# Men going their own way (MGTOW) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 20, 2015, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022 "2015-06-20T19:21:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/261 "2015-06-23T00:05:38Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > No, but specifically, how? What did people do to remove obstacles to girls’ education, and how did that adversely affect boys’ education? Maybe read the previous post again. Specifically, the part where I said that boy’s education was _unchanged_. The change was in their _relative_ standing; that was one huge obstacle was removed, it exposed another. Now, the relative standing is reversed. I hope I don’t have to articulate all the ways in which girls’ education was improved from decreased sexism. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/262 "2015-06-23T00:15:11Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Maybe read the previous post again. Specifically, the part where I said that boy’s education was _unchanged_. > > The change was in their _relative_ standing; that was one huge obstacle was removed, it exposed another. Now, the relative standing is reversed. > > I hope I don’t have to articulate all the ways in which girls’ education was improved from decreased sexism. But specifically what happened? How did decreased sexism make education worse for boys? Or are you saying that the education model that expects students to sit and listen has never been effective for boys but that it just seemed that way because girls were doing so much worse? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/263 "2015-06-23T00:15:35Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Haven’t really looked into it beyond their central points, which I can’t see anybody really disagreeing with. Be your own master, don’t define yourself after the standards of others, don’t be a pushover. > > From the first page, First page of what? I’m looking at [the link](http://www.mgtow.com/posters/) in the first post of this thread. It’s a page full of MGTOW posters. Hostility towards women seems to be the dominant theme. > [@robertliguori](#): > > Besides, if MGTOW are so terrible, why mock them? Why not give them praise and laud them? If their beliefs are so obviously wrong, and the consequence for holding them is terrible people not interacting with women, isn’t a world where everyone who felt the slightest sympathy towards them fully embraced their philosophy and dropped out of the dating and marriage market a net win condition? Because of that hostility. Supporting the MGTOW’s would mean supporting their message. And that message is hostility towards women. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/264 "2015-06-23T00:17:26Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > People are saying that the mode of education where you’re told to sit down and listen to the teacher is nothing new. It was especially prevalent when education favored boys and men. What changed? I’m not sure education ever favored boys, not if we’re talking elementary school. It certainly didn’t in my time (the 70’s). I was not a boy’s boy, however, so it might have been easier on me, than some. I used to have a vivid imagination, and I would just sit there imagining, while the teacher babbled away. (Sort of like Calvin, of Calvin & Hobbes, if you’ve ever read that strip.) And wait for recess, of course. What’s changed, I think, is that schools have dramatically reduced the amount of time for physical activity, like recess, in their obsession with producing ever higher standardized test scores. Edit: in my school, every single teacher (except maybe the PE coach) was a woman. Every single one. And that doesn’t seem to have changed much, from little I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/265 "2015-06-23T00:26:04Z")
> [@robertliguori](#): > > Isn’t that even more reason to address people as people, rather than a collection of ideological labels? Nobody is born a MGTOW and nobody is forced to join the movement. So every MGTOW out there is somebody who wanted to be a MGTOW. So it’s fair to judge all of them by the common ideology they have chosen to embrace. And their ideology is wrong. Sure, it’s good to look at different ideologies and consider their merits. But after you do that, form conclusions. MGTOW’s are wrong. The rest of us have no obligation to meet them halfway. That’s like arguing we should meet anti-vaxxers halfway and only immunize half the children in the world or meet truthers halfway and agree that one of the towers was blown up by the government. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/266 "2015-06-23T00:29:06Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Nobody is born a MGTOW and nobody is forced to join the movement. So every MGTOW out there is somebody who wanted to be a MGTOW. So it’s fair to judge all of them by the common ideology they have chosen to embrace. > > And their ideology is wrong. Sure, it’s good to look at different ideologies and consider their merits. But after you do that, form conclusions. > > MGTOW’s are wrong. The rest of us have no obligation to meet them halfway. That’s like arguing we should meet anti-vaxxers halfway and only immunize half the children in the world or meet truthers halfway and agree that one of the towers was blown up by the government. Plus, if they were really interested in living life on their own terms they wouldn’t spend so much time complaining about women. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/267 "2015-06-23T00:29:44Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Edit: in my school, every single teacher (except maybe the PE coach) was a woman. Every single one. And that doesn’t seem to have changed much, from little I can tell. Is that supposed to prove women were in control? The reason all our teachers were women back then was because women were shut out of most other professions. