Men Are Walking Away Worldwide - And Researchers Have a Problem With It

[00:00:00]Hey everybody, hope you're having a great day. Before I dive too far into today's discussion, I want to throw throw out an analogy. Let's say you've got a friend and that friend likes to go out to restaurants, nice restaurants, medium restaurants, some that are not so nice, whatever. A lot of times just take what you can get. And every time that friend goes to a restaurant, he or she, could be a she, gets a punch in the face right in the throat.

[00:00:25]So the friend comes to you and says, "Listen, man. Every time I go over here to this restaurant or that restaurant, 95% of the time I get a punch in the throat. All I do is I say hello when I walk in the door and they punch me in the throat. So you tell to your friend, listen, maybe just stop going to restaurants.

[00:00:43]So your friend thinks about it and considers, you know what, actually I could learn to be a better cook. I could go buy a grill and put it out on my deck or in my backyard and everything is peachy. But then the restaurant managers and the owners and the mayor and the city council, they get all angry. Why aren't you coming to our restaurant?

[00:01:01]Or what are you broke?

[00:01:03]What's wrong with you?

[00:01:06]So the analogy here, if you didn't already get it, is men going their own way. Megttow. And I know that that's a hyperbolic example, but it's exactly what a lot of us feel. And then imagine your friend realizing that, hey, you know what? This is happening in a town across the country as well. And holy it's happening in other countries.

[00:01:25]And that's the conversation I want to have today because MIGTOW, I can't necessarily say for how long because in a topic in and of itself, I haven't necessarily been following too closely in the past decade or so. But I do want to give this some perspective. I'm going to go through, I think, seven studies or um or re research examples in which Megttow has gone global and researchers are freaking the freak out.

[00:01:52]Not only are they freaking out, they don't know how to handle it. And we're going to get to those examples here in just a moment. So, thanks for being with me. If you're new, my name is Todd. I do research investigations like this. I expose a lot of the hypocrisy that has to do deal with gender issues. If you're new here, I would love to have you as a subscriber. Please let me know what you think of this content. Let's start.

[00:02:12]First, as I mentioned, I'm going to go through seven different sources. And what I'll do is this is not going to be a deep dive into them. I'm going to tell you just a little bit about obviously where it's from. I'll give you the title and what the authors or authors wanted to study, what they considered the was the problem briefly, what they found and what their suggestion is for for resolution. Right? So, I'm just going to go through these kind of as quickly as I can and then I want to wrap this up with some discussion obviously as I like to do. So, let's start first here in South Korea. This one is titled anti-feminism sentiments and marital desire among young men evidence from South Korea. Now here the authors perceived male victimhood is due to anti-feminism as I'm sorry to feminism as anti-feminist ideology that helps explain men's marital disinterest. So this is about why are men not getting married. So they explain hostility towards women, feminism, marriage and migtile style withdrawal as what the problems are. So what they did was they took results, survey results from just over 1,000 young Korean men and they assessed uh dimensions of anti-feminism, support for male superiority and perceived male victimhood that results as feminism.

[00:03:27]So they wanted to test any associations with attitudes towards marriage and intentions to marry. And what they found was perceived male victimhood. And by the way, I love it when they actually say or at least imply perceived male victimhood due to feminism was common and it was um and it predicted less favor favorable attitudes toward marriage. They also found support for male superiority predicting more favorable attitudes toward marriage and not significantly reducing intentions to marry. Sounds a little bit like mixed results to me. So here's their their proposed solution. They actually gave no direct intervention design to bring men back into marriage. They didn't give any suggestions at all. Instead, they just called for researchers and policymakers to take modern anti-feminism statements seriously as a variable regarding family formation and to test any associations even further regarding institutional and cultural context. So basically they just wanted to write this paper without actually adding to any way to to to resolve it.

