Science or Spin? Testosterone, Masculinity, or the Last Gasp of Woke

 

During a recent video, I described feminist buzzwords as being something like attack drones. The more I think about it, the more I like the comparison.

An attack drone does not arrive to look around and figure out what happened. It has already been programmed. It knows what the target looks like. It knows who the enemy is before it ever gets there.

A lot of feminist buzzwords work the same way. They don’t just describe something that happened. They arrive with a theory already attached to them. Who has the power? Who is the victim? Who should be believed? Who needs to change? Usually the answer is already built in.

The man has power. His power is suspect. The woman lacks power. She is harmed by what he has done. So the word is doing quite a bit more than simply describing behavior. The verdict is built into the word. Every feminist buzzword arrives preloaded with ideology—and armed with disdain for men and masculinity.

 

Take mansplaining. Certainly a few men may explain things in an arrogant or condescending way. Women do too. We already had perfectly good words for that sort of behavior: patronizing, condescending, arrogant, rude. But mansplaining adds something. Now the man’s sex is part of the offense.

The word suggests that he is acting this way because he considers himself superior and makes the assumption that being male makes him more knowledgeable or more important. But do we know that? Did she misunderstand what he was trying to say? Does he talk this way to everyone? Was he simply trying to help? Before we have looked at any of that, the drone has already found its target. The behavior has been gendered. The motive has been supplied. The verdict is in. The buzzword arrived preloaded with ideology—and armed with disdain for men and masculinity.

 

Now take toxic masculinity. Some men behave badly. A small minority may be violent or reckless. But once those behaviors are placed under the heading of toxic masculinity, something else happens. Masculinity itself gets ​blamed and dragged into the mud.

The term suggests that these behaviors are an integrated part of masculinity and that men need to learn a different relationship to their own nature. Such a global generalization ignores all the demands placed on men. Provide. Protect. Compete. Take risks. Endure pain. Stay useful under pressure. Those parts of masculinity are usually welcomed when other people benefit from them.

A man works sixty hours a week to support his family? Good. He walks into danger to protect someone? Good. He pushes through pain because other people depend on him? Good. But when some men buckle under those same demands, the whole of masculinity can suddenly become toxic. Why? That is what the term does: it not only describes harmful behavior but directs us to blame masculinity itself—while diverting attention from the pressures, circumstances, and unmet needs that may have helped produce the behavior.

 

Male privilege carries a similar load. It trains us to notice the man’s advantages and ignore his disadvantages. We see the male CEO. We don’t see the male roofer, the foot soldier, the prisoner, the homeless man, the suicide victim, or the father who has lost his children.

A man’s success can be explained partly by privilege. His suffering is much more likely to be explained by his choices. Notice the difference? His suffering is his fault, while his success is due to his privilege. When judging men as a group, the term directs our attention upward, toward the men with the most wealth, status, and power. When judging women, it directs our attention downward, toward those facing the greatest hardship. Struggling men and successful women quietly disappear from the picture. And this can happen even when the particular woman standing in front of us has more education, more money, more institutional support, and more social credibility than the particular man. The theory can still tell us he has the power and she does not. At that point, the theory has become more important than the people standing right in front of us. The buzzword male privilege arrived preloaded with ideology—and armed with disdain for men and masculinity.

 

Fragile masculinity is a clever drone. Why? Because disagreement itself can become proof. Suppose a man objects to being mocked or stereotyped. His objection can be taken as evidence that his masculinity is fragile. What if he stays silent? Then there is no challenge. What if he speaks up? Now he has proved the accusation. Heads she wins. Tails he loses. The term doesn’t invite a response. It shuts ​it down.

 

Then we have the manosphere. Taken literally, this could simply mean internet spaces where men talk about men’s lives. That could include fathers’ groups, divorce forums, men’s health advocates, suicide-prevention groups, dating discussions, and critics of feminism. Pretty broad group, right? But that is rarely how the word is presented. Instead it is usually surrounded by other words: Misogyny. Radicalization. Extremism. Violence. Suddenly a father trying to understand a custody battle and a violent man threatening women can be placed in the same ominous container. Once the label has been attached, even ordinary concern for men can begin to look suspicious. The underlying message is that men don’t deserve compassion.

