Bastardized chivalry: from concern for weakness to sexual exploitation

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“Chivalry, as understood by Modern Sentimental Feminism, means unlimited licence for women in their relations with men, and unlimited coercion for men in their relations with women. To men all duties and no rights, to women all rights and no duties, is the basic principle underlying Modern Feminism, Suffragism, and the bastard chivalry it is so fond of invoking.” – (Bax, 1913, p. 141)

In 1913 English barrister Ernest B. Bax observed that chivalry had undergone an alteration or, as he understood it, a corruption from its earlier intent of deference to weakness. (Bax, 1913). He contended that the original definition was no longer current since in its modern application the question of a person’s sex took precedence over that of weakness proper. Instead of chivalry being directed to the care and protection of children, frail elders, the disabled, or the wounded in battle as in earlier times, Bax understood the new chivalry as being confined strictly to “sex privilege and sex favouritism pure and simple.” (Bax, 1913, p. 100).

The claim of chivalry being redirected along predominantly sexual lines is confirmed by most modern dictionaries, for example in the Cambridge Dictionary which defines it as ‘Very polite, honest, and kind behaviour, especially toward women.’ (Dictionary C, 2015). Following in the footsteps of Bax the following essay will explore the gendered facets of “bastard chivalry,” focusing on its promotion of sex-favouritism and associated impacts on male health.

The emergence and divergence of ‘two chivalries’

The earliest meaning of chivalry referred to a code of behaviour followed by medieval knights of Europe, the word itself being derived from Old French chevalerie, from medieval Latin caballerius meaning ‘horseman’ (Dictionary O.E., 2008). As Bax observes;

“The term meant originally the virtues associated with knighthood considered as a whole, bravery even to the extent of reckless daring, loyalty to the chief or feudal superior, generosity to a fallen foe, general open-handedness, and open-heartedness, including, of course, the succour of the weak and the oppressed generally, inter alia, the female sex when in difficulties… [O]nly a fragment of the original connotation of the word chivalry is covered by the term as used in our time, and that even that fragment is torn from its original connection and is made to serve as a scarecrow in the field of public opinion to intimidate all who refuse to act upon, or who protest against, the privileges and immunities of the female sex.” (Bax, 1913, pp. 100-101)

The variation referred to by Bax can be traced back to an emerging culture of courtly love and its harnessing of chivalry to new ends, which in the West is a development of the twelfth century. According to historian Jennifer G. Wollock of Texas University, “the idea that love is ennobling and necessary for the education of a knight comes out of the lyrics of this period, but also in the romances of knighthood. Here the truest lovers are now the best knights.” (Wollock, 2011, p. 42)

In that historical context chivalry was subjected to a new contextual application, taken up by an emerging culture of courtly love in which men were taught to direct their chivalric cares, concern, protection, obedience, and service exclusively to women (Alfonsi, 1986). Over the course of two centuries there emerged two distinctly differentiated versions of chivalry: a continuing military chivalry with its code of conduct and proper contexts, and a romantic chivalry complete with its code of conduct and proper contexts.

It is difficult to pinpoint when the culture of romantic chivalry constellated and found relative independence from its military forerunner, but the evidence of troubadour poetry, romance fiction (Yalom, 2012), and etiquette manuals (Cappelanus, 1990) detailing the elaborate conventions of romantic chivalry attest to its emergence by the end of the twelfth century. Central to that revolution was the imperial patronage of Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughter Marie de Champagne who together elaborated the military notion of chivalry into one of servicing ladies.

Prior to the twelfth century romantic chivalry did not exist as a gendered construct; it was in the Middle Ages that it developed cultural complexity and became the enduring cultural norm we inherit today. The following timeline details the birth of romantic chivalry along with significant historical events that promoted its survival:

1102 AD: Romantic chivalry first introduced

William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, the most powerful feudal lord in France, wrote the first troubadour poems and is widely considered the first troubadour. Parting with the tradition of fighting wars strictly on behalf of man, king, God and country, William is said to have had the image of his mistress painted on his shield, whom he called midons (my Lord) saying that it was his will to bear her in battle, as she had borne him in bed.

 1152 AD: Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine invites poet Bernard de Ventadorn to compose songs of love for her and her husband, Henry II. The songs lay down a code of chivalric behaviour for how a good man should treat his “lady,” which Eleanor employs in an apparent attempt to civilize her husband and his male associates. Eleanor and other noblewomen began to encourage poetic narratives that set expectations on how men should act around them (School of Life, 2011).

 1168 – 1198 AD: The romantic chivalry trope is elaborated and given imperial patronage by Eleanor and her daughter Marie. At Eleanor’s court in Poitiers Eleanor and Marie embroidered the Christian military code of chivalry with a code for romantic lovers, thus putting women at the center of courtly life – and in doing so they had permanently changed the face of chivalry (McKnight, 1994).

1170 AD: Eleanor and Marie established the formal Courts of Love presided over by themselves and a jury of 60 noble ladies who would investigate and hand down judgements on love-disputes according to the newly introduced code governing gender relations. The courts were modelled precisely along the lines of the traditional feudal courts where disputes between retainers had been settled by the powerful lord. In this case however the disputes were between lovers (McKnight, 1994).

1180 AD: Marie directs Chrétien de Troyes to write Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, a love story about Lancelot and Guinevere elaborating the nature of romantic chivalry. Chrétien de Troyes objected to the implicit approval of the adulterous affair between Lancelot and Guinevere that Marie had directed him to write about and failed to finish it, but later poets completed the story on Chrétien’s behalf. Chrétien also wrote other famous romances including Erec and Enide  (McKnight, 1994).

1188 AD: Marie directs her chaplain Andreas Capellanus to write The Art of Courtly Love. This guide to the chivalric codes of romantic love is a document that could pass as contemporary in almost every respect, excepting for the outdated class structures and assumptions. Many of the admonitions in Andreas textbook are believed to have come from the women who directed the writing (McKnight, 1994).

1180 – 1380 AD: In two hundred years the culture or romantic chivalry spread from France to become instituted in all the principle courts of Europe, and went on to capture the imagination of men, women and children of all social classes. According to Jennifer Wollock (2011), the continuing popularity of chivalric love stories is confirmed by the contents of women’s libraries of the late Middle Ages, literature which had a substantial female readership including mothers reading to their daughters. Aside from the growing access to literature, chivalric culture values spread via everyday interactions among people in which they shared the ideas.

The aristocratic classes who first developed the romantic chivalry trope did not exist in a vacuum. The courtly themes they enacted would most certainly have captured the imaginations of the lower classes though public displays of pomp and pageantry, troubadours and tournaments, minstrels and playwrights, the telling of romantic stories, and of course the gossip flowing everywhere which would have exerted a powerful effect on the peasant imagination (Wright 2014).

It is possible that those of even lower classes adopted some assumptions portrayed in the public displays, such as the importance of chivalrous behavior toward women and perhaps a belief in women’s purity and moral superiority. Certainly by the 1600s and beyond, the adaptation of romantic chivalry by lower classes was in full career, as evidenced by Lucrezia Marinella who provides an example of Venetian society from the year 1600:

It is a marvelous sight in our city to see the wife of a shoemaker or butcher or even a porter all dressed up with gold chains round her neck, with pearls and valuable rings on her fingers, accompanied by a pair of women on either side to assist her and give her a hand, and then, by contrast, to see her husband cutting up meat all soiled with ox’s blood and down at heel, or loaded up like a beast of burden dressed in rough cloth, as porters are.

At first it may seem an astonishing anomaly to see the wife dressed like a lady and the husband so basely that he often appears to be her servant or butler, but if we consider the matter properly, we find it reasonable because it is necessary for a woman, even if she is humble and low, to be ornamented in this way because of her natural dignity and excellence, and for the man to be less so, like a servant or beast born to serve her.

Women have been honored by men with great and eminent titles that are used by them continually, being commonly referred to as donne, for the name donna means lady and mistress. When men refer to women thus, they honor them, though they may not intend to, by calling them ladies, even if they are humble and of a lowly disposition. In truth, to express the nobility of this sex men could not find a more appropriate and fitting name than donna, which immediately shows women’s superiority and precedence over men, because by calling women mistress they [men] show themselves of necessity to be subjects and servants (Marinella, 1999).

While popular recognition of the ‘two chivalries’ ran concurrently over several hundred years, the notion of military chivalry would eventually be relegated to obscurity in popular discourse as described in the observations above by Bax and evidenced by definitions in modern dictionaries.

Ideological structure of romantic chivalry

Romantic chivalry is alluded to by alternative terms such as benevolent sexism, romantic love, gentlemanliness, courtesy, gallantry, heroism, or simply chivalry. The practice has roots in what some scholars have referred to as chivalric ‘love service,’ (Bennett, 2013) a ritualized form of devotion by men toward women popularized by troubadours in the Middle Ages. The earliest conceptualization of love service borrowed from the vocabulary of medieval feudalism, mimicking ties between a liegeman and his overlord; i.e., the male lover is referred to as homo ligius (the woman’s liegeman, or ‘my man’) who pledged honor, and servitium (service) to the lady via a posture of feudal homage. The lady was addressed as midons (literally ‘my lord’), and also by dominus (denoting the feudal Lady) (Alfonsi, 1986). These practices form the ideological taproot of modern romantic chivalry.

The conventions and indeed the lived practices of romantic chivalry celebrated first among the upper classes made their way by degrees eventually to the middle classes and finally to the lower classes – or rather they broke class structure altogether in the sense that all Western peoples became inheritors of the customs regardless of their social station. Today chivalry is a norm observed across the majority of global cultures, an explicitly gynocentric norm aimed to increase the comfort, safety and power of women, while affording men a sense of purpose and occasional heroism in addressing that same task (Wright, 2014).

C.S. Lewis referred to the growth of romantic chivalry as “the feudalisation of love,” (Lewis, 2013, p. 2) making the observation that it has left no corner of our ethics, our imagination, or our daily life untouched. He observed that European society has moved essentially from a social feudalism, involving a contractual arrangement between a feudal lord and his vassal, to a sexual feudalism involving a comparable contract between men and women as symbolized in the act of a man going down on one knee to propose marriage (Wright, 2014).

Education in chivalry through the use of shame

The education and transmission of chivalry from generation to generation is overseen by parents, teachers and peers, and is reinforced by a plethora of culture-mediums including social media, mainstream media, political narratives, romance novels, music, cinema and the arts. Through these mediums romantic chivalry is internalized by young girls and boys as models of expected gendered behaviour.

An early example appears in the 1825 volume The History of Chivalry or Knighthood and Its Times, describing the education of a boy in the expectations of romantic chivalry. The author tells that in Medieval Europe the intellectual and moral education of boys in the chivalric code was given by the time they turned seven years by the ladies of the court:

“From the lips of the ladies the gentle page learned both his catechism and the art of love, and as the religion of the day was full of symbols, and addressed to the senses, so the other feature of his devotion was not to be nourished by abstract contemplation alone. He was directed to regard some one lady of the court as the type of his heart’s future mistress; she was the centre of all his hopes and wishes; to her he was obedient, faithful, and courteous.” (Mills, 1825, pp. 32-33)

To illustrate such education we are provided an anecdote of a young boy named Jean de Saintre, page of honour at the court of the French king. A Dame des Belles Cousines enquired of the boy ‘the name of the mistress of his heart’s affections’:

The simple youth replied, that he loved his lady mother, and next to her, his sister Jacqueline was dear to him. “Young man,” rejoined the lady, “I am not speaking of the affection due to your mother and sister; but I wish to know the name of the lady to whom you are attached par amours.” The poor boy was still more confused, and he could only reply that he loved no one par amours.

The Dame des Belles Cousines charged him with being a traitor to the laws of chivalry, and declared that his craven spirit was evinced by such an avowal. “Whence,” she enquired, “sprang the valiancy and knightly feats of Launcelot, Gawain, Tristram, Giron the courteous, and other ornaments of the round table of Ponthus, and of those knights and squires of this country whom I could enumerate: whence the grandeur of many whom I have known to arise to renown, except from the noble desire of maintaining themselves in the grace and esteem of the ladies; without which spirit-stirring sentiment they must have ever remained in the shades of obscurity? And do you, coward valet, presume to declare that you possess no sovereign lady, and desire to have none?”

Jean underwent a long scene of persecution on account of his confession of the want of proper chivalric sentiment, but he was at length restored to favour by the intercession of the ladies of the court. He then named as his mistress Matheline de Coucy, a child only ten years old.  (Mills, 1825, pp. 32-33)

The pressure applied to the boy of this account, including shaming responses for his non-conformity, provide testament to the pressures that accompanied, and continue to accompany, deviance from the dictates of romantic chivalry. Education of this kind is common on social media today where read commentaries about “unchivalrous” males who by their failures become the subject of mockery and shame (a Google search for unchivalrous co-occurs with the word ‘shame’ 54,900 times; ‘ashamed’ 23,400; ‘pathetic’ 31,000; ‘loser’ 14,500; and ‘unmanly’ 9,960 times respectively). (Google, 2018)

A recent example of a shaming narrative serving as an educative prompt appeared in the online Conservative Woman (Perrins, 2018). The article recounted an incident from the year 1989 when 25-year-old gunman Marc Lépine entered the École Polytechnique armed with a semi-automatic rifle and ordered the males and females to form into separate groups. He then began killing several women and injuring some of the men. The author lamented that these men “abandoned” the women in an “act of abdication” that would have been unthinkable in previous, more chivalric periods of history. The author admits she was “pretty shocked that the men left,” and finally blames “the collapse of protective masculinity” as a preventable factor in the deaths of those women.

Regarding younger children, a search for chivalry and related terms such as “knight” “damsel in distress” and “princess” in the children’s section of Amazon Books website (for ages 2–12) generated over 10,000 results, revealing that a fascination with medieval gender roles remains popular with children and their parents today, a result that can be multiplied with the addition of teenage and adult books in the same genre (Amazon, 2018). One example titled Noisy Knights (for boys aged 2-5) shows pictures of a distressed damsel menaced by a fire-breathing dragon (the book includes a battery operated button to make her scream in audio) (Taplin, 2010). The text asks the reader if he knows of any knight who might be brave enough to save her, a question clearly designed to lead young male reader to volunteer service, imagining himself stepping into a position of danger to protect the damsel and reduce her distress.

Noisy Knights (Taplin, 2010, P. 5-6) invites young male readers to identify with a ‘damsel-saving’ knight

Romantic chivalry is further popularized in video games and Disney movies, for example, which are bestsellers among children in the digital age. Many themes of romantic chivalry appear charming in isolation from their real-world implications, a delight to the imagination, however as the field of narrative psychology likes to remind; our identities consist of such stuff as dreams are made. The stories that children and adults absorb are the stories they enact, and in this case there is potential for men and boys to enact them to the neglect of their health, safety, dignity and larger human potential (Wright & Elam, 2017, p. 29-31).

Benevolent Sexism

In the field of sociology chivalry remains a much-researched topic, though renamed and problematized under the heading ‘benevolent sexism.’ According to P. Glick et.al (2000), the attitudes tapped in the Benevolent Sexism Scale are closer to medieval ideologies of chivalry than they are to other modern social or political movements. Benevolent Sexism (often shortened humorously to ‘BS’) is rooted in the traditional culture-structures guiding personal relationships between men and women and is not an outcome of contemporary politics, even when reinforced by political discourse and encoded in legislation (Glick, et.al., 2000).

Benevolent sexism is described as the expression of reverence and care toward women while promising they will be protected and provided for by men, and is thus experienced subjectively by women as an agreeable form of sexism (Hammond, et.al., 2014). Moreover, research has shown that these attitudes objectively do benefit women because men who express agreement with benevolent sexism are generally more caring, satisfying, and positive relationship partners (Hammond, et.al., 2014).

In their study aptly titled The Allure of Sexism, Matthew D. Hammond et.al. (2014) researched whether a sense of entitlement to special treatments—a central facet of narcissism based on feelings of superiority and deservingness—was linked with endorsement of benevolent sexism by women across time:

‘If women endorse benevolent sexism because of the individual-level benefits it offers, then women’s endorsement of benevolent sexism should vary depending on dispositional differences in psychological entitlement. Psychological entitlement is a core facet of narcissism, which encompasses feelings that the self deserves nice things, social status and praise, and beliefs of the self as superior, highly intelligent, and attractive (Campbell, Bonacci, Shelton, Exline & Bushman, 2004; Campbell, Brunell, & Finkel, 2006; Emmons, 1987; Miller & Campbell, 2010). The model of narcissistic self-regulation characterizes psychological entitlement as manifesting in efforts to gain esteem, status, and resources (Campbell & Foster, 2007; Campbell et al., 2006; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). Such efforts include adopting a superficially charming, confident, and energetic approach to social interactions (Foster, Shrira, & Campbell, 2006; Paulhus, 1998), taking personal responsibility for successes and attributing failures to external sources (Chowning & Campbell, 2009; Rhodewalt & Morf, 1998), and acting selfishly to secure material gains even when it means exploiting others (Campbell et al., 2004; Campbell, Bush, Brunell, & Shelton, 2005).’ (Hammond, et.al., 2014, p. 2).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the study found that a psychological sense of entitlement in women does mediate endorsement of benevolent sexism. Moreover, the researchers theorized that characteristics of narcissistic entitlement – those which drive resource-attainment and self-enhancement strategies – are the same qualities that promote women’s adoption of benevolent sexism:

‘First, benevolent sexism facilitates the capacity to gain material resources and complements feelings of deservingness by promoting a structure of intimate relationships in which men use their access to social power and status to provide for women (Chen et al., 2009). Second, benevolent sexism reinforces beliefs of superiority by expressing praise and reverence of women, emphasizing qualities of purity, morality, and culture which make women the ‘‘fairer sex.’’ Indeed, identifying with these kinds of gender-related beliefs (e.g., women are warm) fosters a more positive self-concept (Rudman, Greenwald, & McGhee, 2001).

Moreover, for women higher in psychological entitlement, benevolent sexism legitimizes a self-centric approach to relationships by emphasizing women’s special status within the intimate domain and men’s responsibilities of providing and caring for women. Such care involves everyday chivalrous behaviors, such as paying on a first date and opening doors for women (Sarlet et al., 2012; Viki et al., 2003), to more overarching prescriptions for men’s behavior toward women, such as being ‘‘willing to sacrifice their own well-being’’ to provide for women and to ensure women’s happiness by placing her ‘‘on a pedestal’’ (Ambivalent Sexism Inventory; Glick & Fiske, 1996). Thus, women higher in psychological entitlement should be particularly enticed by benevolent sexism because it justifies provision and praise from men as expected behavior and does not require women to reciprocate the reverence or material gains, which men provide.’ (Hammond, et.al., 2014, pp. 3-4).

While the Hammond study describes the sense of entitlement by women in terms of narcissistic motivation, it is more accurately termed gynocentric based on the exclusively gendered context, i.e. woman as center of the relational contract who feels deserving of benevolent gestures from men and boys. While deservingness is an integral feature of narcissism, the concept of gynocentrism provides more specificity than does narcissism because women may not feel entitled, for example, to special treatment by non-intimate males nor by other women (as compared to an individual scoring high on standard narcissism scales), reserving instead the sense of entitlement for intimate gendered relationships. The gendered context of women’s sense of entitlement is confirmed by studies showing that women tend to score lower than men on global narcissism scales (Grijalva, et.al., 2013), however such measures fail to take into account the exclusively gendered domain in which benevolent sexism operates and in which the level of female narcissism may be much higher.

A 2018 survey of 782 female subjects found women believe male partners displaying benevolent sexist attitudes are more willing to protect, provide for, and commit to them, which in turn rendered those men more attractive. Interestingly, feminist women were just as likely as non-feminist women to prefer benevolently sexist men over more egalitarian men regardless of whether they rated themselves as high or low feminists. High feminists rated the benevolent sexist men as more patronizing and undermining than did low feminists, but felt the positive sides of benevolent sexism outweighed the negatives (Gul & Kupfer, 2018).

Societal chivalry

Beyond the relational sphere, chivalric customs are utilized to facilitate more empowerment of women via the initiatives of national and international governing bodies. This can be witnessed for example in anti-violence campaigns such as the White Ribbon initiative in Australia which asks men to “Stand up, speak out, and act” to ensure the dignity, safety and comfort of any women, even strangers, who might find themselves in real or imagined danger (Seymour, 2018).

We witness it again internationally in the HeForShe campaign initiated by UN Women Ambassador Emma Watson, who in her introductory speech appealed to feminist oversight of gendered matters six times, and then to the importance of men offering their chivalric support to women’s empowerment: “I want men to take up this mantle. So their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice… I am inviting you to step forward, to be seen to speak up, to be the ‘he’ for ‘she.’ And to ask yourself if not me, who? If not now, when?” (Watson, 2014).

Chivalry operates outside the interpersonal sphere in which men have traditionally given up their seats in buses, whereby governments are now providing seats for women in legislative assemblies and in boardrooms via quotas. Similarly the act of a man opening a door for a woman is now enacted by governments who open doors for women into universities and workforces via the practice of affirmative action (Wright, 2017). Indeed chivalry has arguably been exploited to meet objectives of women’s empowerment since at least the time of Bax, who in the year 1887 contended that “It is all very well to say they [feminists] repudiate chivalry. They are ready enough to invoke it politically when they want to get a law passed in their favour – while socially, to my certain knowledge, many of them claim it as a right every whit as much as ordinary women.” (Bax, 1887, p. 114-121).

Negative health outcomes for men and boys

Men and boys who enact chivalric masculinity may pay a considerable price in the process, psychologically, socially or physically. Romantic chivalry emphasizes protection of women (Dictionary Y, 2018), thus men are placed in danger of being injured, maimed or killed when “intervening” in difficult situations such as those evoked by the White Ribbon initiatives, or while working in the male dominated professions of military, police, and firefighters for whom acts of benevolent sexism are celebrated.

The masculine norm of stoicism (Murray, et.al., 2008) involving the repression of emotion and the cultivation of indifference to pleasure or pain serves maintain men’s chivalric focus on women’s assumed need for support, protection and male deference. Conversely, if a man or boy becomes focused on his own emotions, pain, pleasure or needs, he risks being viewed as a poor protector and provider (i.e. less chivalrous), which will be likely met with social shaming if not outright violence as modes of punishing transgressions and encouraging compliance.

The gendered morality of chivalry dictates that men and boys receive less compassion and assistance than their female counterparts (Eagly & Crowley, 1986), are more likely to be viewed as suitable targets for infliction of violence, pain and other harm (Feldman-Hall, et.al., 2016), are more likely to receive harsher legal penalties than women for offenses (Curry, et.al., 2004), and conversely perpetrators of crime against males are more likely to receive lenient sentences as compared to those who perpetrate crimes against women who receive the longest sentences (Curry, et.al., 2004).  Males who suffer disability or mental illness are more often stigmatized and treated with less ‘chivalric’ compassion or positivity than their female counterparts (Whitley, et.al., 2015). The differential gender outcomes in these examples demonstrate that romantic chivalry fosters a ‘sympathy-deficit’ toward males and their issues, and a conversely heightened concern for women’s issues. This gender-preferential bias has been referred to as gynosympathy (Wright, 2016), a practice that negatively impacts men’s willingness to seek help and assistance when needed (Eagly & Crowley, 1986).

The employment of traditional sex-role strategies (inclusive of stoicism and chivalry) increase the likelihood of male depression (Addis, 2008; Batty, 2006, Liljegren, 2010, Oliffe, & Phillips, 2008), anxiety, stress, and poorer health behaviors (Eisler, et.al., 1998), suicide (Houle, et.al., 2008), and accidental death (Stillion & McDowell, 2002), however the precise degree to which chivalry contributes to these outcomes requires further research.

Summary and conclusion

The chivalry surveyed in this essay is both sexist and gynocentric in nature, one that demands men provide numerous psychological gratifications and material benefits to recipient women. Enactment of chivalric behaviours may also provide secondary benefits for men and boys, such as increased social/peer approval and greater access to female romantic partners (Hammond, et.al., 2014). The chivalric role offers heterosexual men a life-map to guide their social behaviour while providing a sense of self based on service to women. This in contrast to socially disapproved identities such as ‘unchivalrous’ males, voluntarily confirmed bachelors (Holland, 1959), or alternatively to gay or transgender men whose identities are not built on service to women (Polimeni, et.al., 2000; Nagoshi, et.al., 2008).

Men adhering to chivalric behaviour are rewarded with social valorization, and in the more extreme examples are praised as selfless “heroes” for which medals are awarded by mainstream social institutions. On the negative side of the equation there may be a lack of recognition for ongoing sacrifices – chivalry as rote expectation, an assigned role, codified and reinforced with shame. In both adhering, and in failing to adhere to the dictates of romantic chivalry, the cumulative psychosocial burden on men may be considerable – including negative mental and physical health impacts as outlined above.

In an age of equality one might ask what continuing relevance has romantic chivalry? If we follow the definition of chivalry in the Cambridge Dictionary as a “very polite, honest, and kind behaviour,” is it still necessary to add the usual adjunct “…especially by men toward women”? Omission of the gendered framing shifts the emphasis toward extending a universal politeness, honesty, and kindness toward all peoples, reviving the older sense of chivalry from which romantic chivalry originally diverged to become the dominant or “bastardized” meaning.

Such an amendment would free men and boys to discover a variety of non-gynocentric masculinities, and revive the notion of ‘common courtesy’ as a basis for reciprocal service and devotion between men and women. Mainstream commenters occasionally pay lip service to the idea of de-genderizing chivalry (Waldman, 2013), but until such time as that sentiment is actualized in popular culture we might conclude with a rephrasing of Emma Watson’s HeForShe proposition and ask; “I am inviting you to step forward, to be seen to speak up, to be the “we” for “all.” And to ask yourself if not me, who? If not now, when?”

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Lewis, C. S. (2013). The allegory of love. Cambridge University Press. (p. 2)

Liljegren, T. (2010). The Male Gender Role and Depression.

Marinella, L. (1999). The Nobility and Excellence of Women, and the Defects and Vices of Men, ed. and trans. Anne Dunhill (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999).

McKnight, C. J. (1994). Chivalry: The Path of Love. Chronicle Books Llc.

Mills, C. (1825). The History of Chivalry or Knighthood and Its Times. (pp. 32-33) Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme , Brown and Green.

Murray, G., Judd, F., Jackson, H., Fraser, C., Komiti, A., Pattison, P., … & Robins, G. (2008). Big boys don’t cry: An investigation of stoicism and its mental health outcomes. Personality and Individual Differences44(6), 1369-1381.

Nagoshi, J. L., Adams, K. A., Terrell, H. K., Hill, E. D., Brzuzy, S., & Nagoshi, C. T. (2008). Gender differences in correlates of homophobia and transphobia. Sex roles59(7-8), 521.

Oliffe, J. L., & Phillips, M. J. (2008). Men, depression and masculinities: A review and recommendations. Journal of Men’s Health5(3), 194-202.

Perrins, L. (2018, August 11). No time for heroes: the men who stood by as a maniac shot their female classmate.  Retrieved from https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/no-time-for-heroes-the-men-who-stood-by-as-a-maniac-shot-their-female-classmates/

Polimeni, A. M., Hardie, E., & Buzwell, S. (2000). Homophobia among Australian heterosexuals: The role of sex, gender role ideology, and gender role traits. Current Research in Social Psychology5(4), 47-62.

Seymour, K. (2018). “Stand up, speak out and act”: A critical reading of Australia’s White Ribbon campaign. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology51(2), 293-310.

Stillion, J. M., & McDowell, E. E. (2002). The early demise of the “stronger” sex: Gender-related causes of sex differences in longevity. OMEGA-Journal of Death and Dying44(4), 301-318.

Taplin, S. (2010) Noisy Knights. Usborne

The School of Life. (2018, August 20) The History of Ideas: Manners. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/JCTzbc76WXY

Waldman, Katy. (August, 2013). Toward Pan-Chivalry: A New World Order. Slate.com

Whitley, R., Adeponle, A., & Miller, A. R. (2015). Comparing gendered and generic representations of mental illness in Canadian newspapers: an exploration of the chivalry hypothesis. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 50(2), 325-333.

Watson, E. (2014). Gender equality is your issue too. Speech by UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson at a Special Event for the HeForShe Campaign, United Nations Headquarters, New York20.

Wright, P. (2014). Gynocentrism: From Feudalism to The Modern Disney Princess.  Academic Century Press.

Wright, P. What Ever Happened To Chivalry? In A Brief History of The Men’s Rights Movement: From 1856 to the present. Academic Century Press.

Wright, P.  Elam, P. (2017). Red Pill Psychology: Psychology For Men in a Gynocentric World. Academic Century Press.

Wright, Peter. (October 2016), Gynosympathy. www.gynocentrism.com

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This article first published in New Male Studies Journal, 2019.

 

The gynocentric mob and female superiority

By Peter Ryan

shutterstock paid mob march group protest lynching

Gynocentric Herd Mentality

What gives gynocentrism its social power is the power of the mob. The female mob and the army of white knights and simps at the ready to enforce the dictates of the female mob, is what holds society hostage to gynocentrism. Feminists, gynocentric female voters and their loyal male foot soldiers and white knights in politics, the legislature and policy etcetera, make sure that their gynocentric agenda rolls out and is enforced in society.  Are all women and all men herd animals that subscribe to groupthink and defer to women in every context, regardless of the circumstances? No, absolutely not. Substantial numbers of both sexes do not belong in that category and those numbers are growing every day as the grotesque face of gynocentrism becomes unmistakable in the culture.

But despite this, the reality is that a substantial fraction of the male and female population do exhibit gynocentric herd mentality. Gynocentric herd mentality as the name suggests, is the tendency in women and in men to abandon individual thought, critical thinking and moral principles and passionately form a mob around gynocentric motives, conform to gynocentric groupthink and enforce gynocentrism in society. Reason is generally not involved in driving such behaviour, which is often highly irrational, immoral, primitive and tribal in nature and driven by emotion.

Gynocentric herd mentality is not a conspiracy, it is an observable phenomenon. The female ingroup bias1 of the population and the women are wonderful effect2 are features of it and have been the subject of research by social scientists. The power of the gynocentric mob was evident in the female voting patterns during the 2018 US mid-terms3, in the aftermath of the manufactured Kavanaugh controversy. We have also seen numerous high-profile examples of gynocentric herd mentality. Here are some of them: The women’s march over the last 3 years because someone with a vagina did not become US President, the rapid transformation of the metoo# movement into a man bashing crusade and witch-hunt, the manufactured scandal and backlash by the feminist mob over the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, slogans being promoted like the “future is female” and “believe the woman” and the infamous 2012 feminist protest at Dr. Warren Farrell’s lecture on the boy crisis at the University of Toronto (one of many such disruptive protests by the feminist mob that have occurred at universities across the West). Gynocentric herd mentality is even more pronounced within politics, the media, academia and corporations etcetera than the general population and it is little wonder then why society has become so lopsided.

The Social Power Of Women

Human beings are social animals and there is a strong tendency in both sexes to obtain and maintain the social approval of peers. In our prehistory, social approval was an important factor in determining the survival and reproductive prospects of individuals, their offspring and families. Social ostracism reduced these prospects. This pattern has continued throughout history and right up until the present day. Women have a large amount of social influence in prescribing the social value of individuals and female approval and disapproval plays a large role in determining what is and is not socially permitted within a community. Maintaining female approval and avoiding disapproval from women, has been a key factor in men escaping social ostracism and therefore maintaining their position in society and by extension their survival prospects and reproductive prospects. A man that attracts the wrath of the sisterhood and gets ostracised, experiences social death and social death in primitive times often meant physical death. If he is a powerful man, he may not experience social death, but instead a loss in social rank and reputation damage which is often severe and long term. In today’s world social ostracism instigated by women, can drive men to suicide. There are men that have been falsely accused of rape, condemned by the sisterhood in their communities and lost their livelihood and standing in the community and taken their own lives. This is female power- Social power.

Much has been said about the power that men hold in society, but relatively little has been said about the power that women hold in society. Whilst male power in society is primarily physical, economical and institutional in nature, the nature of female power in society is primarily social, emotional and sexual. David Shackleton at the Canadian Association For Equality, has discussed4 these differences in power between the sexes in detail. Men express power through action and women express power through persuasion. Modern society readily identifies pathological expressions of male power in society and has measures in place to hold it to account. However modern society has forgotten the pathological expression of female power in society- manipulation. Society has relatively little measures in place to hold female power accountable, or women in general accountable for anything. The lack of accountability for women and girls is that low, women can rape teenage boys in some jurisdictions and receive child support for it5.

Women are considered in our society to be close to infallible. They can do no wrong. They are pure and innocent creatures and when they behave in a way that contradicts that image, people go rushing to find excuses for their behaviour. The reverse is seen for men, when men do wrong we hold them to account. Even when men are being abused, we hold men accountable for their behaviour. Any factors that may explain and even justify men’s behaviour is dismissed. When women do wrong, we look for reasons to excuse their behaviour so we don’t have to hold them accountable. When men do no wrong, we look for reasons to find them guilty. We have hypoagency for women and hyperagency for men.

There is an important factor at play that helps explain this lopsided dynamic. The social power of women is based upon maintaining a positive image of women. The capacity to persuade and manipulate other people, requires that people respect, trust and value what women have to say. Once women lose the respect, trust and concern of society, they cease to have most of their power. Conversely the social power of women is maximised and elevated above accountability, by cultivating and maintaining a societal attitude that women are innocent, pure, infallible beings relative to men and that women are superior to men. This is the women are wonderful effect. Without cultivating the societal belief that women are superior to men and particularly morally superior, women cannot stir up the gynocentric mob to do their bidding with zero accountability.

Given this reality, feminists and gynocentric women in the media, are predictably quite sensitive to any portrayal of women that puts them in a negative light relative to men. They are quick to silence or omit any example of women behaving badly, because it threatens to destabilise the societal belief that women are superior. Masking and hiding the darker side of women behind a carefully crafted mask of feminine vulnerability, innocence and victimhood, is key to maintaining the façade that women are morally superior to men and therefore that we should defer to women in every instance. Men also prop up this façade to win the social approval of women. This façade is the foundation of modern gynocentric female social power.

In our gynocentric culture men compete with other men like trained seals, to simp and white knight and win the social approval of the “divine” female collective in order to climb the social ladder. One of the central strategies that men employ to do that in this dysfunctional culture, is to appeal to the sense in gynocentric women that women are superior. Men even write books about female superiority. Here are two examples of this linked here6 and here7. People may also want to read this reviewdebunking this nonsense. Not only do men help feed the societal belief in female superiority, they also excuse women from their bad behaviour so they can remain in the good graces of women and avoid female disapproval.

It would be very interesting to put such men in a hypothetical situation in which women voiced strong disappointment and disapproval toward their bigoted beliefs in female superiority and then shamed and ostracised these men for it. The cognitive dissonance maybe sufficient to break such men free of their gynocentric stupor and stop them from throwing other men under the bus to earn female approval. Essentially both men and women reinforce this belief in female superiority in the culture and the result is that questioning and criticising what women say and do becomes a social taboo. Women rise above social accountability and even legal accountablility, because sufficient numbers of men and women are stupid enough to believe in female superiority, including academics who should know better (There are plenty of idiots with doctorates, despite what people think.). This is doubly so for the men and women in politics, the media and in our learning institutions, which have become echo chambers where ideologues can promote their bigoted beliefs and worldview with little scrutiny. Due to the existing societal belief in female superiority, when gynocentric herd mentality rears its ugly head in society, there are no checks and balances to stand in its way.

Who Is Really In Charge Of Society?

Gynocentric herd mentality wields a considerable degree of power in our institutions and in politics. We have this misguided belief in society that if more men are in positions of authority, that somehow means men are in charge and will act in men’s interests at the expense of women. In reality it is the complete opposite. I have said before that modern society more closely resembles a matriarchy by proxy, than an oppressive patriarchy and that in modern society women are privileged. Women are the power behind the throne and men just have the appearance of being charge. Of course such claims taken literally are monolithic and the reality is somewhere between the two extremes. Whilst I would not argue that society is presently an absolute matriarchy, society is certainly heading in that direction before it eventually collapses socially and economically from rampant gynocentrism.

Men in politics are to at least some degree the puppets of female voters and feminist lobby groups and organisations. Politicians of course are aware of the power of the female vote. They dance to the tune of female voters and feminists and throw men under the bus with indifference quite often. Even Donald Trump bows to the gynocentric female mob to at least some degree. This was apparent in his recent state of the union address9, where he celebrated female employment statistics and yet was silent on the multitude of issues facing men and boys in family court, education, health and from biased workplace policies and affirmative action. Whenever he discussed an issue impacting men, like the increase in manufacturing jobs, he was careful to describe it in gender neutral terms. Whilst Donald Trump and his cabinet have done some positive things for men in the United States, it has been relatively piecemeal. Throwing bread crumbs at men, is hardly going to be sufficient to overturn the entrenched gynocentrism in our institutions, businesses, legislature, education systems and governments in any substantive and meaningful way.

Just as with politics, a similar pattern is present in corporations. The feminist mob infects the HR departments and corporate service branches of businesses and then applies pressure throughout the workplace to implement biased workplace policies and affirmative action. Where feminists cannot do this from within the organisation, they mud-sling businesses from the outside from positions they hold in the media, in politics and in law. Feminists gang up in groups and target businesses and individual executives and managers, to get their way from within businesses and from outside businesses. We saw the power of the gynocentric mob with what happened to James Damore10. Don’t conform to the mob, lose your job. The media and academia also face the same pressure from the gynocentric mob from inside and outside and there have been many examples of this.

Why don’t these men that have all of this authority say no to the gynocentric mob? Aside from the fact that chivalry is still prevalent to some degree in our culture, especially among older men in authority, these men realise that retaining the social approval of women, is critical to them maintaining their positions and getting things done. If men in positions of authority are out of step with the gynocentric mob, then they run the real risk of attracting female disapproval and losing their positions and reputation. The unassailable power of female social approval, rests in the divine value that society places on what women think and have to say and that in turn rests on an image that women are superior and the moral arbiters of what is right and just. By going along with this dynamic, men in authority reinforce the validity of the positions of the gynocentric mob. When men in authority or corporations apologise for things they should not apologise for to escape the wrath of the mob, they are validating the position of the mob and strengthening its social power to bring nonconformists into line.

It is the male aversion to female disapproval, chivalry and the male competition to win female approval, that ensures that any man in authority defers to female interests above all else and often at the expense of men and the future of society. The Myth Of Male Power11 was aptly named. Our concept of male power and male oppression of women is a myth12. A myth developed by feminists and gynocentric women to help mask female power in modern society and ensure any social manipulation by women as a group flies under the radar without scrutiny. This myth ensures that when feminist women gang up on men in positions of authority and attempt to sack them or reprimand them for daring to transgress the dictates of the feminist mob, that feminist influence is overlooked.

