DW News on March 1, 2024 put out the youtube video “Why the political worldviews of young men and women are increasingly diverging.” I find this particularly amazing, that such a mainstream news outlet is talking about the manosphere and discussing or debating the issue of why young men are turning more conservative and young women are turning more liberal. Actually I’ve seen this kind of thing happen in multiple locations; channels or news outlets that are mainstream or mostly focused on different subjects deciding to talk about manosphere issues or manosphere personalities for no apparent reason; just because they’re interested I guess. Also mainstream social conservative outlets are starting to debate or criticize the manosphere as being against marriage and being focused on individualism and promiscuity just like the feminists are.
I am really getting the sense that the manosphere has hit the mainstream; that ordinary people are talking about it and responding to it; that the manosphere is no longer fringe or invisible to most people; that it is becoming an established cultural actor that most people now it seems know exists.
I have been part of the manosphere since about 2010 I would say; before the term “manosphere” was in common usage; “men’s rights” being the broad umbrella term originally. The “manosphere” originally was specifically the more conservative Red Pill branch of men’s rights; now “manosphere” seems to be the general term in usage.
Now all of a sudden after seeing my cultural sphere as being super fringe and then fringe but occasionally getting some mainstream media attention every once in a while now we are at the stage where the manosphere is an established voice or point of view in the culture and seems to come up a lot in mainstream news outlets or from people whose main interest is not gender politics but will talk about the manosphere as a kind of side interest.
Not on the specific theme of the political divide between young men and women that has been getting a lot of attention lately; but still on a manosphere related topic was the youtube video put out by Chris Williamson on February 15, 2024 titled “Is Marriage Actually Worth It? – Brad Wilcox.” This video is particularly interesting to me because it is Chris Williamson bringing up manosphere topics and themes to discuss with Brad Wilcox; Brad Wilcox being a kind of academic social conservative from a secular point of view that I have known about for a long time due to his “State of Our Unions” reports put out by the National Marriage Project.
Brad Wilcox was the kind of mainstream social conservative academic that I would never dream would talk about manosphere issues or manosphere ideas because such ideas were just too extreme and fringe for him to talk about or even acknowledge the existence of publicly. And yet here we are with Brad Wilcox doing a whole hour long interview on marriage and family related themes mostly from a debating and discussing manosphere and feminist ideas point of view.
It is very interesting seeing mainstream people talking about manosphere issues and complaints. Earlier when the manosphere was more fringe it was mostly radical feminists who talked about and condemned the manosphere. Now it is more mainstream and calm people who are talking about the manosphere. Pretty much all “respectable” people are still condemning the manosphere and the theme is how can we as normal mainstream feminists undo the brainwashing that young men have fallen into based on young men consuming too much social media content. Though there is a bit of a voice saying that young men really are suffering in different ways and young men really do have some things to complain about but it is wrong for young men to blame women or try to take things away from women in order for the young men to elevate themselves. Maintaining the long standing claim that men are oppressors and privileged and to the privileged equal treatment feels like discrimination or an attack against them because it is a threat to the privileged status the dominant group previously enjoyed; standard feminist theory.
What is my theory as to why the manosphere has grown so rapidly in the past 15 years? You have to remember that feminism is degenerative; it gets worse and worse over time. Feminism is not the slightest bit stable as a social system. Ever since 1870 when feminism got started with the Married Women Property Acts family life and relations between men and women have been in a state of never ending deterioration so rebellion against feminism is inevitable as things can’t just deteriorate forever without some kind of self-protective instinct forcing people to rebel against that which is destroying them. Trying to explain why the rebellion started when it did and why the rebellion has moved at the speed with which it has moved is more difficult.
I am pretty confident saying that the serious rebellion against feminism with the birth of the manosphere started in or near 2010; importantly at the overall social functioning level 2010 is when the quality of marriage stopped deteriorating; me thinking it is not a coincidence that the political rebellion against feminism in the form of the beginning of the manosphere and the rise of the Republican tea-party movement leading to big wins for Republicans in the 2010 mid-term elections; that these political developments happened at the same time as the quality of marriage no longer declining.
Marriage no longer declining in quality after 2010 is a big deal in historical context because marriage continually declined in quality from 1870 to 2010; a 140 year trend that ended and reversed to some extent after 2010.
Is the manosphere the biggest challenge and the biggest threat to feminism since feminism got started in 1870? I would say yes; that social indicators finally moving in a positive direction in an important area of family life; the quality of marriage; that indeed the manosphere is the real deal, something that is powerful enough to reverse the trend of ever growing feminism that has held steady ever since 1870.
The bad news is that the quantity of marriage is continuing to decline relentlessly. The quantity of marriage has been declining continuously since 1960, or more precisely since 1955, and this decline in the quantity of marriage is ongoing.
From 1870 to 1960 (or 1955) the quality of marriage declined continuously but the quantity of marriage held steady not declining at all. From 1960 (or 1955) until 2010 the quality of marriage and the quantity of marriage both declined continuously. From 2010 up to the current day the quality of marriage has been steadily improving while at the same time the quantity of marriage has continued to steadily decline.
When the quantity of marriage stops declining that will probably be when the overall family situation will be clearly and definitely improving overall.
So what about the emergence of the manosphere in all this? I would say that the rise of the manosphere is probably both increasing the quality of marriage and decreasing the quantity of marriage at the same time right now. Basically the standards of what is an acceptable marriage are increasing and so it is both more difficult to be ready to get married and more rewarding to achieve marriage at the same time.
The manosphere is placing demands on women to be better women, non-feminist more traditional women, and in response to this women are rebelling against the greater demands manosphere men are placing upon them. On the other hand, the manosphere man placing more demands on women is leading women to place more demands on the manosphere man in return; demands the manosphere man in general is not yet ready to live up to. So this equates to marriage being more difficult to achieve and more valuable to achieve at the same time; this being consistent with the overall social statistics indicating that the quality of marriage is currently going up at the same time the quantity of marriage continues to go down.
The happy ending to this current conflict between young men and women is the young manosphere men becoming more competent and more traditional as men leading women to want to be with these newly successful and competent traditional men.
Related articles:
The emerging Political Divide between Young Men and Women
The 2010s was the Beginning of the End of Feminism
The Beginning of the God Revival among Secular People and Atheists
Secular Patriarchy 