# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2015, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/141 "2015-06-21T23:16:17Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Um. Of course she can. All she has to do is say she was raped. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh god damn, that’s hilarious. > [@](#): > > Now I don’t want to go too far down that road. She has to be at least moderately convincing. She has to make sure the defendant wasn’t out of state, or has some other iron-clad alibi. > But any woman who actually has sex with a man can later decide she’s been raped. And with any luck, he’ll go to jail with a $200k+ bond. So he’d better have money, if he wants to get out again. > And of course, the mere accusation of rape can ruin a man’s life, even if it goes no where. > Just out of curiosity, what other thing do you think a woman needs to throw a man in jail for rape, other than saying she was raped? “Just out of curiosity”. Heh. Y’know, what is an idle curiosity to you is reality for many women, who have personal experience with the issue and/or knows one or more women who have. We can’t even have a thread where women detail the reasons why there are women-only gyms without several male posters dismissing or ignoring their explanations, soooo… ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2015, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/142 "2015-06-21T23:16:30Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > From the FAQ: > > I’m not endorsing any of the above. > > I’m not endorsing any of the above. > > However, “whiny men who can’t get laid” is the opposite of what MGTOW thinks it is. Of course they aren’t going to market themselves as a bunch of whiny guys who can’t get laid. No one wants to join a club like that. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2015, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/143 "2015-06-21T23:25:01Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Is it, though? > > I mean, if I rail against affirmative action and say _why can’t we just have a level playing field starting right now,_ and a black guy replies _because your ancestors screwed over my ancestors,_ I can get where he’s coming from because I can see where he’s going with that. > > But if my sister says _your ancestors screwed over my ancestors,_ how the heck should I reply? _“Hey, me too; same proportion and everything; what are the odds, huh?”_ The problem is that is - if you’re talking about races - most American black people have white ancestors (many of them slave-owners). And all women have male ancestors. (As you’ve noted.) If someone wants to use the Old Testament “The Sins of the Fathers…” argument, they have to do better than that. Not that I believe the Old Testament in the first place. Or that innocent people should be punished for the sins of the dead. ---
**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 21, 2015, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/144 "2015-06-21T23:28:17Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Maybe white guys need to see more images of failure or something. Living in a basement with three hots and a cot (and an internet connection) isn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things. Maybe if more people grew up in the inner-city projects or in the midst of rural poverty, they’d have a better sense of perspective. To me, a lot of these complaints smack of “No, I’M supposed to be doing well, not you.” What these guys are bitching about would be an awesome life to a great deal of people. Also, someone mentioned up thread that this guy problem is going to lead to repercussions down the line–is it only a deep societal problem because it’s white guys? There are groups of people dealing with way worse shit even today (and yes, I foresee the “You can’t dismiss people’s problems b/c others have it worse”), but I really doubt of these MRAs or MGTOWs cares about that. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2015, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/145 "2015-06-21T23:28:52Z")
Wow, I thought that thing about parades was good, but this bit is priceless: > [@](#): > > After all, it’s still legal in this country for a woman to allow herself to get pregnant without a man’s consent. When will Congress finally stand up to “Big Fallopian” and make conception without consent illegal? ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2015, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/146 "2015-06-21T23:35:55Z")
Just look at how all those accusations of rape has ruined Bill Cosby! Oh wait… ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2015, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/147 "2015-06-21T23:39:16Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Think more broadly. > > In the ME, we have shitty economies and a cultural system that utterly fails to prepare young men to interact with women like humans. Terrorists tend to be educated but have few job opportunities. So they have neither the resources nor social skills to attract mates, and turn to extremism. > > In Japan, we have a cultural system that expects men to work very long hours to support their family (“salarymen”). It’s not really optional when starting a family, since home prices and everything else is so expensive. And while it’s not as bad as elsewhere, they also have the