Welmer’s recent post, “Stop Looking for a Wife, You Won’t Find One” was an excellent, if somewhat depressing, accounting of the present state of women and their inability to become wives in the fullest sense of the word. The evidence of their failures as a sex are all around us: stratospheric female-initated divorce rates, high crime rates, rising rates of autism, the ever-expanding welfare state, underperforming boys, and promiscuous girls. Clearly, not only in Welmer’s article but in many of our own personal experiences, we see that women have fallen quite short of the wifely ideal in their discharging of their family, home, and childrearing responsibilities, their deeds and misdeeds fomenting not a little earthly misery. Clearly, I am being blunt in my indictment of their performance. Clearly, they have failed to uphold their end of the social bargain. All this we know, and the objective evidence overwhelmingly supports this conclusion.
To such an indictment, the feminists–who, as credit to their tactical/strategic skill, have assimilated nearly the whole of the female sex–would surely object. “What about you men?” they would surely cry, in a predictable attempt to divert attention from the failings of women to the defects of men. They would surely claim that divorce rates are high because we men are insufferable as marriage partners, that crime is high because we men are out-of-control monsters, rapists, murderers, and wife batterers. They would surely claim that the state is large because men control it and men love power above all else, that underperforming boys underperform because they are undisciplined, and that promiscuous girls are victims of male attempts at slut-shaming or are victims of predatory older men. Clearly, they would say, men are such poor performers that women would do better to ‘do family’ on their own.
It would appear, then, that MRAs and feminists are at loggerheads, that we will have to “agree to disagree”, if our two camps are to get along at all. They will not help us change things for the better; they are quite happy with the status quo, a status quo that we men quite rightly wish to overturn because it is harmful to our interests and that of our children.
So overturn we must. Our own individual welfare, as well as that of our children depends upon it. How do we do that, though, when the problems of of marriage 2.0, of virulent feminism, of a culture that devalues, degrades, and destroys men and steals their labors, even enslaves them, seem to big, too intractable for just one man or a small group of men to change?
MGTOW is an outstanding start. At its core, MGTOW encourages men to strike out on their own, to chart their own paths, to be self-contained. To ignore the beseeching of a society that cares little for male welfare except where it bolsters female welfare. To spurn the diktats of those that seek to exploit men for their own purposes. MGTOW encourages men to tend their own gardens, and ignore the weed-choked gardens that are outside of their control. However, MGTOW, while it trains men to free their minds from the boxes society constructs for them, is insufficient to sustain the sort of change that we men wish to see. It too easily defaults to narcissism, to selfish hedonism. Something more is needed to sustain a movement, to secure the changes that we seek.
That something is a revolution. A revolution in values, of culture, of conduct. A revolution that seeks to restore men’s rightful place in the home and in society. And it starts with us. From the bottom up, a narrow focus on getting our own houses in order. Thus while the gardens of our neighbors are overrun with thistles and vines, we focus on the world we can affect. We train ourselves–and our sons and daughters, if we have control or influence over them–to be the change we wish to see in others. we men must cultivate the skills and characteristics that make good husbands…which happen to also be the same characteristics that make for good men and good citizens. Integrity. Courage. A work ethic. Righteousness. Ethical treatment of others. Chastity. Restraint. Responsibility. Faith. Leadership. These values define what men were intended to be, the ideal toward which each of us should aspire.
Note that this revolution would likely mean an end to socially sanctioned PUA behavior. Sorry all you footloose and fancy free players. The Roissyites have served us very well by demonstrating to all–MRAs, feminists, Joe Sixpacks–that women did not deserve their pedestals, their “pussy passes”, their “sentencing discounts”. The Roissyites have done a superb job in demonstrating that women can be just as depraved, as rakish, as promiscuous as men. In fact, women as a sex have shocked many in how quickly they have demoted themselves to mere animals in both thought and deed. However, while the Roissyite set has provided an invaluable social service with their education of the manosphere and the culture at large of the evo-psych nature of the female sex, I do not think that revolutionary men can any longer can tolerate their immoral and unethical behaviors, as we endeavor to re-train our brothers (and later, our sisters) in what it means to conduct oneself in a civilized manner.
