An entertaining read, though to the MGTOW I suspect you come across as blithe to the point of callousness. I believe the movement will continue to grow, for two reasons. Firstly, I believe the anti-male sentiments currently flooding our culture will diminish as more men opt out and women begin to follow those men — as women often do. Those sentiments have been fertile soil for the growth of MGTOW. But although the culture will become less overtly antagonistic towards men, the legal system will retain the injustices feminism has secured. Gynocentrism will ensure it. Any reform which can be painted as harmful to women will be a non-starter. And those injustices are more fertile soil than culture is, because they provide statistics and experiences which can’t be denied. It only takes one unjust experience of the legal system as shaped by feminism to create a MGTOW, whether to him or someone close to him. So long as the laws remain unjust and the divorce rate high, MGTOW will grow.
Secondly, there has been no time in human history where women have been so free from economic or moral constraint to pursue their sex drive. I suspect you’re too old to see how this is playing out for young men. The result is that women have, in barely a generation, reverted to a tournament mating system. It’s a commonly cited fact in the MGTOW communities that 80% of the women are having sex with 20% of the men. We’re seeing a rise in ‘polyamory’, f**k buddies, Tinder sex, etc. Basically women are forming loose, non-exclusive harems around the most desirable men. I’m sure you can understand how much resentment this is causing among the 80% of men left out in the cold. I doubt this has much precedent in recorded history, and I think it contributes more to the growth of MGTOW than the legal injustices do, particularly among young men. Men not only see marriage as an enormous financial and emotional risk — a risk the state will exacerbate rather than mitigate — they see the ‘reward’ as being a rapidly ageing woman who has spent her prime years promiscuously pleasuring other men. They see a woman who will demand excessive access to a man’s hard-earned resources in exchange for something she spent her younger, hotter years freely giving away to that top 20%.
I don’t think it’s purely a matter of pride. I think men experience a visceral pain and revulsion at the thought that the love of his life came to him only after having decided that she’d had her fun and needed to find a partner who would provide financial security, now that her looks were fading. I think that pain and revulsion is linked to an instinctual desire for a sexually exclusive partner. Until recently, there was no way to know the paternity of a woman’s child, which made sexual exclusivity something evolution primed men to want in a partner. The man who spends his life rearing and supporting another man’s children doesn’t exist, from an evolutionary perspective. Even now, with contraceptives and abortions so available, geneticists believe that at least 10% of people in western nations are the product of paternity fraud. ie their biological father is not the man they believe him to be. We also know that we have roughly twice as many female ancestors as we have male ones. While the higher male mortality rate may account for much of this discrepancy, it’s likely that female infidelity also accounts for a lot. Studies have found that women are attracted to more masculine-looking men when they’re ovulating, and more feminine-looking men when they aren’t. Scientists have speculated that more feminine-looking men are more likely to be stable, faithful and supportive, and therefore to make better long-term mates. But at the time she is most fertile and most likely to conceive, she’s more attracted to a different type of man who, scientists speculate, would provide stronger genes. So the ingredients to prompt a woman to cheat are baked in, and too many women follow the recipe. You hear horror stories like the man who found out that none of his four children were actually his. So it’s not an unreasonable concern, and as I said I believe it’s an instinctual one. Which means no amount of feminist campaigning against ‘slut-shaming’ will erase it.
So you have men burnt by the legal system or who know men who have been burnt, who will join MGTOW. You have a marriage system which offers far more risks than benefits in its current state. You have women who are increasingly seen as unfit marriage material, due to attitudes and behaviours fostered by feminism. And the traditional paths to a positive masculine identity have been stripped (also by feminism) from the workplace, from marriage, and from the family. Men were previously incentivised to take on the surplus exertions of a full-time career with the prospect of attracting a better mate, and then supporting a family. Without these lures, why would a man devote 70 hours a week to a job he doesn’t love? He can instead live frugally by himself, working only enough to support himself and his hobbies. And such a meagre lifestyle makes him an unappealing prospect to women, even were he seeking one. Which reduces the chances that ‘the right woman’ will come along and blue pill him.
You may be correct in asserting the historical underpinnings (or echoes) of MGTOW, but I think there is also much that is new and contextual. Which is why I think it’s growing so quickly. And I think to dismiss it as men afraid of uncertainty is cavalier, optimistic, and more than a little ignorant. That said, your article is a cut above much of the stuff written about MTOW. Good job.