[00:04:32]So the second one we have comes from Poland. This one is let's talk about single men a qualitative investigation of never married men's experience of of uh singlehood. So here they took in um the problem that they proposed was an involuntary singlehood as being a possible source of men's distress, reduced self-esteem, loneliness, emotional development, and a few other things. So what they did was they interviewed 22 never married and single men. 22 of them, I'm sorry, they were aged 22 to 43 and single for at least 6 months. And what they reported was that 18 of 22 men described some form of personal deficiency that they believed interfered with finding or maintaining a relationship. So that's 18 out of 22. 20 out of 22 described both advantages and disadvantages of being single. Those included things like autonomy and personal development along with the negative things like exclusion and concern about missing marriage or becoming a father at some point. 17 of the 22 discussed whether they should wait for a partner or actively pursue one. One of the their themes was that passivity is a protection against rejection. And their solution, as you could probably imagine with probably a lot of these, and it's very common throughout research, their solution is that psychotherapists, counselors, and educators help identify obstacles that they offer therapy or social skills to help you make you a better person. They also suggest helping men articulate romantic sexual needs, encouraging some uh degree of proactive searching and help men accept rejection.

[00:06:06][laughter] I I thought I was going to get through that with a straight face. Helping men to accept rejection and uncertainty.

[00:06:14]So instead of stopping and and and not punching that guy in the face anymore, [laughter] you're just going to tell him to accept the rejection and uncertainty as to whether [laughter] you're I I'm sorry. Accept the uncertainty as to whether you're going to get punched in the face. [laughter] Oh I wish I were making this stuff up. They also say that professionals should help men who prefer singlehood accept and build meaningful single lives. Well, I think if somebody has already moved on and accepted that they want to be single that they're okay and they don't need your help anyway, but thank you very much. So, this next one comes from Italy and Sweden. This one is called and I wish I were making this up as well.

[00:06:58]Their article is called Swallowing and Spitting Out the Red Pill. Now, how nasty is that? I as a professional a researcher and having published researcher I would uh research I would never consider publishing something that begins with swallowing and spitting out.

[00:07:14]Anyway, uh the subtitle here is young men vulnerability and radicalization pathways in the manosphere again from Italy and Sweden. Here what their problem was that the red pill involvement is a form of misogynistic radicalization. I don't know what y'all got going over there in Italy and Sweden, but it sounds actually pretty familiar with what's going on here in the United States. They have a problem such that men's vulnerability and relationship difficulties can make the ideology of red pill per pervasive and that it's treated as depending on hostility, rigid masculinity, and disconnection.

[00:07:50]All right, so keep in mind we're going around the globe here. So, what they did was they [laughter] I I I didn't want to laugh throughout this thing, but I'm just going to I'm just going to let go. Whatever. So, what they did was collect posts for 6 months from a Reddit community used by former Red Pill men. They analyzed written narratives about entering, participating in, and then eventually leaving the red pill or manosphere. And what they reported was that vulnerability is central to both entering and exiting the red pill manosphere. They also reported that men stated loneliness, insecurity, difficulty with relationship experiences, dise dissatisfaction with masculinity, and some other things like identity and control and things like that. Well, no You get punched in the face so many times when you say hello. Yeah, you're going to choose to be alone. Even if it's lonely, even if that's difficult in having friendships with other people.

[00:08:51]All right. So, their solution anyway was a prim they they primarily an an analytic study. All right. So, they didn't provide any detailed marriage or dating intervention at all. Again, this is one of those things that where they just wanted to get on Reddit, look at a whole bunch of comments, and write about it without offering any solutions. What they wanted to do is understand vulnerability and radaliza radicalization pathways and to understand uh disengagement so that healthier and more progressive masculine identities and routes to out of the manosphere could be supported. Again, no solutions. All they wanted to do on get uh was get on Reddit and publish in a journal. The next one, let's have a look at uh one of two from from the United States. This one is scarcity of college men and the decline in marriage among non-ol Americans. And this is one of those things I forget. I don't have it in my notes here wrote right now. I think this one was actually just recent 2025 or 2026. And I wish I I don't know how people continue to publish stuff like this because it's been published and published and published to death.

[00:09:56]But anyway, so what they were their [snorts] problem problem statement was all around declining employment earnings, freedom from incarceration, right? So men are incarcerated too much.

[00:10:06]Uh all of this necessarily around non-ol men and all of it being a constraint to marriage. So they had of uh one of the problems that they in introduced or mentioned was a reduced economic position makes the available pool of stable partners smaller. No right?

[00:10:22]How many times and for how long have we been hearing that? So what they did was take archival data, historical evidence on education, earnings, employment, incarceration, and marriage in the United States. They did a large administrative and um survey databases is what they looked like and compared marriage patterns across cohorts and and labor markets. Again, nothing new here at all. And what they reported was the growing female advantage in college enrollment has not substantially reduced marriage among college educated women.

