Anti-feminist, misogynistic, mostly online male-separatist community
Men Going Their Own Way
(
MGTOW
) is an
anti-feminist
,
misogynistic
, mostly
online community
advocating for
men to separate themselves
from women and society, which they believe has been corrupted by
feminism
.
[2]
The community is a part of the
manosphere
, a collection of anti-feminist websites and online communities that also includes the
men's rights movement
,
incels
, and
pickup artists
.
[3]
Like other manosphere communities, MGTOW overlaps with the neoreactionary
alt-right
movement
[4]
and has been implicated in
online harassment
of women.
[5]
The
Southern Poverty Law Center
categorizes MGTOW as a part of the
male supremacist
ideology.
[6]
History
MGTOW ideology emerged in the early 2000s, although it is not clear where it originated.
A blog called
No Ma'am
was one of the first sites dedicated to the ideology, publishing a "MGTOW Manifesto" in 2001.
Earlier members of MGTOW were largely politically
libertarian
and focused on
individual self-reliance
in accordance with traditional notions of masculinity.
Over time, the movement's focus shifted toward
male separatism
.
Far-right
commentator and
polemicist
Milo Yiannopoulos
is credited with helping to popularize MGTOW with a 2014
Breitbart
article titled "The Sexodus", in which he described men who were eschewing women, love, sex, and marriage because of feminism.
MGTOW discussion forums include the subreddit
r/MGTOW
, created in 2011, smaller auxiliary subreddits, and
MGTOW Forum
, an independent website that emerged in 2014. Following
Reddit
's 2017 ban of a large
incel
subreddit, r/MGTOW was briefly the largest and most active manosphere forum on the site.
Researchers have implicated MGTOW communities in
online harassment
of women. r/MGTOW and
MGTOW Forum
are among the communities which "have been growing in size and in their involvement in online harassment and real-world violence", according to computer scientist Manoel Horta Ribeiro and colleagues.
Shortly after publication of a 2020
preprint
of a paper examining manosphere groups online, Reddit quarantined r/MGTOW, a restriction the platform applies to subreddits determined to be "extremely offensive or upsetting to the average redditor" which prevents them from earning advertising revenue and requires visitors to agree to seeing potentially offensive content before entering.
r/MGTOW was banned in August 2021 for breaking the site's policies against promotion of violence and hate.
On October 6, 2022,
Global News
reported that there were
hidden tags
labeled "#mgtow" in videos uploaded by the team-managed YouTube channel of Canadian Opposition leader
Pierre Poilievre
, since March 2018.
[15]
Poilievre said he immediately had his team remove the tags as soon as he was made aware of them, when questioned about MGTOW Poilievre stated "I condemn this organization" and "we on this side reject all misogyny and all acts of extremism, and that is how we will always conduct ourselves over here".
[15]
Membership
Members of MGTOW communities are primarily
heterosexual
,
white
,
middle-class
men from North America and Europe. Unlike some other manosphere groups, MGTOW is exclusively male.
MGTOW often disavow hierarchies and claim to be
leaderless
; some deny that MGTOW is a group or movement at all, instead emphasizing each member's individuality and independence within a collective.
Researcher Callum Jones and colleagues write in
New Media & Society
that "while the precise number of MGTOW followers is unclear, it appears to be a popular and growing group within the Manosphere: the subreddit r/MGTOW has grown from 54,000 members in early 2018 to 104,000 members in early 2019 and there are 32,859 members listed on one MGTOW forum."
As of 2018
[update]
, MGTOW was smaller than both the men's rights movement and the pickup artist communities online, with
MGTOW Forum
having over 25,000 subscribers and r/MGTOW having over 35,000.
Ideology
At the center of MGTOW ideology is the notion of
male separatism
and the belief that society has been corrupted by
feminism
.
MGTOW groups are misogynist and anti-feminist, believing that feminism has made women dangerous to men, and that male self-preservation requires dissociating completely from women.
[21]
MGTOW and other manosphere communities overlap with the reactionary, white nationalist
alt-right
[4]
and other white supremacist,
authoritarian
, and
populist
movements worldwide,
Both MGTOW and the alt-right believe that feminism has destroyed Western society.
