The Manosphere is comprised of several groups that share one thing in common. They all believe the rights of men in America and other western countries have been infringed upon for at least several decades and others for more than a century. Also, the vast majority of Manosphere groups believe that feminism is a problematic ideology that is eating away at the core of society and destroying Western civilization.
Where these groups begin to separate from one another is on two main issues.
The first issue which separates manosphere groups is how far back was feminism wrong? Was it from its very origins in the mid-19th century when women’s groups fought for more rights for in divorce and property rights for women? Was it when women were granted the right to vote in 1920? Or was it just from the advent of second wave feminism in the 1960s where feminism dropped the equivalent of a societal nuclear bomb on traditional gender roles and sexual morality and it became a misandrist movement that openly declared war on men?
The second issue which separates manosphere groups is how men should react to the damage feminism has caused to men’s rights, sexual norms, traditional gender roles, marriage and the family. And opinions on what the solutions should be are very much impacted by the group’s view on the origins of the problem.
For instance, if a group does not view equal rights for women, including the ability of women to vote and to be economically independent of men as a foundational part of the problem they will have very different solutions to the assault on men’s rights than other groups. Another way of putting this is that some manosphere groups are only fighting for equal rights for men with women, not less rights for women.
MRAs – Men’s Rights Activists
Many MRA groups in the manosphere believe they just need to just get the societal pendulum to the center. These groups are actually big supporters of first and even second wave feminism and all the new rights these movements granted women. They believe society was unjustly biased to support male privilege and patriarchy over women before feminism came along to correct this injustice. In their view, feminism just went too far and they want to re-balance the rights between men and women and have the courts deal equally with both men and women.
Jesse Powell’s Secular Patriarchy or Traditional Family Activism
Other manosphere groups believe that feminism was flawed from its very inception and that American and Western society made a grave error in granting women economic, social and political independence from men. In their view, tearing down the system of patriarchy which was the norm throughout human history was a colossal mistake.
Even among the manosphere groups that believe feminism was flawed since its very inception in the mid-19th century, there is much diversity of opinion. Some of these groups come from a secular perspective and others come from a religious perspective.
For instance, there are atheists like Jesse Powell who are believe in and teach “secular patriarchy” and consider themselves “TFAs” or Traditional Family Activists. Jesse Powell argues that evolution shows that men are meant to lead, provide for and protect women and that the feminist revolution of the mid-19th century went against this and was doomed to failure because of the unique evolutionary design of men and women.
Mr. Powell not only decries the damage caused by feminism to Western world, but he also offers what he believes is a solution to the problem:
“What society needs instead is for men to assert themselves as men and return to their roles as the guardians, protectors, and foundation of support for women so that women will be once again freed from the concerns and burdens of the man and instead be enabled to focus on giving to others of their femininity and their unique and particular strengths as women. The feminine contribution to the family and to society must be resurrected, must be revitalized, must be held up as a fundamental priority and concern of men once again.
Under coverture women’s role as women was upheld in both culture and law. The beginning of the feminist revolution can be dated back to the initial reforms that worked to undo the principles of coverture; namely the Custody of Infants Act of 1839 and the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870. TFAs wish to repeal the feminist revolution in its entirety and return to a period of stable and healthy relations between the sexes such as existed in the era of coverture.”
So, in his view the answer to fighting the damage feminism has caused to the family unit and Western civilization is to go back to the very beginnings of feminism in the mid-19th century and remove it at is very roots. That means removing women’s right to vote, property rights and child custody rights in divorce. This would force women’s complete dependence on men as had it been for this history of mankind throughout the world.
Rollo Tomassi’s “The Red Pill” or TRP
Other secularists like Rollo Tomassi at RationalMale.com take a different approach. He does not oppose women’s right to vote, property rights for women or even their right to abortion, but he does think that the ideology of feminism is at odds with human evolution and he does not buy into the false blank slate theory that all of our behavior comes from our environment. He rejects the crazy idea that you can educate away basic male and female behavioral traits.
