Eliminating Manhood
Commentary on Paul Moomjean's "End of the Manosphere"
A recent opinion piece in a very local newspaper caught my attention due to its ostensible support of an Amazonian ideal of eliminating masculinity that represents a small but vocal faction of activist feminism. Mr. Moomjean is a standup comic in addition to an essayist, and his commentary may well be with firm tongue-in-cheek, but he raises points that deserve consideration and, in my case, opposition. His article is the latest in his column, “Purple is the New Party”, in the Ventura County Reporter, fully visible at vcreporter.com. I reproduce his copywrite article from the March 21, 2024, issue in its entirety, followed by my response.
Over the past three to four years, we’ve seen a huge rise in Internet personalities reaching out to men who feel lost. From the pragmatic Jordan Peterson to the bombastic duo of Fresh and Fit, the Internet has produced a variety of voices preaching a variety of worldviews on “true masculinity.” But at the heart of them is that men are getting the short end of the stick in the areas of dating, marriage, work and societal status. Masculinity is in a civil war with modern male feminists fighting for new ideas of proper social behavior and aggressive conservatives taking their cues from personalities more fit to be part of the WWE. But a funny thing happened on the manosphere’s way to online dominance. YouTube deplatformed a lot of these men for being problematic and now we are seeing this movement deflate through the legal troubles of the manosphere leaders and modern male evangelical pastors foolishly carrying the mantle.
The manosphere is probably a foreign concept to anyone married and over 40. But single millennials and Gen Z-ers out there are bombarded with content seeking to “take back masculinity” and claim social dominance in a world being “destroyed by wokeness.” The words in quotes are standard talking points.
In fact, a Canadian website known as HumanRight.ca defines the manosphere in that same hyperbole I just used. The website states, “The ‘manosphere’ refers to a wide variety of men’s groups operating on the Internet and offline. Many describe themselves as fighting against progressive (or ‘woke’) ideas about gender equality. Manosphere influencers often assert the unfounded idea that men are naturally dominant.”
As a single man in his 40s, I get a lot of the manosphere content thrown at me. The basic message is pretty awful: Men built all of society while women birthed the future leaders and homemakers. Women are either wife material (submissive) or gold digger “whores” who have high body counts waiting at the finish line for the winners. Men can be classified as simps (men who put women on a pedestal) or “high value,” as long as they workout, have a lot of sex, make a lot of money and keep women in some form of submissive servitude. Ever wonder why marriage is down? It’s because this is how the sexes are categorized, creating a dating pool of people trying to define their date as A or B.
While Peterson doesn’t subscribe to most of this nonsense, he does see men without a wife or children as less of a man, encouraging men to clean their room and find a wife to give them purpose. Meanwhile, podcasts like Fresh and Fit and The Whatever Podcast bring women onto their platforms to mock them for their Only Fans accounts and club-hopping lifestyle. Recently, Fresh and Fit was demonetized on YouTube for its outrageous antics, and The Whatever Podcast has had to get Daily Wire conservatives on to “legitimize” its brand of putting down lost souls. Popular conservatives like Michael Knowles and Candance Owens have visited to tell women no one will marry them if they continue down their paths. While many would agree with them, the problem is that there was a time conservatives wouldn’t even think about collaborating with such sad, Jerry Springer-esque nonsense. Now, it’s the Wild West and all is acceptable.
After the YouTube deplatforming, my algorithm changed dramatically. I’m back to getting my financial podcasts and comedy sketches. But with Peterson recently having his clinical license in psychology stripped by the Canadian government for his takes on pronoun usage and global warming theories and Andrew Tate being repeatedly arrested for suspicion of human trafficking, there is clearly a collective effort to throw all this rhetoric out, from the insightful to the offensive. While desiring to help young men is needed, most of their advice is a one-way ticket to self-destruction and emptiness.
Social media and governments might not have to wait long for the manosphere to end, however, as Christianity and conservatism take on the worst of this movement. With pastors waving their flags for male headship and pushing guns and testosterone pills on their podcasts (not a joke) to block empathy and compassion, the end to this movement will not come because of arrests and demonetization. It will hopefully end because conservative Christians will pick up the mantle and make it as unpopular as the rest of their ideas.
