Mapping the Enemy: Feminism V. Residual Misandry

The various Men's Movements are, by common consent, much less effective than they might be. While this impotence is partly the result of incoherent aims, other problems are also at work. When a movement cannot clearly identify its targets, its energies cannot be effectively directed. In order to function and effect positive change, a movement must possess a clear conceptual map of its environment and adversaries. At present, the Men's Movement lacks such a map.

The main obstacle to producing this map lies in the movement's obsession with organized feminism. Indeed, many MRA blogs and sites incorporate the title 'anti-feminist'. This is not to say, of course, that feminism does not exist. Indeed it does, and exerts considerable influence on most western nations (most especially those in the Anglosphere and Scandinavia). The recent attacks on legalized prostitution in France and Germany are the work of feminists, for example.

However, much of the daily oppression men experience is not the work of feminists, as such. Rather, it is the product of what I shall term 'residual misandry'. Residual misandry is not 'created' by anyone; it is a free-floating entity embedded in most western societies at a deep, structural level. The notion that men are expendable is a good example of residual misandry. This assumption is embedded in law, politics, academia and the media, and long antedates the rise of pan-Anglosphere feminism in the late 1950s.

American Civil War dead: males were considered expendable long before feminism.

The distinction between feminism and residual misandry is crucial to understanding male oppression in the West. 'Conservative' masculinists seem to view all anti-male agendas as 'feminist' - as if feminists produced all films, books and laws, or ran all courts or political parties. Of course, a great many anti-male agendas are products of feminism - especially educational misandry, a rampant force in schools and colleges. However, if we consider anti-male agendas in the mass media or the family courts, it is hard to identify organized feminism as specifically responsible. Instead, such discrimination seems to be the product of a free-floating, ubiquitous misandry that, while present in all western nations, is especially potent in the Anglosphere.

The Anglosphere's legal bias against men would still exist without feminism

In many instances, feminist views concur with institutional misandry. Hatred of the dynamic force that is male sexuality has a long history in the Anglosphere, for instance. And feminists have exploited 'residual misandry' to label all prostitutes as 'trafficked' and their patrons as 'abusers'. Indeed, the potent misandry of pan-Anglosphere feminism owes much to the residual misandry specific to Anglo-Saxon culture.

However, feminism remains for the most part distinct from 'residual misandry'. The fact that a male criminal is far more likely to receive a custodial sentence is not the result of organized feminism, but rather a free-floating notion that all men are 'evil'. Likewise, the fact that family courts favour ex-wives in every circumstance results from the same 'residual misandry'. My own contribution to the Men's Movement has been to describe this embedded, subliminal agenda, at least as it exists in the Anglosphere. Now, armed with an accurate map of the battleground and our adversaries, effective resistance is possible.

Map it right: Feminism in politics and academia is distinct from 'residual misandry'

Sexual Economics: Market Research supports ‘Repressive Feminist’ Thesis

Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty

Anglo-American feminists continually tell us that their movement opposes sexual freedom for purely altruistic reasons – that is, that such freedom leads inevitably to illegal porn, ‘sex trafficking’ and other crimes. However, we in the libertarian Men’s Movement argue that these noises represent a vain attempt by ageing/obese/ugly women to restrict sexual supply in western societies, thereby raising their own socio-sexual standing. In short, we believe feminism functions as a ‘sexual Trades Union’ for women on the wrong side of the youth-beauty Bell Curve, nothing more. This is especially true of Anglo-American feminism which, despite its ‘revolutionary’ rhetoric, shares exactly the same repressive, misandrist values as traditional Anglo-American culture.

Now, devastating support for our position has emerged from the field of marketing. This demonstrates that women have an instinctive tendency to prefer marketing that promotes the ‘scarcity value’ of sex:

While sex appeal in marketing campaigns generally turns women off, it can entice them to buy a product when used correctly, new research suggests.

A study published in the journal Psychological Science discovered that women's otherwise-negative attitudes about sexual imagery in ads can be softened when the images are paired with a product that connotes high worth.

"Women generally show spontaneous negative attitudes toward sexual images," the study's authors, including psychological scientist Kathleen Vohs from the University of Minnesota, wrote in the research. "Sexual economics theory offers a reason why: The use of sexual imagery is inimical to women's vested interest in sex being portrayed as infrequent, special and rare."