The Gynocentric Mob And Freedom Of Speech

We can see the power of the female collective on full display in the domain of freedom of speech. The control that women have as a group with respect to the Overton window is extreme. Offend a woman or a offend a feminist and you risk being banned on social media, attacked and doxed, losing your job and even being charged and imprisoned. In Argentina a radio host has been forced to have feminists on his show to prevent imprisonment, after he was accused of misogyny. Don’t believe it? Here is the story13. That is the power of the feminist mob when they gang up on someone. Of course if you write articles in mainstream media publications titled, “Why Can’t We Hate Men?”14, or write books about men being obsolete15 and unnecessary16, or create and spread hashtags like “killallmen” or “Ibatheinmaletears”, that is to be celebrated and promoted in the mainstream media, in social media and in academia. That is how lopsided society has become.

If you dare criticise women or feminists, you risk imprisonment in some jurisdictions. But if you are an academic or in the mainstream media, you can write books about men being obsolete and men being inferior with no consequence. In fact you will be lionised by your peers as being progressive and even be invited to conferences and interviews to talk about your book. You will also be allowed to run televised debates supporting your arguments and with the outcome skewed in your favour.

Just like the mainstream media, the alternative media will bow and scrape to female approval and steer clear of triggering the wrath of the gynocentric mob. Here is a recent example of this shown in a YouTube video17 from a rising YouTube star called Isaac Butterfield. Isaac who has been highly critical of feminism, distances himself from being called a men’s rights activist in the video and then proceeds to mud-sling the men’s movement and erroneously claim that aside from family court, men pretty much have the same rights as women. I left a comment on his video as follows:

“The holier than thou mentality of these YouTubers that suddenly found men’s issues and antifeminism because it is becoming increasingly popular and now think they know what they are talking about and then turn around and lecture the group of people that have been working on these issues for decades, is getting tiresome.  The fact it is a dirty word to say you are a men’s rights activist, just demonstrates why a men’s rights movement is needed. Someone can identify as a feminist in this society, despite all of the far more numerous and deeply rooted examples of bigotry from that ideology and it will be celebrated in our institutions, schools, universities, businesses, media, legislature and politics. But don’t you men dare call yourselves men’s rights activists!

Family court is just one example of a long list of issues impacting men you clearly know nothing about. Men do not have a right to genital integrity, they have virtually no reproductive rights to speak of relative to women, they can be conscripted and drafted into war, they face legally sanctioned discrimination in employment and education thanks to affirmative action and they face relatively little effective legal protection against abuse by women even when they are children. Those are just a few examples (and there are many more) where men have far less rights. Next time research the topic you are discussing.

The fact that we cannot have an honest discussion about the issues impacting men and the fact that videos like this get produced, just goes to show you the extent that men are marginalised in society. Men are that marginalised in the culture they will self-censor and belittle other men that dare to attempt to identify with men’s rights activism. The ad hominem’s are all too predictable. The “playing it safe” strategy of armchair criticism of the culture and staying within the Overton window of socially permitted discourse, is precisely what allowed misandric feminist ideology to gain traction in the first place. It is not heroic, it is not smart and it certainly does not make you morally superior to a movement you claim to not identify as.”

I generally like Isaac’s work, but the reality is that until we can have an honest discussion about men’s issues in society and stop descending into ad hominem’s and strawmanning groups that are trying to discuss and address them, we are going to go nowhere. It does not make someone edgy or trendy to go along like a sheep attacking a group of people that dare to identify with the rights of half of the population, just because it is socially acceptable to do so. If you have solid grounds that a movement in question runs contrary to what they claim to stand for and it is a systemic deviation observable with both prominent leaders in that movement and from the movement as a whole (like feminism), then fair enough. But don’t go making the equivalence fallacy that the men’s rights movement is just the same as feminism. They are not even close to being alike.

People can do their own direct research to see the difference between feminism and the men’s movement like Cassie Jaye did18, without the mud-slinging from people like Isaac Butterfield. The gynocentric herd mentality of society, the avoidance of having an honest discussion of the issues impacting men and the avoidance of the elephant in the room- gynocentrism, has to end for the sake of society. If we want to change the dysfunctional status quo of society and avoid disaster, then we must risk offending people when we tell the truth and that includes feminists and women.

Gynocentrism And The Avoidance Of Difficult Decisions

The stranglehold that the gynocentric mob has over the Overton window is considerable and it is dangerous. One of the major factors that drives the degradation of civilisation is an avoidance in making difficult decisions. When men with influence decide to place the social approval of women above reason, evidence, morality, law and their own principles and responsibilities, the systems that society relies on to function will eventually decline and then fail. We have a society in which men with authority place the approval of women above their own responsibilities and the long-term interests of society. There is a reluctance from these men to confront reality and make the decisions that need to be made to save society from its own fempocalypse19.

Bettina Arndt recently has produced a video20 calling out Jordan Peterson and other men with influence, in shying away from confronting the accountability gap between men and women. Peterson is big on responsibility, except when it comes to holding women responsible for their actions. The selective application of principles based on sex, is one indicator of gynocentrism. I certainly don’t think that Jordan is alone in that regard. There are plenty of men like Jordan with far more influence, that look the other way when it comes to the shadow side of women and put their heads in the sand and their fingers in their ears.

Women like all human beings are neither good or bad, but a combination of the two and men are no different. This is the reality of human nature. Yet in our gynocentric culture, we promote a polarised view of men and women. Women are angels and men are devils. Men are responsible and women above reproach. Men are to serve and women are to be served. Men are human doings and women are human beings. These are some of the gynocentric elements of the attitudes that this culture promotes about men and women.

It is not just influential men that have a reluctance in acknowledging the shadow side of women. Society in general is reluctant to confront this reality. For many people their worldview and their identity rests on an assumption that women are perfect and divine. There are women that cannot apologise for anything, no matter how wrong they are. There are men that cannot say no to a woman, no matter how unreasonable their demands might be. For many people it is painful to consider the possibility that women may not be so “wonderful” or “all things nice”. For many men it is only when they go through the suffering in family court, get violently assaulted by a woman, or face discrimination in the workplace or in education from feminist policy, that they take off the gynocentric rose tinted glasses and begin to question the cultural narrative they have been told about men and women.

Jordan Peterson is no different. I certainly do not wish this on Jordan or anyone for that matter, but I wonder whether Jordan and men like him would think differently if they lost their career and their freedom from a false allegation and experienced what men like Mark Pearson experienced21. Do we have to get to a point where influential men in their hundreds are thrown in jail based on a woman’s word alone and feminist mob justice reigns supreme, before these men will confront their own gynocentric bias? Or will society need to collapse and then descend into another dark age because society simply can’t cope with the female half of the population being held equally accountable for their actions? These are questions that we should be confronting, because if we don’t, then we can expect modern civilisation to collapse into a primitive tribal society resembling the third world. Of course that is if we are lucky enough to avoid a nuclear winter occurring from the process of social and economic implosion. An implosion that runaway gynocentrism and other factors will help eventually bring about, given enough time without any correction.

No modern and developed society can last when men and women have equal rights, but only one sex is accountable to the other. No such society can last when prioritising the well-being of one sex above the other without any corresponding reciprocity, is called equality. No such society can last when attempts to correct these imbalances are met with censorship, hostility and violence. No such society can last that refuses to acknowledge the shadow side of women. No such society can last where gynocentric herd mentality runs roughshod over the rule of law and freedom of speech. Such a society has a finite lifespan. The general reluctance in the population to accept these realities, will eventually lead to a crisis and then society will implode and then fracture into hundred’s of pieces. All of this is predictable and all of it is avoidable, if society is prepared to confront gynocentrism.

There are decisions that need to be made right now, to get society off the dangerous trajectory it is on. These decisions are not going to be popular and they are not going to be easy. This “playing it safe strategy” and “tread carefully” approach, is not going to save anyone in the long run. Let us take a simple example of what I am talking about. It is a fact that women in general are hypergamous and that women prefer men that earn more money than they do. It is a reality that women choose to work less than men and choose to work in lower paying professions to pursue their interests over earning money. It is also a reality that in many cases men are the only net taxpayers and that male economic activity remains the primary driving force of GDP and also of female consumer spending. Despite these realities, feminists have pushed for an education system and hiring policies in the workplace, that prioritise women and girls at the expense of men and boys.

The same women that ask for female hiring quotas, affirmative action and a feminised education system that prioritises women and girls learning needs over men and boys, fully expect men to have proper well paying stable employment and to earn more money than them, which these women intend to spend while they work less than their male partner. We can see throughout the West the impact all of these contradictions are having on the fertility rate, economic activity, government spending versus government debt, on the marriage and divorce rate and how it drives the increase in fatherless households, with all of the associated consequences of fatherlessness. We can see it in articles like, “Where have all the good men gone?”.

Clearly something will have to give for society to replace itself and to maintain social and economic stability and yet no one in politics will confront these realities. It is political suicide to confront reality for fear of offending women, thanks to gynocentric herd mentality. It is political suicide to dare to suggest we should reform the education system, remove affirmative action policies and reform divorce and family courts. Feminism sees to it that any politician that puts forward such reforms, will be framed as a misogynist in the mainstream media and many female voters will buy that narrative hook, line and sinker.

This is what happens when a society puts women’s feelings above reason and responsibility. Political decision making on important and critical reforms that are essential to keeping civilisation afloat, becomes paralysed. The end result of failing to take appropriate steps over a long enough period of time is societal collapse. Society has to choose between short term pain in the present and risking hurt feelings, or experiencing far greater suffering in the future. We can only kick the can down the road for so long. Part of the reluctance that society has in confronting gynocentrism, is the fear of making women angry. The female ingroup bias is instrumental in driving this fear. The looming wrath of the gynocentric mob and feminist cliques in the workplace, in politics, in academia, in social groups and in wider society, is a coercive force in our society that must never be mentioned, for to even speak of it is forbidden. But it is there. Every man and woman is acutely aware of what I am talking about.

