Monday, May 26, 2025

The Manosphere

The rise of the Manosphere can be traced to the feminism of the 1960's, which was triggered by the widespread availability of oral contraception.  The status of women was due for an overhaul, and in the revolutionary spirit of the 1960's, women decided it was their time to throw off the chains of male society.  As Mao Tse-Tung so eloquently put it, "Women hold up half the sky."  However, in every struggle for power, there are exaggerations.  Some feminist battle cries declared that all men were rapists, a pill hard to swallow for the average man and this left many men asking what it was that women wanted. As the first excesses of feminism waned, most men admitted it was time women were given their fair share of power and credit, but there were some men who resented every advance for women because it meant a retreat for them. 

In primitive societies, men were responsible for certain needs of the tribe and women for others, but when women declared themselves as equal and wanted to participate in male rituals, to go hunting or to war, men saw this as not only an encroachment on their traditional roles, but as a way for women to neglect their duties like cooking, cleaning, and child raising.  This was an invalid argument because we know in many societies, female duties are shared collectively, leaving some women free to participate in men's activities while their sisters stayed home to look after children and gather or tend crops. Most children grow up with some knowledge of so-called Amazon women, who were dedicated to protecting their tribe and were willing to sacrifice half of their feminine attributes (a breast) so using a bow in hunts or battle was less awkward.  

Men have long excluded women from traditional male pursuits because they were not physically strong enough, but our experience of women in Olympic competitions have shown that in a contest of strength, a woman shot putter could make short work of a male marathon runner.  Women can be as effective as men in battle as demonstrated by women Kurdish fighters.  A woman who grows up and is trained as a warrior, makes a better combatant than a man who has been conscripted as cannon fodder.

As men see women gaining in strength, they perceive it as undermining their own.  They don't want their rituals and traditions taken over by women.  Although it is tolerated in some circles, a group of raucous football fans are inhibited by having a woman in their midst even if she is as loud and aggressive as they are  They don't want women to be too much like men, and think these women should stick to their lane.  Anyone who has seen a group of women on a bar crawl, knows that women can be just as out of control and obnoxious as men, but women's groups like that don't want a man in their midst (unless he is gay) because he acts as a damper on their behaviour.  In the last decade of the 20th century a book and film came out called "Sleeping With the Enemy", a story of a woman escaping an abusive husband.  This labelling of men as the enemy didn't sit well with many men, who found their habitual roles eroded, but didn't know what they were supposed to be.  Women's magazines went on at length about the perfect man who would be strong but sensitive.  They wanted a man who would be open about his feelings, though this was a trait that was not wanted in male dominated societies.  Women have always had each other as confidantes and exploit the bond with their sisters to help them carry the burdens life deals them.  A man's nature, as is obvious in the animal kingdom, is to view other males as competitors for the females and therefore as potential threats.  Sharing their feelings with other men is a display of weakness, a dangerous advantage to give to their enemies.  In the wild, females are usually cooperative, while the males stand apart from each other, waiting for one of their brothers to weaken so they can dominate.

The word "Manosphere" came along in the second decade of the twenty-first century when social media became ubiquitous, but the roots of a men's liberation movement followed quickly on the heels of 1960s feminism.  Fathers in divorce proceedings felt women were being unfairly favoured and men financially punished by the courts. The diverse elements that now make up the Manosphere were a reaction to men losing their influence over women.  Men's groups began to form, calling themselves Men's Rights Activists, Incels, Men Going Their Own Way, and Father's Rights.  The common thread in all of these groups is men's belief that society has been turned on its head by feminism and that it now promotes the hatred of men.  As women organized nighttime protest marches called "Take Back The Streets," men believed they were pushed out of what little territory left to them.  Women had taken over their sports, their workplaces, their governments, schools, and streets, and even traditional men's clubs were forced by the law to admit women.  Men were like cornered animals with no real outlet, purpose, or safe all-male place to go.  They were expected to be mindless sperm donors and uncomplaining financial providers with no rights of their own. Many women believe this was just and right as men had been in control for too long so now it was their turn to dominate.  In online branches of the Manosphere, men found community, but it was a community based on grievance.  Men didn't see any problem with this because feminism in its 1960's incarnation, had been just as radical. 
 
Many who frequent the Manosphere, think there are male spheres of interest where women aren't welcome.  The tech world is governed by men, extreme sports are a place where men can freely express their testosterone-fuelled aggression.  Although most women are probably more able than men to extract consensus from a group, many men don't believe women should be in politics.  In the US there has never been a woman president as most men believe a woman would be too emotional to act rationally in a crisis.  At the moment, the US is in a deep depression of poverty and unavailable housing,  and many men believe it is unfair that the weak, disabled, and disadvantaged should be favoured by being allowed to the front of the line. Men are more inclined to believe in the survival of the fittest, and they see not only women, but also emasculated men, as not fit to govern.