Like other manosphere groups, MGTOW believe there is systemic
gynocentric
bias against men in society,
including
double standards
in
gender roles
and bias against men in
family courts
.
MGTOW endorse the belief shared by other manosphere groups that women follow a similar pattern in dating and marriage: young and attractive women are
promiscuous
and engage in "
hypergamy
", having sex with numerous men and abandoning a man if a "higher-value" man shows interest. They believe women gravitate towards "
alpha men
" who are attractive but mistreat them, reinforcing the ideology of feminism. According to MGTOW, as women begin to age, they settle down with "
beta males
" who provide for them financially, but to whom they deny sex, sometimes engaging in
extramarital sex
with more attractive men; these relationships ultimately lead to divorce, in which the women will be favored by the courts due to what MGTOW call female privilege.
[24]
Scott Wright and colleagues at
Monash University
write that "MGTOW propagate extensive and wide-ranging passive or undirected harassment and misogyny on
Twitter
."
Fellows at the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism publishing with the
International Centre for Counter-Terrorism
have said that members of MGTOW "openly disdain women, and normalize it through online harassment."
The
Southern Poverty Law Center
categorizes MGTOW as a part of the
male supremacist
ideology,
[6]
a category they began tracking on their hate group tracking project,
Hate Map
, in 2018.
Men in the MGTOW community use
jargon shared by the broader manosphere
, including the
red pill and blue pill
metaphor borrowed from the film
The Matrix
.
Those in the manosphere who have been awakened from feminist "delusion" to the supposed reality that society is fundamentally
misandrist
and dominated by feminist values are said to be "redpilled" or have "taken the red pill"; those who do not accept that ideology are referred to as "bluepilled".
[28]
Other jargon includes
pejorative
terms for other men such as "
beta
", "
cuck
", "
soy boy
", and "
white knight
".
MGTOW men gauge their participation in the movement on a series of four levels.
At the first level, men believe they are used and manipulated by women (called "
situational awareness
" or the "red pill"
) but still believe in the value of marriage; they are sometimes described as "purple pilled".
[32]
At the second level, men reject long-term relationships,
cohabitation
, and marriage, but will still participate in shorter term relationships and sexual encounters.
[33]
At the third level, men reject short-term relationships and limit their interactions with women.
[34]
At the fourth level, men minimize their engagement with the state and society, including employment; this is called "going ghost".
[note 1]
Relation to other manosphere groups
The MGTOW community is a part of the manosphere, a diverse group of websites, blogs, and online forums promoting some forms of
masculinity
, hostility towards women, strong opposition to feminism, and exaggerated misogyny.
[35]
In addition to MGTOW, the men's rights movement, incels, pick-up artists, and
father's rights movements
also make up the manosphere.
[36]
Men's rights movement
Although some consider MGTOW to be a part of the men's rights movement,
others have cited MGTOW's separatist ideology as distinguishing them from the men's rights movement, which engages in activism to try to drive societal change.
According to Donna Zuckerberg, early MGTOW groups were primarily libertarian and opposed to "big government"; this led to a rift with the men's rights movements who wished to lobby for governmental change, particularly with regards to
custody
and
divorce law
.
Pickup artistry
The MGTOW community has a reciprocal disdain for pickup artists (PUAs) due to their differing opinions towards women. Whereas MGTOW focuses on separating entirely from women, pickup artists focus on developing techniques to have sex with women. PUA communities have mocked MGTOW as "Virgins Going Their Own Way".
MGTOW communities deride PUAs as being entirely dependent on women's approval, and because they place so much value in attaining sexual success with women, MGTOW says PUA communities contribute to what they see as overvaluing of women in gynocentric society.
Notes
- ^
The MGTOW
Wiki
divides social and economic disengagement into separate levels.
References
- ^
Wright, Trott & Jones (2020)
, pp. 910?911;
Nagle (2017)
, p. 94;
Lin (2017)
, p. 78
- ^
Hodapp (2017)
, p. xviii;
Jones, Trott & Wright (2020)
, p. 2;
Ging (2019)
, p. 644;
Zuckerberg (2018)
, pp. 15?17;
Nagle (2017)
, p. 93
- ^
a
b
Zuckerberg (2018)
, p. 19;
Chemaly (2019)
, p. x
- ^
Wright, Trott & Jones (2020)
, p. 909;
Nagle (2017)
, pp. 18, 94;
Ribeiro et al. (2021)
, p. 196
- ^
a
b
"Male Supremacy"
. Southern Poverty Law Center.
Archived
from the original on 7 June 2018.
- ^
a
b
Boutilier, Alex; Bimman, Abagail (7 October 2022).
"Conservatives call off probe into misogynistic tags on Poilievre's YouTube channel"
.
Global News
.
- ^
Nagle (2017)
, p. 94;
Lin (2017)
, p. 77;
Hodapp (2017)
, pp. xvii?xviii
- ^
Lin (2017)
, pp. 88?89;
Nagle (2017)
, pp. 95?97;
Ging (2019)
, pp. 648?651;
Van Valkenburgh (2018)
, p. 9
- ^
Winter (2019)
, pp. 51?54;
Lumsden (2019)
, p. 99;
Ging (2019)
, p. 640;
Zuckerberg (2018)
, pp. 1?2, 12?13;
Nagle (2017)
, pp. 93?94
- ^
Lin (2017)
, p. 90;
Nagle (2017)
, p. 94
- ^
Hodapp (2017)
, p. xviii;
Lin (2017)
, p. 90;
Nagle (2017)
, p. 94
- ^
Hodapp (2017)
, p. xviii;
Lin (2017)
, p. 90
- ^
Hodapp (2017)
, p. xv;
Lumsden (2019)
, pp. 98?99;
Marwick & Lewis (2017)
, p. 13
- ^
Jones, Trott & Wright (2020)
, p. 2;
Nagle (2017)
, pp. 86?87;
Zuckerberg (2018)
, p. 15?17
Works cited
- Basu, Tanya (7 February 2020).
"The 'manosphere' is getting more toxic as angry men join the incels"
.
MIT Technology Review
.
- "Men at War"
.
Reggie Yates' Extreme UK
. Season 1. Episode 2. 12 January 2016. 22 minutes in. BBC. BBC Three.
- Boutilier, Alex (6 October 2022).
"Pierre Poilievre's YouTube channel included hidden misogynistic tag to promote videos"
.
Global News
. Retrieved
6 October
2022
.
- Ging, Debbie (2019). "Alphas, Betas, and Incels: Theorizing the Masculinities of the Manosphere".
Men and Masculinities
.
22
(4): 638?657.
doi
:
10.1177/1097184X17706401
.
ISSN
1097-184X
.
S2CID
149239953
.
- Chemaly, Soraya (2019).
"Foreword"
(PDF)
. In Ging, Debbie; Siapera, Eugenia (eds.).
Gender Hate Online: Understanding the New Anti-Feminism
. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
doi
:
10.1007/978-3-319-96226-9
.
ISBN
978-3-319-96226-9
.
OCLC
1108619233
.
- Hodapp, Christa (2017).
Men's Rights, Gender, and Social Media
. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books.
ISBN
978-1-49-852617-3
.
- Janik, Rachel (24 April 2018).
"
"I laugh at the death of normies": How incels are celebrating the Toronto mass killing"
.
Hatewatch
. Southern Poverty Law Center.
- Jasser, Greta; Kelly, Megan; Rothermel, Ann-Kathrin (20 May 2020).
"Male supremacism and the Hanau terrorist attack: between online misogyny and far-right violence"
.
International Centre for Counter-Terrorism Journal
.
International Centre for Counter-Terrorism
.
- Jones, Callum; Trott, Verity; Wright, Scott (2020). "Sluts and soyboys: MGTOW and the production of misogynistic online harassment".
New Media & Society
.
22
(10): 1903?1921.
doi
:
10.1177/1461444819887141
.
ISSN
1461-4448
.
S2CID
210530415
.
