Comment

Comment by John Dias on November 30, 2009 at 8:26pm

Will wrote: "They sound pretty angry."

You're saying that's a bad thing?

Kate McKay wrote: "If men really want women to stop being promiscuous and such, then instead of using game to get them to bed, they should refuse to have relationships with women who are promiscuous."

The greater issue is license, not just promiscuity. Women are rarely challenged these days, because they're considered victims on one extreme (feminism) or worthy of placement upon a pedestal on the other (chivalry). So they get 2/3 of the public funding for women's health, and every single gendered organization skews their way (such as the Office for Women's Health, the Office for Violence against Women, etc.). It's also considered fashionable to portray women in sitcoms and movies as all-capable know-it-alls or take-no-prisoners butt kickers, while men are portrayed as idiot goofballs on one extreme and menacing threats on the other. All this and still women who think of themselves as believers in equality can't see past their own privilege; unlike a man, they would never offer their spouse or partner the choice of being supported by her labor, working a part time job, working full time "for now," or working full time forever. The woman's existence is a pampered one (relative to that of men), and she enjoys this status because of the image of women as victims and/or princesses. Like Warren Farrell has written, "A woman's strength is her facade of weakness; a man's weakness is his facade of strength."

All of this leads to female license. There is no sense that they have any duty to anyone except their own sense of pleasure and self-benefit. They "owe it to themselves" to be pampered, or so the thinking goes. This license breeds entitlement. If they're in a marriage, all that it takes to motivate them to call the divorce lawyer is a brief (or extended) bout of unhappiness, economic instability, or (gasp!) responsibility. Affairs by married women are routinely portrayed as justified and empowering, as is the case for female perpetration of partner violence.

So the issue is far more than female promiscuity; the issue is female license. And according to those who run the Spearhead Web site, what enables female license is male acquiescence -- both on a social level and also in each particular relationship. Men who bend over backwards to please a woman think of themselves as magnanimous, while the women in question thinks of the man as a sucker. That's what Game is all about: setting boundaries, avoiding sexual traps, retaining one's independence and value. It's all about men rediscovering their own sense of value, utilizing independent personal judgment without apology to those who disapprove or have a tantrum about it, and remembering that it's okay to tell a woman "no." "Yes" is the word uttered too often by chivalrous men which enables female license.

It's disingenuous to describe a man as shallow and angry just because he doesn't want to be some woman's doormat.

Comment by Jack Donovan on October 30, 2009 at 1:53pm

Kate, there are a lot of different angles happening on that site, actually.

I don't agree with every one of them...and I am a bit skeptical of the value of "game" myself. I think the only way to save western civilization is to return to an emphasis on more traditional families, and I have a hard time believing that "game" and NSA sex are good ways to get there.

I think for a lot of those guys...many of whom have found out the hard way that the system no longer works in their favor (messy divorces, custody battles, sexual harassment claims, "equality" being engineered to produce equal results instead of equal opportunity, etc.)...the whole idea of "game" is just their way of opting out of a system that no longer serves their interests.

A gender neutral society really doesn't have a lot to offer men--it's been all about creating something that works better for women. I think that under all of that anger you're seeing men start to say "What's in it for me? Why would I get married and have children with a woman who can decide to leave me, take the kids, and force me to pay alimony and child support for decades? And why would a woman stick around and compromise with me, when she can leave and do whatever she wants, and make me pay for it anyway?" And if the man bails completely, he knows the government will start picking up the tab. Lionel Tiger called it bureaugamy.

I see the young guys around me asking that question, too. They're asking "why?" and the only answer anyone's coming up with is "because that's what women want."

This month, women will make up over 50% of the work force. Maria Shriver, wife of Conan, just put out a report calling America "A Woman's Nation."

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/10/womans_nation.html/

Men lost 74% of the jobs that were lost in this recession. The jobs men like to do, the kind of jobs that employ skills often featured on AoM--manufacturing jobs--are being shipped overseas. Men are falling through the cracks of a world no longer designed with them in mind, a world that tells them they need to be more like women. Something's got to give, and I think moving forward, you're going to see a lot more men start to stand up and say "no." They're going to stop caring about being called sexists, because women get away with blatant sexism all the time.

I agree that there are still some good women out there.

Hating feminism doesn't exactly mean hating women--though feminists would have us think so.

Being a good man is not just saying "get back in the kitchen and make me a pie." But it's also not rolling over and being a doormat whose only purpose is to open jars and hang pictures.

Comment by Will on October 29, 2009 at 11:33pm

:)

Comment by Jack Donovan on October 23, 2009 at 3:05pm

Oh yeah. Some more than others.

Comment by Will on October 23, 2009 at 1:11pm

They sound pretty angry.