Sunday, September 22, 2024

Not good for anyone

I do not want to spend a lot of time going over the manosphere. I am not an expert on it, and it is a very unpleasant topic. There is a reasonable introduction on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manosphere 

A lot of my examples of that come from Ask Aubrey, whom I have referenced before:

https://x.com/ask_aubry 

Aubrey will post examples from Reddit or other sites, but also they come from messages others forward to her, or messages she gets herself. 

They can be very discouraging.

Regardless, if you want to know more about some of the movements specifically directed toward men and see what kind of behavior they lead to, those are two good starting links. 

I'm not even sure how important the knowledge would be, but sometimes it can be helpful to recognize sources and know that it is spreading. 

Some of the messages I see have been from women whose partners are becoming worse. 

In most heterosexual relationships, the woman does most of the housework and most of the emotional labor. That is based on long tradition. Even with couples that try and break those traditions there tends to be some disparity that favors the man.

So sometimes you will have a woman who had been doing more, and also earning more, and mostly been okay with it, but gradually he is starting to complain more about her not respecting his contributions enough and not respecting him enough, though what is actually changing is his level of respect.

There can be some indications this is happening. That may include frequent references to "alphas and betas", or possibly "chads" (that one probably skews a little younger) and "high quality/high value". Also, look out for the word "submissive".  

(More vulgarly, they may mention "cuks" or become obsessed with "body count" but if you are already married and in the church, those phrases are less likely to come up.)  

That is coming from outside sources. He may not be directly listening to Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate (the more notorious names), but influences from that arena are diffusing through to him. They are appealing not only because they fit well against the traditions of our society, but also because they make him the victim and the one who deserves more, without him having to do more.

(Inordinate time playing video games comes up a lot.)

I am more sensitive to the problems this creates for wives and girlfriends, who are generally going to start out trying to be understanding, wondering if it is something that they did, and ending up in a worse and worse situation that can even become a dangerous situation.

I had been thinking about how what young girls really need to be taught to look for is whether they are respected, but there are cases where the respect is waning. We can debate over whether someone was truly respectful and changed, or was just acting decently respectful and then lost the veneer. People do change, but the result is the same. 

(Though I believe that teaching young women to not settle for less than being respected would have definite value.)

The other point that it seems important to make, though, is that this trend is terrible for men. 

Yes, all of the complaints that they make put the blame on women, but they are still complaining because they are not happy. They are lonely, they feel unappreciated, they feel disrespected, and the comforts they use in deflecting the blame are not really comforting.

Because they believe their worth comes from just being men, they lose touch with what could actually be unique and wonderful about them. They are not motivated to change, which would be a huge part of repentance, which we all need.

They don't see any uniqueness in women, so while they want one and feel they should have one, they won't really be delighted with her. Even if you start loving someone, treating them badly diminishes that really quickly. 

And yes, you will see these patterns playing out in other areas of dominator culture, but this aspect relates specifically to patriarchy, and it is not good for anyone.

No comments: