The young male demographic

When I was writing Undead Sexist Cliches, I read a lot about incels (and blog about them too). Incel websites (covered extensively at We Hunted the Mammoth over the years) are horrific, with lots of hate for women, and fantasies of rape and retribution based on the hate. They left me wondering whether the participants were always warped and misogynist or if they’d gotten lost.

It’s easy enough to get lost that way. As David W. Maurer once explained in The Big Con, the most sophisticated scams create an echo chamber: if you have any doubts about investing $20,000 in this scam, the scammers have made sure you won’t discuss it with anyone else and they have answers for every question. Similarly, incel murderer Elliot Rodgers stated before setting out to murder women that nothing he had heard online challenged his belief women couldn’t be trusted to pick their own sexual partners.

I can buy someone sliding into an incel discussion, looking for answers about their love life and slowly getting sucked in. As I keep saying, some men are never going to hurt or hate women, some are utter misogynists, and probably the majority will take their cues from the world they live in, the people around them and over them and what sort of behavior their world and those people value.

Case in point, this discussion of sexism suddenly surging up in a school: “It hadn’t taken long for this focus on machismo to creep into these boys’ mindsets and conversations. Seemingly harmless disrespectful comments with witty undertones toward girls became commonplace, and feelings of traditional male dominance started to sneak back into our friend groups. Upon reflection, we both recall speaking about stereotypically masculine interests or topics and then hearing snickering exchanges between the boys in the room followed by targeted belittling retorts disguised as trivial jokes. It genuinely felt as though they viewed us as unintelligent or even inferior. During science lab our male lab partners read the directions aloud to us, and we had to remind them that we could actually read.”

Or one teacher discussing the increasing misogny of his students: “Like, that’s the punchline,” he said. “That’s the purpose of the joke, is that, ‘Isn’t this a funny joke because it’s racist, because it’s about rape? Because it’s this crazy thing that we’re not allowed to talk about?'” See also this earlier post of mine.

Gen Z young men, according to multiple post-election articles, went heavily for Trump and that reflects that they’re heavily misogynist. Which reflects that they listen to podcasters and pundits who tell them the world is female dominated and stacked against men and that they’re entitled to a hot woman to cook, clean and bang them. Like incels, they’re getting “blackpilled,” dosed with toxic masculinity and told it’s a good thing.

I’m sympathetic to an argument that we should intervene before it’s too late: “The goal isn’t to convince the black pilled incel that they’re wrong, it’s to get to them before they go down that rabbit hole. Meet them where they are.”

But how? Aaron Rabinowitz says “It is our job to show compassion and respect while helping other men understand that it is patriarchy and capitalism that are depriving them of meaningful lives, not minorities.” Sounds good but part of the problem is that patriarchy sounds good to some men.

As Fred Clark put it, “It means you’re in charge by virtue of having been born in charge, and hierarchy brings all manner of privileges. You get paid more. Your legal rights are better protected. Society is literally designed to meet your desires and appetites and emotional needs. Plus someone else is going to make you food, clean up after you, launder your clothes, and tend to your children. Being “above” and being deferred to by default is, all things considered, a pretty terrific arrangement for you. It’s good to be the king.”

Yes, patriarchy is the sign of a sick society, but lots of people would prefer being top dog in a sick society to mere equality in a healthy one. It’s easy to say we have to change that but (again) how? It’s also worth keeping in mind that men aren’t stamped from the same cloth. A lot of the misery Rabinowitz talks about comes not from feminism or liberals but from men policing other men for not being the right sort of guy.

Part of that is the sexism of our society that assumes gender equality is an extreme position (it’s not. It’s the middle ground between male supremacy and female supremacy) which makes it easy to think women should compromise — some rights, sure, but 100 percent equality? How radical! And that our society has long presented manhood as something defined in relation to women: you have a man’s job, you have a beautiful woman on your arm or a woman at home to cook and clean for you, you do guy things like smoking cigars, sleeping around, etc. If women can do the same job, expect their spouse to do half the housework, are sexually active, then how do you know you’re a man?

And on the other hand, I’m sympathetic to complaints that once again the gender that dominates society is the one who’s feelings must be cosseted. Men still dominate in politics. They still out-earn women. This discussion reminds me of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ point that white grievance must be taken seriously — apparently so does male resentment, whether or not it’s rational or reasonable. Men still have a massive pay gap advantage over women. Society gives men greater freedom in many ways (a sexually active man is a stud, a woman is a slut, to use a classic example). By focusing on their problems are we telegraphing that yes, we agree they’re getting screwed over (as Courtney Milan says about Trump voters)?

I don’t think women’s rage is ever taken as seriously. Indeed, “women are angry” was an argument to ignore feminists. I suspect things like the 4B Movement (no dating, no marriage, no sex with men, no kids) won’t lead to similar discussions of how we can talk pissed-off women off the ledge (one reason some women just suck it up). Of course, women are unlikely to go off on shooting sprees if they’re frustrated or vote for a woman whose anti-men politics were as extreme as Republican misogynists (and if such a woman ran, she’d never get within a thousand miles of political office in this country). Similarly, African Americans have been getting the short end of the stick for most of American history but they’re supposed to suck it up, get over it, forgive.

This is a rambling post because I don’t have an answer and part of me is annoyed at having to do so. Abigail Adams proposed to John that America should liberate wives from submission to their husbands. The suffragettes fought for women’s rights. The feminists of my teen years fought for women’s rights. Now, as Alexandra Petri says, feminists have to keep pushing the boulder up that hill like Sisyphus. And they have to do it all over the world.

For more discussion of misogyny and patriarchy you can check out Undead Sexist Cliches in paperback or ebook if you’re so inclined.