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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026

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couch their argument in terms of power imbalances rather than a lack of commitment.

Well, the argument being couched that way merely conceals the complaint about a lack of commitment; gynosupremacists feel entitled to male commitment.

"Power imbalance" is the way they legitimize that entitlement, as the power imbalance has favored the woman in any relationship for the past 50 years or so. Compare "eat the rich" (and the people who say it); in both cases, it's just a fight over whose version of entitlement is enforced at gunpoint.

I've always adopted the approach that whether we're talking about employment, gender relations, family, interpersonal interactions, whatever it is, if you want to live and be independent of the group that's your right to do so, but you in turn receive no benefit by your lack of membership in it.

If I and other men are implicitly held to be responsible for how the men around us behave, such that it's our job to keep them in line so women feel comfortable and happy going about their business, then they're in turn obliged to follow men's rules at the end of the day. I can fully understand why a woman wouldn't like to constantly live her life in deference to men, but there's no good alternative around this. The only other way to live is by accepting the risk that your independence makes you fair game for anybody and everybody. If we have to compete and you wind up getting in a fucked up situation, you signed onto this, so don't ask me to have pity for you. Despite what others told you, you knew what you were getting yourself into. Every man understands this in his dealings with other men.

If you're complimentary to me, then I obviously owe you certain rights and privileges in virtue of our obligations to serve out the roles we carry for one another. If you're my equal then you're a competitor to me in all aspects of life and your misfortune and pain is a natural consequence of "losing" in the game of survival we're playing. The fact that you lost isn’t proof of your innocence, all it proves is that you’re weaker than me. Sorry, but that's how it is. Life is full of trade offs.

A lot of what men deal with in life they figure out through difficult experience, trial and error. Life is a catch-22 for us because if I don't go to work, I starve. For women (yes, not all of them), plenty of these choices are optional, such that you don't 'have' to work if you don't want to. Or at least has hard as a man does. Women have options where men often have no choice. So a lot of the bad choices women end up making for themselves are expressions of their desire to engage in that activity; and so they’re there by choice. So when you end up getting "burned," you aren't a "victim," you're simply an idiot.

Every man understands this in his dealings with other men.

Sorry, what exactly is the "this" here? Every man understands that they're signing up to compete and potentially get fucked up?