pal Nina Jankowitz. Likewise, gyno-america had to make Andrew Tate national enemy #1, essentially for parroting the manosphere's assertions.
I'd say the manosphere has done just fine given its complete lack of institutional or private backing and funding.
In the UK, the manosphere has also been identified as public enemy number one, based on discourse in schools, and 'adolescence' the documentary on Netflix promoted by the Prime Minister.
But Parliament said in 2023, "By far the biggest terrorist threat comes from Islamist terrorism. It accounts for 67% of attacks since 2018, and about three quarters of MI5’s caseload. The remainder of the UK terrorist threat is largely driven by extreme right-wing terrorism, which accounts for approximately 22% of attacks since 2018 and about a quarter of the MI5 caseload."
So if 75% of the national intelligence services' cases are Muslims, and 25% are right wing, then where does that leave the manosphere?
Perhaps Muslims are men, or the right wing are men? Honestly, not sure.
There is near zero 'right wing terrorism' in the U.S., although the feds and their attack dogs like the SPLC constantly bleat that the 'extreme right' are a great threat. It's bullshit. Propaganda. Terrorism in the U.S. is overwhelmingly left-wing and run outta the DNC.
Does it really appear to you that one-quarter of UK terrorism is right wing? That would surprise me, but then I don't live there.
I am pleased to hear that the UK manosphere likewise has hit Public Enemy #1 according to the white feminist totalitarians and their various simps and constituencies of spiteful mutants!
My sincere congratulations and keep up the good work! Very proud of you all.
I've never seen or heard of a right wing outrage or violence in the UK. But I see steel barriers in London every day (to stop jihadi ramming and knife attacks).
But I think the state is rightly concerned that a dirty war could occur as the native population have been rapidly replaced to 80% nationally and 36.7% in the capital in a generation.
Hundreds of towns and cities in the UK have experienced spikes in violent and sexual crimes from foreign cultural influences, recently in Ballymena.
When the people lose status like this it creates the possibility of a dirty war, especially with a block of 75% or MI5s case load being Muslims who's book is aggressively expansionist and urgent replacement warfare of the womb, that non-muslims are second class etc.
There are open policy documents giving sentencing guidelines to prioritise groups over native males. I've read documents circulated to block paternity tests in family court (older and replaced now).
The so called grooming gangs, hundreds of thousands of child raped according to another parliamentarian, are an example in point. The security services will be afraid this outrage will lead to a spontaneous policy response given the systematic cover up of the ruling labor party that trades it for votes from expanding Muslim voting blocks.
The mass rape, bombings and knife attacks on little girls dance events. It all adds up to outrage the people. That could definitely be branded right wing. Especially if it resulted in law and order enforcement of immigration law, or rape law etc.
Postmodern leftist types object to law and order in principle. Hence Soros's drive to sponsore activist judges and politicians who stop enforcing law. Or create new two tier injustice through admin power.
The police famously arrested a Dad for begging for help to extract his daughter from Muslim rape gangs. The police made provably false charges and arrested the victims. This effect looks fine to the left wing establishment. But risks a response from centrists.
We're so far left and racist that centrism even of a leader like Tony Blair or Bill Clinton, heck even Obama, looks positively far right in today's scheme.
As to manosphere, men speaking out against systematic bias in family court, and the reward of undesirable behaviour Vis a vis single mother tax and spend welfare, this would also appear as an impediment to the far left project of 'abolish the family' and 'smash the patriarchy'.
Imagine if the NHS's 4% of households affected by paternity fraud became public. That's why France banned paternity testing! But I say start the peace and reconciliation process. Let's release the information and charge the criminals. Even though they be hundreds of thousands.
In the USA, the present administration has been enforcing laws that have been willfully ignored for a long time, the previous administration would call such law and order 'far right'. But again, it's only as centrist as Obama who also enforced law on immigration sending vast numbers of illegals home.
So England is the same as America, but on steroids. Kinda like an older sister who -- after years of boxwine and Mannix reruns -- gradually goes barmy and tyrannous. :O)
Any opposition to fem-prog tyranny is 'extremist right wing'? Well so be it. Their Hall Monitor Thuggism is building a large army of opposition. Saves wear n tear on me.
'The security services will be afraid this outrage will lead to a spontaneous policy response given the systematic cover up of the ruling labor party that trades it for votes from expanding Muslim voting blocks.'
The security services, in their astonishing conceit, have declared war on God. Response is inevitable and they won't like it.
Yeah, I don't remember God getting wrecked by degeneracy in his creation. If that happened, they edited it out. I reckon we're in a great flood type story now.
It is amazing how hard the push the idea of "right wing extremism" but the evidence is simply not there. Antifa? no, not them. BLM? No, not them. The media pushes this so hard it is easy to see it is based on nothing. But the hordes of media addicts eat it up!
The difference between men and women is that women have been in a war with us for... 60 years now? And we hadn't even notice! (hahaha).
But in the past 10 years, women were so aggresive that NOW we notice it. And we have started our war ourselves. Men have learnt about and, curiosly, have become feminist. They know that the disadvantaged sex is men, and now we want real equality. 50% of unitiversity grades, 50% of jobs casualties and so on.
Things I noted:
1.- Older men havent realise yet. But the 40+ generation have already. And we are starting to help the 20+ generation. We are not heading to a more equal world: we are heading to a separate world with 2 contrary discrimination.
2.- Friend group are more and more seggregated by sex. But this is not only women groups, but also mens group.
3.- Education and workplace is more and more seggregated. For instance: women to law, men to business and tech. And so on.
We are spliting the world in 2. This will have enormous connection in the comming decades...
Agreed. Also, there have been a number of articles in the past few years about how across continents, men are skewing far right and women are skewing far left.
Looking around America, it's obvious who is in power, and has been for a long time.
There is a lot of truth to what is said here...but a big dynamic appears to be missing and is misread. Women are NOT nearly the noble minded sisterhood that support each other as described here. Women can actually be extremely competitive, nasty and petty to each other...once they feel they have the power and can do so safely against the real group they seek to dominate...i.e. men! Women behave more like white society versus the slaves in the antebellum South. The hateful competitive behavior towards each other occurs so long as it doesn't interfere with the more important goal of keeping the slaves (men) in THEIR place. This is why women in male dominated organizations have disproportionate power and undermining influence, while female dominated organizations quickly disintegrate into bullying and petty cat fights internally. Look at the WNBA's response to Caitlin Clark if you want a good example. It is both why the male model of socialization is more productive and healthy in the long run and why male dominated team like organizations always beat their female counterparts in the long run. You are right that men need to draw on this strength more by NOT seeing women as virtuous beings to be saved...but reviewed individually for their moral value and relevance. If women risked the social rejection for bad behavior that men do from other men...most of their societal power would disappear.
I don't think women cope well with win-lose hunting style sports.
In soccer, women's teams often fall to pieces when they concede a goal, resulting in absurdly high scores like 8-1. Men do better in squads competing fairly.
I have frequently said that men do more work than women for protecting women and promoting women's rights than women do, so the feminists have men doing their work for them; the feminists have a very easy struggle, but men rarely do anything to promote men's rights. For that reason, even those who promote women's wrongs, whether male or female, succeed, but finding anyone who promote men's rights is very rare and often becomes the target of much negative sentiment.
Also, men who side with men fear being branded as homosexual and are then shunned. Women who side with women can be lesbians and be welcomed into organizations that promote women's rights with little or no hesitation. I endured three divorces and saw that turning to men's rights groups gave no more than cold comfort; support was unashamedly denied. Going to groups for men's rights was best avoided because in most of those groups, no support was shown for men who had problems. Quite the contrary, most of the time, the man who had problems -- which was me more often than I care to mention -- faced harsh, nasty hostilities from other men in the group! That plus hearing the men snipe at each other, playing a verbal version of King on the Mountain, was all that the men’s rights groups offered me! I thought when all that happened: the feminists are having all the work done for them; no wonder they have all the rights!
I will ask the question: does anyone know of any new and well-publicized laws or programs created for men's rights? I seriously doubt anybody can think of even one! Never mind the way I literally brought my autistic son halfway around the world so he could receive badly needed therapy and help, but I faced open hostility because I was his single parent when I did that. Quite the contrary: I had staff at the local hospital file false charges against me with Child Protective Services, and they were planning to put him in protective custody with a foster family! Fortunately, the staff of the clinic giving him therapy and the administration at his school testified on my behalf -- but the people who spoke up in my defense were all women!
I've lived through too much in my life. If I ever write an autobiography, a book won't cover it. I'll have to write an encyclopedia! However, support from other men was quite obviously scarce. It probably is no surprise that the men who showed me any consideration were all homosexuals; it's as if I was being exiled from my own gender. That, I am sad to say, has been the rule since Day One, and now that I'm in my 70s, I just want some peace and quiet. I've fought more battles than I care to mention; even serving in the military when I was overseas did not bring me into battle as often as civilian life has inflicted on me as an adult male. I am the sole survivor of my immediate family and of my graduating class in high school. I tell people that I deserve the title of Last Man Standing far more than Tim Allen ever could have!