Rollo Tomassi has made a career of his own take on “The Red Pill” which uses the 1999 movie “Matrix” to illustrate how men need to be awakened to what is actually happening around them. In the Matrix movie the mentor character Morpheus offers Neo, the main Protagonist a choice between a red pill and a blue pill. If he takes the red pill, he will be awakened to the false reality he has been living in and shown what the world actually looks like. If he takes the blue pill, he can go back to the fantasy world he has been living in his whole life. But if he does stay in that world, he will continue to be what he has been since his birth, a slave to the Matrix system. He can only be free by taking the red pill and waking up to the harsh real world around him. It will be a harder world, and he will have to fight against the system he used to serve as a slave, but he would be free.
I actually love the Matrix Trilogy and own them all on Blu Ray. I watch them a couple times a year with my sons. I think there are many life lessons that can be learned from them and I actually think the red pill/blue pill is an excellent analogy to how we are brought up in our culture to view our world. I would even use the red pill/blue pill analogy to teach people that there is a spiritual world that is beyond this physical world that we can see and touch.
But unlike Jesse Powell, Rollo Tomassi does not see the answer to the problem of “feminine primacy” in Western culture as a need to completely rollback all gains of feminism since the mid-19th century. Mr. Tomassi is not really looking at long term political solutions to the problem of feminism, but rather he is more interested in helping men to “game” the current feminine dominated culture to fulfill their “masculine imperative”. The masculine imperative in his view is for a man to have sex with as many women as possible. In essence, men are programmed to be polygamous, or most specifically polygynous. Women on the other hand are hypergamous by nature, meaning they seek the best man with which to mate based on his genetics and his ability to provide for and protect them. This is why women are most naturally attracted to muscular, good looking men who have a lot of money.
One of the most important concepts Mr. Tomassi teaches men in their efforts to “game women” is the “Cardinal Rule of Relationships: In any relationship, the person with the most power is the one who needs the other the least”. By this he teaches men that the more they act like they need a woman, especially for sex, the more power she takes in the relationship and ultimately the less attractive he becomes to her.
And no introduction to the Red Pill ideology would be complete without the mention of alpha men, beta men and the concept of “Frame”. In his book “The Rational Male — Positive Masculinity” Tomassi writes:
“The sexual alphaness of a male towards a female is exhibited by her wanting to please him, and the sexual betaness of a male is exhibited by him needing to please her.”
And on the subject of “Frame” Tomassi wrote the following in his article on RationalMale.com entitled “Hypergamy Knows Best”:
“One of the most basic Red Pill principles I’ve stressed since I began writing is the importance of Frame. The dynamic of Frame stretches into many aspects of a man’s life, but in a strictly intergender sense this applies to men establishing a positive dominance in their relationships with women. In a dating context of non-exclusivity (plate spinning) this means, as a man, you have a solid reality into which that woman wants to be included in. Holding Frame is not about force, or coercion, it’s about attraction and desire and a genuine want on the part of a woman to be considered for inclusion into that man’s reality.
Being allowed into a man’s dominant, confident Frame should be a compliment to that woman’s self-perception. It should be a prize she seeks.”
So here is a summary of what Tomassi is saying in these two statements. Men have a choice. They can be the beta male our post-feminist culture wants them to be. That means as a man you center your life on pleasing the women around you. If you are a beta male, your entire strategy in dating and eventually marriage is to make your wife happy each and every day. You will sacrifice your career, your sexual needs and anything else that is required in order to make her happy.
Alpha males are the polar opposite. The best summary of an Alpha male is man who absolutely and unequivocally does not care about what others think of him. He literally does what he wants to whether it is popular or not.
As an example, a beta male would ask his wife or girlfriend permission to go out with his friends on a given evening. The alpha male would tell his wife he was going out and not give her the option of a veto. Tomassi and other Red Pill philosophers have pointed to many studies which show women going after the “bad boy”, i.e. the guy who could care less about what anyone thinks of what he does. For instance, it is extremely common for a woman to be married to Mr. Nice Guy and then have an affair with Mr. Bad Boy who lives next store. The Mr. Nice Guy could work the 9 to 5 job and provide well for his wife and children. The Mr. Nice Guy could come home after work and help with the kids and even cook dinner. Mr. Nice Guy even takes his wife on regular weekly dates and even takes her on romantic trips a couple times a year. But instead his wife finds herself attracted to Mr. Bad Guy next store who is covered in tattoos, rides a Harley, would never want kids and has an endless string of bimbos coming in and out of his house.