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned

In our gynocentric society the looming threat of female anger and outrage is a powerful and guiding influence not just for men in positions of authority, but in relationships and in social settings within the community. Sayings like, “Happy wife, happy life” and “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”, are examples of the prevailing expectation of men to not displease women and to tread carefully. The reason these sayings exist, is because women are not held accountable for their aggression and that goes especially toward men22.

This fact was explicitly illustrated recently to millions of people in my country on an Australian TV show called Married At First Sight. We had a woman berating, belittling and abusing23 a man on multiple occasions on a major national television network at dinner time in front of children. This is despite numerous government funded ads24 on television in Australia, showing men berating women in exactly the same way as on the show and it being called domestic violence. Only when the man called her a “cunt” after copping a week of abuse, was there a reaction25 and that reaction was focused on chastising the man for his comments.

Women are not held accountable for their aggression in relationships or in wider society. So when angry feminist mobs form, which often happens on university campuses when someone comes to talk that does not fit the feminist Overton window of approved ideas and speech, the aggressive behaviour of the mob is predictably out of control. How many violent and disruptive feminist protests have we seen on university campuses across the West over the last 5 years alone? Too many for me to recollect. Feminists and gynocentric women are fully aware there are little or no consequences for their aggression. That is why someone like Madonna can talk about blowing up the White House26 in front of thousands of people at the women’s march in 2017, without experiencing any serious or significant consequences for her comments and actions.

The fury of the gynocentric female mob and their white knight enforcers, is most evident when a man is accused of sexual assault by a woman. If a woman points a finger at a man, a substantial number of women will side with the woman, believe everything they say and condemn the man without a shred of evidence being required. If a woman points a finger at a man, a substantial number of men will side with the woman, believe everything they say and be at the ready to beat the shit out of the man without a shred of evidence being required. Ordinary people stampede like mindless wildebeest over men and even children, when they hear the call of gynocentrism. The metoo# movement has grown to the size it has because of gynocentric herd mentality.

Think about how much male violence has its roots in female manipulation. How many fights between men have involved a woman spreading lies about a man and getting other men to attack him for her protection and for her honour, over the centuries and in the present day? How many fights between men have started from women cheating on their partner? Think of the Lady Macbeth’s of history and the amount of men that have died from their manipulation. It would be interesting to find out the male death toll from female manipulation.

The Darker Side Of Women

Much is said about men misusing their physical power to abuse and control women, but little is said about women misusing their social power to abuse and control men. The documented female ingroup bias in our society is also barely acknowledged, if at all. Esther Vilar has written about female manipulation of men in her book, “The Manipulated Man”27. Karen Straughan has discussed the tyranny of female hypoagency28 and Alison Tieman has discussed the use of threat narratives and victimhood by women, to bully other women29 and men30. Such behaviour is not new, it has been around for centuries. But feminists have worked very hard to ensure that any discussion of female power and the pathological expressions of that power, are not discussed or addressed in the modern age. Feigning female vulnerability has been a core tactic of feminists and gynocentric women, to hide female power in plain sight and keep it cloaked. As Dr. Warren Farrell has stated, “Men’s greatest weakness is their facade of strength, and women’s greatest strength is their facade of weakness.”

Esther Vilar herself, was the subject of numerous attacks by feminists and it is little wonder given the fact that the core strategies of feminism have relied on a number of the very things she discussed in her book. Exposing female manipulation to public scrutiny, is like exposing a vampire to sunlight. Manipulation only works when it remains invisible to the manipulated and feminists do their best to keep female manipulation of men at the relational and societal level invisible and out of the field of public perception.

One of the reasons why feminism has been so effective, is because it’s influence can escape scrutiny. Feminism did not march an army down the streets, seize control of government buildings and violently overthrow the government. Feminism has successfully implemented a bloodless coup of multiple countries through the infiltration of our institutions, the subversion and social manipulation of them from within and by instigating internal and external pressure through stirring up mobs of angry women and white knights. It is through manipulation rather than physical force, that feminism has succeeded in taking over our societies.

Whilst I have addressed a number of the failing’s men have which have contributed to the gynocentric mob mentality in society, it is of course the case that a number of failings in women have contributed to it as well. In our prehistory our environment was harsh and unforgiving. Whilst men could potentially survive on their own as individuals to some degree without the tribe, this was much less the case for women. With considerably less physical strength and overall fitness, individual women especially with young offspring, would have had far less survival prospects going it alone than men. Being part of a tribe and forming female coalitions to care for each other and nurture young, has considerable advantages for women and has been a part of prehistoric, historical and modern societies. It is not really surprising then, that women have a tendency to form an ingroup bias given this reality.

However that does not mean that women are incapable of thinking as individuals or disagreeing with group consensus. It is certainly possible and indeed what is required to dissolve the gynocentric mob. Individuality in women requires women to think for themselves and regard themselves as agents in society with the capacity to influence the world around them and value themselves as individuals ahead of valuing themselves as females. The feminist control of the mainstream media and academia, has been a key factor in ensuring sufficient numbers of women are indoctrinated with the feminist worldview and succumb to gynocentric herd mentality. Janice Fiamengo has talked about this and how universities have been turned into “institutions of higher indoctrination”31.

Feminism has done everything it can to make sure women perceive themselves as helpless, disempowered and victimised and to make women feel as fearful, angry, bitter and resentful as possible toward men. Alison Tieman has discussed how feminism uses threat narratives32 to develop and cultivate this mentality in women and in the population in general. All of this encourages women to seek refuge in numbers for safety, provision and well-being and to put female group identity above individuality.

Rising Above The Gynocentric Mob

Supporting women that encourage other women to see themselves as empowered individuals ahead of being female (A shout out to the Honey Badgers!), supporting women that fight against the feminist threat narratives of male oppression, rape culture and rampant male violence etc and supporting women that promote a message that men are women’s partners and not the enemy, is how we break the back of gynocentric tribalism. Once women awaken to what feminism has done to them and join men as partners, it is game over for feminism. I am looking forward to the day when women eat feminists alive for what they have done. It is coming. Hell hath no fury indeed! Women have been used as pawns to further an agenda for power hungry women and when the penny drops for women, the shitstorm that will envelope feminists will be of epic proportions.

Encouraging men and boys to stand up for their principles and to act authentically and speak honestly over female social approval and disapproval and not to self-censor, will also be equally important. Abandoning the tradition of chivalry and teaching men to stand their ground with women and hold women accountable for how they treat them, will be essential. Men going their own way33 is all about that. Men that value themselves and are prepared to draw a line in the sand and stand up for themselves and for other men when confronted with gynocentrism, is precisely what this society so desperately needs right now.

Having an honest conversation with boys about how to identify female abuse, which is often more psychological and social in nature and teaching boys how to protect themselves from it in childhood and adulthood, will also be important, given that our society pretends female abuse and bad women do not exist. Telling boys the honest truth that not all women and girls are sugar and spice and that like all human beings there are good and bad women, is the way forward.

Removing the feminist influence in our institutions, particularly in the universities and introducing new measures and strengthening existing measures in our political system, media, academia and legislature to safeguard against gynocentric herd mentality, will be essential as well. Freedom of speech and the rule of law is under siege by the gynocentric mob. Freedom of speech, due process, the presumption of innocence and legal impartiality, are under threat and they need to be strengthened now more than ever. The more territory society loses with respect to freedom of speech and the rule of law, the closer society gets to a totalitarian state, revolt and then eventual collapse.

The most important change that will have to occur though, is our attitude toward women and girls. Women and girls are not higher divine beings that are infallible. They are human beings and like all human beings they have a dark side and are capable of and commit all of the same vices men do. There are some immoral acts men commit more frequently, but there are also immoral acts that women commit more frequently. We often fail as a society to recognise female abuse, ostracism, rumour mongering and manipulation, because they are psychological and social in nature and not physical. Female bullying and psychological abuse, can often go on for years without being noticed and can drive men and women to suicide. With have seen with a number of high-profile rape cases and the number of young men suing their colleges from false allegations, that women can and do lie about sexual assault. Even in the physical realm, women are far more violent than society believes they are. The research on domestic violence bears that out. See this link34 for more information.

Society needs to abandon this attitude women are a superior class of human being. To suggest that women are capable of the greatest evils and horrendous violence is not hyperbole. Female Hanz Fritzl’s do exist and they abuse girls as well as boys, such as this example35. There were sadistic female SS guards that did horrible and cruel things to prisoners and got sexually aroused by it, such as this example36. Quite a sick bitch that example. There are many more examples of extreme cruelty and depravity by women I can cite, but you might need a bucket to throw up in. Like with domestic violence, the expression of evil in women is more common than people think it is and that includes female pedophilia37.

Acknowledging these realities does not mean women are inferior to men or more evil than men. That is just as wrong as suggesting women are superior and more virtuous. We are talking about the dark side of human nature, not female nature or male nature. We are kidding ourselves as a society, if we think that we can ignore the darker side of human nature when it expresses itself in women. This blind spot does not just impact men and boys, it impacts women and girls as well, who often get physically and sexually abused by such women.

Feminists and the gynocentric men and women in our society, would rather let women continue to murder, assault, rape and sexually torture and abuse children and adults, by shielding women from social and legal accountability, than acknowledge that women are capable of being just as evil as men. They would rather wilfully ignore the fact women can commit acts of evil as heinous and abhorrent as any man and do so far more frequently than society believes is the case.

No one wins from ignoring evil in women. In the end civilisation is based on checks and balances. If the female half of society are not held accountable, then the worst parts of human nature will increasingly express themselves in women and provide fertile ground for evil to flourish in women. Expect the worst in women to be expressed with increasing frequency and severity in the coming years, thanks to feminism and gynocentrism. In the words of Lord Acton, “Power corrupts; Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. If society continues to turn a blind eye to the darker side of women and persists in maintaining a belief that women are divine infallible beings, then it will pay the ultimate price- its own destruction. The imbalance will ensure nothing less. All society has to do to prevent that, is abandon the childish belief women are angels and recognise women as human beings, with all the flaws of human beings.

