The Pathetic "Men's Rights Movement"

by Kit

Within the past year there has been a great deal of controversy over a group of men who call themselves "Red-Pillers" and "Pick-up Artists", especially with the Elliot Rodgers shootings and again with the recent attention on Pick-up Artist Julien Blanc.

They have gained increasing fame against the back drop of, and possibly fueled by, a resurgent radical feminism that is sees every minor inconvenience a woman has in modern-day American society as symptomatic of a widespread and universal "War on Women". The manosphere portrays itself as a rebellion against this resurgence (though they claim it never died) and, as with all rebels, it gives them a certain aura. But, as I hope to show, they are not an answer to the problems of radical feminism. In fact, they are in many ways, a masculine alter ego of radical feminism —though with lower aims. They both promote a War of the Sexes where one must win through Total Victory or become a defeated Stepford Wife or Henpecked Husband.

Now, in discussing them I am not talking about the Men's Rights Movement as a whole nor am I excluding them since the lines between the MRAs and the Red-Pillers/PUAs are often quite blurry. As they have been a rather influential part of the MRAs. This also has absolutely nothing to do with the wonderful blog, Art of Manliness, a website with a philosophy contrary to that of the Red-Pillers. In fact, the major Red-Pill site Return of Kings criticized Art of Manliness for "poisoning the concept of masculinity with Disney Lifestyle Advice" by promoting a pro-family, pro-fatherhood, and pro-marriage view of the world.

Their Worldview

The philosophy of the Manosphere and the Red-pillers can be described by these 4 pillars that I am calling "Female Psychology", "Alpha-Beta Male Dichotomy", "Feminism's Effects", and "Game". The first two describe their "scientific" view of basic human psychology that applies to all men and women at all times and all places, the 3rd describes that state of gender relations in modern society, and the 4th is the rational solution for men in today's world.

(1) Female Psychology: Women, ruled by a “hindbrain”, are driven by a sense of hypergamy to find the most uber-sexy, domineering man, an Alpha, over wimpy Betas, most of the other men because, as Xpat puts it, “Men believe that love matters for the sake of it. Women love opportunistically.” This is a major part of their ideology, Rollo Tomassi (pen-name for the blogger at the Rational Male), makes it his 6th Iron Rule (he has 9), “Women are utterly incapable of loving a man in the way that a man expects to be loved.”

A translation: “Women are only capable of loving men conditionally, that is, if it benefits them.” Now, as with nearly all the best lies this one has a grain of truth to it. Hypergamy is a real thing, it is the desire of a (heterosexual) woman to select as a mate/spouse the highest quality man available with the man's quality hinging on a variety of traits. This can be proven by scientific studies and common sense.

The Pick-up Artists twists this, producing blog posts headlined "Hypergamy Doesn't Care", providing examples of the things Hypergamy doesn't care about:

—"Hypergamy doesn’t care how great a Father you are to your kids."

—"Hypergamy doesn’t care how great a guy you are for adopting the children she had with other men."

—"Hypergamy doesn’t care about how well you do your part of the household chores."

And so on.

The interesting thing is that, according to every bit of available knowledge of science's understanding of hypergamy... THESE ARE EXACTLY THE THINGS IT DOES CARE ABOUT YOU THICK-HEADED NUMBSKULL!!! They want a man who will be a great father, a great husband, who is caring, who is supportive, but tough enough to not be driven to a mess of tears by the smallest problems. Basically, they want a man. But, this is their world view. So what does "Hypergamy care about"? Well...

(2) Alpha/Beta Male Dichotomy: According to them, most men fall into one of two categories: Alphas and Betas. Alphas are the domineering aggressive men who make history while the Betas are the rest of them, the weak, docile, and pussy-whipped men who make up the vast majority of society. In this view, the quintessential Alphas are men like Genghis Khan and James Bond while a typical Beta would be Al Bundy and Ray Romano. It further states that women are attracted to Alphas.

Now, in theory this may seem ok. A bit black-and-white but with some truth to it. Most men may not aspire to be Genghis Khan but they don't want to be Al Bundy either so they seek the middle road. Surely there is a middle road, neither dominated nor domineering? Well, according to this worldview there isn't. One is either a domineering übermensch who is conquering women or weak and henpecked husband dominated by his wife. There is no middle road.

