Late last month, I posed a question on Women for Men asking what traditionalism means to them. I got some very simplistic answers with some values I doubt many would have objection with. I was hoping for a more nuanced answer, but one mamaziller did take the time to respond to me on my personal blog here (for some reason). I have moved the response here and addressed it.
The interaction between traditionalists and MRAs intrigues me, as we have a common enemy big enough and strong enough to warrant our cooperation, yet disagreements between us indicating caution in integrating too closely.
After an introductory exchange, her response and my rebuttal is as follows:
MRAism to me seems exactly like feminism. Before knowing a lot about MRAs I supported the idea. I thought they were anti-feminism, so I wanted to support them. But they are not anti-feminism. They are pro-feminism. They just want the male part of feminists goals to be fulfilled. They would be happy with gender equality and want what feminist claim feminism is.. they want “true” gender equality.
“MRAism,” as you put it, is nothing like feminism. We are anti-feminist (generally speaking), so feel free to support us inasmuch as we oppose feminism. To assert that we are pro-feminism is like asserting Islam is pro-Jesus (as savior) — nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, we want the traditional gender-specific obligations of men to be lifted, which is something feminists “neglected” to address, but to say that we just want that is reductionist and unfair to the MRM. We do seek gender equality, but we take it a step further than feminists and define what we mean by equality. We want equal protection under the law, equal representation with public funds, and equal opportunities in our pursuits of happiness, which implies equal autonomy and sovereignty over our lives. I hope you don’t see anything wrong with those things.
Yes our environments have changed drastically, but have we actually changed? In my opinion the answer is no. I do not want strict gender roles any more than the feminists do, but that is where feminism is taking us. When you elevate the role of provider to the extent that people are shamed for being adults who are provided for you do end up with strict gender roles. When you tell people they are children if they are taken care of by another adult that is what you end up with.
Well what do you mean by “changed?” If you mean our base motivators haven’t changed, I might agree with you, but I haven’t examined that very closely myself. However if you think the way we express our motivators hasn’t changed, you certainly haven’t been paying attention to the institution of marriage, sexual strategy, public education, crime, law, the market, or higher education. Yes, feminism, despite their calls to the contrary, are leading us to a very rigidly defined pair of sexual roles: Women as aristocracy, and men as proletariat.
Who is telling people they are children if they are taken care of by another adult?
I think I pretty much live a modern, post-industrial traditional life (and no I am NOT asking that everyone lives like me, but I am asking that society does not shame people who live like me because I think that it is still something useful to society).
I call my life traditional because I am monogamous, I have two children, I take care of the children (child care duties are my domain), and I work in my free time (I have my own business, we live above my shop and I sell a lot online). My husband works and is responsible for us financially (that is his domain). It doesn’t mean that he does not help with child care, just me being responsible for the kids does not mean that I do not help financially. It just means that if I wanted to quit my job in the morning I could just as much as if he so not feeling to take care of the kids I am fine with that.
Would you feel it’s okay for a man to take three women and produce many children with them as a closed family unit? What about two men? What about other exceptions? To my knowledge, nobody in the MRM is shaming anyone who wishes to live a traditional lifestyle, and I defy you to show me where if you disagree.
If a couple wants to have stricter roles where one partner does not help financially or with kids I am fine with that. If a couple does not want any gender roles I am also fine with that. What defines traditionalism to me is the male female relationship where parents work together to raise child and feminism and MRAism both significantly undermine that relationship by bashing the opposite gender and bashing gender roles, and bashing patriarchy.
Your accusation that feminism and “MRAism” bash the opposite gender and gender roles, and patriarchy is completely unfounded and even structurally invalid. Let me explain:
feminsm and “MRAism” aren’t genders and don’t have a sex, so they don’t have opposite genders. There are men and women in both camps. While some feminists don’t overtly bash men (or overtly claim they don’t), the ideology is predicated on a man-bad woman-innocent premise and their “academe” leads to anti-male conclusions. However, I have no idea where you’re coming from when you say “MRAism” bashes women. If it did, I doubt there would be so many female MRAs in the movement. The MRAs I run with have the highest level of respect for women while simultaneously recognizing their biological limits and effects of their different reproductive imperatives.
At the heart of both feminism and MRAism you all seek independence, male female independence and that weakens the male-female or parent relationship to a point where it simply can not last or function. Where I come from in Jamaica, I feel like I have seen this play out in real life. I think what happened is that certain parts of Jamaican society never had a strong traditional foundation and so our environment rather than tradition shaped our cultural norms.
Well sure. Independence is good, right? Independence doesn’t weaken male-female parent relationships. I think you’re thinking of segregation. We do not stand for segregation — feminists do. Steven Covey, in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People places relational maturity along a spectrum from dependance to interdependence, with independence in the middle. If you oppose independence, you cannot develop or appreciate interdependence which is regarded as the most functional state of relationships, and you’re stuck with dependence. Independence is a hallmark of adulthood.
In that respect our cultural norms fit to a modern environment more so than in more traditional parts of the world. I think because the current environment can handle male female independence that is what happened in certain communities. What you end up with is pretty much fatherless communities. The male-female relationship can not last when the societal norm is to be always single. It is a toxic environment for relationships.
Washing machines and microwave ovens don’t lead to fatherlessness — it leads to spare time for the partner who spends the majority of time doing home chores. Family courts which railroad men out of children’s lives and gives women the “gun” that allows them to effect this end on a whim is what leads to fatherlessness. It is not our societal objective to remain single. MGTOW don’t generally WANT to be single, but we (I am one among them) are simply unwilling to subject ourselves to the level of risk involved in entering into a contract with the state to formalize our partnerships, or overexpose ourselves to the high level of risk of false DV accusations where we have no leverage to protect ourselves legally. I think we agree that today’s society is toxic for relationships, but I think we disagree about why.
Children grow up without fathers and boys lack role models, this makes them more unstable than girls and more likely to end up in gangs etc. They compete a lot for sex because they are never in relationships, they therefore compete a lot for resources. Most men are not happy under this social system.. but the sexes do have their independence. It is a lot more complicated than I have explained here.. but hopefully you understand some more of what I think and I why I do not support what feminists and MRAs seek.
Fathers are role models for girls, too, in that they are self-actualized adults with an emphasis on setting limits and establishing personal boundaries, as well as developing a sense of justice. Girls suffer almost as much as boys do without fathers, though their damage is expressed in different ways. They have a tendency to end up somewhere in the B-type cluster of personality disorders. Boys compete for sex because that is their reproductive imperative, and there’s nothing wrong with that. They also compete for resources because that is one of the biggest factors women look for in men for selection. This is perfectly natural, but I don’t know if it’s ultimately the best for society. I’m not ready to have that discussion.
I agree that most men aren’t happy under this social system, but it is feminists who have created it, and MRAs who seek to correct it. I feel like you have unfairly equated the MRM to feminism on the flimsiest of a premise (which is faulty by equivocation around the terms “patriarchy” and “independence”) and are simply brow-beating MRAs with the misdeeds of feminists.
Antigynocentrism 