I am almost certain somebody that reads this will say, “but not all women”…..That is right, not all women are devils. Not all men are devils either. But just as not all men are angels, not all women are angels. Let me reframe the “not all women” line. Not all women should be respected, just as not all men should be respected, not all women should be trusted, just as not all men should be trusted, not all women are saints and not all men are serial rapists and murderers just waiting outside a woman’s apartment to assault them.

Both sexes are capable of terrible evil and amazing good. The belief in female superiority is the core factor behind the gynocentric herd mentality in society. If enough people were prepared to question and criticise women when they behaved improperly and not just blindly believe and respect all women simply because they are women, then half the gynocentric bullshit that is slowly destroying society from within would cease. The belief in female superiority and the associated attitudes about men and women have got to go, if society is to have a future.

We can either descend into a new dark age and let the gynocentric mob take over, or we can fight for the foundations of civilised society and travel to the stars above us. All that is required is for people to think for themselves instead of subscribing to groupthink, act as authentic individuals,  abandon the belief in female superiority, put their own principles and reasoning above social approval and particularly female approval and above all, stand their ground against gynocentrism.

References:

  1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15491274
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhm_HZ9twMg
  3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/politics/2018/11/07/why-did-democrats-win-house-one-word-women/?noredirect=on
  4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A3DcpsV2vQ
  5. https://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/feminist-governance-feminism/legally-obscene/
  6. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/076198982X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1
  7. https://www.amazon.com/Women-After-All-Evolution-Supremacy/dp/0393352315
  8. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-015-0029-1
  9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt17VX6qm6E
  10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NOSD0XK0r8
  11. https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Male-Power-Warren-Farrell/dp/0425181448
  12. https://www.avoiceformen.com/misandry/gynocentrism-and-the-sin-of-being-male/
  13. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/angel-baby-etchecopar-radio-10-host-feminists-argentina-misogyny-sexism-a8697631.html
  14. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-cant-we-hate-men/2018/06/08/f1a3a8e0-6451-11e8-a69c-b944de66d9e7_story.html?utm_term=.35651be777f8
  15. https://www.amazon.com/End-Men-Rise-Women/dp/1594488045
  16. https://www.amazon.com/Are-Men-Necessary-Sexes-Collide/dp/042521236X
  17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF3RDi5PJqk
  18. http://theredpillmovie.com/
  19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w__PJ8ymliw
  20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwhWlm7YwV8
  21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaDswx3KRmU
  22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlFAd4YdQks
  23. https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/reality-tv/married-at-first-sight/viewers-slam-mafs-bride-ines-appalling-tantrum/news-story/334b0ea0f4d5ee66c7004118b4dcab11
  24. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukaj9lnctw0
  25. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6691425/Petition-calling-MAFS-Mel-Schilling-sacked-reaches-whopping-26K-signatures-just-HOURS.html
  26. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=090qmm3qRuo
  27. https://www.amazon.com.au/Manipulated-Man-Esther-Vilar-ebook/dp/B0047745S0
  28. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBgcjtE0xrE&t=1096s
  29. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy3SKPWjWeM&t=4s
  30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tIrFAe1yx4
  31. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jEQYHAFfjg
  32. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWw8QmVEK2M
  33. https://www.mgtow.com/
  34. https://domesticviolenceresearch.org/domestic-violence-facts-and-statistics-at-a-glance/
  35. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Sylvia_Likens#Abuse_and_death
  36. https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/irma-grese-the-blonde-beast-of-birkenau-and-belsen/
  37. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cBSH1JI7Qs&t=28s

 

Gynocentrism and the sin of being male

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By Peter Ryan

The shaming of men and boys in our culture has been going on for a long, long time. So long in fact that there are now men and women in the population that never grew up in a time when masculinity was valued and men were viewed in a positive light. Being male in this culture is a sin. Being a white male doubly so. In my previous article, “Gynocentrism and Misandry”1, I elaborated further on how gynocentrism is associated with a belief in female superiority and that this belief system is based on the attitudes that society cultivates around masculinity and femininity.

Men and boys are devils and women and girls are angels. Men are violent, predatory, primitive and destructive. Women are peaceful, empathetic, civilised and life giving. These attitudes we have about men and women and the associations we make with masculinity and femininity, distort our perception of reality and our behaviour toward the sexes. At the macro level this impacts our culture, how we raise the next generation, how we run society and shape policy and laws and it also importantly impacts the future direction of society.

Our society sees the worst in men and the best in women and rarely the reverse. Only in circumstances where men are conforming to gynocentric norms of prioritising female well-being over male well-being, are they given a reprieve. But even that is temporary and is often labelled benevolent sexism2when it is convenient for feminist women to do so, to advance their agenda. Of course if men then attempt to treat women as true equals and abandon chivalry, then they often become the target of aggrieved entitled women3. Men can’t win, which is the entire point of the feminist agenda and why men need to recognise feminism for the hate movement4 that it is. This movement wishes to subjugate you and marginalise you because you are male. Kowtowing to feminists will just accelerate the process, it will not save you.

The gynocentric attitudes we hold about men and women in society, reinforce bigoted gynocentric double standards in our culture on a regular basis. These attitudes become not just a justification but also an incentive, for enshrining gynocentrism in our laws, policies, institutions and social norms. Challenging gynocentrism in our culture, can sometimes lead to people revealing their own bigoted attitudes about men and women. You may have heard the cry, “Because I am a woman” for example, if you have ever questioned these double standards.

These gynocentric attitudes about men and women go back centuries. We can see them reflected in old nursery rhymes from centuries ago that tell us, “boys are made of snips, snails and puppy dog tails and girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice”5. The demonisation of masculinity and the deification of femininity in the culture, has been an ongoing and gradual process spanning centuries. Dr. Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young have examined the deification of women and the demonisation of men over history and in the modern era, in their book Sanctifying Misandry: Goddess Ideology and the Fall of Man6. Like a snowball going down a hill, this process has been gathering increasing momentum over time over the centuries and particularly the last five decades under feminism.

According to feminist ideology to be born male is to sin. In the eyes of feminists, men are collectively to blame for the actions of all men. Not just men that live in the present, but all men that have lived thoroughout history. We as men are guilty for the actions of men that lived hundreds and sometimes thousands of years ago. This is feminist tribalism and the perspective of the female mob and self-loathing men behind their hateful ideology. Men are also to my knowledge the only group that can be collectively blamed for the actions of one individual in Western society (here is just one example 7of this). In any other case society regards it as bigotry. That speaks volumes about the contempt society has for men.

Feminism have rewritten history and framed men as the oppressors of women. The feminist capture of the humanities departments at the universities has been instrumental in their campaign to vilify men and propagate this false and hateful narrative. The narrative feminists have spun is a powerful one. History is not something we can easily examine as we cannot directly observe it. The general public has to rely heavily on academics to learn about their history and when feminists control the humanities departments of universities, the truth is especially difficult to uncover.

The narrative of women being victimised at the hands of men, also plays on our base emotional drives and impulses to protect what we perceive as the more vulnerable sex (thanks in part to female neoteny and the parental brain). It becomes very easy for feminists to use this narrative to play on people’s emotions and bypass critical examination of their agenda by society. The feminist account of history is difficult to challenge unless you have a thorough knowledge of the primary sources of the historical record, since so much history syllabus has been corrupted by feminist ideology. Even with all the facts at their disposal, people still need to contend with appealing to reason when the feminist narrative puts people in an emotional frame of mind.

History informs so much of what we do in everyday society. Our political and legal systems and culture rely to a significant degree on history to inform decision making. We look at what worked and what did not and use that as a guide to shape policy and law. We debate issues and ideas based on our account of our own history. Cultural tradition is rooted in our understanding of our own shared history. Indeed an effective way to socially engineer society, is to corrupt it’s understanding of it’s own history. Feminism has virtual control of academic scholarship in the humanities and has been actively corrupting our understanding of history for decades, with little to no substantive resistance. We are told that men have oppressed women for thousands of years. Past society is described as a violent, tyrannical patriarchy where men were privileged and women were oppressed and treated as chattel. That is the feminist account of history, which they have subtly and gradually been embedding into scholarship within academia over the decades.

This does have profound implications for society, because like I said, our account of our own history influences how we run civilisation. History also shapes our attitudes about ourselves and about others. We can see this influence play out in diplomatic relations between countries, in the perpetual conflict in the Middle East and between governments, indigenous people and the general population. History does not just influence our decision making, it shapes our attitudes towards groups of people and also about ourselves. Even today Germany is still trying to overcome the legacy of the Nazi party and the death camps. So when feminism invaded the humanities and began rewriting history decades ago, it was quite predictable that this would eventually have profound implications on our attitudes toward men and women and it has.

We now have an education system in which boys and girls are taught as early as primary school, the feminist narrative of male patriarchal oppression and male violence. Here are two accounts of what boys have exposed to, linked here8and here9. Please read and listen to what they are telling us is going on and how it has impacted them and the boys that were around them. This process of indoctrination continues from primary school, through to high school and postgraduate study, all the way up to academic scholarship itself. The mainstream media, politics, our legal system and government policy, are also informed on this worldview of “thousands of years” of patriarchal tyranny. Feminists are not content with just telling people what to do, they want to burrow inside your brain like a parasite and they want access to young children to brainwash.

The feminist strategy of subverting our education system and embedding their ideology into scholarship and the syllabus, is essentially a systematic form of brainwashing of the general population. Feminism wants to shape people’s perception, because once they have control of the perception of society, they can then implement their agenda with the support of the population. If feminists can train society to perceive men as the violent oppressors of women for thousands of years, then it gives feminism the support to push forward an agenda in government, business and elsewhere, that prioritises female well-being above male well-being, with no reciprocity or regard for fairness. The feminist narrative of thousands of years of tyrannical patriarchy and male privilege and oppression of women, is the foundational justification and incentive used to pass laws, policy and initiatives. that treat women and girls as a higher class of human being and men as an underclass.

