Men Going Their Own Way

 

The Liberals are currently going hard after Pierre Poilievre because his videos on YouTube included the hashtag #MGTOW, which stands for “men going their own way.” This, Justin Trudeau and the mainstream press say, is a “misogynist” movement. Poilievre himself immediately condemned it and disavowed all knowledge of who put the hashtag on his videos.

But seriously, what’s the problem? It is the job of a politician to reach out to all voters; it is the job of an elected representative to hear all views. Why condemn a politician for sending his message to any identifiable group? Especially if their views are wrong, he is to be congratulated for trying to reach them.

Other than the literal meaning of the words themselves, it is difficult to say what “Men Going Their Own Way” advocates. There is no such organization. There is no organization hosting a website under that name. Articles condemning the “movement” cite a Reddit thread with the tagline. But Reddit has deleted it. All I find there is a thread called “ban MGTOW.” I did eventually find an online discussion board named https://www.goingyourownway.com/ . This may be the closest we can come to hearing what it is all about. And one obviously cannot legitimately object to an opinion until one finds out what it is.

They feature this “elevator pitch”:

First - relationships with today's women, under today's conditions, are not worth it. Relationships have always taken up huge amounts of time and money, but now they cost more: legal liability, alimony and CS (how many guys do you know who have been through the wringer?); and deliver less: women can't keep house, can't raise a family, are self-centred and entitled. Sure, today's women make a living, but so what? So do I. Sure they're "strong and independent" - how is that a benefit to a long term relationship? Today's women doesn't know how to wife and wouldn't do it even if she did. The only thing, the sole, singular, only thing today’s man needs, wants, or can realistically get from today’s woman is sex. Buying the cow is a worse deal now than it ever was.

Second - once you get realistic and opt out of relationships, or at least marriage, suddenly you need so much less money and have so much more time. You don't need a house. You don't need a [deleted]-magnet car. You don't need holidays at resorts. And with that need done away with, all of the things that you needed in your life to get more money become redundant. You don't need a suit. You don't need to spend hours a day commuting to two jobs. You don't need to socialise with people you despise.

There's a domino effect once you give up on the now-unattainable dream of marrying a good woman and living in a loving, lifelong family household. It's not that these things aren't great, it's that they are not in the offing anymore.

Let's be realistic. The sensible thing is to admit "defeat", and Go Your Own Way.

There is nothing misogynistic about any of that. It is criticizing feminism. Ideas are not just fair game—discussing them openly is essential. And these are good points. My own brother made this calculation, and decided never to marry. I saw the same problem, and sought to avoid it by marrying women from another culture. This is why so many European men now seek Asian wives.

As always, views are never suppressed because they are false. They are always suppressed because they are true, and threaten those in power.

Notably, the claim that marriage is a bad deal is exactly the claim made by feminism as early as the 1960s: “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” The criticism of feminism and the feminist society is surely no harsher than feminism’s criticism of “patriarchy.”

As a matter of fact, the opposition to MGTOW by the establishment press, the Liberal Party, Reddit, and Pierre Poilievre himself actually proves MGTOW’s central assertion: there is no equality between man and women in modern society. Women can say whatever they want, and are supported by the system. Men are silenced.