[00:10:53]Big surprise, right? They also reported worsening outcomes or reduced outcomes for men without college and that that reduces their marriage prospects. again.

[00:11:01]No Sherlock. Their solution then was to continued uh geographic studies and policies that improve employment and other outcomes.

[00:11:10]You've heard all of this before. I'm just going to skip past some of this stuff. The second one we have from the United States is state of our unions 2026, the dating recession. Now, this isn't not necessarily a study. I think this one is more of a an organizational type report, a study of sorts. So again from the United States here their problem is that there is a dating recession. This organization is all about pro promoting marriage. Again some of their issues were broken pathways to marriage, low dating frequency, inadequate uh dating skills and confidence. You stupid jerks.

[00:11:45]Why are you so lacking so much confident after you get punched in the face? Just be more confident.

[00:11:52]Anyway, a couple of other things there that they did. So, they surveyed a little over 5,000 unmarried Americans ages 22 to 35. So, it's a younger group.

[00:12:00]And they focused on who said that they definitely maybe or possibly expected to get married. And what they reported was 30% reported currently dating, 31% uh percent, let's see, dated once a month or so, 64% of men, and 74% of women had not dated or had only a few dates in the past year. Again, I'm going to skip past some of this because it's stuff that we've heard from Pew Research and um a whole bunch of other place. So, their solution then is explicitly calling for efforts to revive dating and that includes again dating [laughter] dating education and practical skills help with resilience and rejection.

[00:12:43]Again, just be more resilient when you go to that restaurant and they punch you in the neck.

[00:12:48]Get used to the rejection. They also want um peer educators. They want structured social and speed speed [laughter] dating opportunities, lower date um costs said every man ever. Right. They also call for involvement by parents, counselors, religious leaders, influencers, public relations, education, funding for dating skills, funding for dating skills, lower housing and education costs, and a broader efforts to improve men's marriage ability. How's that a list for you? Hey, to fix this dating stuff, all we have to do is all of that. [laughter] Oh, hell. Uh, we're almost at the end here. This one coming from Chile, foregoing fatherhood. Why men are choosing not to have children again from Chile and here their issue was to identify voluntary men uh male childlessness. That's been neglected in the research because most childless uh research has been focusing on women. So this was almost entirely explanatory.

[00:13:54]Again, this was not done to help advocate for any policies, programs, systems, anything like that. So what they did was they had they did 20 semistructured interviews with childless men in Santiago, Chile and they were chosen um they chose permanent sterilization these men did as a strategy to avoid fatherhood. So they got snipped.

[00:14:16]I'm guessing they get snipped down there. I don't know what other option medical options they have. So what they found was um they men described autonomy, individualism, um enjoyment, personal passions and personal projects as important reasons for rejecting f uh rejecting fatherhood just like many of us here or many of you. I have I have children. They also talked a little bit about uh poverty, high uh high uh cost of living, fear of failing as a parent. Again, all of these reasons for avoiding or not wanting to be a father. and that men's decisions rise from a combination of both personal motivations and social and structural uh pressures. Again, as I mentioned, they also did not intend to provide any solutions here. It's just a to broaden scholarship and policy discussion.

[00:15:04]So again, no policy or no other recommendations here. They just wanted to say what they had to say. And the final one that we have from Japan here the title is have young people retreated from dating estimating the transition probabilies probabilities of the heterosexual relationship status.

[00:15:22]So here in Japan what they were interested in is whether the Japanese herbivore men that narrative accurately describes people young people's behaviors. And I'm not entirely familiar with this term over in Japan. So if I misquote or misrepresent this please somebody let me know. But apparently these are young men who are not necessarily unable to attract women but who are comparatively passive about romance, sex, dating, and marriage.

[00:15:46]Right? So they're not actively avoiding.

[00:15:48]They're just maybe agnostic, I guess you could say. So this study used statistical analyses between uh men who were single, having a romantic partner, and being married by birth cohort. And what they reported was that the herbivore men that that claim about young men broadly retreated from dating was not fully supported. So their solution was basically nothing. The author did not recommend any inter interventions or suggestions on ways to get men back into dating. Again, seeing a common theme here, right? All right.