Sorry Marcel, I deleted what appeared to be the duplicate and it axed all of the comments below it from you and I. My apologies. Thank goodness the duplicate still stands.
It may be. I posted it, but I didn’t see it posted, so I posted it a second time to make sure it was there. Is that how it works on here? That is the only reason for a duplication; it seemed to have vanished after posting it the first time.
As an older man and gay, I've only just realised that what you say: 'Women who side with women can be lesbians and be welcomed into organisations that promote women's rights with little or no hesitation' is very true.. well that is what I've realised within the last few months.. and I feel it is true, somehow, with homosexual men.. and straight men..
You state: " I will ask the question: does anyone know of any new and well-publicized laws or programs created for men's rights?"
I cannot get a list for LGB++++++ plus rights and get told 'it is on the internet for everyone'.. but I'm still waiting for the list...
I'm an Ayn Rand reader and she is the only one, that I know of in my limited readings, who talks about 'rights' in a way that I'm both shocked and relieved to hear about.
One of my favourites and I've taken it out of context of the whole idea: "The right of free speech means that a man has the right to express his ideas without danger of suppression, interference or punitive action by the government. It does not mean that others must provide him with a lecture hall, a radio station or a printing press through which to express his ideas."
After reading this two years ago I realised that there are many 'activists/groups' (I use that word to cover many people under many groups) that get funding from Governments - either directly or sometimes indirectly (on some groups web pages the list of Organisations that 'support' them is actually a Government owned corporation/institution and an example might be the Main TV in Switzerland supports a Feminist organisation with ?? donations - which Citizens have probably not voted for and this occurs in many countries I think) and therefore the Government is directly/indirectly/sneakily supporting some Groups with Tax Payers money.
I'm nearly as old as you and wake up to all this 'shit'...
My experiences are on both sides of the Atlantic. When I was going through divorces, I went to meetings of men's groups that were allegedly for promoting men's rights. What I witnessed was dismaying, to put it very mildly. On both sides of the ocean, the groups did precious little for promoting men's rights.
I know that when I visited the groups both here and there, the men made serious efforts toward sniping at each other. Any man who went hoping to find some encouragement and some hope for greater men's rights was doomed to be disappointed. Even when it comes to offices that allegedly offer legal advice to men, that sort of conduct was present there as well.
I will never forget how when I went to speak with the lawyer in a men's group in Tel Aviv, as I was relating my situation to the lawyer, another man in the office interfered by saying angrily, "You come in here just to complain about your wife!" In the end, I had a much more severe complaint against types like him; I go for help and instead get attacked for doing it. I had an experience in the United States that was just an Americanized version of the same caustic treatment. It's just the "be a man" attitude that guarantees a man little or no help when he faces problems.
Turning to an office that caters to both genders was less caustic but also not very helpful. Then again, the lack of any sort of movement to promote men's rights and laws that guarantee men any sort of help in problematic situations almost always ensure a negative outcome for men. Those are factors that give men little hope of finding even a sympathetic ear.
One example that I often mention is the Violence Against Women Act. The very title of that legislation already excludes men completely. Some have tried to claim that it does protect men, but can anybody tell that he has been told that he would get help like the help that women receive? The silence is deafening when I ask that question.
I have posted several editorials here on Substack that describe such situations, so I feel that I'm just repeating myself endlessly, but the only reason that I keep repeating them is that my desire to advocate positively for the well-being of men is partly because of what I have endured, but I have witnessed other situations that were truly shocking and the men trapped in negative situations received not even a sympathetic ear. One such case that always sticks in my mind was when man was married to a woman who had done everything to make it clear that he was inadequate. When they were in a hearing and the woman listed her demands for divorce, most of them were typical material/financial demands, but the one that will echo forever was when she said in the hearing, "When I married him, I was a virgin. He has to return that to me." I wish I was making that up, but when I spoke with her in private much later, she repeated the same demand to me and was emphatic that he had an obligation to do what she demanded. The couple was in litigation for divorce for 15 years, so I can't dismiss that as just one insane demand; the fact that he was chained in marriage to a woman with such a mentality and the legal system did nothing to help him get his freedom remains an incident that I will never forget.
Please keep repeating yourself. We all need to hear these horror stories, even to realise how captivated our politicians are about many things rather than protecting individual human rights.
That story had an ending that was possible in Israel but not in the United States. If a wife is proven to be mentally deranged or just determined to drive her husband into his grave, because Israel has no civil law, only religious law, the Rabbinical Court in Israel is the only court that has the authority to grant a divorce. In the case of this man, while the rabbis in the court dragged their feet for three more years after the wife made that outrageous statement in a hearing, they gave what is called a heter mea rabbanim, translated to mean "permission from one hundred rabbis." That is a highly unusual situation in which the court arranges for literally one hundred rabbis to review the case and to give their permission to allow the husband to take a second wife legally while the deranged first wife becomes an agunah, a deserted woman, and then she is trapped in her own snare indefinitely. That husband did obtain such a permit after 16 years of litigation -- hey, why be in a hurry? -- and he did remarry; I even attended his second wedding.
However, it's not a total surprise that he had suffered so much emotional trauma that when he and his new wife had a disagreement about something, he vanished. My last contact with him or his new wife was a telephone conversation that I had with her in which she expressed complete sympathy with what he had endured in that marriage, and she only hoped that he could be convinced to come back to her. I heard no more after that; by that time, I had remarried myself for the third and final time. Yes, for me, it was three strikes and you're out!
What makes me sick about the last one, though, was that because of damages that she suffered in the first childbirth, the woman that I married ceased to exist and I was stuck with a psychotic stranger. That is a long, complicated, nasty story that I won't include here; I have sounded off enough already. I just have to say that the way family courts work on both sides of the Atlantic is that even when the problem is clearly not the fault of the husband -- which in the case of my last marriage was very clearly not my fault -- family courts always hold the husband responsible for everything that goes wrong and innocence is no excuse!
Civil law in the United States does the same thing; if a man gets into any sort of relationship with a woman and something should go wrong, THE MAN IS ALWAYS THE ONE WHO IS BLAMED 100% AND THE WOMAN IS ALWAYS A BLAMELESS VICTIM OF THE EVIL HUSBAND!!! Someone question that and I'll say he needs a head transplant! The law is misandrist by nature, and too many men can echo what I say for anybody to ignore or question them! Well, maybe Gloria Steinem would disagree, but has she ever agreed with any statement that claims a man is free of guilt?
The very fact that a law entitled Violence Against Women Act mentions only one gender and excludes the other is misandrist without question. I have an overabundance of stories about that exclusion; at least now, that bitch is out of my life and our children both say she needs to be in a mental institution. I said the same thing while we were married, but nobody lifted a finger to help, and VAWA didn't offer me any refuge. That law in itself is gender discrimination and yet it's accepted as a valid law.
The problem is that some males will always use other men as a wedge to try and win favor with women. For some men that is their primary strategy with women, showing them "I'm not like that". Mate competition is just too strong a drive for men to put that in the backseat.
Yes, though I’m not an authority on the political positions of the natives in the countries where I’m a tourist. I mentioned the UK intending to exchange opinions if you disagreed with me, as I interpreted your original comment to imply
I made rewrite the bible by wokeifying each chapter and verse so that it's recognisable but transformed by the woke prism (gnostic, Marxist, critical theories, Postmodern, feminist, queer, anti traditional etc.).
Might get a bit bonkers once Jesus enters the scene.
Tom, you raise an important question and one that has bugged me for years. Many years ago I tried to "build an army" of activist men, before giving up in the face of the reality that it wasn't happening. Since then I have spent many hours puzzling over this apparent shortcoming of men cf women. As you note, men work extremely effectively together when motivated by earnings or enhancement of status, but not when the only driver is male solidarity. Men lack in-group preference. I have slowly perceived, however, that this is not a shortcoming of men at all. Actually it is one of men's most important pro-social traits. This lack of in-group preference amongst those people who, historically, controlled the world of affairs is actually what makes very large scale, harmonious societies of humans possible. The proof? What happens when those people who DO have strong in-group preference attain dominant social, political and economic power? Social, cultural and economic collapse.
Such a great point Rick. I was thinking about that when I was writing this but failed to frame it like you did. The in-group bias of women among female leaders is obvious, They prefer women. And the preference of male leaders, is, gulp, also for women. lol IO think you are correct though, men tend to be more likely to consider the whole group, not just a part of it.
I agree Tom. Even my own attitude toward men illustrates this. It has also been bred into me. As a boy I had more empathy for men but with age I learned that this is out lot in life.
In my experience in work collaborations, loyalty is more important for men than women. For men, loyalty is important on principle, because it’s tied to their self-respect. For women, loyalty is instrumental, tied to other goals.