But there is something odd here. Where is the equivalent word for the huge network of universities, feminist organizations, advocacy groups, foundations, government agencies, media outlets, legal organizations, and research centers that create and circulate feminist ideas? That network is far larger and far more influential. Yet it mostly goes unnamed. And because it goes unnamed, it stays largely invisible. I call it the femosphere. Once you name it, you start to see it.

Feminist ideas do not simply appear out of nowhere. They are researched. Funded. Taught. Repeated. Promoted. Written into policy. And sometimes written into law.

 

Other terms do the same thing even more clearly. Take coercive control. There is certainly such a thing as a terrible pattern of domination and control inside a relationship. But what happens when the idea is interpreted almost entirely through a feminist power model? Then we can end up with the familiar story. Powerful man. Powerless woman. His controlling behavior becomes part of a larger system of male domination. Her controlling behavior may be minimized, ignored, or explained as self-protection. Same behavior? Different moral story.

Something similar happens with vicarious violence. The term has been used for situations in which a man harms children or other people in order to hurt a woman. That is terrible behavior and certainly deserves attention. But in countries such as Spain, the concept has even been incorporated into the legal framework as a form of male violence against women—building the sex of the perpetrator and victim into the official meaning. The law only goes one way. There is nothing in the law about a mother victimizing her children to hurt the man. Nothing. This even though we know that mothers murder their children as much or more than fathers. The vicarious violence law arrives preloaded with ideology—and armed with disdain for men and masculinity.

 

Then there is gender-based violence. Violence against a woman is often described as gender-based even when we do not actually know that her sex was the reason she was attacked. But violence against a man is far less likely to receive the same label. This is interesting because men are the majority of homicide victims and men are often expected to absorb danger precisely because they are men. But somehow that doesn’t fit quite as easily. Once again, men get agency and women get victimhood. Men do things. Things happen to women.

From description to control

This is why I think these words eventually become a form of social control. Not that every person using them is consciously trying to control men. Most aren’t.​ Most are unaware of what motivates them and simply repeat the arguments they have been taught—arguments that reinforce the narrative they have already swallowed. People ​tend to repeat the language they hear from professors, journalists, therapists, advocates, friends, and social media. The assumptions just travel along inside the word. Quietly. But the effect is still there.

These words help define what a man is allowed to say. How he is allowed to behave. How much authority he should have. How he is permitted to understand his own experience. And what happens if he objects? He may be told he is fragile. Toxic. Privileged. Misogynistic. Part of the manosphere. Do you see the problem? Every defense can become an opportunity to launch the next drone.

The ​drones can turn: male confidence into dominance; male disagreement into misogyny; male boundaries into control; male suffering into fragility; male spaces into radicalization; male success into privilege; and female aggression into a response to male power. Notice anything? The direction rarely changes. Men need correction. Women need protection. Men should give up power. Women should be given more. Men’s motives are questioned. Women’s experiences are affirmed.

The great paradox

And here is the strange part. This language keeps telling us that women are powerless while giving enormous power to women and to the institutions claiming to act on their behalf. The person labeled the victim receives moral authority. She is more likely to be believed. Protected. Excused. The person labeled powerful receives moral suspicion. He is expected to listen. Confess. Step back. Change. So powerlessness itself can become a kind of power.

Once victimhood carries enough moral authority, it can end arguments, destroy reputations, influence law, redirect public money, and place an entire sex under suspicion. And because all of this is being done in the name of helping the powerless, it becomes very difficult to question. ​”How dare you question giving help to the underdog!” That may be one of the most important things these buzzwords do. They hide power while using it.

Look inside the payload

Now, words are never completely neutral. And sometimes a new word really does help us see something we had missed. Nothing wrong with that. But shouldn’t we get a little suspicious when dozens of new terms all seem to tell us the same moral story? Men have power. Women do not. Men abuse. Women are harmed. Men need limits. Women need authority.

