WTF is a MGTOW? A Glossary
On this blog, MRA does not mean Magnetic Resonance Angiography
For newcomers to this blog, here’s a handy guide to some of the strange acronyms and lingo you’ll encounter here and in the “manosphere” in general. (For a definition of that term, see below.) I will update this entry periodically as needed.
First, the acronyms you’ll see most often here:
MRA: Men’s Rights Activist
MRM: Men’s Rights Movement
MGTOW: Men Going Their Own Way MGHOW: Man Going His Own Way.
Ok, so what do those terms mean?
MRM: The Men’s Rights Movement: A loosely defined, but largely retrograde, collection of activists and internet talkers who fight for what they see as “men’s rights.” Unlike the original Men’s Movement, which was inspired by and heavily influenced by feminism, the self-described Men’s Rights Movement is largely a reactionary movement; with few exceptions, Men’s Rights Activists (or MRAs) are pretty rabidly antifeminist, and many are frankly and sometimes proudly misogynistic. Those who oppose the MRM are generally not against men’s rights per se; they are opposed to those who’ve turned those two words into a synonym for some pretty backwards notions.
MGTOW: Men Going Their Own Way: As the name suggests, MGTOW is a lot like lesbian separatism, but for straight dudes. MGTOW often talk vaguely about seeking “independence” from western and/or consumer culture, and a few MGTOW try to live that sort of zen existence. But most of those who embrace the term have a deep hostility towards and/or profound distrust of feminists and women in general. Many MGTOW refuse to date “western women” and some try to avoid women altogether. I the the Man Going His Own Way acronym MGHOW adds another layer of confusion to an already awkward acronym, so I use MGTOWer instead.
Some other terms and acronyms you’ll run across here:
Anglosphere: Countries in which English is the primary language, or, more narrowly, those countries that used to be British colonies. They are full of evil Western Women (see below).
Incel: Involuntarily Celibate. A term, and identity, adopted by some dateless guys (as well as some women, but it’s the men we’ll focus on here). While there is nothing shameful about being dateless, or a virgin, or having a really long dry spell sexually — most of us have been there at some point — the term “involuntarily celibate” seems to suggest that the world owes incels sex, and that women who turn down incel men for dates or sex are somehow oppressing them. For those (male, straight) incels who are genuinely socially awkward or phobic, this can be a self-defeating stance that can lead to bitterness towards women. And often does.
Mangina: Derogatory term used by MRAs, MGTOW, etc. to describe guys who disagree with them — e.g., me. You can figure out the various connotations of this term yourself.
The Manosphere: The loose collection of blogs, message boards, and other sites run by and/or read by MRAs, MGTOW, and assorted friendly Pick-up Artists. The primary source of material for this blog.
NAWALT: Not All Women Are Like That. Dudes in the manosphere make so many ridiculous and untrue generalizations about women that they’ve come up with their own little acronym to describe the most common reaction to their nonsense: “not all women are like that.” Remarkably, many seem to think that making a reference to NAWALT is actually some sort of clever rebuttal of their critics.
PUA: Pick-up Artist. PUAs are obsessed with mastering what they see as the ultimate set of techniques and attitudes — known as “Game” — that will enable them to quickly seduce almost any woman they want. There is a vast literature on “game” online, though PUA (insofar as it is not complete bullshit) is at its essence simply a male version of the age-old ploy of “playing hard to get.”
Western Women: Also known as WW. Evil harpies, at least according to many in the manosphere. Contrasted with “foreign women,” a term that (in the manosphere, at least) sometimes refers to all women outside the Anglosphere, but often refers to a subset of these women from poor and/or Eastern countries, mostly Asian, who are regarded as more pliable and thus more desirable to haters of “Ameriskanks” and other WW.
That’s the thing – they perceive it as a punishment but the people they’re punishing don’t care. I, for one, am relieved they aren’t pursuing marriage.
@ade – not to mention that the word bachelor has long had positive connotations: the free, unburdened, sophisticated man-about-town; the gay bachelor (before gay had its current meaning). That’s something spinster never had: an unmarried woman was to be pitied or scorned. These clowns acting like they’re doing something new and heroic are just flapping their delusions at the world … and getting frothy when the world doesn’t even glance their way.
@Cassandra: “Given their continued refusal to actually go anywhere I’m wondering if they’re just directionally challenged. Would it help if we drew them a map?”