Although some of these ideas of men as victims of an unjust society have always been around, it wasn't until the Internet entered every household, that these groups have been able to easily communicate and bolster each other's theories.  The more radical of these groups promote slogans directed at women like "You body, my choice," as a counter to the women's pro-abortion movement who chant "My body, my choice."  Some are radical enough to bring back the old idea that women are the property of men, that they should stay in the kitchen, look after the man's children, and keep their mouths shut.  This extreme propaganda is not surprising as it flips on its head the things that so-called progressive women have said about men. 

There has always been a battle of the sexes, with women and men wanting different things, but religion has stoked this war. It is an odd  dichotomy that the church is governed by men but the most devoted believers are women.  Men are more skeptical of the imaginary.  Yet it has been male dominated religion that promoted the ideas of monogamous marriage, sexual fidelity, humility, forgiveness, and honesty.  With the scandals that have beset the church, many men have become disillusioned with organized religion and all of its teachings, yet they still claim to be the children of God. 
 
Some in the Manosphere believe America has gone soft and weak because of the influence of women.  The US declares itself to be a Christian country, with some presidents insisting a person who is not a Christian cannot be a patriotic American.  An unusual phenomenon is taking place these days is an uptake of young men joining the Russian Orthodox church because they consider it more masculine.  The American adherents to this religion believe it is not right for men to indulge in such female habits as wearing skinny jeans, crossing their legs, using an iron, shaping their eyebrows, or eating soup.   Many of these new adherents see Russian men as superior examples of masculinity because they weren't subjected to the most extreme forms of feminism.  Unfortunately, many of these restrictive binary attitudes overlap with a belief in white supremacy, racism, and Christian nationalism which are not only toxic to women but society as a whole. There is now a stalemate in the skirmish of men against women, which is a reflection of a wider polarization in society. 
 
As people look around them these days they see the eroding of male and female stereotypes as many young people declare themselves to be gender fluid.  To those in the Manosphere this is everyday visual evidence of the eroding of traditional values.  Given the alarming American statistics that every 45 seconds, a youth who is struggling to find their comfortable gender or sexual orientation, attempts suicide.  These lost souls see no role models, nobody in society that is an example of how they wish to be when they grow up.  Young men may feel masculine but have been brought up by their mothers to love and appreciate women, but at the same time they feel emasculated by them. Other young men may sense they were born in the wrong body and have nothing to look forward to but a lifetime of abuse if they follow their instincts.  Although men in the Manosphere are against anything that smacks of transexuality, they are not so harsh on gay men.  They may have a revulsion to being approached for sex by a gay man, but they understand the man to man rapport and feel comfortable and justified in saying "No," without their response being judged in a negative way.  They may turn up their noses as effeminate gays, but they are barely aware that there are a lot of men who are sexually attracted to other men, who adopt clothes, habits, and lifestyles that are even more male fetishised than those in the Manosphere themselves. They can hardly imagine that a handsome man with a beard or moustache, dressed in leather, riding a motorbike, one who embodies what the masculinity, a real man, are actually lovers of men.  This segment of the gay community has found its equilibrium, which in the old days was called straight acting, not to conceal anything but because they were born male and feel male in their souls and bodies.  They have no need for women, which aligns with the Manosphere's attitude, but they cannot be part of the Manosphere because they are happy with their male fetishes and have no wish to make women subservient. 

My belief is that when one sphere pits itself against another for reactionary and illogical reasons, there are no winners, only losers.

Saturday, February 15, 2025

Losing My Religion

In the pivotal boyhood age between 10 and 12, when we are long longer children but not yet teenagers, a combination of events occurred that led to me losing my religion.  I must have been a skeptic from a young age, perhaps stalled at the age of a toddler, continually asking "Why?" My brothers, sisters, and I were sent to Sunday School as a way to give our parents peace on weekend mornings as they both worked all week. I had heard stories about God and Jesus and his disciples and seen illustrated books, and the church did its best to stress the humble life of Jesus, but I was happy I had not been born on a pile of straw.  God was the stern grandfather who watched over us frail humans and took the form of a thundering authoritarian Moses by Charlton Heston, his grey locks flowing in the wind, brandishing his big stick and forbidding the masses to sin.   When I graduated from Sunday School I joined the choir of twelve pre-adolescent boys like me, whose voices hadn't deepened yet.  I already knew the lessons of the epistles and tried not to doze off, but at signals from the organist, we were called on to sing before kneeling in prayer.  The kneeling was my downfall.  I tended to faint if I was on my knees too long and this caused a commotion that attracted the entire congregation.  I learned to quietly exit the choir stall when I felt this was about to happen and sat in the sacristy with my head between my knees.  Though I wanted to blame these episodes on the rigours of religion, I also fainted while waiting in line to watch "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison," or "Sad Sack" with Jerry Lewis, so the blackouts must have had another cause.  I had to quit the choir but it was easy to walk away from it with a physical excuse rather than admitting I had never been interested in church and thought I had learned all I needed to know.  I could read well by then and there were books to enlighten me if I was curious about details of the Biblical story.