I've read that mixed gender units prove less effective in fire fights.
There's an argument that since boys develop more slowly than girls, boys ought to take exams a year later.
It's even been suggested that segregated schooling, and potentially workplaces, might help boys and men.
Doctors in the UK were over taken by women in the 2010s and their wages declined 30%. So there's something in the inferiority complex theory - or that women fail to negotiate pay settlements as effectively - and of course work dramatically fewer hours making their medical training a substantially lower return on investment.
It has been suggested that women are loyal to their emotions.
Emotional reasoning is less effective at large scales because it's fleeting and subjective.
I'd even say that emotional reasoning fails hard in some circumstances.
I wonder if there's a pro-male preference for leaders - I bet there is - since they assume he'll not believe however he feels from moment to moment as a substitute for objective truth.
I dunno, Tom. Maybe we’ll never agree about some things. I do agree with everything that you say about gynocentrism and its effects on male solidarity in our time and applaud your insights into what’s going on. I'm not so sure about what I consider your biologically reductive generalizations. It seems to me, although I can’t get inside your head, that you’ve applied a theory (evolutionary psychology), which you expect to support your own a priori point of view. If so, then that’s what I would diagnose as “confirmation bias.” In any case, though, I think that your article overestimates two things: (a) solidarity among women; and (b) lack of solidarity among men.
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Yes, most women by now (after initial ambivalence) realize that political "sisterhood" (feminism) allows them to get whatever they want in some contexts (attaining legal privileges granted by the state though not finding husbands or even boyfriends, having children and so on).
Nonetheless, I suggest that women themselves have always and everywhere complained bitterly about other women as rivals (first in the competition for men and now not only for men but also for power beyond the home). Not being a statistician, I can't produce figures to back up that statement (although someone could). But anyone who has worked in female-dominated offices--as I have--will know precisely what I mean about the effort that many women devote routinely to malicious sniping at female colleagues and gossiping about them (but also about men). At the moment, more than a few women are having second thoughts about even feminism. This is partly because of its failure to bring about utopian happiness for women, or at least contentment, but also because of its failure to safeguard the most fundamental and universal moral principles.
Janice Fiamengo and Bettina Arndt don't represent all or even most women, it's true, but they are no longer as isolated as they would have been between 1965 and 2020 in breaking ranks with women over feminist misandry and therefore over feminist gynocentrism. I see this change even in my own professional life. When Katherine Young and I began our research on misandry, in the 1980s, we had to make our way through either the utter indifference of colleagues or a hurricane of hostility from women (and some men) who accused us of misogyny merely for suggesting the possibility of inter-sexual dialogue. The “Duluth model” for treating (male) sexual abusers was in its heyday. No one had ever heard of “parental alienation” except as a cover-up for paternal fantasies of male power. Feminism was moving steadily away from egalitarian rhetoric (despite the movement’s actual gynocentrism) and toward openly misandric rhetoric.
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As for men, most have always realized that informal "brotherhood" (friends, colleagues, allies) allows them to survive or prosper in some contexts (battlefields, say, or boardrooms) but not in others. Well, that was then, and this is now. Most men in secular Western countries today are by now thoroughly confused about both manhood and womanhood. Feminists and wokers have unilaterally torn up all historical social contracts. No matter how hard men try to “pass for white” as token women by converting to feminism and virtue-signaling about it both to women and to male infidels, they still can’t get it right. Some women might pin medals on them in public, but other women deny them even the possibility of redemption.
My point here, though, is that this period of intense gynocentrism (unmitigated by androcentrism, as it has been both historically and cross-culturally) is a shocking aberration. What we need to explain is discontinuity, therefore, not continuity.
This brings me to my conclusion. More and more men are beginning to recognize gynocentrism and even to challenge the resulting misandry openly. It’s happening partly, Tom, because of your own relentless efforts and those of other men: bloggers, podcasters, even some journalists and politicians (although a few of them do so by fostering rage and revenge instead of wisdom and reconciliation). It took men one or two generations to realize what was going on, because many of the accusations against men as a class were not merely false but irrational. And yet that’s not a long time in historical or even “evolutionary” terms.
Hey Paul - Fascinating comment as usual. I am failing to see where we disagree. The in group bias of women has been researched for some time and is not really in question. The same is true for men's in group bias of being on the same team. These are well researched and not in question. I am guessing that you are wondering about my assumptions for why this is the way it is. My guess is that women have developed this bias through their need for safety within their own group and the necessity of requiring help from others when pregnant and with infants etc. The men had to create coalitions which required cooperation but at the same time were in competition for mates and status. I could be wrong about both of those but it doesn't really matter since the reality of women's and men's in group bias is set.
Well said about the period of intense gynocentrism. So true and so hard to believe. And yes, bless Bettina, Janice, and Paul N for their courage and persistence!
As I say, Tom, we might never agree about this. Okay, evolutionary psychology is de rigueur right now. I get that. What motivated me to write, however, was not your explanatory theory of how a phenomenon originated. Rather, it was your description of the phenomenon itself and therefore of its history.
I don't agree that women are innately given to seek solidarity with other women (or that they ever were until the advent of feminism). That observation might make sense in theory, but it doesn't describe reality. Historically and cross-culturally, for example, most women by far have been wartime cheerleaders (at the very least) for their entire countries or communities, not pacifists or dissidents due to solidarity with women on the other side. During the Civil War, this was true of both Northern and Southern women (who certainly didn't mind working and punishing their female slaves). It was true of the women on both sides during World War I, World War II. It was probably true of every other war. Even today, this phenomenon is generally true of both Ukrainian and Russian women (who support their own men in uniform, not foreign women). It's true of both Israeli and Palestinian women (who actually cheered when their men raped and murdered Israeli women on 7 October 2023). On the contrary, women on each side have always had too much to gain from the victory of their own side, and too much to lose from the defeat of their own side, to care about women across the river or even in the next village. And the same phenomenon has been observed on a smaller scale. Historically, women have strongly preferred the safety and prosperity of their own families (including both male and female members) over the safety and prosperity of other families (let alone their female members).
Moreover, I don't agree that men are innately given not to seek solidarity with other men. And the reason should be obvious. The only other sexual in-group, after all, is women (although what we now call "gay men" and "transgendered men" might make such neat categories more difficult to sustain). Historically, men simply had no reason to defend themselves, specifically as men, against women. Not until the rise of feminism. We're in new territory here.
I see no reason to assume that men cannot adapt themselves to the new reality of feminism (and other divisive identity movements). But first, as I think that we can agree, men need to learn about what's actually going on with the women of our time. That's where we come in.
Hi Paul - There is actually a large amount of research that has been done on the in-group bias idea. Here's a meta-analysis of 219 studies:
Balliet, D., Wu, J., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2014). Ingroup favoritism in cooperation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 140(6), 1556-1581.
Here's what chat gpt says about this study:
This large meta-analysis across 212 studies found that both men and women show in-group favoritism, but women do so more consistently in social cooperation contexts, especially when the in-group is defined by gender.
Men’s in-group bias was more context-dependent (e.g., competitive situations).
So women are more likely to be impacted by an in-group bias with other women while men are more likely to be impacted with a bias for their own team/group.
The argument about women not siding with the women who were opponents in war seems a bit on the extreme side. I think it is sensible to assume that we all would side with the group that is not interested in killing us.
There is some fascinating research on women in the workplace. What they have found is that when a woman gets an important promotion, it is likely that she will face attacks from the other women. They now assume this is related to the in-group bias that seeks to punish those who leave the confines of the group. Not unlikr crabs pulling other crabs back into the boiling pot. With men it seems to opposite. Other men see the advancing man as impressive, and maybe some jealosy or wishing/thinking it should have been them!
Okay, I'll try once more. You don't need to convince me, Tom, that these studies indicate "in-group bias." How else could anyone explain the widespread gynocentrism in Western countries today? You do need to convince me that this is due to something innate in women (and its opposite in men). Too many women--even today and even in Western countries--don't conform to that pattern. My own experience of women in daily life (but also that of many others) tells me that many women are bitter rivals in competition with each other not only for men but also for prestige in terms of social and economic class.
The Gilded Age, a sumptuous HBO series, is a modern fictionalized account of the ambitious women who ruled "Society" in New York during the late nineteenth century. But "the" Mrs. Astor and her Vanderbilt rivals were well known at the time (let alone to writers of the period such as Edith Wharton). and are still well known to historians. Eventually, Alva Vanderbilt supported the suffragette movement, but she certainly didn't start out that way. On the contrary, she had already forced her own very unwilling daughter to marry an English duke in order to gain prestige for the family. And that established a pattern that many other wealthy young women had to endure (although some of these "dollar princesses" were quite happy to buy their way into the aristocracies of Europe).
And then there were the British "memsahibs" who married into India's civil service during the Raj. Some of their husbands actually cared about the Indians: not only learning their languages, collecting their art, writing scholarly works on their history and religion, building schools and hospitals, but also banning practices that harmed both male and female Indians--such as sati (widow burning). The memsahibs, however, were interested primarily in the social ranking of their own families and managing their household servants.