And Hypergamy, they say, guides women towards the Alphas. While they will "settle" for a Beta if there is no other alternative, they all pine for an Alpha and will cheat on their Beta husband if they find a willing Alpha —even if said Alpha is already taken, for "Women would rather share a high value Man than be saddled by a faithful loser." If you want to see proof of this bubbling up in other sites, the big Red-Pill site website Return of Kings even had an article giving men tips on how to have an affair.

Now, in older days this was ok because, in the pre-feminism era, Beta Males did not have to worry about their wives getting cheating on them with impunity. But then...

(3) Effects of Feminism: Feminism, they claim, by upsetting the natural order of man and wife, has resulted in women developing a sense of entitlement that leads them to abuse and mistreat men. If this sounds like a bit of a leap in logic look at the above pillar; “Women love opportunistically.” If women can only love opportunistically and thus cannot be trusted to be loyal then it is clear that feminism has given them powers and rights with which they cannot be trusted. Women now have the power to abuse and cheat on their boyfriends and husbands (and even fathers and sons) with impunity.

This is very reminiscent, interestingly, of the radical feminist ravings about patriarchy and how under it men are given free reign to abuse and mistreat women. How women are not able to trust men to be caring and loving. That is because both are rooted in a worldview of an identity culture bred by a sense of victimhood. Like the feminists who claim that all women are suffering brutal and daily abuse under an all-powerful patriarchy they claim that feminism has created a situation where all men suffer. Remember the "Hypergamy Doesn't Care" article I mentioned? Well, it is rife with this. I chose the nicer parts, but almost every thing he lists that "Hypergamy doesn't care about" is written in such a way to portray women as evil leeches who will abuse and mistreat men with about as much empathy as a sociopath. Even their view of a once-great and wonderful Eden of Male Superiority has a feminist parallel in the anthropological myth of long-lost "Matriarchal Societies" where life was free and happy.

And, like all victimhood-peddlers they have a solution...

(4) Game: The logical result, they claim, is that men can no longer expect a happy life through marriage and fatherhood and instead must seek a fulfilled life by having as much sex with as many women as they can. To accomplish this they peddle "Game". "Game" is the method of seduction they sell to young men. The strategies they teach vary from the deceptive to the abusive. The most infamous, Julien Blanc recommend that men put their right hand around the girl's neck and go "Shhhhh". He also recommends using tactics of domestic abuse to keep girlfriends, tweeting a photo of a domestic abuse wheel that shows the methods of domestic abuse with the words, "Might as well be a checklist. #HowToMakeHerStay".

He is the most extreme version but one can find hints of this in the statements of other advocates of Game such as the Rollo Tomassi, who pushes a view of relationships that is based entirely on the prism of who has the most power with sex as the sole reason for the relationship, said "Any woman who makes you wait for sex, or by her actions implies she is making you wait for sex; the sex is NEVER worth the wait."

It's a cynical, grab-what-you can ideology and it is the reason for it all. The Pick-Up Artists are trying to sell "Game" to young men. The reason for the previous 3 pillars is an attempt to provide "evidence" for the need for Game. Its a con. This is not too far from a man who claims that ancient alien souls sent into the bodies of cavemen by an evil alien overlord are the real causes of mental illness and joining his creepy religious cult is the only way one can "cure" oneself of mental health problems.

Conclusion

Yes, there are women who have cheated on their husbands and yet still soaked them in the divorce, just as there are men who have beaten their wives. Some people are simply narcissistic sociopaths. People who will mistreat others for no apparent reason, even when it would've been in their interest to be kind. But the history of human experience shows that these are the exception, not the rule.

In the ideologies of both Radical Feminists and Red-Pillers/PUAs we see them try to depict the world in stark black-and-white terms; casting the other sex as violent and depraved demons while painting their own sex as innocent and unknowing babes in the woods. They are cynical views of the world and with the Pick-up Artist community we see a cynical and nefarious solution with their pushing of "Game".

Yes, unlike feminism, perusing their websites reveals no real desire to change the world into a totalitarian masculine state, though many might like it. Their goals, as "Game" illustrates, are a bit lower. Simply have as much sex as you can. But that only means it is less ambitious. The bile, however, is still very present. They promote themselves as a cure to radical feminism in its modern-day form but they are not a cure. In truth, they are another strain of the same disease.