problem of undersocialization. They choose to quietly “opt out”, which is better than extremism but contributes to the economic problems. > > So no, not exactly the same, but there are some clear patterns: > > - Poor economies and missing job opportunities > - Static social expectations but changing environments > - Increasing costs to starting a family > - Failure to properly socialize boys with girls > > The more I think about it, the more I realize that **even sven** was right on the money when she said that feminists would be natural allies with these men. Paternalistic societies may harm women more than men, but they don’t harm _all_ women more than _all_ men, and in the end they harm everybody a lot. Unfortunately, the poor socialization harms their very ability to gain these allies. Should be, perhaps, but won’t be. Too many feminists have done too much to alienate too many men. And too many feminists don’t give a rat’s ass what’s good for men: they’re about what’s good (in their own short-sighted way) for women. And, frankly, MGTOW doesn’t want to be neutered, house-trained, or domesticated. They want to learn to be men on their own terms. And they want to learn from other men. Not women. And, to add another MGTOW idea to the mix, they think women don’t actually want what they say they want. They think that actually becoming the sensitive doormat of a man that feminists say they want is they want is the absolute surest way to guarantee way you will never again get laid for the rest of your life. ---
**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 21, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/148 "2015-06-21T23:54:29Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Even if we were to sympathize with these men, what is the societal solution to their problems? It’s probably too late for this _particular_ set of guys–they seem to have been poisoned already. But maybe something can be done about others. I wouldn’t mind seeing a kind of rebranding of feminism, or perhaps expansion into a larger movement. Breaking down gender roles helps everyone in the long run. It grew out of feminism for obvious historical reasons, but that doesn’t mean it has to always be the case. Unfortunately, very few dudes seem to think feminism has anything to offer them. Lots offer token support, because hey, women’s rights and stuff. But that’s as far as it goes because to someone not looking too closely (or watching too much TV news), it looks like a bit of a land-grab. A movement that somehow articulated the idea that “it’s not just women’s rights, it’s everybody’s rights” might attract more allies, and make progress more quickly. Or maybe not. I dunno. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2015, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/149 "2015-06-21T23:56:21Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Of course they aren’t going to market themselves as a bunch of whiny guys who can’t get laid. No one wants to join a club like that. Hey, monstro, how old are you? Because in the general case…well, you’ve got a group of people saying “Hey, sociological factors in greater soceity mean that our gender is being ill-treated.”, in varying degrees of angry, and you’ve got another group saying “Obviously they’re all homely virgins! Horribly uncool group! Everyone laugh at the horribly uncool group!”…is the second group really the kind of company you want to keep? Me, I think that Men should Keep Going In Roughly The Same Direction They’ve Been Going In For The History of the 20th Century, but I also think that if someone’s bringing up arguments and citations and you’re bringing up mockery and scorn, what you’re really saying is “I fear you.” You’re saying “I fear that you’re right, that you’re persuasive, that one day everyone will blink and wake up and realize that you’re right, and I fear this because I can’t go out and disprove your factual claims.” And there are factual claims there. Men are poorly served by the justice and educational systems compared to women. The benefits of affluent, well-connected fraternity brothers with MBAs do not notably trickle down to rural students majoring in Veterinary Science or Agriculture. And there is a socially-sanctioned degree of mockery of white men that there isn’t of others. If you think these issues aren’t really issues, well, go ahead and marshall your own citations and argue about them properly. But just pointing and laughing makes you look exactly like the people pointing and laughing at the humorless feminists 30 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/150 "2015-06-22T00:02:27Z")
> [@robertliguori](#): > > Hey, monstro, how old are you? > > Because in the general case…well, you’ve got a group of people saying “Hey, sociological factors in greater soceity mean that our gender is being ill-treated.”, in varying degrees of angry, and you’ve got another group saying “Obviously they’re all homely virgins! Horribly uncool group! Everyone laugh at the horribly uncool group!”…is the second group really the kind of company you want to keep? > > Me, I think that Men should Keep Going In Roughly The Same Direction They’ve Been Going In For The History of the 20th Century, but I also think that if someone’s bringing up arguments and citations and you’re bringing up mockery and scorn, what you’re really saying is “I fear you.” You’re saying “I fear that you’re right, that you’re persuasive, that one day everyone will blink and wake up and realize that you’re right, and I fear this because I can’t go out and disprove your factual claims.” I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not trying to be funny. It’s just that nothing I have said in this thread is jibing (in my mind) with what you are directing at me. If the two of us were talking in real life, I’d be looking behind me, wondering if maybe there was another person named **monstro** standing there. ---