You think that women's wartime support for their own countries is "far-fetched"? Maybe it's not so far-fetched that many Western women support regimes that are currently at peace but also indifferent (from a Western point of view) to the needs of their own women? As I've already said, plenty of woke women eagerly support Hamas--including those who brutally and enthusiastically raped and murdered Israeli women? It seems obvious to me, at any rate, that anti-Western and anti-Zionist ideologies take precedence in these cases over any notion that Israeli women are part of their in-group. (See Avi Benlolo, "“Report on Oct. 7 Sexual Violence Should Shame Feminists Who Failed to Condemn Attacks,” National Post, 11 July 2025). Similarly, plenty of women support the interests of "transgendered women" at the expense of actual women. I'm not a feminist, but I think that feminists have a good reason to oppose that.
Statistically, these examples are anomalies within the larger pattern of gynocentrism that now prevails in Western countries. But each has been made possible by the varying conditions of human existence through history. They must be taken seriously, therefore, by anyone who insists on explaining human behavior according to a version of biological determinism, including evolutionary psychology.
The Suffragettes were rewarded with majority suffrage. Which predictably they used to accrue more privileges. To the point now where only men pay net lifetime tax. So why the heck wouldn't they give votes to leaders who tax and redistribute.
I just can't believe the Suffragettes are honored in London. We recently renamed a mass transit line after them. For goodness sake, they burnt down Kew Gardens. They campaigned for votes for women while men without votes were taking bullets in Flanders.
The 1-4% paternity discrepancy rate is one thing that I reckon will become too big a lie to hide in coming decades as full genome sequencing comes down from billions twenty years ago to just a few dollars in late 2030s.
We can't unabort the billion unbaptised souls that got the crush and poison treatment. That's 20,000 per working day hour globally. It's like 10 holocausts per year based on the numbers of deaths. Where's the shame? Where's the guilt? Where's the fear of our consequences?
Yes, Conrad, I think that you understand what I'm trying to say. By the way, some American suffragettes worried that black men might get the vote before white women.
As I've written elsewhere, feminism (what's now called "first-wave" feminism) originated with romanticism--a movement that divided the world not between economic classes (which is what Marxism did) but, by extension, between innate classes. At first, the romantics appealed to ethnic communities or emerging nations seeking liberation from culturally "diverse" empires, but they soon appealed also to biologically defined races, then to sexes and now even to gendered interpretations of sex.
There's no need for evolutionary psychology to explain feminism. I explain it as one of several historical experiments, or cultural revolutions, that had no real precedents before the Enlightenment in Europe. It was only then, in the late eighteenth century, that utopian philosophers decided to sweep away the entire cultural legacy of countless generations in accordance with "reason" (narrowly understood). One unexpected result was the romantic reaction, however, which glorified the opposite of reason.
After the 1960s, this romantic mentality provided a new matrix for feminism. Nonetheless, many feminists have continued, for practical purposes, to use Marxist class analysis (usually applied to emotionally charged notions of racial and sexual identity) and thus ironically remain allies of woke movements on the political Left.
Yes, Janice, Bettina and Erin all left the boiling pot and the sisterhood wanted to punish them. Just like they wanted to punish Warren Farrell for talking about boys. For more info on the violence of the early feminists check out Janice's Fiamengo File on Chatgpt and ask it about the violence of feminists. It will give you a boatload!
Terrific article. The “double-bind” is especially poignant: men advocating for men or even boys in any way is seen as a form of aggression to women and girls, even the kindest, mildest, data-driven analysis from the likes of Richard Reeves.
Teenage girls get compassionate support for mental health, adolescent challenges and social media pressures. Teenage boys get Netflix “Adolescence” shaming.
Men getting more comfortable with supporting other men may be the most radical action men in general can take at the moment. Thanks for your voice Tom.
Thank you David. I agree that men supporting other men is a needed radical action. It won't be easy. I am involved in groups of men and know that they can be so powerful and so very different from mixed sex groups or groups of women. Men tend to show compassion by listening and nodding and not judging. Maybe we should start a group here on substack.
The article raises some thought-provoking points about male group dynamics and solidarity.
One thing I’m wondering about is the idea that men compete for “rank, dominance, and access to mates.” I’m not sure those are entirely separate goals. It feels like rank and dominance might actually be ways of reaching that larger aim—access to mates. From an evolutionary standpoint, status and dominance often lead to more reproductive opportunities, so maybe they’re better thought of as strategies rather than independent pursuits.
Historic examples include Genghis Khan, who reportedly fathered hundreds of children, or Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, both known for their expansive conquests and sexual exploits, had immense political and military influence that often coincided with high levels of sexual dominance. A recent example, like JFK, shows how power and prestige can translate into desirability. Of course, there are exceptions—leaders who've held high status without this kind of sexual legacy—but the broader pattern seems hard to ignore.
Yes, status is directly connected to getting the girl. It's a competition. What is fascinating is that much of the males in the animal kingdom go through competitions in order to get their mates. If you are interested in that check this out https://menaregood.substack.com/p/understanding-men-8-hierarchy-a-look
That’s a very interesting connection Robert which makes total sense, and which I’ve never seen expressed before, and certainly not so explicitly. Thanks for the a-ha.
Excellent essay! It answers the question I've been asking most of my life. What I do find sad is that men can't support each other in public but they can ban together to get a trans man removed from a beer can. It's discouraging. Thank you!
We need to hack our instincts to leverage our strengths to achieve specific political goals, such as planning how to restore a position of honor for good men.
As a man, I believe our innate biology betrays us. We will always compete “for women” although until we find “true” (trustworthy) love it will hamper and leave us empty. (Competition against other men is both fun and most often rewarding). Women get to extend the relationship through having kids, though today they seem too willing to kill them. They have made this power “a sacrament” as it’s the deciding factor in our politics. I don’t believe there is “an answer” to this conundrum. This is the human condition as we struggle to balance our biological and cerebral natures. We all bear the scars of interactions either from child or adulthood. And forgiveness is tricky as it most often does not solve the problems but only acts as a bandaid. As we age (I’m almost 80) it all becomes “sad” as we are forced to deal with the existential. And life goes on for the young.
I think the central difference lies in the fact that men primarily see themselves as belonging to the group of people and not to the group of men. Women, on the other hand, driven by feminism, identify primarily with the group of women and see themselves in rivalry with men, or even as victims of men.
The fact that no manosphere is spreading like feminism supports this view.
I'm on my gay roll today.
I find it increasingly amusing as to how many women dress like women but look very mannish..short hair being one thing.
yet men cannot dress like women and have long hair.. it happens with the hair but once a man wears certain 'female designated' clothing, he is seen as 'not masculine'..... this even happens in the gay world and it pisses me off.. not that I'm dressing this way..but I know gay people who 'want tolerance' but someone with 'blue hair' is a weirdo..
I think this is a historical trend.
Girls adopt boys names over time.
There was a time when men had handbags, and purses, hundreds of years ago. Notwithstanding generation Z's man bags, this is mostly just women now.
It's been suggested that women want to be men. They have an inferiority complex, reject the responsibility of motherhood, and have penis envy. I've been told this several times by women and girls in moments of lucidity.
It would also explain how girls overtook boys in grades, and increasingly in academia, and then in young professional income levels, and owning houses.
Sometimes my question is: who sets these things into concrete?
Unless I can prove that I'm existed before, reincarnation, then I've not had the power this lifetime to set society norms into concrete - deliberately anyway.
Our volition is limited.
That's for sure.
We have the play the game we find ourselves in.
that's is very true and wise.
The 'manosphere' per se has only been around a couple decades. It already has vast -- if indirect and unacknowledged -- clout in the culture.
The women's movement had the backing of many men, including extremely wealthy men like the Rockefellers, the biggest bankrollers of the gynocracy. It also had the backing of law, corporations, intel, and the international elite, largely expressed as banking (London).
Two or three times in recent years past, the government under a Demoncrapic president has admitted in public who its greatest enemy is: every one of those times, it was the manosphere that was the sole source of their rage, fear, and attention. Do not quickly forget the Disinformation Governance Board and my ole pal Nina Jankowitz. Likewise, gyno-america had to make Andrew Tate national enemy #1, essentially for parroting the manosphere's assertions.
I'd say the manosphere has done just fine given its complete lack of institutional or private backing and funding.
In the UK, the manosphere has also been identified as public enemy number one, based on discourse in schools, and 'adolescence' the documentary on Netflix promoted by the Prime Minister.
But Parliament said in 2023, "By far the biggest terrorist threat comes from Islamist terrorism. It accounts for 67% of attacks since 2018, and about three quarters of MI5’s caseload. The remainder of the UK terrorist threat is largely driven by extreme right-wing terrorism, which accounts for approximately 22% of attacks since 2018 and about a quarter of the MI5 caseload."