This is precisely the same pattern you see with any ideology that advocates bigotry. Bigotry requires a belief in ones own moral superiority over the group they perceive has wronged them. This sense of moral superiority and self-righteousness, requires bigots to find a justification and support for their own attitudes about the group they hate and why their actions are righteous. Millions of people have been exterminated based on this way of thinking. As Karen Straughan described in two videos (linked here10 and here11, some of her finest work in my opinion) debunking the feminist worldview and narrative of an oppressive patriarchy, you kind of have to hate men to twist facts and omit so much of history to paint men as the oppressors of women.

When we examine the gynocentric attitudes about men and women in society today, we are seeing the product of not just centuries of gynocentrism, but also the feminist revision of history. I discussed in “Gynocentrism and Misandry”, that the misandry we are witnessing in this society has gotten to this level because of the indifference of the general population. This is certainly correct, as the indifference of the population to male well-being ensures there is no resistance to feminist bigotry and misandry. However the driving force behind the escalation of misandry in our culture over the last fifty years, has been the feminist revision of history and the feminist cultivation of hatred toward men in the general population. Feminism has been creating a fire in the hearts and minds of the population, that men need to get what they deserve. The feminist version of equality, seeks retribution for supposed wrongs based on the skewed feminist account of history.

In the minds of feminists, men must pay for thousands of years of what they frame as male oppression. They use this rationalisation to stir hatred and bitterness in the population toward men and garner support from the public in pushing forward an agenda of female supremacy in the name of justice. It is not uncommon for instance to see simpletons in the general population argue the feminist initiatives to implement female hiring quotas are fair, because men have been in charge for hundreds of years and have supposedly “ruined” everything. Feminists never heard of two wrongs not making something right. It is an eye for an eye for feminists. Of course it is not really an eye for eye, because the feminist fiction that history is thousands of years of male oppression is a disgusting lie.

The slogan “the future is female”12, is often justified by some people on the basis that men have had their turn and now it is time for women to be “privileged” and have their time in the sun. The reliance on the historical narrative of male privilege and male oppression of women, is key to this simplistic childlike thinking. With it feminists can not just gain acceptance from the population in advocating for biased policies, programs, initiatives and laws that place women and girls above men and boys, they can actually engender support and encouragement from a sizable amount of gullible and stupid people within the population. Remember half the population has an IQ below 100. All you need to do to seize control of society, is to persuade the stupid, gullible, impressionable and ignorant to form a mob, accept your narrative and silence any dissent. Every totalitarian ideology based on hate, victimhood and tribalism, has employed this strategy and feminism is no exception.

These far left feminist mobs we now see every second week or so on TV did not come from thin air. The hatred of men and particularly white men, has been cultivated through a feminist revision of history that has been spread by feminist control of academia, the education system and the mainstream media. When you teach successive generations through schools and then universities, that men are the historical oppressors and women have been the oppressed, it impacts their attitudes toward men and women. Women walk around with a chip on their shoulder and men walk around with their shoulders slumped. It fosters resentment, anger and bitterness toward men and it fosters self-loathing and shame in men. As discussed, the feminist control of academia ensures that it becomes virtually impossible for any member of the general public that questions this narrative or even an academic, to get an accurate and unbiased account of their own history.

As time goes on and more and more generations have been indoctrinated with the feminist account of history and our society has gradually lost it’s memory of what it once was, soon all that will be recorded is the feminist account of history. There is no discussion by feminists on the millions of men that died in war to protect their female partners and family, or the millions of men that worked themselves to an early grave in the mines, in the bellies of ships and farmed the land from sunrise to sunset with their bare hands and backs etc so their families and women could eat. There is no consideration given to the reality that the majority of men were just as poor as the majority of women over history. There is no acknowledgement by feminists of the fact that many men did not own any land at all or any substantive amount of land and did not have the right to vote for the vast majority of human history. Many men worked at the mercy of the male and female aristocracy, with little influence over their own lives.

There is no accounting by feminists of the fact that it was only some men and women in society that had any substantive wealth, land or power. There is omission by feminists of the powerful and wealthy female upper classes, who enjoyed a life of relative privilege and had a quality of life far beyond the vast majority of men in the population and were free of any labour or drudgery. Feminists are silent on the reality that feminism itself mainly originated from privileged upper class white women. There is no thought given by feminists of the numerous social and legal responsibilities men had toward women, or the privileges and exemptions from certain societal obligations that women were exclusively given. Women were not conscripted in the millions and sent off to be cannon fodder, to cite just one example.

The feminist account of history is one of omission and distortion. The feminist subversion of history and the humanities, has been the feminist equivalent of book burning and has been going on unchallenged for decades. This had led to a cultivation of hatred toward men in modern society. It cannot be understated the impact that has on fueling gynocentrism. When feminists cultivate hatred toward men and they portray women as victims of male oppression throughout history and cultivate sympathy toward women, they provide a justification and an incentive for gynocentrism to flourish. The recent focus on toxic masculinity and feminist ideology in the Gillette Ad13 and the APA guidelines on men and boys14, comes from this very narrative of historical patriarchal oppression. We have seen an explosion in gynocentrism over the last fifty years, as a direct result of this widespread and unchallenged lie that men historically oppressed women.

As Dr. Warren Farrell has pointed out, the primary focus of civilisation up until very recently was one of survival. Men have not been the oppressors. The harsh and unforgiving environment has been the oppressive force on society. The environmental pressures faced by society, required both sexes to make sacrifices and for men that often meant their lives. Ironically it was these very sacrifices that allowed society to advance to a point where there was enough prosperity for feminism to rewrite the very history that enabled it to come into existence!

Men sacrificed and have died in the millions so feminists could write about how violent and oppressive they were. It is the ultimate insult and a disgrace to shame men for the sacrifices they have made for women and society throughout history. Men have not been more privileged, they have been held more responsible. They were given authority to sacrifice for others and men did. Dr. Warren Farrell has written in the Myth Of Male Power15, about the underlying reality that any civilisation that has survived has done so by training it’s men to be disposable for society and to sacrifice themselves for others and particularly for women and children. The Titanic is just one example of how old this tradition of male sacrifice is. How oppressive of men to save the lives of women and children at the expense of their own!

Whether it was protecting their society and women and children from a hostile invading force, or working themselves to death or injuring themselves doing hazardous and physically arduous labour, the history of men was one of sacrifice. I would invite people who think otherwise to watch this video by Tom Golden, that shows just one example16 of this sacrifice. I would invite everyone to watch that video and listen to just how fucking hard men had to sacrifice for society, before they start talking about men historically being the “privileged” sex. If it were up to me, I would invite feminists to work and re-enact what men did on that canal that Tom discussed for just one day. We could quash that fucking narrative of male patriarchal oppression of women and male privilege in one day!

As Tom Golden has discussed17, this cultivation of hatred toward men is based upon the same mechanism behind the cultivation of hatred toward black people in the early 20th century. If we are serious about addressing the pervasive misandry on display in our culture, then in addition to addressing the indifference we have toward male well-being and our bigoted attitudes about men and women, we will also need to reclaim our history back from feminists. Clearly if the nature of men was to oppress women, feminism would never have come into existence at all and it certainly would not have achieved the level of power it enjoys today.

Even in the modern era feminists will argue that men are privileged and oppressing women. They will point to the tiny fraction of men that are CEO’s relative to female CEO’s and then infer this represents the population as a whole and is caused by patriarchal oppression of women and no other factor. Feminists completely ignore the majority of the homeless which are male, the male unemployed and the men working in hazardous and low paying professions. They will discuss the gender pay gap repeatedly and then ignore the numerous variables that explain it (like more women choosing to work part-time, more men working night shift and in remote locations, or more women choosing to work in childcare over engineering) and rush right to the conclusion that the gender pay gap is all due to discrimination against women.

Stefan Molyneux has done a brilliant job examining the feminist claim that men today are privileged in this video18. This claim of male privilege in present day society, has always rested on the feminist narrative of history to garner validity and robustness. Present day accounts of male privilege require feminists to employ sophistry to make it appear that male privilege and patriarchal oppression have always been with us. That they are as real, solid and enduring as the air we breathe. It is much more difficult for feminists to persuade the public their bullshit ideological concepts are real, if they cannot demonstrate that they have existed for thousands of years.

It is time to call bullshit on the feminist revision of history. It is a one-sided and distorted account of history, that polarises people and cultivates hatred toward men. To destroy a society, destroy it’s culture by corrupting it’s own record of it’s own history. That is a central component of the feminist strategy to transform society into a female supremacist matriarchy. Please comment on those points below and share your thoughts on what is wrong with the feminist narrative on history and give examples if you like. The more the merrier!

References:

  1. https://www.avoiceformen.com/misandry/gynocentrism-and-misandry/
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un09DRXZt2U
  3. https://www.avoiceformen.com/women/aggrieved-entitlement-womens-reaction-to-temporary-loss-of-chivalry/
  4. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-cant-we-hate-men/2018/06/08/f1a3a8e0-6451-11e8-a69c-b944de66d9e7_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.baeb49eb79c4
  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Are_Little_Boys_Made_Of%3F
  6. https://www.amazon.com/Sanctifying-Misandry-Goddess-Ideology-Fall/dp/0773536159
  7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5AtrK40mU0
  8. https://www.avoiceformen.com/men/boys/generation-z-boys-in-modern-britain/
  9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eLG3FF8RQ8
  10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUMifHT1AwY
  11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZsKdEl0-dg
  12. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/real-men-dont-write-blogs/201703/memo-our-sons-and-grandsons-the-future-is-female
  13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koPmuEyP3a0
  14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO93hW_uVao
  15. https://www.amazon.com.au/Myth-Male-Power-Warren-Farrell-ebook/dp/B076HVLZGH
  16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyAp3ntyZ2I
  17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN_KmkKhNng
  18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mzYKWDx6YI