**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 22, 2015, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/151 "2015-06-22T00:06:49Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Too many feminists have done too much to alienate too many men. There’s certainly enough YouTube videos around with these types. So it’s easy to point fingers at them. I can only say that, in my experience, they aren’t representative of most of them. Whether my perception is accurate or not, I couldn’t say. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/152 "2015-06-22T00:07:33Z")
> [@robertliguori](#): > > Is this the case? I mean, I’ve heard lots of stories of people going to the police and being told that if it comes down to your word vs. theirs, you simply won’t win the trial, and get a great deal of reluctance and foot-dragging from the police in actually starting the investigation. > > Does anyone have stats on this? > > * * * > > Also, does anyone else really want to sneakily arrange to double-book a campground with a MGTOW retreat and a lesbian separatist retreat at the same time? I can’t speak for the police, because I’m not one. I will tell you a secret about police, though: many would prefer not to work, than to work. And not initiating a rape case is easier than initiating one. Blaming the courts system is easier than saying, “Hey, I was hoping to go home early today…” As far as the court system is concerned, there’s absolutely no other evidence necessary to convict a man of rape, other than the testimony of the accuser. Now maybe the jury will believe her, or maybe they won’t. But if you’re sitting in the defense chair, a 50/50 shot at spending the rest of your life in prison is not the chair you want to be sitting in. (Not that I’m saying it’s 50/50: the actual odds depend on the case, but in general, prosecutors enjoy better odds than that.) ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/153 "2015-06-22T00:10:45Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I have no idea what you’re talking about. > > I’m not trying to be funny. It’s just that nothing I have said in this thread is jibing (in my mind) with what you are directing at me. If the two of us were talking in real life, I’d be looking behind me, wondering if maybe there was another person named **monstro** standing there. So, when you said “Of course they aren’t going to market themselves as a bunch of whiny guys who can’t get laid. No one wants to join a club like that.”, you actually meant “Men Going Their Own Way clearly have valid complaints and have sex in the soceitally-approved quantity.”? I mean, if you did, that’s entirely fine, and I’ll totally withdraw my statements and point them at someone else. But I don’t feel like the above statement was made neutrally. ---
**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 22, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/154 "2015-06-22T00:19:07Z")
> [@robertliguori](#): > > Hey, monstro, how old are you? > > Because in the general case…well, you’ve got a group of people saying “Hey, sociological factors in greater soceity mean that our gender is being ill-treated.”, in varying degrees of angry, and you’ve got another group saying “Obviously they’re all homely virgins! Horribly uncool group! Everyone laugh at the horribly uncool group!”…is the second group really the kind of company you want to keep? > > Me, I think that Men should Keep Going In Roughly The Same Direction They’ve Been Going In For The History of the 20th Century, but I also think that if someone’s bringing up arguments and citations and you’re bringing up mockery and scorn, what you’re really saying is “I fear you.” You’re saying “I fear that you’re right, that you’re persuasive, that one day everyone will blink and wake up and realize that you’re right, and I fear this because I can’t go out and disprove your factual claims.” > > And there are factual claims there. Men are poorly served by the justice and educational systems compared to women. The benefits of affluent, well-connected fraternity brothers with MBAs do not notably trickle down to rural students majoring in Veterinary Science or Agriculture. And there is a socially-sanctioned degree of mockery of white men that there isn’t of others. > > If you think these issues aren’t really issues, well, go ahead and marshall your own citations and argue about them properly. But just pointing and laughing makes you look exactly like the people pointing and laughing at the humorless feminists 30 years ago. Allow me to answer even though I’m not monstro. I am, however, a single middle-aged white man (as I stated in an earlier post). I am exactly in the middle of the demographic the MGTOW’s claim to be representing. According to them, I’m one of the individuals being oppressed by modern society. And as a supposed victim, I can say it’s complete nonsense. I’m not being oppressed. Being a white man in America is still an advantage. Granted, changes are happening. There was a time (within my lifetime) when being a white man was around a hundred times more advantageous than not being a white man. Nowadays, it’s probably down to around five times more advantageous. We’re still Number One but now there are other people who are Number Two and Number Three. Not like the old days when nobody else was even in the top twenty. Obviously, I would have personally done a lot better under the old system. But I see the new system as an improvement. And I’m hoping that things will continue in their current direction and women and non-white people will eventually achieve full equality. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/155 "2015-06-22T00:36:40Z")