At some point, we have to ask whether we are describing reality or simply applying the same theory over and over again. When the conclusion comes before the evidence, we are no longer dealing with simple description. We are dealing with buzzwords arriving preloaded with ideology—and armed with disdain for men and masculinity.

So the next time one of these words appears, maybe stop for a minute. Ask if the word is being used as a weapon. Ask if it carries an underlying disdain for men. Ask if they have any compassion for men and boys. That one will stop them in their tracks and you will see them fumble for words that show how much compassion they have for men and boys. You have just neutralized an attack drone.

Well done.

Men are good.

This post is a story by Moiret Allegiere about about awakening to manhood.

 

The boy, sweating, stood silent halfway up the hill. Above, in the blue skies, the sun shone brightly. Warm. Late spring. A slight breeze – quite welcome, thought the boy – broke the stillness of the air.

The boy looked out upon the seemingly endless fields below. Ancient fields, a small portion of which were his and his was also the grass which he had just cut by the sweat of his brow and his scythe and nothing more.

The boy wiped the sweat from his eyes with the palm of his left hand. His right hand, the dominant one, hung limply to the side of his body, swaying. His muscles ached. He thought it more than he felt it. Years of toil had learned him to expect as much. The grass cut then was not his grass, yet the work and the toil and the sweat and the blood belonged to him and him alone. And the very same work and toil and sweat and blood had taught him that his right arm, when not in use, must be loose and limp and tender. As if not to spoil the meat or blood or strength within, but tenderize it, preserve it and conserve it.

Because harder times had been before and harder times would come once more. All things must be conserved and saved so as not to face that snarling beast again, having spoilt or spent knife and rifle both.

“The great divide”, thought the boy. 70/30, with the harder times bearing the brunt of the thing thus split. A beast of burden led with a thin string of silver across a rickety bridge. The boy knew this. The father of the boy taught him this. The boy was five and was watching his father cut the grass and dry it and turn it into food for the sheep. The man always saved some.

Rather would he see his sheep 30 percent starved than for them not to eat at all. So he said. He never strayed. His sheep were always well fed, and his children and his wife as well. The man never strayed. A few of his children had strayed already, yet they strayed only from his path onto their own path as had he when once he grew from boy to man. All was as it should be.

The boy stood there still, and he looked at his fields and then towards the lush green of the plants growing there which he himself placed there for food, and then towards his house which he had built upon the plot of land his father gave to him. A house in which a woman and a baby also lived and breathed and ate and slept.

The boy sighed.

He looked at his watch. The time was where it should be. He stood and he looked some more. He looked at his father’s house.

Still well-kept and maintained and nurtured and loved from seed to harvest.

Beside him now, and quite suddenly, his father stood. Quiet, perhaps, as is his wont, yet lively still, far from dead, merely crippled by arthritis and now incapable of tending to all that which he once tended to.

The boy gave the man a nod, and he smiled. The father stood and he looked. Then he smiled. And they looked both upon the son’s work and the son’s world, neither saying a word because no words were needed. Some time passed. Still was the air and the time was where it should be still. The man gestured with his arm.

“Sit down, son,” he said.

The boy sat down. His father stood there, smiling.

“How’s the baby?” He asked. He had always been a kind man, yet never before as kind as just now.

The boy thought.

“Growing, crying and shitting.”

The older of the two grinned and then he laughed, heartily, and his mood changed abruptly, as if suddenly remembering something long forgotten. He paused and turned to the boy. He looked at his son’s face. Still young and handsome and maintained and nurtured and loved from seed to harvest. And in his son’s face he saw at once his own face as once it was in younger years.

“All is as it should be then?”

“Yes,” the boy said.

“Yes,” said the man.

The older of the two went quiet for a bit, fumbling in his backpack which he always carried with him. The fumbling went on for a little longer than it should, thought both boy and man. The man found what he was looking for. The man was always prepared and the man never strayed, not now and not ever.

He pulled out a beer, and then he pulled out another. Piss-warm now, perhaps, yet it was still beer and still the time was right where it should be.