This is because two of the driving forces that evoke what Tomassi calls “genuine” verses “negotiated” sexual desire in women are men that give off the allure of danger or excitement. Mr. Nice Guy is both safe and unexciting therefore his wife will most likely have no genuine desire to have sex with him and the most he can ever hope for is “transactional” or “negotiated” sex where he does things for her and then she gives him sex as a reward.
Another driver of genuine sexual desire in women, according to Tomassi, is fear or dread. Its not fear in the sense that she is afraid the man will hurt her if she does not have sex with him. It is not even fear that he might take away things like money or other things he supplies her with. This type of fear or dread as he refers to it is when a woman sees other women are interested in her man. It is really a jealous type of fear where she worries if she does not sexually please him, he will find what he wants elsewhere with these other women that want him.
And these are just some of the many techniques that Mr. Tomassi teaches men in order to stoke “genuine desire” for sex from women toward them. While he does talk about other masculine issues besides sex, his teachings could basically boil down to “How men can get laid both before and after marriage in a post-feminist world.” With teachings like these, it is not surprising that Mr. Tomassi has one of the largest followings in the Manosphere.
Now that we have talked about MRAs, Secular Patriarchists and Red Pill teachings from the manosphere we will now dive into MGTOWs.
MGTOWs
Here is the definition of MGTOW from mgtow.com’s “About” page:
“M.G.T.O.W – Men Going Their Own Way is a statement of self-ownership, where the modern man preserves and protects his own sovereignty above all else. It is the manifestation of one word: “No”. Ejecting silly preconceptions and cultural definitions of what a “man” is. Looking to no one else for social cues. Refusing to bow, serve and kneel for the opportunity to be treated like a disposable utility. And, living according to his own best interests in a world which would rather he didn’t.”
On mgtow.com’s “Manosphere” page they explain what happiness looks like to a man:
“Happiness is a man who protects and cares for his family, goes forth and conquers, gives of himself for a greater cause, and ensures his legacy – because that’s what he was made to do. He doesn’t fear resistance, turbulence, or commitment, because his masculine frame turns resistance into rise, finds sustenance in turbulent waters, and relies on the steadfast roots of commitment to provide stability for himself and safety for those he vowed to protect.
But today’s men are encouraged to meet resistance head on while being shamed for expecting lift. They’re told to “man up” and tough it out through turbulent waters while being called misogynists for expecting sustenance. They’re shamed into putting down roots in infertile hypergamous soil that offers no support, then are financially ruined and separated from their children when they cannot weather the storm…
The women they encounter demand attention, loyalty, resources and undue privilege, while offering very little in return. The natural hypergamous nature that once served them well in their quest to secure the best possible mate is now a sustained lifestyle bringing an endless pursuit of bigger and better. The average young woman today is less concerned about the number of quality men who would commit to her than she is about the number of men who retweet a photo of her breasts.
Young men today attend churches with pastors who demand they “man up” and support the church and its female parishioners, but that same church does nothing to cultivate an environment that encourages feminine strength. Sunday after Sunday they listen as the same Bible used to preemptively absolve women of all past, current and future transgressions is used to condemn men…
Men haven’t lost their need to find happiness by providing, protecting, sacrificing and conquering; we’ve simply discovered that providing for the modern feminist, working like a dog to protect a family that can be taken away at a moment’s notice, or risking our lives to conquer resources for some ungrateful women who claims she can do it on her own is an empty way to live. We haven’t changed the mission; we’ve changed the method. We now provide for ourselves and our immediate families, protect our interests, make selective sacrifices when the situation warrants, and conquer mountains of poon.”
https://www.mgtow.com/manosphere/
On the subject of sex mgtow.com gives this answer in their “Frequently Asked Questions” (https://www.mgtow.com/faq/) section:
“Do MGTOW have sex? Or are you all virgins who don’t get any.
You know who’s not getting any?
Boyfriends and husbands.
Sex is a worthless commodity that grows on trees. Any man who has enjoyed his fair share would know that. It’s available to any man, anywhere, for less effort, money and time than anyone would have you believe. If it’s that important to a man, he can order it like pizza. Right now. Even if the modern man has only 3 lovers in his entire life, he is enjoying more trim than his own grandfather – who was socially expected to marry her first. The value of western vagina has plummeted to $0.
