Sunday, December 19, 2010

WTF is an MGTOW? And other weird acronyms and lingo.

Not the real MGTOW logo.
For newcomers to this blog, here's a handy guide to some of the strange acronyms and lingo you'll encounter here and in the "manosphere" in general. (For a definition of that term, see below.) I will update this entry periodically as needed.

First, the acronyms you'll see most often here:

MRA: Men's Rights Activist
MRM: Men's Rights Movement

MGTOW: Men Going Their Own Way MGHOW: Man Going His Own Way

Ok, so what do those terms mean?

MRM: The Men's Rights Movement: A loosely defined, but largely retrograde, collection of activists and internet talkers who fight for what they see as "men's rights." Unlike the original Men's Movement, which was inspired by and heavily influenced by feminism, the self-described Men's Rights Movement is largely a reactionary movement; with few exceptions, Men's Rights Activists (or MRAs) are pretty rabidly antifeminist, and many are frankly and sometimes proudly misogynistic. Those who oppose the MRM are generally not against men's rights per se; they are opposed to those who've turned those two words into a synonym for some pretty backwards notions.

MGTOW: Men Going Their Own Way: As the name suggests, MGTOW is a lot like lesbian separatism, but for straight dudes. MGTOW often talk vaguely about seeking "independence" from western and/or consumer culture, and a few MGTOW try to live that sort of zen existence. But most of those who embrace the term have a deep hostility towards and/or profound distrust of feminists and women in general. Many MGTOW refuse to date "western women" and some try to avoid women altogether. As one MGTOW site puts it:

It is basically a statement of independence, and irrelevance - men declaring themselves free of the social expectations of women and western culture as a whole, because both have come to hate men. ... 
Men basically have most of the rights we need, as long as we treat women like they have the plague.  ... If the only way men can avoid "oppressing" all these strong-as-men-but-oh-so-fragile-when-offended princess wannabes is to steer as clear of them as possible, a lot of men are quite ready to do that.

Some other terms and acronyms you'll run across here:

Anglosphere: Countries in which English is the primary language, or, more narrowly, those countries that used to be British colonies. They are full of evil Western Women (see below).

Incel: Involuntarily Celibate. Perpetually dateless guys, though the term "involuntarily celibate" seems to place the blame for this situation on the women who aren't dating these guys rather than on the guys themselves. For those incels who are genuinely socially awkward or phobic, this can be a self-defeating stance that can lead to bitterness towards women. (There are a few female incels, in which case reverse the genders of everything I've said above.)

Mangina: Derogatory term used by MRAs, MGTOW, etc. to describe guys who disagree with them -- e.g., me. You can figure out the various connotations of this term yourself.

The Manosphere: The loose collection of blogs, message boards, and other sites run by and/or read by MRAs, MGTOW, and assorted friendly Pick-up Artists. The primary source of material for this blog.

NAWALT: Not All Women Are Like That. Dudes in the manosphere make so many ridiculous and untrue generalizations about women that they've come up with their own little acronym to describe the most common reaction to their nonsense: "not all women are like that." Remarkably, many seem to think that making a reference to NAWALT is actually some sort of clever rebuttal of their critics.

PUA: Pick-up Artist. PUAs are obsessed with mastering what they see as the ultimate set of techniques and attitudes -- known as "Game" -- that will enable them to quickly seduce almost any woman they want. There is a vast literature on "game" online, though PUA is at its essence simply a male version of the age-old female ploy of "playing hard to get."

Western Women: Also known as WW. Evil harpies, at least according to many in the manosphere. Contrasted with "foreign women," a term that (in the manosphere, at least) sometimes refers to all women outside the Anglosphere, but often refers to a subset of these women from poor and/or Eastern countries, mostly Asian, who are regarded as more pliable and thus more desirable to haters of "Ameriskanks" and other WW.

16 comments:

  1. With regards to incel, yeah it's actually usually exclusively women. Check out neverhadaboyfriend.org or Diary of an Accidental Virgin.

    But yeah, most of the guys who claim to be "incel" are actually not.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hmmm...

    I think that MRA actually stands for

    Mens
    Rights
    Advocate

    not Activist.

    At least, in my travels - that is what I have seen the "A" used for.

    I myself came up with a clever alternative - and man did it piss people off...

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  3. Like Male Rape Apologist? I've seen some pretty clever alts to MRA but now I can't find them...

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  4. Magnetic resonance angiography?
    Marketing Research Association?
    Michigan Reading Association?
    Michigan Restaurant Association?
    Metal Roofing Alliance?

    http://www.google.com/search?q=mra

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mutant Rights Advocate.

    Wasn't that in X-Men?

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  6. Lots of closeted xenophobia here.

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  7. Adventures in misogyny? No, my friend, mis-adventures in feminist indoctrination and subsequent propagandization.

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  8. Thanks for the FAQ. I'd been puzzling over MGTOW.

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  9. You've done a real nasty hatchet job on the men's movement. Your attempts to discredit it are a tad crazed. LOL!

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  10. This is what Mangina means and where the term comes from:

    http://videosift.com/video/Silence-of-the-Lambs-Buffalo-Bill-s-Dance

    ReplyDelete
  11. Not sure if you’re trying to make fun of the use of acronyms in general, or the meaning of them, but Acronymes and word combinations are a result of modern media making so much use of them, with things like Brangalina, tomcat, NOMAS, etc. It is not a unique phenomenon to the men’s right’s movement..

    As to the meanings, well, there are many corresponding feminist lingo’s for most of these.

    MRA = Feminist
    MRM = Feminist movement, women’s right’s movement, women’s liberationists, women’s suffrage
    MGTOW = A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle
    Angloshpere is not unique to the men’s movement.
    Incel is not unique to the men’s movement (you even acknowledge this yourself)
    Mangina… Well, there really isn’t a specific corresponding term for this unless brainless slut counts, other then professional and personal attacks (often indirectly, not overtly)… and bomb threats (ask Erin Pizzey, amongst others)
    The Manosphere = Modern media
    NAWALT = Again, there is no corresponding term, given feminists generally don’t give men the benefit of the doubt, that maybe, just maybe, not all men are rapists.
    PUA = gold digger (both are going after precisely what they want, without care for the consequences of the other party. Both are manipulative, selfish and poor examples of our genders potential. Both are despised or revered by parties on both sides of the gender war)
    Western Woman = Patriarchy

    I suspect that if feminism was a modern phenomenon, there would be plenty more terms and acronyms flying about, but it is well established, and so doesn’t needs it’s dialogue redefined.

    ReplyDelete
  12. of course, one really big difference between a lot of "men going their own way" and most "lesbian seperatists" is (or at least appears to be) that many MGTOW still want to have sex with women, even though they basically hate everything else about women.

    while on the other hand, most if not all lesbian separatists, while they may have very negative feelings towards men, are also at least willing and usually very happy to avoid interacting with men as much as possible. and certainly very few if any would want to have sex with men.

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  13. Oh, my God! I thought you were joking about the MWGTOW logo, but I went to look and wow... These guys are precious. They need to be kept in a glass case with filtered atmosphere, because they're clearly the most innocent people on Earth. Even the people on AVEN have dirtier minds than that.

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  14. Innocent girlscientist? Maybe. Maybe they might have a whole wealth of experience with your ilk and have just had enough.

    Me? Two kids--hild support shared custody and no intention of ever getting seriously involved with a woman again.

    Rather die old alone and happy.

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  15. Her ilk? You mean girl scientists? (Like boy detectives/adventurers I presume?)

    ReplyDelete

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