> [@robertliguori](#): > > So, when you said “Of course they aren’t going to market themselves as a bunch of whiny guys who can’t get laid. No one wants to join a club like that.”, you actually meant “Men Going Their Own Way clearly have valid complaints and have sex in the soceitally-approved quantity.”? No, I meant no one is going to market themselves with the very worse descriptor out there. So the absence of such a descriptor doesn’t mean anything. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/156 "2015-06-22T00:54:46Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Should be, perhaps, but won’t be. Too many feminists have done too much to alienate too many men. And too many feminists don’t give a rat’s ass what’s good for men: they’re about what’s good (in their own short-sighted way) for women… The more I think about it, the more I think my point is less about feminism, and more about just plain women. Most of the stuff MRAs claim to be victimized by are just as bad for women-- all women. So why call me an old, diseased, worthless harpy? Why the hate? Why are things like custody and marriage and gender in media an “us vs them” thing? And even if it is an us vs them thing, why get so nasty? This is why they aren’t taken seriously. This is why people feel free to make fun of them. And unfortunately, it ruins it for everyone when they pretend to be talking about a good cause (like equity in custody consideration) to try to make a good point about a bad cause (like advocating for it to be easy to completely abandon your children). ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/157 "2015-06-22T01:10:06Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > From the FAQ: > > I’m not endorsing any of the above. > > I’m not endorsing any of the above. > > However, “whiny men who can’t get laid” is the opposite of what MGTOW thinks it is. > > Again: “whiny men who can’t get laid” is the opposite of what MGTOW thinks it is. > > What they’re saying is there’s plenty of “it” out there: you just need to make sure you know the price you’re paying, ahead of time. > > I’m not endorsing this, btw. > > I’m not endorsing it. You for some reason seem to believe it though. Only men not getting any feel the way those guys do. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/158 "2015-06-22T01:15:09Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > The more I think about it, the more I think my point is less about feminism, and more about just plain women. Most of the stuff MRAs claim to be victimized by are just as bad for women-- all women. > > So why call me an old, diseased, worthless harpy? Why the hate? Why are things like custody and marriage and gender in media an “us vs them” thing? And even if it is an us vs them thing, why get so nasty? > > This is why they aren’t taken seriously. This is why people feel free to make fun of them. And unfortunately, it ruins it for everyone when they pretend to be talking about a good cause (like equity in custody consideration) to try to make a good point about a bad cause (like advocating for it to be easy to completely abandon your children). Of course, you can iterate that. Why call MGTOW losers who can’t get laid? That just means you won’t get taken seriously, and people will feel free to call you old, diseased, worthless harpies, and write off the good causes you advocate as in service to a bad movement with bad end goals. Or, we could just try to collectively condemn people who resort to insults and try to focus on actually sorting out good policy from bad. I’d prefer that, myself. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/159 "2015-06-22T01:16:47Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > No, I meant no one is going to market themselves with the very worse descriptor out there. So the absence of such a descriptor doesn’t mean anything. Fair enough; apologies. ---
**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 22, 2015, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022/160 "2015-06-22T01:19:50Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > As far as the court system is concerned, there’s absolutely no other evidence necessary to convict a man of rape, other than the testimony of the accuser. Now maybe the jury will believe her, or maybe they won’t. This is bull shit. I can think of plenty of cases where women have falsely accused a man of rape, and then later to be found out to be full of shit. I also remember the media dragging these false accusers through the mud for doing so. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-going-their-own-way-mgtow/723022.md?page=9)