Before starting their research, Vohs and her colleagues predicted that women's negative attitudes toward sexually explicit ads might soften if sex were depicted in a particular way. That is, the ads must portray sex as being of great value. The researchers predicted that sexual imagery would be less off-putting to women, for example, if paired with high-priced consumer goods, which can convey exclusivity and high value.

To test their hypothesis, the researchers had male and female participants view advertisements for women's watches. Some of the ads presented the watch alongside a sexually explicit image, whereas others pictured the watch against a majestic mountain range. Additionally, some of the ads priced the watch at $10 and others at $1,250.

The study's authors found that, overall, women who saw the sexual imagery with the cheap watch rated the ad more negatively in comparison to women who saw the sexual imagery paired with the pricey watch. Men, on the other hand, reported similar reactions to the sex-based ads, regardless of the advertised price. Researchers believe these negative ratings from women seem to be driven by their negative emotions — feeling upset, disgusted, unpleasantly surprised or angry — in response to the ad that paired sexual imagery with the cheap watch.

A second study replicated the first experiment's results and ruled out the possibility that men's ratings didn't differ because they deemed the women's watches to be irrelevant. In the second study, men gave similar ratings to sexually explicit ads that included men's watches, regardless of how the watches were priced.

 The study's results surprised Vohs and her co-authors, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Jaideep Sengupta and the University of British Columbia's Darren Dahl, despite corresponding with the predictions of sexual economics theory. The researchers were surprised that these effects occurred even when participants weren't actually in a purchasing scenario.

"Just a quick exposure to an ad was enough for theories of sexual economics to kick in," Vohs said. "This suggests that the process happens at a deep, intuitive level."

Originally published on BusinessNewsDaily

 Now, all this reinforces our own perspective on Anglo-American feminism. Far from being 'revolutionary', its themes and preoccupations are those of 'traditional' women, at least as they exist in the Anglosphere. These shared preoccupations include misandry, repression and a hysterical desire to suppress male sexual choice. 

The pigs on Animal Farm spring to mind.

Cheap, high quality sex: what traditional women and Anglo feminists resent.

All the Cards: The Pleasing Limits of Feminism, Misandry and Hypoagency

The concept of hypoagency is gathering pace as an explanation for the preferential treatment afforded women in many areas of life. It is also used to explain the widely-observed female obsession with infiltrating all-male institutions, sub-cultures and societies.  Karen Straughan’s analysis of hypoagency suggests that inactivity has long been an advantageous evolutionary strategy for women – it confers personal and genetic survival for minimal personal risk. Men, by contrast, have had no such option:  for men, inactivity leads only to genetic and personal extinction.  Of course, we see most of these claims proven every day. Men who fail to act functionally are treated very harshly, compared to women: 98% of the homeless in Britain are men, for instance. Indeed, the basic concept of hypoagency coheres well with my own ‘nothing’ theory of women: women never evolved anything beyond physical charms because, in the simplest terms, it was not necessary. Male dominion and prowess obviated the need for any such 'development'.

Hypoagency has also been used to explain the widely observed-female tendency to ‘invade’ all-male spaces. The video games subculture is a good example – increasingly infiltrated by women and their ceaseless demands for non-sexist story-lines, PC speech, and so on. By bending male agency to their collective will, so the story goes, women can secure resources both for themselves and their offspring. Hence, they have evolved a strong tendency to infiltration and manipulation, as well as a reflexive suspicion of all-male groups and subcultures. However, this is improbable. Why? Because, as I have already stated, women never evolved complex, active patterns of behavior in relation to men, sex or gender interaction.

Why would they? Aside from looking as comely as possible, female behavior mattered little for most of evolutionary history.  Omnipotent male agency obviated any need for such complex adaptation – men of power coerced women to their will, whatever they said or thought. And male prowess on the hunting ground or the battlefield ensured the survival of their children, not feminine ‘wiles’

So why, then, are women so attracted to all-male spaces? Why are they so fearful of male autonomy – and indeed, the Men’s Rights Movement? In my view, simple fear: fear of abandonment, fear of starvation, fear of death. There is no need for long, complex explanations based on female evolutionary adaptation. And a cursory glance at contemporary feminism demonstrates this. In the final analysis, women need men a lot more than men need women.