Around the same time, I had the opportunity to go to Vancouver and stay with my mother's sister and her pilot husband.  They lived in Richmond near sea level where there were deep drainage ditches in front of the modest houses so each home had its own bridge.  These were not retractable and were often scenes of tow trucks pulling yet another inattentive driver out of the ditch.  My aunt and uncle had a huge black and white television that I spent hours so close to it must have been a blur.  I'd seen television in fits and starts but only because our neighbours had one, and if we helped their son with his weekend chores and mowing the lawn, he would let us watch Zorro with him, while the Econolite revolving train lamp on top of the cabinet began a new journey every few seconds.  Having the television to myself was a step up to being a spoiled rich kid instead of being one of a tribe.  My aunt even asked what I wanted for lunch, which was a huge responsibility for someone who had always been instructed to eat what was on his plate and be quiet about it. 

The real adventure of the summer was being asked if I would like to go with my uncle on one of his flights up the West Coast.  I had flown to Vancouver from my hometown so the flight wouldn't be my first, but my uncle flew a smaller plane, an amphibious Grumman Goose, that took off from the Lulu Island base and landed at Ocean Falls.  He let me sit in the copilot's seat.  I can't remember where the real copilot went or if there was one, but there were passengers on board so my uncle wouldn't have flown alone.  The wonder of looking down on turquoise mountain lakes, deep inlets, sparkling seas, and tiny ships below, made me realize how well man had mastered the art of flight.  My uncle only had to turn dials, push buttons, pull levers, and we were airborne.  I would never believe again fundamentalist claims that if God had intended man to fly he would have given him wings. With man's ingenuity, which some might say is God-given, he had figured out how to make wings.  Powered by the roar of the engine as we skimmed across the surface of Cousins Inlet, the shackles of a life restricted by every religious prohibition fell away. 

That same summer I visited the Vancouver Zoo.  I was not unfamiliar with animals because apart from pet cats and dogs, our neighbours were ranchers with a townhouse, and they would bring vulnerable calves and lambs home to nurse back to health.  Together we played around the stockyards so even huffing big-horned bulls were only marginally intimidating.  At the zoo I saw sea lions in an enclosure, some of them using a waterslide that spilled onto a wet pool deck, but for years my brain at bedtime toyed with the awful thought of the pool apron being dry and the sea lions scraping the flesh off their bellies.  It was horrifying but I eventually learned to push thoughts like that away, although I knew in the rawness of the animal kingdom, worse things happened.  The most surprising attraction at the zoo was the spider monkeys that hung out in the arched structure above the sea lion pool.  Not only did they make a racket like a kindergarten with the volume turned up high, but effortlessly swung from high perches and sometimes came down to sit on the rocks and peer across the moat at the crowds behind a chain-link fence.  Looking into the eyes of one of the monkeys as they looked back, was like falling into another universe. There was no question that monkeys were our relatives.  With their wide inquisitive eyes, nervous sideways glances, and personal habits like scratching or picking their noses, they could have been my younger siblings.  They were not human but were a frozen stage on the way to being human.  I wasn't sure what they knew or what they felt if anything, but I suspected it was more than we gave them credit for.  I'd already had a hard time going fishing with my grandfather who gave us boys the honour of clubbing the fish he had caught over the head until they had stopped wriggling.  Could I do that to a monkey?  It would be murder. Why would God make a creature like a monkey and stop halfway?  The only answer I could come up with was that God had nothing to do with it.  Life evolved like Darwin proposed, sometimes slowly, sometimes in fits and starts.   The monkey was also me.  We looked into each other's eyes for a moment until he got bored and screeched away, but I would never look at my fingers, toes, and eyes the same way.  Sixty-seven years on, I have not wavered in my belief.  We humans are simply an improvement on monkeys and no higher being is coming to scoop us away to reside in paradise when we die.  We are already in an earthly paradise, on a wondrous planet with as many interconnections as stars in the sky.  If a mortal sin exists, it is in allowing an invented deity to turn us away from the earthly reality of the essential goodness in man when he is of sound mind.  Instead, the self-appointed spokesmen for these deities have tricked us into battling each other.  I couldn't do other than conclude that organized religions were nothing more than gangs of fanatics who were eager to enlarge their flocks to increase their prestige.  My soul did not belong to a God but to a chain of knowledge and understanding that stretched back to my earliest ancestors.  Men have survived millennia using only their wits and capabilities.  When they needed help they asked their neighbours, not a bearded man who lives in the sky.  We are intelligent and capable and will go on creating marvels. Nelson Mandela said, "Everything is impossible until it is done."  We need to leave aside primitive beliefs and live in the real, present, global world. 

When I knew I didn't believe in God anymore, I expected to be struck by a bolt of lightning for my insolence, but the punishing bolt never came.  By then I understood that lightning is not thrown about by some violent vindictive God but is an "electrostatic discharge that occurs through the atmosphere between two electrically charged regions."  Knowing the true source of nature's wonders does not make them less magnificent, but they have nothing to do with an invented God.