- Lin, Jie Liang (2017). "Antifeminism Online: MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way)". In Fromming, Urte Undine; Kohn, Steffen; Fox, Samantha; Terry, Mike (eds.).
Digital Environments: Ethnographic Perspectives Across Global Online and Offline Spaces
. Edition Medienwissenschaft. Transcript Verlag. pp. 77?96.
ISBN
978-3-8376-3497-6
.
JSTOR
j.ctv1xxrxw.9
.
MGTOW comprises [
sic
] of mostly straight, white, middle-class men from North America and Europe. Unlike other antifeminist groups, MGTOW espouse the abandonment of women and a Western society that has been corrupted by feminism.
- Lumsden, Karen (2019).
"
'I Want to Kill You in Front of Your Children' Is Not a Threat. It's an Expression of a Desire': Discourses of Online Abuse, Trolling, and Violence on r/MensRights"
. In Lumsden, Karen; Harmer, Emily (eds.).
Online Othering: Exploring Digital Violence and Discrimination on the Web
. Cham, Switzerland:
Palgrave Macmillan
. pp. 91?115.
ISBN
978-3-03-012632-2
.
- Marwick, Alice; Lewis, Rebecca (15 May 2017).
Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online
(Report). New York: Data & Society Research Institute
. Retrieved
13 June
2020
.
- Nagle, Angela
(2017).
Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right
. Alresford, England:
Zero Books
.
ISBN
978-1-78535-543-1
.
- Ribeiro, Manoel Horta; Blackburn, Jeremy; Bradlyn, Barry; et al. (2021).
"The Evolution of the Manosphere Across the Web"
.
Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media
. Vol. 15. Palo Alto, Calif.: Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. pp. 196?207.
arXiv
:
2001.07600v5
.
doi
:
10.1609/icwsm.v15i1.18053
.
ISBN
978-1-57735-869-5
.
ISSN
2334-0770
.
- Raycraft, Richard (6 October 2022).
"Poilievre faces calls to apologize, explain misogynist YouTube tags"
.
CBC News
. Retrieved
6 October
2022
.
- Schmitz, Rachel M.; Kazyak, Emily (2016). Robinson, Christine M.; Spivey, Sue (eds.).
"Masculinities in Cyberspace: An Analysis of Portrayals of Manhood in Men's Rights Activist Websites"
.
Social Sciences
.
5
(2): 18.
doi
:
10.3390/socsci5020018
.
- Thalen, Mikael (3 August 2021).
"Reddit bans notorious anti-feminist subreddit 'Men Going Their Own Way'
"
.
The Daily Dot
. Retrieved
4 August
2021
.
- Van Valkenburgh, Shawn P. (4 December 2018). "Digesting the Red Pill: Masculinity and Neoliberalism in the Manosphere".
Men and Masculinities
.
24
: 84?103.
doi
:
10.1177/1097184X18816118
.
ISSN
1097-184X
.
S2CID
233999876
.
- Winter, Aaron (2019). "Online Hate: From the Far-Right to the 'Alt-Right' and from the Margins to the Mainstream". In Lumsden, Karen; Harmer, Emily (eds.).
Online Othering: Exploring Digital Violence and Discrimination on the Web
. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 39?64.
ISBN
978-3-03-012632-2
.
- Wright, Scott; Trott, Verity; Jones, Callum (2020). "
'The pussy ain't worth it, bro': assessing the discourse and structure of MGTOW".
Information, Communication & Society
.
23
(6): 908?925.
doi
:
10.1080/1369118X.2020.1751867
.
ISSN
1369-118X
.
S2CID
219023052
.
MGTOWs also contribute to the propagation of online harassment. Their contribution to a 'digital culture of misogyny' [...] combined with their rapid growth as other Manosphere groups face sanctions, positions them as an influential group within the Manosphere
- "Add tags to your YouTube video"
.
YouTube
. YouTube Help
. Retrieved
6 October
2022
.
- Zuckerberg, Donna
(2018).
Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age
. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
ISBN
978-0-674-98982-5
.
JSTOR
j.ctv24w63tr
.
OCLC
1020311558
.
Further reading
External links
- The dictionary definition of
MGTOW
at Wiktionary
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