Possibly not, since they’re of the “couldn’t find his arse with a map” level of intelligence.
Not to mention, if they were following a map, they wouldn’t be going their own way! These men follow no one’s rules but their own.
Also, maps don’t really work if you hold them upside down, and since upside down seems to describe their views on reality…yeah, maybe GPS?
They seem to be more the “Follow your nose” type.
They’ve followed their noses straight up their arses.
(Okay, obvious, but someone had to say it!)
That had not even occurred to me. I feel dumb now. And jealous.
I definitely wouldn’t define dumb as not thinking of arses when noses are mentioned!
They’re going their own way by the millions today because of a forced socialist/radical feminist agenda that has deliberately done all it can to make them disposable and obsolete. Don’t worry though, social engineering doesn’t always have to work in favor of women, and it won’t.
Yeah, yeah, ftg234 men are totally obsolete because they hold most of the world’s money and power. And also no one ever acts like a father is in charge of the household. Men are not normally portrayed as heroes or more competent than women in media.
*yaaaawwwwn* I’ve heard this shtick before.
Right, sure. BYE.
“Going their way by the millions” ROFL yeah, right.
MGTOW – though they never actually do – aren’t disposable, purely by right of being human; other than that, what are these wasters contributing to society other than whining on the internet? Perhaps ftg234 is short for forgetting to go his own way, like the rest of these overgrown four-year-olds. “I’m running away, Mom! I really am! Look at me, I’m running away from home! Look at meeeeeeee!”
Feckit, borked the html!
I should tell my dad that he should abandon his plans to get married and move into his nice fiancee’s house* and go his own way already.
*she has a nicer house than him, which is misaaaaaaaandry
Even if it were true that many or most men are “going their own way”, I’m still not understanding why this should be threatening to me.
Please, do go your own way. But can you stay away? Coming back to tell us you’re going your own way kinda defeats the purpose.
marinerachel – same here. Even if I were looking for a partner, I wouldn’t want the sort of man who even thinks about GHOW. They write themselves out of consideration because they’re self-identified whiny ignorant douchebags.
That’s the thing – until the MGTOW are individuals I respect, I’m going to be glad they’re GTOW. When people whose opinions I have respect for start GTOW I’ll be concerned. That just isn’t the case though.
Seriously, men not marrying? Dandy, fine, if it makes you happy and doesn’t hurt anyone, fucking do it. Men ranting about how they aren’t marrying? You’re being an asshole and assholery, by definition, hurts people, so knock it off.
Hell, neither my brother or I will probably marry (he’s 24, so we’ll see) — he doesn’t rant about it, nor hate women (one’s showing him around Cali currently!). Totally respectable view! Have fun dude!
MGTOW =/= otherwise respecting women.
…did I just find a point on which I can respect my younger brother? Goddamned we’re officially adults…
Say, could I officially be a WGHOW? I’ve never wanted to marry*, had one date in my life and haven’t socialised with men (other than at work) for years.
Oh, wait, I don’t spend my life whining on the internet about how men are all horrible privileged entitled princes who expect me to contribute something to a relationship.
Damn, another bit of faux-victimhood down the drain.
*Never used to think in terms of marriage about Mr K, it came as a surprise.
People need to be aware of what the MGTOW really are and unfortunately you have to be aware of what feminism really is in order to deconstruct the MGTOW and expose its true political nature. Many MGTOW hold that feminism is inherently Marxist (Communist) because the origins of feminism date back to the Marxists in the Frankfurt school who came to the US and argued that social liberation came through sexual liberation. Many early feminists used this concept to formulate the paradigm of woman as proletariat and man as bourgeois.
The Masculist movement (MGTOW, MHRM) are a reactionary movement, and the MGTOW are the far right political wing of the masculist ideology. Where the feminist ideology has patriarchy, the masculist ideology has male disposability. Both of these theories both inherently blame the other sex, but the truth is that both theories are true, and both theories are also false. some of the more prominent MGTOW faces on youtube Bernard Chapin and Davis M.J. Aurini, some of the oldest advocates of men’s rights issues, are white skinheads who tend to present anti-gay, anti-semetic, anti-communist, pro-nationalist, pro-capitalist, and pro racial purity (anti-multiculturalism).