So if 75% of the national intelligence services' cases are Muslims, and 25% are right wing, then where does that leave the manosphere?
Perhaps Muslims are men, or the right wing are men? Honestly, not sure.
There is near zero 'right wing terrorism' in the U.S., although the feds and their attack dogs like the SPLC constantly bleat that the 'extreme right' are a great threat. It's bullshit. Propaganda. Terrorism in the U.S. is overwhelmingly left-wing and run outta the DNC.
Does it really appear to you that one-quarter of UK terrorism is right wing? That would surprise me, but then I don't live there.
I am pleased to hear that the UK manosphere likewise has hit Public Enemy #1 according to the white feminist totalitarians and their various simps and constituencies of spiteful mutants!
My sincere congratulations and keep up the good work! Very proud of you all.
I've never seen or heard of a right wing outrage or violence in the UK. But I see steel barriers in London every day (to stop jihadi ramming and knife attacks).
But I think the state is rightly concerned that a dirty war could occur as the native population have been rapidly replaced to 80% nationally and 36.7% in the capital in a generation.
Hundreds of towns and cities in the UK have experienced spikes in violent and sexual crimes from foreign cultural influences, recently in Ballymena.
When the people lose status like this it creates the possibility of a dirty war, especially with a block of 75% or MI5s case load being Muslims who's book is aggressively expansionist and urgent replacement warfare of the womb, that non-muslims are second class etc.
There are open policy documents giving sentencing guidelines to prioritise groups over native males. I've read documents circulated to block paternity tests in family court (older and replaced now).
The so called grooming gangs, hundreds of thousands of child raped according to another parliamentarian, are an example in point. The security services will be afraid this outrage will lead to a spontaneous policy response given the systematic cover up of the ruling labor party that trades it for votes from expanding Muslim voting blocks.
The mass rape, bombings and knife attacks on little girls dance events. It all adds up to outrage the people. That could definitely be branded right wing. Especially if it resulted in law and order enforcement of immigration law, or rape law etc.
Postmodern leftist types object to law and order in principle. Hence Soros's drive to sponsore activist judges and politicians who stop enforcing law. Or create new two tier injustice through admin power.
The police famously arrested a Dad for begging for help to extract his daughter from Muslim rape gangs. The police made provably false charges and arrested the victims. This effect looks fine to the left wing establishment. But risks a response from centrists.
We're so far left and racist that centrism even of a leader like Tony Blair or Bill Clinton, heck even Obama, looks positively far right in today's scheme.
As to manosphere, men speaking out against systematic bias in family court, and the reward of undesirable behaviour Vis a vis single mother tax and spend welfare, this would also appear as an impediment to the far left project of 'abolish the family' and 'smash the patriarchy'.
Imagine if the NHS's 4% of households affected by paternity fraud became public. That's why France banned paternity testing! But I say start the peace and reconciliation process. Let's release the information and charge the criminals. Even though they be hundreds of thousands.
In the USA, the present administration has been enforcing laws that have been willfully ignored for a long time, the previous administration would call such law and order 'far right'. But again, it's only as centrist as Obama who also enforced law on immigration sending vast numbers of illegals home.
Great comment.
So England is the same as America, but on steroids. Kinda like an older sister who -- after years of boxwine and Mannix reruns -- gradually goes barmy and tyrannous. :O)
Any opposition to fem-prog tyranny is 'extremist right wing'? Well so be it. Their Hall Monitor Thuggism is building a large army of opposition. Saves wear n tear on me.
'The security services will be afraid this outrage will lead to a spontaneous policy response given the systematic cover up of the ruling labor party that trades it for votes from expanding Muslim voting blocks.'
The security services, in their astonishing conceit, have declared war on God. Response is inevitable and they won't like it.
Loved this: "sister who -- after years of boxwine and Mannix reruns -- gradually goes barmy and tyrannous. :O)"
LOL!
Yeah, I don't remember God getting wrecked by degeneracy in his creation. If that happened, they edited it out. I reckon we're in a great flood type story now.
It is amazing how hard the push the idea of "right wing extremism" but the evidence is simply not there. Antifa? no, not them. BLM? No, not them. The media pushes this so hard it is easy to see it is based on nothing. But the hordes of media addicts eat it up!
Manosphere is already spread as feminism. Men already know their issues even better than women.
To be honest, this is starting to change.
The difference between men and women is that women have been in a war with us for... 60 years now? And we hadn't even notice! (hahaha).
But in the past 10 years, women were so aggresive that NOW we notice it. And we have started our war ourselves. Men have learnt about and, curiosly, have become feminist. They know that the disadvantaged sex is men, and now we want real equality. 50% of unitiversity grades, 50% of jobs casualties and so on.
Things I noted:
1.- Older men havent realise yet. But the 40+ generation have already. And we are starting to help the 20+ generation. We are not heading to a more equal world: we are heading to a separate world with 2 contrary discrimination.
2.- Friend group are more and more seggregated by sex. But this is not only women groups, but also mens group.
3.- Education and workplace is more and more seggregated. For instance: women to law, men to business and tech. And so on.
We are spliting the world in 2. This will have enormous connection in the comming decades...
But brotherhood connection is already here.
I hope you are correct!
Agreed. Also, there have been a number of articles in the past few years about how across continents, men are skewing far right and women are skewing far left.
Looking around America, it's obvious who is in power, and has been for a long time.
Hopefully having two polarities can be like recharging a flat battery.
The sexes can come back together in a more adult, grown up way.
There is a lot of truth to what is said here...but a big dynamic appears to be missing and is misread. Women are NOT nearly the noble minded sisterhood that support each other as described here. Women can actually be extremely competitive, nasty and petty to each other...once they feel they have the power and can do so safely against the real group they seek to dominate...i.e. men! Women behave more like white society versus the slaves in the antebellum South. The hateful competitive behavior towards each other occurs so long as it doesn't interfere with the more important goal of keeping the slaves (men) in THEIR place. This is why women in male dominated organizations have disproportionate power and undermining influence, while female dominated organizations quickly disintegrate into bullying and petty cat fights internally. Look at the WNBA's response to Caitlin Clark if you want a good example. It is both why the male model of socialization is more productive and healthy in the long run and why male dominated team like organizations always beat their female counterparts in the long run. You are right that men need to draw on this strength more by NOT seeing women as virtuous beings to be saved...but reviewed individually for their moral value and relevance. If women risked the social rejection for bad behavior that men do from other men...most of their societal power would disappear.
I don't think women cope well with win-lose hunting style sports.
In soccer, women's teams often fall to pieces when they concede a goal, resulting in absurdly high scores like 8-1. Men do better in squads competing fairly.
I think the problem is that women are not used to dealing with challenges that they cannot outsource/blame failure on others for.
I have frequently said that men do more work than women for protecting women and promoting women's rights than women do, so the feminists have men doing their work for them; the feminists have a very easy struggle, but men rarely do anything to promote men's rights. For that reason, even those who promote women's wrongs, whether male or female, succeed, but finding anyone who promote men's rights is very rare and often becomes the target of much negative sentiment.
Also, men who side with men fear being branded as homosexual and are then shunned. Women who side with women can be lesbians and be welcomed into organizations that promote women's rights with little or no hesitation. I endured three divorces and saw that turning to men's rights groups gave no more than cold comfort; support was unashamedly denied. Going to groups for men's rights was best avoided because in most of those groups, no support was shown for men who had problems. Quite the contrary, most of the time, the man who had problems -- which was me more often than I care to mention -- faced harsh, nasty hostilities from other men in the group! That plus hearing the men snipe at each other, playing a verbal version of King on the Mountain, was all that the men’s rights groups offered me! I thought when all that happened: the feminists are having all the work done for them; no wonder they have all the rights!
I will ask the question: does anyone know of any new and well-publicized laws or programs created for men's rights? I seriously doubt anybody can think of even one! Never mind the way I literally brought my autistic son halfway around the world so he could receive badly needed therapy and help, but I faced open hostility because I was his single parent when I did that. Quite the contrary: I had staff at the local hospital file false charges against me with Child Protective Services, and they were planning to put him in protective custody with a foster family! Fortunately, the staff of the clinic giving him therapy and the administration at his school testified on my behalf -- but the people who spoke up in my defense were all women!
I've lived through too much in my life. If I ever write an autobiography, a book won't cover it. I'll have to write an encyclopedia! However, support from other men was quite obviously scarce. It probably is no surprise that the men who showed me any consideration were all homosexuals; it's as if I was being exiled from my own gender. That, I am sad to say, has been the rule since Day One, and now that I'm in my 70s, I just want some peace and quiet. I've fought more battles than I care to mention; even serving in the military when I was overseas did not bring me into battle as often as civilian life has inflicted on me as an adult male. I am the sole survivor of my immediate family and of my graduating class in high school. I tell people that I deserve the title of Last Man Standing far more than Tim Allen ever could have!
Glad you are still standing. What a story.