The son sighed and he smiled as his father opened a beer and handed it to him, saying nothing. There they were. The boy sitting and the man standing. They stood and sat and they looked at what was theirs and theirs alone, and they drank from their beers. Then looked and drank some more. Some time passed just as time does and they stood and sat as if all that was there or anywhere was them and them alone. The older of the two then put his hand upon the shoulder of the younger, and, smiling warmly, he nodded as if to say goodbye even when his lips and his mouth and his mind and his reason said “See you later, son”. He turned and walked away, going home.

The boy sat and he looked some more upon all that was there that was his and his alone. And he sighed and he smiled and he laughed and then he made to leave.

The man got to his feet and the man turned and walked away, going back home following behind the older man, too far behind to catch up yet close enough to never stray.

All we hear about these days is a dangerous manosphere that is threatening our young men. Actually the manosphere is a fairly small and widely varied group of male-oriented communities that has been billed as a huge threat. All the while there is something much larger and much more dangerous that is surrounding both the manosphere and our culture. It is embedded in all that we do, I call it the Femosphere. This huge complex contains, academia, education, advocacy organizations, legislatures, government agencies, entertainment, the courts and of course, the media all working together to create and maintain a gynocentric narrative that impacts everyone.

This is the mammoth sphere through which feminist and gynocentric ideas are created, validated, circulated and converted into public policy. It is the invisible system that makes feminist claims seem unquestionably true. This goes on day in and day out and is a huge and destructive machine that no one sees. No one identifies it as ideological or biased in any way. It masquerades as the status quo. If there is a sphere that is dangerous, it is surely the femosphere.

Here’s how it works. A new slogan or concept is created in academia or feminist advocacy and then reinforced by both. The feminist advocates promote it. Journalists print it. The public reads it. Educators teach it. The public learns it. Before you know it, government agencies are incorporating it into trainings and reports. Then the legislators push it into policy and law and the courts follow along using the same ideas that prompted the policies and laws. Unprecedented teamwork, and no one sees it.

Take coercive control as a​n example. The term was first used by domestic violence advocates who described abuse as an ongoing pattern of control rather than a series of isolated violent acts. Evan Stark pulled these ideas together into a formal theory of coercive control in his book “Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life (2007)“. (The title states clearly that this was not a gender-neutral theory: men were the oppressors and women were their victims.) Then the feminist advocates promoted it, journalists spread the word, educators and government agencies taught it, and police and courts were trained to use it. Eventually the legislators turned it into law. Hey Presto! The idea of male dominance and men’s violence becomes the default,

There are plenty of other examples like hegemonic masculinity or intersectionality. These all have different paths through the femosphere pipeline but the end product is the same. The specific ideas about male dominance travel from idea to law or common knowledge. The process is similar, an idea about power and male dominance begins in academia or advocacy, moves through the institutions, and eventually gains real social, political and sometimes legal power.

Here’s the tricky part. Each of these groups starts to quote the other groups as proof to the veracity of the original idea. Journalists cite the academics and advocates cite the journalists. Politicians cite both. Then the researchers come along and “study” the reality that has just been created out of thin air and prove it. Then the public hears from these many sources and voila, what started as a theory becomes an accepted reality. Advocacy becomes fact. The public nods unknowingly in agreement.

The manosphere is open season for criticism, targeting, restrictions, and containment. The femosphere is protected by a gynocentric ban on any criticism or even a negative idea in their direction. To expose who has the power just look for who cannot be criticized. That would clearly be the femosphere, women and feminism. In fact, the manosphere is the first public criticism of the femosphere and the response is predictable: Shame it, blame it, and call it pure misogyny. Don’t argue the ideas, attack personally.

This is what we have had for the last 50 years. A slow gynocentric building of a new reality. And what has been the result? Women have been inflated and men have been equally deflated. Ask just about any woman about the last 50 years and she will tell you it is progress. But has it truly been progress—or has it been a one-way transfer of concern, opportunity, and power to women, without any corresponding transfer of responsibility?

And now it is basically impossible to see.

The next time you hear someone complain about the manosphere, ask them when they will be complaining about the real problem, the femosphere.

Men Are Good.