The problem is that many of the hypocrisies and evils of the MRA cannot be identified unless you acknowledge the hypocrisies and evils of feminism, it’s what they use against feminists all the time. The egalitarians are fighting a one way battle against these Nordic supremacists and this stuff will only get worse because the men’s movement will only get stronger. If this plays out, and if history is any indicator, they’ll have a political presence by 2020. The MGTOW voice is the prominent voice within the movement with groups like AVfM often giving the MGTOW nazis a platform to speak from. Girlwriteswhat, a prominent MRA and MGTOW sympathizer, has already been reaching out to the Libertarian party and even recently gave a speech at their conference in NY. People need to be aware that we’re headed down a dangerous and slippery slope, and this isn’t going to end well unless someone gives in and some changes are made. Please:
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.” – Gandhi
Oh look. Another couple of trolls practicing for their Necromancy 101 exams. And one of them is a mansplaining asshat who knows nothing about the history of feminism! At least Meller and NWO were somewhat entertaining.
All one needs to know about MRAs, MGTOW and so on is that they’re reactionary shitstains who hate the idea that women are more than chattel (at least in some parts of the world) and want us returned to that state.
I’m no feminist, and I’m no MRA but you guys deserve what you have coming. The men’s movement isn’t going to get smaller, it’s going to get bigger, much bigger. While you fan the flames with your petulant language and ignorance, you ignore the big danger that’s coming from these people. Even worse you ignore the fact that you created it.
@the warning Holy shit! Are you telling me these guys are vengeful, dangerous, sociopathic menaces? I honestly didn’t know that
lol fuck off
“I’m no MRA, and I don’t like them, but you bitches deserve them!”
Truly an intellectual giant, this one.
An MRA is a Men’s Right Activist – they believe men’s rights need protection and proper representation.
(And you’ll find them, quite often, denoucing equalization and raging against emasculation
with the proper belief that violence and rape
are the rights of men most unjustly spurned with denoucations)
A PuA is a Pick Up Artist – They believe that the proper protocols of social interaction can be taught, quite simply, and that everyone should become the best person they could be
(And you’ll find them, quite often, denoucing equilzation and raging against sluts across the nation
claiming evolutionary biological truth and “race diversity” as some kind of crutch
for believing that paying for drinks and not getting laid is far too much
They use words like alpha and beta and gamma, just because
actually saying “I don’t like other people” is giving away the game a touch)
An Incel is a person who is involuntarily celibate – they believe that they’re being deprived of life and slowly dying.
(And you’ll find them, quite often, demanding that the government get them a girlfriend and raging against bitches, skanks and people who don’t sleep with them
Because honest appreciation of others means not thinking about breasts)
An MGTOW is a Man Going Their Own Way – they believe that the choice of marriage is not for them.
(And you’ll find them sticking around, belabouring the point, raging against every and calling you a sore loser. They definition of “Own way” is not accepted by any dictionary.)
A mangina is a man who agrees with women.
(And you’ll find plenty everywhere, like, oh 99 % of the male examples of the human race, since only the very rare few disagrees with people out of hand based on their gender)
the warning is a tired old attempt at conflating fear and terror with activism and truth, believing that historical predence lends credence to the attempts at rilling up the crowds.
It believes that feminists have it coming, because the evils of the MRA can only be understood once you accept and understand the evils of Feminism. The honest attempts at pointing out the dangers of deragory dialogue and calls for violence is sadly drowned out by the same token disrespect, and the notion that if violence does happen…
… we totally had it coming for being petulant.
–
Now Dear Reader, you’ve come this far:
Here’s an extra mark, for a gold star.
Tell me, if the words are defined as we write them down
And you use these words and they don’t make you frown
If you write a sentence relying on this or that phrase
Will you feel shame burst across your face?
The question I ask is simple enough:
What matters, when writing?
Is it the words as they are
Or the notions they become?
Do you trust the man who says:
“I’m all for men’s rights”
And then proceeds
To invite you to fights?
If a person calls himself a master of pick up
But spends all his days on the internet
being a master of the dick chop
does that make him anything other than
a master of flip flop and shit shot?
If an incel walks into a bar and declares
“I’m never getting laid and I no longer care!”
But every person there offers to engage with in carnal relations
Yet become rebuffed by being called
utterly un-kiss-able demon incarnations
Is he still an incel, or does he just insist
on staying betwixt
his pride and his delusions?