In reply via email to the author:
I read your very interesting piece in the Ventura Reporter and thought it deserved careful consideration and a thoughtful reply.
Although some of what you state is certainly true at the extremes of public discussion, I do not agree that your referrals of opinions from the conservative class is that group's mainstream.
As you say, there are various voices preaching a variety of worldviews on true masculinity. Many venues of public speech and culture have, for some time, been truly giving men the "short end of the stick" in overall societal status. This is reflected in statistics of high school graduation, enrollment in college and professional schools, and even in criminality associated with absent fatherhood. Diminution of one group however defined seems to be a common method of trying to "uplift" a previously oppressed class. But downgrading one does not lift the other. Even written reparations such as yours do not accomplish equity. The key is to argue the properly equal status of the other based in our shared values, so that the other--whether one of many genders or many races or many persuasions of other kinds--must, via recognition and societal pressure, be held in and treated with equal respect and opportunity for self-sustainment and advancement based on their own personal motivations.
Regarding that proper social behavior, I am unsure of your meaning when you say, "Masculinity is in a civil war with modern male feminists..." What exactly is a modern male feminist? And is there only one expression of masculinity? Additionally, you seem to equate that small and loud minority of "aggressive conservatives" with "modern male evangelical pastors" and "conservative Christians (who) will pick up the mantle and make (toxic masculinity?) as unpopular as the rest of their (conservative Christians?) ideas." Do I detect atheism or agnosticism in this, and have you perhaps forgotten the ancient (and admittedly wrong in our Constitutional republic) gender prejudices of Judaism, Islam, and many other faiths? While Christianity's foundation documents of the Old and New Testaments are internally inconsistent in their degree of male supremacy (reflecting some degree of cultural evolution), the basic tenets of the Commandments and Christ's gospel equalize men and women in their intended compliance with those admonitions.
Much like the intentions clearly contained in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. The stated principles therein did not exclude women or enslaved peoples, while clearly non-enslaved male landowners were specifically favored in applying those principles. Even though most of the Founders were slave owners, study of their personal writings indicates an intention to use these documents and these principles to end slavery. Strong economic incentives and immoral uses of faith prevented this until the Civil War ended its de jure practice; it has continued de facto into modern times.
But that process emboldened women to seek their rightful place on equal footing with men regarding property, occupation, and most importantly voting. Until recent decades men did indeed build most of the outward trappings of society but only because of the crucial actions of women who chose to support them. We know that their choices were limited. Just as the fruits of the Civil War ripened into the Women’s Suffrage movement, so the crucial roles women played in the industrial support of WWII seeded women’s full participation in the workforce beyond the home or other prior limitations. Domestic partnership, whether marital or otherwise, recognized as between two persons of equal values if differing roles, is just as important today as in past centuries and many other cultures. We now recognize that the two roles are no longer gender dependent and may mix their duties in different ways than before. Any study of ethnology reveals many non-Western cultures wherein the female is the "dominant" partner.
As to Jordan Peterson’s admonition to men to “find a wife to give them purpose”, any society’s most critical need is ongoing procreation beyond its mortality rate. (Peterson’s de-licensure by a progressively authoritarian government is a travesty, as the two cited issues have nothing to do with his capabilities as a therapist). The benefits of two parents, even if of the same gender, has been repeatedly demonstrated. Choosing to forgo procreation doesn’t relieve men of the responsibilities and benefits of developing a long-term partnership without dominance of either partner, and generally this has been with women. Marriage is down for many reasons other than the loud propaganda of a miniscule minority, and men, women, and our society may be suffering for it in other than financial arenas.
Recognizing and vigorously dealing with the remnants of toxic masculinity such as Andrew Tate, P. Diddy, and many others is laudable. Those aberrant beliefs, behaviors, and expressions should not be taken as emblematic of men in general. Nor should men in general be automatically denigrated as misogynists and gender supremacists. Women need not be automatically elevated beyond their demonstrated personal qualities and abilities based solely on gender. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, “a person should be judged on the color of their character, not on the content of their chromosomes”.