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/268 "2015-06-23T00:35:50Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Or are you saying that the education model that expects students to sit and listen has never been effective for boys but that it just seemed that way because girls were doing so much worse? YES. It’s always been a shit model, but the sexism against girls hid the problems that boys were facing. Especially since shut-up-and-learn harms girls as well, just not (I theorize) quite as much as boys. Now that girls are no longer expected to become Suzie Homemaker, they can come closer to their potential. And since college entrance is to a large degree competitive, they now outcompete boys. Obviously, any solution does not involve adding any obstacles to girls’ education in order to restore “balance” (ordinarily I’d think that goes without saying, but apparently that’s not safe in this thread). But I can support methods that _add_ options for students. The article I cited earlier mentioned one way, which is to “de-feminize” certain extracurricular activities like music. Even when I was in school, music was for women and homosexuals. Which is ridiculous of course, looking at the actual musical landscape. But that’s high school for you. Fix that and you get that much more student engagement. Repeat as necessary for other activities. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/269 "2015-06-23T00:47:03Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Edit: in my school, every single teacher (except maybe the PE coach) was a woman. Every single one. And that doesn’t seem to have changed much, from little I can tell. so? that can easily be explained by teaching being one of the professions women are pigeonholed into. because women are “nurturing,” you see, so they should be great at “nurturing” everyone’s kids. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/270 "2015-06-23T01:19:09Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > so? that can easily be explained by teaching being one of the professions women are pigeonholed into. because women are “nurturing,” you see, so they should be great at “nurturing” everyone’s kids. Maybe it’s time for some affirmative action. Having at least some men as teachers would, I think, be a good thing for boys. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/271 "2015-06-23T01:24:36Z")
I thought this was a pretty good response ([from the same thread](http://www.mgtow.com/forums/topic/just-out-of-jail/page/2/) I posted earlier): > [@](#): > > What you care about most here are you children. Under the circumstances, the best that you can presently do for them is to take very good care of yourself. One parent is enormously pathologic, and probably beyond recovery. The remaining parent is not valued by the state, the courts, or most of the rest of society. You have to take care of that person. You have to take care of you in order for your kids to have at least one sane, healthy parent. Re-read the advice above on sleep, exercise and nutrition. I’m a medical doctor and would recommend this anyway for your own benefit. But for your kids, it’s a much more important priority. > > The other thing you should re-read until you believe it better than you do now is what KM pointed out to you about her wanting you back. What she wants back is her punching bag. If you volunteer to be that punching bag, all the sleep, exercise and nutrition in the world won’t be of any benefit to your children. Your soon to be ex can destroy sanity faster than you can build it. > > The first step in navigating the fog is to realize that there are two women in your story. One of them is a person who is your life partner, the mother of your children and someone who is worthy of all the forgiveness and trust you are tempted to offer. THAT WOMAN EXISTS ONLY IN YOUR HEAD! For very legitimate reasons, you want very much to have a relationship with that woman. And if she existed outside your head, I would advise you to make whatever sacrifices were necessary to preserve that relationship with her for the benefit of both of you and for your kids. Somewhere inside your own head, you know how important those benefits are, and how detrimental to your lives it will be to have those benefits disappear. Your reasons for wanting to preserve those benefits of an intact family are very legitimate reasons. But the enormously painful truth is that those benefits have already disappeared, and are no longer available at any price. Don’t shy away from that truth. It hurts, but it will not kill you. > > Those benefits have been eliminated by the second woman in your story. This person is a tyrannical, tantrum throwing child masquerading as an adult and wielding power recklessly bestowed on her by the state that NO CHILD should ever have. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/272 "2015-06-23T01:27:48Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Maybe it’s time for some affirmative action. Having at least some men as teachers would, I think, be a good thing for boys. And in the process get our innocent young boys molested? No thank you. /Devil’s Advocate. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/273 "2015-06-23T01:32:35Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Maybe it’s time for some affirmative action. Having at least some men as teachers would, I think, be a good thing for boys. y’know, throughout grade, middle, and high school I had plenty of male teachers. maybe you should stop acting like your own personal experience is the universal truth. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/274 "2015-06-23T01:36:50Z")
I suppose I’m a target demographic for MGTOW. A while back I ran through some of the 10-20 minute spiels on YouTube. Some funny, some good points on topics that generally get no consideration elsewhere, and some “wow, this guy has really rolled off into the weeds of wrong conclusions.” I also look in at Jezebel. I don’t see general man-bashing there, just legit calling individual guys on their individual sexist bullshit. Sometime that goes wrong, too. They piled-on during shirtgate, and the Virginia rape hoax. Anyway, one day after listening to some MGTOW uploads, I had to do my grocery shopping. I looked at the women at the store, and I just couldn’t see the same people that were being described in the MGTOW talks. I saw people who aren’t saints or goddesses; plainly self-absorbed and incurious as normal people are. But not evil bitches either. From my largely dissapointing experiences with online dating, I looked at the women; the ones I shared the same age group, income bracket and equitable hotness level as people who nonetheless have more options in the dating world than me. I’m not going to argue that with you. It’s true. And I can’t blame anyone who takes the opportunities that are open to them in life. I certainly try to do so with the ones open to me. But of course I have feelings that are more accurately called regrets not resentments, because it’s not about “dating” for its own sake. We want to find someone we love and loves us back. I’m not a loser for wanting that. And out of 40, 80, 160 people, how many realistically will that be possible? I