Consider Anglo-American feminists. Despite their misandry, it will be noted that Feminists – and women in general – never seek authentic detachment from men. Ultimately, ‘separatist’ feminists are nothing of the kind. They may live in communes from which men are excluded, so that the inhabitants never see a male for years, if not decades. However, it will be noted that they still  use the technologies developed by male science very freely. Further, their communes can only exist within a protective male context – one that affords safety from wild animals, natural calamities and the criminal underclass.  Hence, it will be noted that female separatism is always selective: even the most ardent feminist retains many aspects of the despised ‘patriarchy’ in her otherwise ‘man-free’ life.

Why is this? The simple answer is that women cannot survive without men to protect and provide for them. Every supposedly 'all-female' institution - from nunneries to sorority houses - retains male janitors, ICT workers and security guards, literally without exception. In sum, the all-female institution is a feminist myth. And this ubiquitous, underlying dependence best explains the female obsession with infiltrating all-male social, cultural and intellectual spaces. The matter is one of sheer survival. Even the most rabidly misandrist female knows deep-down that, if men withdraw their consent from any enterprise, it will fail. And that applies to lesbian communes, not just the real-world institutions that (ultimately) sustain them.

One is strongly reminded of Marxism. This outworn philosophy claims that the proletariat – uneducated manual workers – are ‘exploited’ by the capitalist class. If they could only realize their collective bargaining power, Marx argues, the ‘working’ class could overthrow their oppressors and build a communist utopia. Hold on, though: quite aside from the fact that uneducated manual workers are typically parochial, ignorant and reactionary, they typically lack the cognitive and organizational skills to maintain complex societies. If the ‘oppressing’ classes withdrew their cognitive capital from post-industrial civilization, the ‘working’ classes would be living like medieval peasants within a generation.  The wonders they use but do not understand – the Internet, satellites and smart-phones – would be withdrawn overnight. That would also happen to jobs, healthcare and the elaborate welfare state. In the space of a decade, they would resemble the peasants depicted in the Bayeaux Tapestry, sowing seed in the fields and dying at forty (if that). 

Detroit is a perfect example of what happens when the cognitive elite leave proletarians to their own devices: a once-thriving city becomes a primitive, crime-infested slum. Yet Marxists  still argue that the working class is ‘oppressed’ and ‘exploited’ by its cognitive superiors, who deny them the ‘fruits’ of their labour. However – as with feminism – Marxists never agitate for a separatist solution to this ‘injustice’. If the cognitive elites are so ‘oppressive’, why don’t Marxist academics or the working class go find a Pacific island and built a Communist utopia there, free of their ‘oppressors’? Instead, they want ‘revolution’ – a conflagration which will, conveniently, coerce the cognitive elites into creating (and running) everything ‘for free’.

Despite their rhetoric, never once do Marxists or feminists make real efforts to disengage from their ‘oppressors’  - either men or ‘capitalists’. And yet, it would not be difficult. The Pacific is full of uninhabited islands, while Asia and South America contain many unpopulated enclaves. Look at the hippies of Goa, with their own communes and way of life. If hippies can do it, why not feminists and Marxists?

Of course they could; they just don’t want to. They don’t want to because, at heart, they prefer the many benefits of a capitalist 'patriarchy' to their various utopias. However, there is this crucial difference: while a Marxist commune might subsist indefinitely on some Pacific island (albeit in Palaeolithic squalor), a feminist commune in the same situation would perish in a few weeks.  Without men to hunt and grow food, build shelters, dig drainage channels and guard the community from dangerous arthropods, reptiles and mammals, its inhabitants would perish like flies.

Such a thought-experiment describes a potent evolutionary truth: women without men perished quickly. For me, hypoagency is a variant of the ‘female choice’ theory – it credits women with far too much evolutionary autonomy.  Women never developed a strong, complex sex-drive because there was no need for them to do so: reproductive matters were largely ‘taken care of’ by intra-male competition for women, land and resources. Similarly, women never developed any real capacity for psycho-social autonomy: it simply wasn’t possible in a world full of dangers. Note how prominent feminists preach their misandry from universities founded by men, using concepts and culture created by men, using systems and technologies maintained by men, in societies guarded by men. If all those gifts were repealed, academic feminism would simply not be possible.

So, rather than being a by-product of complex evolutionary processes, hypoagency – or rather, ‘feminist hypocrisy’ – is just female dependence, by any other name.  As ever on our journey through Anglo-American feminism, revolution is really reaction. And in truth, men hold all the cards – if they could just but realize it. Withdraw male consent from anything – even feminism – and it will crumble to dust. Of course, feminists have harboured the ‘structural’ resources inherent in complex post-industrial societies to defend and advance their interests: law, politics and the media. While this shields them somewhat from the direct withdrawal of male consent, their existence still depends on a techno-physical structure devised and maintained by men. The liberal arts and social ‘sciences’ – the academic redoubts of women in general, and feminists in particular – all share this inherent vulnerability. The female assault on all-male spaces is not a mark of female strength and coherence; rather, consider it a mark of desperation, a frantic attempt to recapture male goodwill.

   

The Grapes of Tantalus: Revolt, Delusion and Sexual Anomie

King Tantalus...

In Greek mythology, King Tantalus was tortured for his cruel deeds by a terrible punishment in Hades. A lake of wine surrounded him, while a vine of grapes hung just above his head. Every time he stooped to drink the wine, it ran from him. Every time he reached up to eat the grapes, they swung tantalizingly out of his reach. And so he was doomed to suffer terrible hunger and thirst, for all eternity. As we shall see, this tale reflects the lives of most Anglo-American males. Unlike Tantalus, however, their punishment is no fault of their own.

  

From birth to puberty, most Anglo-American men tend to ‘swallow’ the myths of childhood. That is, they grow up believing that the world is a ‘fair’ place; that adults ‘knows best’; and that organized religion – in its various forms – approximates truth.

At puberty, various physical/hormonal/psychological changes kick in. For most males, these shatter the old pre-pubescent world-view. As Professor Richard Lynn observes, the sudden spurt in IQ at this time leaves most self-aware young people either atheist or agnostic. The ‘class-blindness’ of childhood gives way to an awareness of socio-economic distinctions – and the piercing revelation that life is NOT fair. It is no surprise that the disenfranchised typically ‘switch-off’ education at this time, clearly perceiving the vast socio-cultural obstacles they face in pursuit of upward mobility. For adolescent males, the emergence of a sex-drive replaces childhood pursuits with deep, carnal yearnings.

In sum, the self-aware youth has his world-view completely restructured in the space of a few years. This transformation typically occurs without any meaningful guidance from any quarter save the mass media. Indeed, ‘mainstream’ Western society continues to peddle pre-pubescent themes to young people long after adolescence – with ever-diminishing returns. Perhaps this is yet another expression of the Anglosphere’s latent Puritanism and fear of adult sexuality? But I digress...

The Fruits of Adulthood...?

The media, of course, has always been quick to exploit the changes associated with adolescence. The West’s ‘youth culture’ is really a ‘post-pubescent youth culture’, after all. Video games, popular music and films all bombard the young with images of a sexualized, liberated ‘adult’ world that waits beyond the pre-pubescent confines of school and the parental home. Rap and rock music videos, for instance, invariably parade hordes of nubile, scantily-clad women as ‘available’ appendages to 'adult life'. These images raise the adolescent male’s expectations of adult sexuality to priapic dimensions. In good faith, he truly thinks that armies of sexualized women await him in the adult world, eager to be plucked like fruit from a tree…

Women, women everywhere...

Well, they do if he is a swaggering plutocrat or sadistic thug, or blessed with outstanding good looks. For the vast majority of males, of course, they don’t. And so many young men suddenly find themselves as confused and challenged by adult life as they were by adolescence. In childhood, they were told a pack of convenient lies that they discarded at puberty. They then find that the ‘adult’ world-view they adopted in adolescence was a pack of lies, too. Like Tantalus, their wine and grapes have been snatched away - again.

And this is the root of the ‘male crisis’ that stalks the modern western world: a breakdown of certainty, a failure of trust. Having been deceived twice in rapid succession by the social order, Anglo-American men are increasingly distrustful of all received wisdom and advice. Hence, the explosion of the online manosphere...

Indeed, it must be admitted that much ‘manosphere’ activity represents an attempt to manage the disappointment and alienation of Anglo-American men. On the one hand, the PUA gurus offer Incel men ‘restorative justice’ – a way to realize the ‘adult’ dream of effortless sex that haunted their adolescence. On the other, the MGTOW crowd present a more radical alternative: complete rejection of a deceitful social system. Last but not least, the conservative MRAs promise retribution against women and a social order that allows them to indulge in selective hypergamy. However, at base, all these responses are designed to redress the justified sense of betrayal that currently besets all but a small minority of Anglo-American males.