Sorry Marcel, I deleted what appeared to be the duplicate and it axed all of the comments below it from you and I. My apologies. Thank goodness the duplicate still stands.
It may be. I posted it, but I didn’t see it posted, so I posted it a second time to make sure it was there. Is that how it works on here? That is the only reason for a duplication; it seemed to have vanished after posting it the first time.
As an older man and gay, I've only just realised that what you say: 'Women who side with women can be lesbians and be welcomed into organisations that promote women's rights with little or no hesitation' is very true.. well that is what I've realised within the last few months.. and I feel it is true, somehow, with homosexual men.. and straight men..
You state: " I will ask the question: does anyone know of any new and well-publicized laws or programs created for men's rights?"
I cannot get a list for LGB++++++ plus rights and get told 'it is on the internet for everyone'.. but I'm still waiting for the list...
I'm an Ayn Rand reader and she is the only one, that I know of in my limited readings, who talks about 'rights' in a way that I'm both shocked and relieved to hear about.
One of my favourites and I've taken it out of context of the whole idea: "The right of free speech means that a man has the right to express his ideas without danger of suppression, interference or punitive action by the government. It does not mean that others must provide him with a lecture hall, a radio station or a printing press through which to express his ideas."
After reading this two years ago I realised that there are many 'activists/groups' (I use that word to cover many people under many groups) that get funding from Governments - either directly or sometimes indirectly (on some groups web pages the list of Organisations that 'support' them is actually a Government owned corporation/institution and an example might be the Main TV in Switzerland supports a Feminist organisation with ?? donations - which Citizens have probably not voted for and this occurs in many countries I think) and therefore the Government is directly/indirectly/sneakily supporting some Groups with Tax Payers money.
I'm nearly as old as you and wake up to all this 'shit'...
My experiences are on both sides of the Atlantic. When I was going through divorces, I went to meetings of men's groups that were allegedly for promoting men's rights. What I witnessed was dismaying, to put it very mildly. On both sides of the ocean, the groups did precious little for promoting men's rights.
I know that when I visited the groups both here and there, the men made serious efforts toward sniping at each other. Any man who went hoping to find some encouragement and some hope for greater men's rights was doomed to be disappointed. Even when it comes to offices that allegedly offer legal advice to men, that sort of conduct was present there as well.
I will never forget how when I went to speak with the lawyer in a men's group in Tel Aviv, as I was relating my situation to the lawyer, another man in the office interfered by saying angrily, "You come in here just to complain about your wife!" In the end, I had a much more severe complaint against types like him; I go for help and instead get attacked for doing it. I had an experience in the United States that was just an Americanized version of the same caustic treatment. It's just the "be a man" attitude that guarantees a man little or no help when he faces problems.
Turning to an office that caters to both genders was less caustic but also not very helpful. Then again, the lack of any sort of movement to promote men's rights and laws that guarantee men any sort of help in problematic situations almost always ensure a negative outcome for men. Those are factors that give men little hope of finding even a sympathetic ear.
One example that I often mention is the Violence Against Women Act. The very title of that legislation already excludes men completely. Some have tried to claim that it does protect men, but can anybody tell that he has been told that he would get help like the help that women receive? The silence is deafening when I ask that question.
I have posted several editorials here on Substack that describe such situations, so I feel that I'm just repeating myself endlessly, but the only reason that I keep repeating them is that my desire to advocate positively for the well-being of men is partly because of what I have endured, but I have witnessed other situations that were truly shocking and the men trapped in negative situations received not even a sympathetic ear. One such case that always sticks in my mind was when man was married to a woman who had done everything to make it clear that he was inadequate. When they were in a hearing and the woman listed her demands for divorce, most of them were typical material/financial demands, but the one that will echo forever was when she said in the hearing, "When I married him, I was a virgin. He has to return that to me." I wish I was making that up, but when I spoke with her in private much later, she repeated the same demand to me and was emphatic that he had an obligation to do what she demanded. The couple was in litigation for divorce for 15 years, so I can't dismiss that as just one insane demand; the fact that he was chained in marriage to a woman with such a mentality and the legal system did nothing to help him get his freedom remains an incident that I will never forget.
I'm am gobsmacked to say the least.
Please keep repeating yourself. We all need to hear these horror stories, even to realise how captivated our politicians are about many things rather than protecting individual human rights.
The comment about being a virgin.. goodness...
That story had an ending that was possible in Israel but not in the United States. If a wife is proven to be mentally deranged or just determined to drive her husband into his grave, because Israel has no civil law, only religious law, the Rabbinical Court in Israel is the only court that has the authority to grant a divorce. In the case of this man, while the rabbis in the court dragged their feet for three more years after the wife made that outrageous statement in a hearing, they gave what is called a heter mea rabbanim, translated to mean "permission from one hundred rabbis." That is a highly unusual situation in which the court arranges for literally one hundred rabbis to review the case and to give their permission to allow the husband to take a second wife legally while the deranged first wife becomes an agunah, a deserted woman, and then she is trapped in her own snare indefinitely. That husband did obtain such a permit after 16 years of litigation -- hey, why be in a hurry? -- and he did remarry; I even attended his second wedding.
However, it's not a total surprise that he had suffered so much emotional trauma that when he and his new wife had a disagreement about something, he vanished. My last contact with him or his new wife was a telephone conversation that I had with her in which she expressed complete sympathy with what he had endured in that marriage, and she only hoped that he could be convinced to come back to her. I heard no more after that; by that time, I had remarried myself for the third and final time. Yes, for me, it was three strikes and you're out!
What makes me sick about the last one, though, was that because of damages that she suffered in the first childbirth, the woman that I married ceased to exist and I was stuck with a psychotic stranger. That is a long, complicated, nasty story that I won't include here; I have sounded off enough already. I just have to say that the way family courts work on both sides of the Atlantic is that even when the problem is clearly not the fault of the husband -- which in the case of my last marriage was very clearly not my fault -- family courts always hold the husband responsible for everything that goes wrong and innocence is no excuse!
Civil law in the United States does the same thing; if a man gets into any sort of relationship with a woman and something should go wrong, THE MAN IS ALWAYS THE ONE WHO IS BLAMED 100% AND THE WOMAN IS ALWAYS A BLAMELESS VICTIM OF THE EVIL HUSBAND!!! Someone question that and I'll say he needs a head transplant! The law is misandrist by nature, and too many men can echo what I say for anybody to ignore or question them! Well, maybe Gloria Steinem would disagree, but has she ever agreed with any statement that claims a man is free of guilt?
So true that the laws may or may not be misandrist but the judges most assuredly are.
The very fact that a law entitled Violence Against Women Act mentions only one gender and excludes the other is misandrist without question. I have an overabundance of stories about that exclusion; at least now, that bitch is out of my life and our children both say she needs to be in a mental institution. I said the same thing while we were married, but nobody lifted a finger to help, and VAWA didn't offer me any refuge. That law in itself is gender discrimination and yet it's accepted as a valid law.
The problem is that some males will always use other men as a wedge to try and win favor with women. For some men that is their primary strategy with women, showing them "I'm not like that". Mate competition is just too strong a drive for men to put that in the backseat.
I've posted this against this article already but I think the 'I'm not like that' is covered in this video, also!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5abU03jPWU "Rise of the beta: why men today are so feminine"
Yes, the simp factor. Very strong in the anglo nations, especially the U.S. and U.K./Canada.
Lots of cucks on the political right, too, I'm sorry to report.
Of course this is total bullshit and merely reflects your biases...
Have to disagree with you there, unless there is some sarcasm I haven’t picked up on.
The political right are as gynocentric as they come, at least this is the case in the UK and I suspect it’s also true in most western nations.
Do you travel? Men pussify themselves for women all over the world, Len.
Yes, though I’m not an authority on the political positions of the natives in the countries where I’m a tourist. I mentioned the UK intending to exchange opinions if you disagreed with me, as I interpreted your original comment to imply
Sad, but true.
Betrayal can occur instantaneously as men bid themselves down competitively for a woman's affections when she enters the social theatre.
Sadly for these men. women 'won' this way do not respect the man who debases himself for them.
Wow. Excellent piece. I’ve been diving into this field myself as a men’s ministry director and clinical counselor.
Thanks Grainger, glad you found it helpful.
I often think of Jezebel who was defenstrated. Or Noah who built an arc. It's like we can choose to FA but will FO (F around and find out).
Then there's Genesis.
I almost wish we could distil the present state religion of Postmodernity, collectivism, and two tier injustice into a set of foundational tales.
I made rewrite the bible by wokeifying each chapter and verse so that it's recognisable but transformed by the woke prism (gnostic, Marxist, critical theories, Postmodern, feminist, queer, anti traditional etc.).
Might get a bit bonkers once Jesus enters the scene.
Imagine post modern book of revelations.