don’t know. I don’t think the numbers imbalance applies on that point, though. I do think both the patriarchy, as it ever existed, and feminism, for whatever its goals, have both so far failed men. As a history nerd, I keep with Charles Martel’s invention of chivalry as a reconciliation between Christanity and the martial spirit: we are bound to protect the weak, and we should not accept insult. Unfortunately, it’s the human condition to use the amount of shit you give others as a proof of the shit you don’t take yourself. Finally, I think of something I experienced 30 years ago that shows how I can’t change: I’ve known a few people who’ve killed other people, all men who’ve killed other men. But the one person I’ve known who killed a woman was a 14 year old boy at a residential treatment home where I worked. His adult brother had been in prison, and his foster mom had tried to cut him off as a bad influence. But like a lot of younger brother he idolized his brother. He and she fought, and it ended with him jamming the barrel of a shotgun under her chin. The last thing she said before he pulled the trigger was “I love you, Tim.” I don’t think anyone on earth has a philosophy that can explain how I feel about that. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/275 "2015-06-23T01:39:16Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Maybe it’s time for some affirmative action. Having at least some men as teachers would, I think, be a good thing for boys. I am surprised you had either no or very few male teachers growing up. I had plenty even in rural Louisiana in the 1980’s. There were few in elementary school but there were plenty from 7th grade and beyond (maybe a small minority but not all that drastic). The sports coaches had to teach classes as well so that they justify their true passion but most of them were reasonably good at it and actually tried. We had a few commuting male teachers that didn’t make it in the larger school districts in the nearest city that made the long drive down every morning car-pool style. There was a reason they couldn’t get a job closer to home. They knew their subject but they were complete wieners that had no idea how to control a classroom so their classes were just a mutual exercise in semi-controlled chaos punctuated randomly by complete chaos as the winds shifted. I never wished for more male teachers even though I respected some of the good ones we had. The black female teachers were my favorites overall. They knew their shit and they could dominate a classroom like no others and make it funny at the same time. Our school district was roughly 50-50 black and white and the black female teachers were the only ones willing to come down hard on everyone equally. You did not screw up in their class because they always had complete control and everybody knew it. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/276 "2015-06-23T01:49:15Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Maybe it’s time for some affirmative action. Having at least some men as teachers would, I think, be a good thing for boys. I think there are some schools that give signing bonuses to male teachers for exactly this reason. I can’t say I like this method of addressing the problem, but people are trying to address it. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/277 "2015-06-23T01:58:46Z")
My dad, a former elementary school principal, practiced Affirmative Action for male teachers quite frequently. I don’t know if he called it that, but he told me that he favored guys over women candidates when everything else about them was the same. He said that the problem wasn’t only that guys don’t go into education as much as women do, but that when they do go into education, they are often “fast-tracked” into administration. He started off thinking he was just going to be a middle school science teacher. A few years later, he was vice principal. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/278 "2015-06-23T02:47:49Z")
It’s like the old saying, “women…can’t live with them…yet they are everywhere.” First of all, I have trouble believing that MRA is a significant “movement” in any statistically meaningful sense. Second, posters on the MGTOW site are almost bordering on being a hate crime. This “movement” strikes me as a backlash against the threat against men by feminism much in the same way the KKK is backlash against the “threat” of equal rights for blacks, jews, gays and other minorities. IOW, do these people feel they can’t complete without an overwhelming sociological advantage. And finally, one of the main tenets of being a “man” is not whining like a little bitch. Particular in the format of “online web cartoons”. > [@monstro](#): > > My dad, a former elementary school principal, practiced Affirmative Action for male teachers quite frequently. I don’t know if he called it that, but he told me that he favored guys over women candidates when everything else about them was the same. > > He said that the problem wasn’t only that guys don’t go into education as much as women do, but that when they do go into education, they are often “fast-tracked” into administration. He started off thinking he was just going to be a middle school science teacher. A few years later, he was vice principal. Another example of how we white men are marginalized and forced into management and leadership positions of power. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/279 "2015-06-23T02:52:52Z")
I won’t comment about the men in the MGTOW movement, but I would like to point out that if women talked about forging an independent path, they would be praised for being headstrong, courageous and fighting for change. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/280 "2015-06-23T02:59:49Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > The article I cited earlier mentioned one way, which is to “de-feminize” certain extracurricular activities like music. Even when I was in school, music was for women and homosexuals. Which is ridiculous of course, looking at the actual musical landscape. But that’s high school for you. Fix that and you get that much more student engagement. Repeat as necessary for other activities. Excellent example of strict gender ideas negatively impacting boys. One of the things that feeds into it in culture generally is a contempt for women/girl things, almost a sense that having feminine qualities is inherently bad, lame, less-than, etc. Do you think things like MGTOW will positively affect gender roles? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022.md?page=15)