If the warning earnestly desires change
and warns of the danger of men unchained
their passions aroused, their virility no longer accepting of male disposability
But then turns around and easily exclaims:
“You deserve what’s coming!”
Is he warning at all, or just being strange?
Saw something on MGTOW that I found unbelievable. A guy asking whether he should help out a female friend who has moved into the area. She’s asked him if he could help with a few things like putting up Ikea furniture etc and he’s not sure if he should. He then goes on to say that he’s f***ed her quite a few times and would definitely get to nail her again if he helped her out but he doesn’t feel like getting his end away at the moment. Awwww poor baby but hey what a charmer! What a guy! What a hero! Every woman’s dream! Seriously it’s the way so many men phrase things and their attitude that sucks imo. Anyway the responses are ‘Don’t help her dude, she won’t return the favour’ and ‘What favour will you get for helping her out?’ I mean ffs! He gets to ‘bang her’ so what more does he want? Why the hell do guys expect the rewards to keep on coming just for putting up a shitty Ikea unit? He’s already getting sex so she’s doing HIM a favour as he probably ‘aint getting it anywhere else. THAT’S HER FAVOUR TO YOU DUDE! Now get over it and get over yourself. If you don’t want to help her out then don’t. Make an excuse and then say a fond farewell to your ‘sex life’.
Lol, I always figured the exchange rate on furniture assembly was buying pizza // take-out for eating while // after assembling. Not sex. Favor can also be returned in kind, ie assembling their furniture.
But I find ikea stuff mind bogglingly easy to assemble and will happily work for pizza.
It’s furniture, put it together or don’t, it really isn’t complicated (the decision, not the assembly, though just following the pictures without overthinking it has always worked for me)
“But I find ikea stuff mind bogglingly easy to assemble and will happily work for pizza.”
I now have an image of someone standing outside an Ikea shop with an Allen key and a sign saying “Will work for pizza”!
So what happens when a woman helps a male friend to assemble his furniture? Is he obliged to offer sex too? What if she doesn’t want it? Is she then obliged to fuck him in exchange for his offering to fuck her? As I have never lived in MRworld I’m not sure how this is supposed to go.
And what if your gay friend offers to help? Ah, I think I just found the answer to my question from the other thread.
Ah, but in MRA world women never offer to help anyone.
I am still pursuing marriage but just that it is with my Thai wife xxx
And we care because…?
Run along now, Pell.
Pell. Female GaoGaiGar. Now.
I am not dropping this.
Wow, marrying someone Asian, who’da thunk, what an original idea! Must tell that to all the European-Asian background couples I see around, they’d be stunned to think they were doing something so special.
Anyway you’re not old enough to marry anyone, Pell, so have your milk and cookies and go to bed, you’ll be late for class if you oversleep.
“Girlwriteswhat, a prominent MRA and MGTOW sympathizer, has already been reaching out to the Libertarian party and even recently gave a speech at their conference in NY. ”
It sounds horrifying, but there are already anti-feminists in congress, they’re called republicans. Just look at the way they talk about rape. http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/republican-rape-advisory-chart
I already disliked GirlWritesWhat, but now there’s proof that anti-feminist, misogynist, MRA, MGTOW, masculist, etc. and the word REPUBLICAN are interchangeable. Eisenhower was the last good republican, now the party has radicalized into crazy extremist terriroty, and libertarians and republicans have many of the same core values as anti-feminists, including all the things mentioned like racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, and homophobia.
territory*
Okay, I know there was a lot to laugh at in this screed, but I think my favourite part was the suggestion that MRAs are approaching political legitimacy because they might create ties to the Libertarian Party.
LOL! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL oh noes i am so terrified of the mighty political influence of a party which celebrates when it drums up less than 1% of the vote.
In fairness, libertarians do have influence disproportionate to their percentage of the vote. They’ve made “big government” a byword among all conservatives, for instance.
I feel like that’s less an example of disproportionate libertarian influence and more an example of establishment conservatives pandering to libertarian values in an attempt to discredit Obama, but fair enough. Either way, I think it’s pretty clear that the Libertarian Party has been hilariously unsuccessful at leveraging whatever appeal libertarianism has, which is my cause for amusement.
Meh, six of one, half a dozen of the other. But yes, the party itself is not where you ought to appeal if you want to build your influence on Capitol Hill.