Tom, you raise an important question and one that has bugged me for years. Many years ago I tried to "build an army" of activist men, before giving up in the face of the reality that it wasn't happening. Since then I have spent many hours puzzling over this apparent shortcoming of men cf women. As you note, men work extremely effectively together when motivated by earnings or enhancement of status, but not when the only driver is male solidarity. Men lack in-group preference. I have slowly perceived, however, that this is not a shortcoming of men at all. Actually it is one of men's most important pro-social traits. This lack of in-group preference amongst those people who, historically, controlled the world of affairs is actually what makes very large scale, harmonious societies of humans possible. The proof? What happens when those people who DO have strong in-group preference attain dominant social, political and economic power? Social, cultural and economic collapse.
Such a great point Rick. I was thinking about that when I was writing this but failed to frame it like you did. The in-group bias of women among female leaders is obvious, They prefer women. And the preference of male leaders, is, gulp, also for women. lol IO think you are correct though, men tend to be more likely to consider the whole group, not just a part of it.
I think we can draw a line on a chart to when men will take back the wheel.
We will be willing to do whatever it takes to take care of everyone when we're having terminal lucidity due to depopulation.
I agree Tom. Even my own attitude toward men illustrates this. It has also been bred into me. As a boy I had more empathy for men but with age I learned that this is out lot in life.
Yes, it may even be there at birth....
In my experience in work collaborations, loyalty is more important for men than women. For men, loyalty is important on principle, because it’s tied to their self-respect. For women, loyalty is instrumental, tied to other goals.
Yes, loyalty is critical when men are on the same team.
I've read that mixed gender units prove less effective in fire fights.
There's an argument that since boys develop more slowly than girls, boys ought to take exams a year later.
It's even been suggested that segregated schooling, and potentially workplaces, might help boys and men.
Doctors in the UK were over taken by women in the 2010s and their wages declined 30%. So there's something in the inferiority complex theory - or that women fail to negotiate pay settlements as effectively - and of course work dramatically fewer hours making their medical training a substantially lower return on investment.
I've found that loyalty has not really served me in my life though!!
I've remained loyal to people who were not necessarily loyal in return..
for me it has become an old form of remaining stuck in an expectation of once was when people had stronger morality or ethics..
In some cases it could be that Loyalty becomes easily meaningless...
I'm not sure.. about this though...
It has been suggested that women are loyal to their emotions.
Emotional reasoning is less effective at large scales because it's fleeting and subjective.
I'd even say that emotional reasoning fails hard in some circumstances.
I wonder if there's a pro-male preference for leaders - I bet there is - since they assume he'll not believe however he feels from moment to moment as a substitute for objective truth.
I dunno, Tom. Maybe we’ll never agree about some things. I do agree with everything that you say about gynocentrism and its effects on male solidarity in our time and applaud your insights into what’s going on. I'm not so sure about what I consider your biologically reductive generalizations. It seems to me, although I can’t get inside your head, that you’ve applied a theory (evolutionary psychology), which you expect to support your own a priori point of view. If so, then that’s what I would diagnose as “confirmation bias.” In any case, though, I think that your article overestimates two things: (a) solidarity among women; and (b) lack of solidarity among men.
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Yes, most women by now (after initial ambivalence) realize that political "sisterhood" (feminism) allows them to get whatever they want in some contexts (attaining legal privileges granted by the state though not finding husbands or even boyfriends, having children and so on).
Nonetheless, I suggest that women themselves have always and everywhere complained bitterly about other women as rivals (first in the competition for men and now not only for men but also for power beyond the home). Not being a statistician, I can't produce figures to back up that statement (although someone could). But anyone who has worked in female-dominated offices--as I have--will know precisely what I mean about the effort that many women devote routinely to malicious sniping at female colleagues and gossiping about them (but also about men). At the moment, more than a few women are having second thoughts about even feminism. This is partly because of its failure to bring about utopian happiness for women, or at least contentment, but also because of its failure to safeguard the most fundamental and universal moral principles.
Janice Fiamengo and Bettina Arndt don't represent all or even most women, it's true, but they are no longer as isolated as they would have been between 1965 and 2020 in breaking ranks with women over feminist misandry and therefore over feminist gynocentrism. I see this change even in my own professional life. When Katherine Young and I began our research on misandry, in the 1980s, we had to make our way through either the utter indifference of colleagues or a hurricane of hostility from women (and some men) who accused us of misogyny merely for suggesting the possibility of inter-sexual dialogue. The “Duluth model” for treating (male) sexual abusers was in its heyday. No one had ever heard of “parental alienation” except as a cover-up for paternal fantasies of male power. Feminism was moving steadily away from egalitarian rhetoric (despite the movement’s actual gynocentrism) and toward openly misandric rhetoric.
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As for men, most have always realized that informal "brotherhood" (friends, colleagues, allies) allows them to survive or prosper in some contexts (battlefields, say, or boardrooms) but not in others. Well, that was then, and this is now. Most men in secular Western countries today are by now thoroughly confused about both manhood and womanhood. Feminists and wokers have unilaterally torn up all historical social contracts. No matter how hard men try to “pass for white” as token women by converting to feminism and virtue-signaling about it both to women and to male infidels, they still can’t get it right. Some women might pin medals on them in public, but other women deny them even the possibility of redemption.
My point here, though, is that this period of intense gynocentrism (unmitigated by androcentrism, as it has been both historically and cross-culturally) is a shocking aberration. What we need to explain is discontinuity, therefore, not continuity.
This brings me to my conclusion. More and more men are beginning to recognize gynocentrism and even to challenge the resulting misandry openly. It’s happening partly, Tom, because of your own relentless efforts and those of other men: bloggers, podcasters, even some journalists and politicians (although a few of them do so by fostering rage and revenge instead of wisdom and reconciliation). It took men one or two generations to realize what was going on, because many of the accusations against men as a class were not merely false but irrational. And yet that’s not a long time in historical or even “evolutionary” terms.
Hey Paul - Fascinating comment as usual. I am failing to see where we disagree. The in group bias of women has been researched for some time and is not really in question. The same is true for men's in group bias of being on the same team. These are well researched and not in question. I am guessing that you are wondering about my assumptions for why this is the way it is. My guess is that women have developed this bias through their need for safety within their own group and the necessity of requiring help from others when pregnant and with infants etc. The men had to create coalitions which required cooperation but at the same time were in competition for mates and status. I could be wrong about both of those but it doesn't really matter since the reality of women's and men's in group bias is set.
Well said about the period of intense gynocentrism. So true and so hard to believe. And yes, bless Bettina, Janice, and Paul N for their courage and persistence!
As I say, Tom, we might never agree about this. Okay, evolutionary psychology is de rigueur right now. I get that. What motivated me to write, however, was not your explanatory theory of how a phenomenon originated. Rather, it was your description of the phenomenon itself and therefore of its history.
I don't agree that women are innately given to seek solidarity with other women (or that they ever were until the advent of feminism). That observation might make sense in theory, but it doesn't describe reality. Historically and cross-culturally, for example, most women by far have been wartime cheerleaders (at the very least) for their entire countries or communities, not pacifists or dissidents due to solidarity with women on the other side. During the Civil War, this was true of both Northern and Southern women (who certainly didn't mind working and punishing their female slaves). It was true of the women on both sides during World War I, World War II. It was probably true of every other war. Even today, this phenomenon is generally true of both Ukrainian and Russian women (who support their own men in uniform, not foreign women). It's true of both Israeli and Palestinian women (who actually cheered when their men raped and murdered Israeli women on 7 October 2023). On the contrary, women on each side have always had too much to gain from the victory of their own side, and too much to lose from the defeat of their own side, to care about women across the river or even in the next village. And the same phenomenon has been observed on a smaller scale. Historically, women have strongly preferred the safety and prosperity of their own families (including both male and female members) over the safety and prosperity of other families (let alone their female members).
Moreover, I don't agree that men are innately given not to seek solidarity with other men. And the reason should be obvious. The only other sexual in-group, after all, is women (although what we now call "gay men" and "transgendered men" might make such neat categories more difficult to sustain). Historically, men simply had no reason to defend themselves, specifically as men, against women. Not until the rise of feminism. We're in new territory here.
I see no reason to assume that men cannot adapt themselves to the new reality of feminism (and other divisive identity movements). But first, as I think that we can agree, men need to learn about what's actually going on with the women of our time. That's where we come in.
Hi Paul - There is actually a large amount of research that has been done on the in-group bias idea. Here's a meta-analysis of 219 studies:
Balliet, D., Wu, J., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2014). Ingroup favoritism in cooperation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 140(6), 1556-1581.
Here's what chat gpt says about this study:
This large meta-analysis across 212 studies found that both men and women show in-group favoritism, but women do so more consistently in social cooperation contexts, especially when the in-group is defined by gender.
Men’s in-group bias was more context-dependent (e.g., competitive situations).
So women are more likely to be impacted by an in-group bias with other women while men are more likely to be impacted with a bias for their own team/group.