A significant number of MGTOW are fathers. Guess how that happened.”
And finally on the subject of marriage mgtow.com gives this answer in their “Frequently Asked Questions” section:
“Can you be married and a MGHOW?
There has been some deliberation on this, but the short answer is “no”.
While it’s certainly possible that a man may have married 20 years ago, and recently became self-aware of the very precarious legal position he finds himself in today . . . this would be the only real way he could consider adopting a MGTOW lifestyle if he were contemplating divorce.
Cohabitation and the signing of a marriage contract eliminates any possibility that he has a true 100% agency over the outcome of his marriage and future. With 72%+ of divorces solely initiated by women (the number is much higher because she can still passively initiate while making it look like his idea) his kids, house, cars, freedom and ultimate destiny no longer belong to him exclusively. No matter how much he wants his marriage to work, he can’t legally control the outcome and can be totally devastated by the divorce. Divorce is a huge, billion-dollar industry deliberately designed to transfer his wealth and freedom to her, leaving him with little or no recourse – even if he were totally faithful and she had 50 affairs since the wedding.
Save a male and stop a wedding™ is an unregistered trademark of MGTOW.com”
And now that we have covered MGTOWs we will briefly cover a group that I am loathed to mention but we must mention it.
Incels
Despite the entire Manosphere being labeled as “misogynists” by the humanist and leftist media the Incels are really the only true misogynists in the Manosphere. These men truly hate women and many of them even advocate for raping women because they can’t seem to get women any other way. There is really some scary things from these guys online and they do give the rest of the Manosphere a bad name. Although every group has its radical factions I suppose and in this case for the Manosphere it would be the incels.
And now we move to the final division within the Manosphere which is the group that this blog would be aligned with.
Biblical Patriarchists
Biblical Patriarchists are men who believe that God has ordained men to be over women in the family, the church and society at large. There are several Bible passages upon which Biblical Patriarchists base their beliefs. Some of those are as follows:
“But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.”
1 Corinthians 11:3 (KJV)
“ For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.”
1 Corinthians 11:7-10 (KJV)
“But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.”
1 Timothy 2:12-13 (KJV)
“For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.”
Ephesians 5:23-24 (KJV)
“If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself by a bond, being in her father’s house in her youth; And her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand. But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall stand: and the Lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed her.”
Numbers 30:3-5 (KJV)
“Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.“
Colossians 3:20 (KJV)
God created man to image him and thereby bring him glory. This means man was created to live out God’s attributes. This is why God is always referred to in the Bible using masculine titles like father, son, husband, king and prophet. God created woman and by extension marriage to help man fully image him as a husband and father.
In order for woman to be a suitable companion for man, she had to share a common human nature with him. It is in this way, in their common human attributes, that men and women both reflect the image of God. But God’s attributes and his image are more than just human, they are also masculine.
In other words, the masculine human nature is a closer representation of God’s nature than the feminine human nature.
God created marriage to be a picture of the relationship of himself to his people. Marriage helps represent God’s relationship to mankind in two different ways. The husband and wife relationship represents the relationship of God with his people collectively. The father and child relationship represents God’s relationship with us as individuals.
Men demonstrate God’s masculine nature in their loving leadership, provision and protection for their wives and children.
The Biblical Patriarchist’s view of the order of society is simple.
The head of man is God.
The head of woman is man.
The head children is first the father, then the mother who must follow the father’s directions for the children.
Beyond the family, Biblical Patriarchists do not believe women should be preachers or pastors or even teachers over men. Biblical Patriarchists also believe that women should not hold any positions of political or business authority over men.
Biblical Patriarchists believe the woman’s place is in the home, bearing children, caring for those children and caring for the domestic needs of the home as the Scriptures state below:
“I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.“
1 Timothy 5:14 (KJV)
“That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.”
Titus 2:4-5 (KJV)
Biblical Patriarchists believe that even as adults, while their children are in their home they are under their father’s authority. This authority is especially seen in the father’s right of refusal for his daughter to marry a man and his ability to cancel out commitments she has made without his express approval.
