The men are revolting

I listen to two podcasts hosted by rabid, hate filled men. I do this because the subjects of their podcasts is not politics so their rabid, hate-filled side rarely comes to the surface. One, Creek of the Week, is about Dawson's Creek  and the the other, Beyond Yacht Rock, is about music I hated when it was new but have come to love. There are two things about these shows I find a little off-putting but can easily overlook. One is the regular tirades against politics and people the hosts hate and fear. The other, and this is a bit odd, is the constant stream of really vulgar commentary. In fact, I occasionally find myself laughing along with the vulgar jokes. As I listen to my podcasts in bed as I fall asleep at night, I have to laugh quietly and I manage this but sometimes I laugh so hard the bed shakes.

Last week, I played the Beyond Yacht Rock podcast for my wife as we were on vacation. When it got really vulgar I said to her, in case you've eve wondered what locker-room talk is actually like, it's like this. I said that because women tend to have an erroneous notion of what locker-room talk is like, a subject for another day.

Anyway, it hit me this morning that this attitude, which seems more and more common on the left and the right, is part of a growing man rebellion. I know, I know, I'm late to the party. Others have been writing about men being on strike and so forth for years. Most notably, Dr, Helen, whom I quoted yesterday, has written a book about it. Her argument, however, is about men being own strike and a strike is something that happens when you mean to return to work. I think something far more basic has happened—men have told women to take this job and shove it. They quit.

Our society has lost the power to manipulate men. This will have huge ramifications. I think women are already feeling the impact of this.

Case in point. I was listening to a feminist podcast I like called Stuff Mom Never Told You. A recent episode (August 11) dealt with a fairly extreme male movement called Men Going Their Own Way. These are men who refuse to enter into committed relationships, refuse to earn any more than they need to survive and refuse to engage with society. I suspect it's a pretty small, fringe movement. So how are feminist podcasters going to deal with this? I was expecting mockery and fear, fully expecting to hear the expression "white supremacist" applied to them. Instead there was a mixture of alarm and sympathy. The two women hosting the podcast ended up showing a lot of sympathy for these men, allowing that they did have grievances. Their only real counter argument was that the men were taking the wrong approach by dealing themselves out. They argued, I'm not making tis up, that men should embrace feminism instead because that is where they will find real freedom.

I suspect that what had the two hosts, Emilie Aries and Bridget Todd, sense that the Men Going Their Own Way movement, while small and a little silly, represents something much larger. Men are less interested in entering into committed relationships with women and, as a consequence, much less committed to the larger society around them. That spells TROUBLE. And they don't have the foggiest notion what to do about it.