Tantalus: Forever Cheated...

Torture, Misandry and Our Antiquated Feminist Fixation

Nicola Tedder

Something that has long troubled me about the Men's Movement is its fixation on 'feminism'. Of course, it would be churlish to argue that feminists like Greer or McKinnon don't represent a serious obstacle in our path. For all that, this fixation often blinds us to the fact that many who do not overtly self-identify as feminists still hate men, or discriminate against them. Further, misandry is embedded in Anglo-American laws, customs and institutions, and inflects every facet of the male experience.

Many MRAs seem to assume that, if only these evil 'feminists' were swept away, misandry would also wither. And that women would instantly transform into sweet-natured angels, brimming over with love and kindness. I consider this a very unlikely outcome, given the all-pervasive nature of misandry in the Anglosphere. Most Anglo-American women - feminists or not - harbour a deep loathing of males, as the following article attests:

Woman, 32, jumped on child’s stomach wearing flip-flops and perforated his bowel in shocking campaign of violence

• Rubbed his excrement in his face if he soiled himself
• Held his feet against a piping hot radiator until he burnt
• Jailed for seven years for causing injuries described as being like 'something from a horror film'
• Nicola Tedder denied charges and claimed child was 'clumsy' and had injured himself

A sadistic woman who jumped on a little boy's stomach after losing her patience with him has been jailed for seven years. The savage assault led to the child being rushed to hospital with a perforated bowel, Guildford Crown Court heard.

Nicola Tedder, 32, inflicted a catalogue of cruelties on the child, including plunging her fingers into his eyes, holding his feet against a piping hot radiator until they burnt and clasping her hands around his throat and pushing him under water. She hit him on the head with kitchen utensils and even rubbed his face in his own excrement if he soiled himself. Tedder, from Haslemere, Surrey, was found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent. She was also convicted of four offences of assault causing actual bodily harm and one of child cruelty after a five-week trial at Guildford Crown Court.Alexia Durran, prosecuting, said: 'On one occasion she held his feet against a radiator which was hot enough to cause burning to his feet.

'On another occasion, she poked her fingers into his eyes, causing him ulcers and abrasions to his eyes. It looked like something out of a horror film.'

The court was told that the defendant would put her hands around the boy’s throat and shove his head under bath water as well as hitting him over the head with kitchen utensils and rubbing his nose in his own excrement if he soiled himself. But the most serious assault was when Tedder jumped up and down on the youngster last year. Ms Durran said the injured boy was rushed to the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, suffering from excruciating abdominal pain.

'It was as a result of his stomach being stamped upon. A doctor said he had only seen an injury like this from a karate kick - which will give some idea of the force used,' she said.

Ms Durran said: 'The victim said that the defendant had jumped on his stomach with both feet. She was wearing flip-flops at the time.'

She said that a tear was discovered in the boy’s colon and he had to be transferred to St. George’s Hospital, Tooting, for specialist treatment. The incident led to Tedder being arrested and prosecuted. The defendant denied all the charges against her. Tedder claimed that the boy was clumsy and injured himself.

Jailing the defendant, Judge Michael Addison said: 'You deliberately jumped on his stomach. This caused very serious injuries.'

He said it would probably never be clear why Tedder had inflicted such violence on the child.

'You may have a short temper or a cruel disposition,' added Judge Addison. He said the innocent child might well suffer from long-term psychological damage as a result of his suffering at her hands. The court was told that staff at the victim’s school had already noticed that the boy seemed to suffer cuts and bruising with a greater regularity than was considered normal for a child of his age.

'One of the staff remarked last year that the boy was walking like an old man,' said Ms Durran.

Andrew Turton, defending, said his client had never been in trouble with the law before.

'She continues to deny committing these offences which makes mitigation very difficult,' he said.

SOURCE: Daily Mail, September 2012

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There is no evidence of this woman being a feminist, or identifying with 'feminism'. Still, however, she hated males to such an extent that she almost killed one. My own special contribution to the Men's Movement is the insight that, having a puritanical undercurrent, Anglo-American culture's 'default setting' is pro-female misandry. That is, misandry is not the result of feminism - instead, pan-Anglosphere feminism and misandry both spring from the same source - a puritanical meme embedded at the deepest level of Anglo-Saxon culture.