[00:16:19]So the discussion when we take all of these together, these sources all show that this is not one isolated American trend and it's not one simple ideological movement. MGTTOW is global.

[00:16:30]If you have experiences, I know that there are a lot of expats on my in uh in my channel that watch my content. I'd love to know what you're experiencing, especially I don't know if you're going to be an expat expat in Italy or Sweden, but what's your experience? What are people saying u and what are you finding where you are? But across the six countries that we've just reviewed and the international manosphere, researchers are finding men who are less interested in dating, in marriage, and in fatherhood or who are struggling to see a viable path again back to those things. Yet the explanation, they all keep changing depending on on the source. Men are anti-feminists. They tell us they're vulnerable. They're economically uncompetitive. They're socially unskilled. They're afraid of rejection. They're afraid of getting that old boom boom when they go to the restaurant. They're overtly and overly individualistic or they're influenced by online communities. And I apologize ahead of time for being part of that problem. Not. All right. So, all of this is very striking to me. It's it's it it's striking in the fact that we continue to see how far this rabbit hole goes. That's what I mean by striking.

[00:17:39]and how often the proposed solution still requires men to change or just to start en enjoying that punch in the face. They all tell us that men need therapy by likely from women. They need better social skills to learn how to react better when you get punched in the face. They need more resilience. Go back and take another punch in the face. They need more confidence. They need to have a better job. They need higher income so that you can start going to the restaurants again. You broke jerk. And they also need a healthier masculine identity. Now, in the American dating report, the authors explicitly recommend dating education, as I mentioned, and efforts to improve men's marriage ability. The Polish researchers similarly recommended helping men become more proactive and I said as I mentioned, tolerant of rejection.

[00:18:30]That'll punch in the face.

[00:18:33]But nothing about women, institutions or society have been sh no no comments, no statements about how all of those things and entities have been on men since the 1970s or even before that. The red pill researchers acknowledge that men end up there in the manosphere after loneliness, after insecurity, relationship failures, and a sense that they can't meet the standards that people expect of them. They acknowledge that's why it's happening, but you think they offer them any solutions that maybe, hey, maybe we should stop punching these guys in the face. Maybe stop kicking them in the gonads.

[00:19:08]But ultimately, they all interpret those experiences through the language of radicalization and misogyny. Those words show up a lot in this material that I just went over. The South Koreans research follows a similar pattern by treating the belief that men are treated unfairly as as I mentioned perceived male victimhood and then linking that belief to lower interest in marriage.

[00:19:30]And this is where the discussions of migttow is absolutely backwards in research as well. To them, migttow is treated as the reason that men withdraw.

[00:19:37]Right? But think about back to this restaurant example. I didn't start cooking or your friend didn't start cooking at home or go out and buy the grill, set it up on the deck and having a good old time all by themselves by ourselves simply because there was a grill for us to purchase or because cooking lessons exist. No, we started doing those things because every time we go somewhere else to eat, we get punched in the face. So, we go someplace else that's more welcoming and accommodating for us. Right? So obviously guys don't first discover an ideology like red pill or migttow and then suddenly decide that relationships are dangerous and unrewarding. No, they learn that lesson first. First they get kicked in the balls and then they go their own way.

[00:20:19]It's not the other way around. And these dumbass researchers can tell men that they're damaged, radicalized, unskilled, economically inadequate, afraid of rejection, or that their social skills are horrible and they just need to man up. Which, by the way, I didn't even think about it as I was preparing for this. All of the learning how to deal and cope with all of this stuff. What they're really telling guys is is man up. And then we turn around and read a newspaper article or other research or we see on the news that that's toxic masculinity. But here we got all this freaking research telling guys get over it. Just figure out a way to deal with it. Learn how to be okay. So ultimately, if women in society want men to return to dating, marriage, and family life, even to have kids, then they've got to start being honest about what must change about the way that they are treating men. Stop punching them in the face. And until that happens, all of these proposed solutions, they amount to nothing more than trying to send men back into the same shitty conditions, restaurants, and relationships that we've already left. And we've discover that discovered that we're happy doing it. So listen, I hope that you enjoyed this one. Let me know your thoughts.

[00:21:23]I'll be back soon. Take care of