The argument about women not siding with the women who were opponents in war seems a bit on the extreme side. I think it is sensible to assume that we all would side with the group that is not interested in killing us.
There is some fascinating research on women in the workplace. What they have found is that when a woman gets an important promotion, it is likely that she will face attacks from the other women. They now assume this is related to the in-group bias that seeks to punish those who leave the confines of the group. Not unlikr crabs pulling other crabs back into the boiling pot. With men it seems to opposite. Other men see the advancing man as impressive, and maybe some jealosy or wishing/thinking it should have been them!
Okay, I'll try once more. You don't need to convince me, Tom, that these studies indicate "in-group bias." How else could anyone explain the widespread gynocentrism in Western countries today? You do need to convince me that this is due to something innate in women (and its opposite in men). Too many women--even today and even in Western countries--don't conform to that pattern. My own experience of women in daily life (but also that of many others) tells me that many women are bitter rivals in competition with each other not only for men but also for prestige in terms of social and economic class.
The Gilded Age, a sumptuous HBO series, is a modern fictionalized account of the ambitious women who ruled "Society" in New York during the late nineteenth century. But "the" Mrs. Astor and her Vanderbilt rivals were well known at the time (let alone to writers of the period such as Edith Wharton). and are still well known to historians. Eventually, Alva Vanderbilt supported the suffragette movement, but she certainly didn't start out that way. On the contrary, she had already forced her own very unwilling daughter to marry an English duke in order to gain prestige for the family. And that established a pattern that many other wealthy young women had to endure (although some of these "dollar princesses" were quite happy to buy their way into the aristocracies of Europe).
And then there were the British "memsahibs" who married into India's civil service during the Raj. Some of their husbands actually cared about the Indians: not only learning their languages, collecting their art, writing scholarly works on their history and religion, building schools and hospitals, but also banning practices that harmed both male and female Indians--such as sati (widow burning). The memsahibs, however, were interested primarily in the social ranking of their own families and managing their household servants.
You think that women's wartime support for their own countries is "far-fetched"? Maybe it's not so far-fetched that many Western women support regimes that are currently at peace but also indifferent (from a Western point of view) to the needs of their own women? As I've already said, plenty of woke women eagerly support Hamas--including those who brutally and enthusiastically raped and murdered Israeli women? It seems obvious to me, at any rate, that anti-Western and anti-Zionist ideologies take precedence in these cases over any notion that Israeli women are part of their in-group. (See Avi Benlolo, "“Report on Oct. 7 Sexual Violence Should Shame Feminists Who Failed to Condemn Attacks,” National Post, 11 July 2025). Similarly, plenty of women support the interests of "transgendered women" at the expense of actual women. I'm not a feminist, but I think that feminists have a good reason to oppose that.
Statistically, these examples are anomalies within the larger pattern of gynocentrism that now prevails in Western countries. But each has been made possible by the varying conditions of human existence through history. They must be taken seriously, therefore, by anyone who insists on explaining human behavior according to a version of biological determinism, including evolutionary psychology.
Perhaps instructive to consider how much Fiamengo and Arndt and Pizzey suffered for their outspoken truths.
The female collective excommunicated them and chased them out of their buildings, and even countries, with threats of violence, and attempts.
It reminds me of the Suffragettes carried out an overt campaign of mass terrorism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette_bombing_and_arson_campaign heck even Wikipedia admits it at the time of writing).
The Suffragettes were rewarded with majority suffrage. Which predictably they used to accrue more privileges. To the point now where only men pay net lifetime tax. So why the heck wouldn't they give votes to leaders who tax and redistribute.
I just can't believe the Suffragettes are honored in London. We recently renamed a mass transit line after them. For goodness sake, they burnt down Kew Gardens. They campaigned for votes for women while men without votes were taking bullets in Flanders.
The 1-4% paternity discrepancy rate is one thing that I reckon will become too big a lie to hide in coming decades as full genome sequencing comes down from billions twenty years ago to just a few dollars in late 2030s.
We can't unabort the billion unbaptised souls that got the crush and poison treatment. That's 20,000 per working day hour globally. It's like 10 holocausts per year based on the numbers of deaths. Where's the shame? Where's the guilt? Where's the fear of our consequences?
Yes, Conrad, I think that you understand what I'm trying to say. By the way, some American suffragettes worried that black men might get the vote before white women.
As I've written elsewhere, feminism (what's now called "first-wave" feminism) originated with romanticism--a movement that divided the world not between economic classes (which is what Marxism did) but, by extension, between innate classes. At first, the romantics appealed to ethnic communities or emerging nations seeking liberation from culturally "diverse" empires, but they soon appealed also to biologically defined races, then to sexes and now even to gendered interpretations of sex.
There's no need for evolutionary psychology to explain feminism. I explain it as one of several historical experiments, or cultural revolutions, that had no real precedents before the Enlightenment in Europe. It was only then, in the late eighteenth century, that utopian philosophers decided to sweep away the entire cultural legacy of countless generations in accordance with "reason" (narrowly understood). One unexpected result was the romantic reaction, however, which glorified the opposite of reason.
After the 1960s, this romantic mentality provided a new matrix for feminism. Nonetheless, many feminists have continued, for practical purposes, to use Marxist class analysis (usually applied to emotionally charged notions of racial and sexual identity) and thus ironically remain allies of woke movements on the political Left.
Yes, Janice, Bettina and Erin all left the boiling pot and the sisterhood wanted to punish them. Just like they wanted to punish Warren Farrell for talking about boys. For more info on the violence of the early feminists check out Janice's Fiamengo File on Chatgpt and ask it about the violence of feminists. It will give you a boatload!
https://chatgpt.com/g/g-684a0c6ac32481918728f77103b818f4-fiamengo-file-2-0-janice-fiamengo
Terrific article. The “double-bind” is especially poignant: men advocating for men or even boys in any way is seen as a form of aggression to women and girls, even the kindest, mildest, data-driven analysis from the likes of Richard Reeves.
Teenage girls get compassionate support for mental health, adolescent challenges and social media pressures. Teenage boys get Netflix “Adolescence” shaming.
Men getting more comfortable with supporting other men may be the most radical action men in general can take at the moment. Thanks for your voice Tom.
Thank you David. I agree that men supporting other men is a needed radical action. It won't be easy. I am involved in groups of men and know that they can be so powerful and so very different from mixed sex groups or groups of women. Men tend to show compassion by listening and nodding and not judging. Maybe we should start a group here on substack.
The article raises some thought-provoking points about male group dynamics and solidarity.
One thing I’m wondering about is the idea that men compete for “rank, dominance, and access to mates.” I’m not sure those are entirely separate goals. It feels like rank and dominance might actually be ways of reaching that larger aim—access to mates. From an evolutionary standpoint, status and dominance often lead to more reproductive opportunities, so maybe they’re better thought of as strategies rather than independent pursuits.
Historic examples include Genghis Khan, who reportedly fathered hundreds of children, or Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, both known for their expansive conquests and sexual exploits, had immense political and military influence that often coincided with high levels of sexual dominance. A recent example, like JFK, shows how power and prestige can translate into desirability. Of course, there are exceptions—leaders who've held high status without this kind of sexual legacy—but the broader pattern seems hard to ignore.
Yes, status is directly connected to getting the girl. It's a competition. What is fascinating is that much of the males in the animal kingdom go through competitions in order to get their mates. If you are interested in that check this out https://menaregood.substack.com/p/understanding-men-8-hierarchy-a-look
That’s a very interesting connection Robert which makes total sense, and which I’ve never seen expressed before, and certainly not so explicitly. Thanks for the a-ha.
Ghengis Khan is suspected to have 16 million descendents alive today (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_descent_from_Genghis_Khan).
40% of men reproduced in our history.
80% of women reproduced in our history.
So we seem to be somewhat polygamous, which checks out with our sexual dimorphism.
This issue has been on my mind.
Excellent essay! It answers the question I've been asking most of my life. What I do find sad is that men can't support each other in public but they can ban together to get a trans man removed from a beer can. It's discouraging. Thank you!
Thanks Mark. It is frustrating isn't it?
We need to hack our instincts to leverage our strengths to achieve specific political goals, such as planning how to restore a position of honor for good men.
Tom, despite what I post now I enjoyed this article a lot.. it explains a lot of things about men and men.. you are good at it..
As a man, I believe our innate biology betrays us. We will always compete “for women” although until we find “true” (trustworthy) love it will hamper and leave us empty. (Competition against other men is both fun and most often rewarding). Women get to extend the relationship through having kids, though today they seem too willing to kill them. They have made this power “a sacrament” as it’s the deciding factor in our politics. I don’t believe there is “an answer” to this conundrum. This is the human condition as we struggle to balance our biological and cerebral natures. We all bear the scars of interactions either from child or adulthood. And forgiveness is tricky as it most often does not solve the problems but only acts as a bandaid. As we age (I’m almost 80) it all becomes “sad” as we are forced to deal with the existential. And life goes on for the young.