Similarities and Contrasts Between Red Pill, MGTOW and Biblical Patriarchy
Red Pill ideology is not all wrong from a Christian perspective. In fact, many observations of Red Pill ideology are backed up by the Bible.
But one of the big differences between Red Pill ideology and Biblical gender roles is that Red Pill just tells you what the differences are between men and women, it does not do a lot of explaining as to why those differences are there.
From a Biblical perspective, one of the greatest weaknesses of Red Pill ideology is that it never really answers the question of why men and women were made the way they are. The only “why” you get from Red Pill for the differences between men and women is based on the evolutionary need to reproduce for the continuation of the species.
Mr. Tomassi’s Red Pill ideology teaches that men have polygamous natures which causes them seek to sow their seed with as many women as possible. On the other hand, Tomassi teaches that women have hypergamous natures which causes them to be more selective and thus they seek out the most genetically superior males who can provide for and protect them and their children thus giving their offspring the best chance for survival.
The Bible actually shows that God made men with polygamous natures and it regulates polygamy and even blesses polygamy. So, in this area of man’s sexual nature the Bible would be in complete agreement with Red Pill ideology.
The Bible would also agree with the fact that women have hypergamous natures but under Biblical laws women were not allowed to fully act on those hypergamous natures. While it is true that women often married for economic or political means, the fact is historically women had little to no choice in whom they married. Their fathers or other male relatives like uncles or brothers would decide who women married. Only widowed or divorced women had a choice in whom they married.
Prior to the advent of “dating” in the late 19th century and then the sexual revolution of the 1960s, the whole Red Pill ideology of cracking “the code of how to get laid” would have been meaningless because society did not accept casual sex outside of marriage.
And the way a man got married was to get a job, show he could provide and then earn the permission of the father, uncle or brother of the girl he wanted to marry. In many older cultures a man did not just earn the father’s permission with his character or by showing he could provide, but he also earned that permission by paying for the woman.
In other words, since the creation of mankind right up until the advent of mid-19th century feminist movements, women were considered the property of men. There were two primary ways men acquired women. They would take women as part of the spoils of war from the tribes or nations they conquered or among their own tribe or nation they would purchase women from their fathers or other male relatives.
When we look at the history of male/female relationship dynamics, a lot of what Red Pill ideology teaches only applies if a man fully accepts and just wants to “game” our post-feminist and post-sexual revolution culture to fulfill his own personnel desires for pleasure.
So, if you are trying to follow the Biblical model of gender roles some parts of Red Pill ideology will work within a Biblical framework but other parts of it will have to be discarded.
And then we have MGTOWs. MGTOWs recognize we are living in a feminine primary world like the Red Pill folks. But the entire emphasis of their ideology is on the risk of marriage for men in our post-feminist world. In other words, in the MGTOW worldview, marriage is not worth the risk for men.
And they are not wrong that there is indeed great risk for men today entering marriage. In past generations marriage was a mutually beneficial relationship for both men and women and carried very low risk and a very high rate of return for men.
But today, marriage is a very risky proposition for men. Men are often financially and emotionally devastated by divorce and women are are incentivized by the state to divorce men. Men on the other hand are often scared to death for their wives to divorce them as they might have to live in poverty as a result.
But from the Biblical view point, the fact that marriage has in last half century become a very risky proposition for men, does not give men a free pass from God to avoid their duty to seek marriage.
Remember that God created man to image him and thereby bring him glory. And a man cannot fully image God, and thereby fulfill his created purpose, without being a husband and father. God’s first command in Genesis 1:28 to mankind to “Be fruitful, and multiply“ still applies. Marriage is God’s rule for mankind, and celibacy is his exception to that rule “that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction” (1 Corinthians 7:35). Celibacy was not allowed by God so people could live selfish lives or for people who were fearful of marriage to avoid it.
While the Bible has great praise for celibacy if one has the gift from God, it clearly states that “it is better to marry than to burn“ (1 Corinthians 7:9). In other words if you as a man have a sexual desire for women but the only thing holding you back is fear of divorce, that is not an excuse to avoid marriage.
So it is for these reasons that the MGTOW position is completely unbiblical. It is not based in celibacy for undivided service to God, but rather MGTOW is an ideology that is completely based in fear.
Biblical Gender Roles 