Civilization requires one thing above all from the male, a trait that–I’ll be frank here–has been especially lacking from the male sex these days. That trait is leadership. We men have abdicated our God-given rightful throne in the family and have let our women assume control. It is time to take it back. It is time to train a generation of men who know how to lead, who expect to lead, and who feel comfortable doing so. It is time to train a generation of men who know the truth and are unafraid to boldly act accordingly. So equipped, a generation of leaders will naturally be respected by women; so impressed by these new men, women will be inspired to follow as they are naturally inclined to do. As they were created to do.
A key feature of this revolution in leadership, men returning once again to the masculine, is where women figure into the picture. Contra feminists, even more introspective ones like Camille Paglia, masculinity does not come out of femininity, or result from rebelling against the feminine. Authentic masculinity is independent of women , and can–maybe even should, in some cases–be cultivated without a woman in sight, in spite of social scaffolding that not only inhibits its development and employment but actively attacks it and seeks to substitute feminized masculinity for the real thing.
Please note, reader, that this call for men to reclaim true masculinity so that they may then become better leaders, husbands, fathers, and citizens is not a call for men to meekly submit to the yoke of exploitation by alpha males, their harems, the matriarchal State and its harem, feminists, and beta male enforcers of the alpha hegemony. Far from it; one can prepare himself for leadership, live righteously, and still be wise as a serpent about the burdens he voluntarily assumes. In fact, I think it critical that revolutionary men be quite discriminating in the obligations that he takes on, given the socio-political facts on the ground. If called to marry, he may acquire a bride-cum-wife if he finds one qualified for the job. Children if he is called to do so. A house and all the consumerist trappings if he desires them. Otherwise, the revolutionary-restoration man would be well heeled to avoid entanglements with women (avoiding chilimony and sexual harassment, rape, and IPV charges), with possessions (avoiding debt slavery and taxation) and, by living uprightly, avoiding entanglements with the State and its enforcement apparatus. His freedom is his most prized possession, and righteous, upstanding living–to include, first and foremost, keeping his zipper closed–is the best way to guarantee it.
Welmer’s “Wives” article decisively made the case that wives are difficult to find, so hard to locate that we fellows may not find it worth our while to even look. To his thesis I add that that wives are often beside the point, when the real struggle, the real search is for each of us, is to reclaim masculinity for ourselves and, more importantly, transmit it to our brothers and to our children.
Below are the lyrics to a song titled “Lead Me” by Christian band Sanctus Real (HT Laura Grace Robbins for bringing this song to my attention) that I think succinctly summarizes the call to action for us men:
I look around and see my wonderful life
Almost perfect from the outside
In picture frames I see my beautiful wife
Always smiling
But on the inside, I can hear her saying“Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can’t
Don’t leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, what about us?”Show me you’re willing to fight
That I’m still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone.”I see their faces, look in their innocent eyes
They’re just children from the outside
I’m working hard, I tell myself they’ll be fine
They’re independent
But on the inside, I can hear them saying“Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can’t
Don’t leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, what about us?”Show me you’re willing to fight
That I’m still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone.”
What this world needs is the same thing our families need–for us men to lead, if not explicitly as husbands and fathers, then as those who do their parts to clean up the social ecology around us by acting in a manner befitting of men, with integrity, courage, and righteousness.
I’ll close with this prayer that my brothers read and internalize this post in the manner that it was offered…as a constructive critique meant to encourage introspection and critical self-assessment, and not as a spear thrown by someone on the outside with no skin in the game and who doesn’t necessarily have our best interests at heart. I exhort each of us men to set our eyes on the prize: a prize that each of us should seek to achieve and bequeath to our heirs: a world better than that which we presently find ourselves.
About the author: EW is a well-trained monkey charged with operating heavier-than-air machinery. His interests outside of being an opinionated rabble-rouser are hunting, working out, motorcycling, spending time with his family, and flying. He is a father to three, a husband to one, and is a sometime contributor here at Spearhead. More of his intolerable drivel is available at the blog The Elusive Wapiti.
