The Rise Of WGTOW

“Women going their own way” is much more real than “men going their own way”

The Wall Street Journal proclaimed last week that American women are giving up on marriage.

Surveys of single adults found that only 34 percent of single women were looking for romance, compared with 54 percent of single men. Women are less likely than men to fear that no one wants to date them. A majority of single women claim they are happier than married women while only a third of men say the same. Nearly half of women say that marriage is not that important to a fulfilling life. Men under 30 are more likely to say that marriage is a core part of their American Dream than women under 30.

Traditionally, women were the ones pining for marriage and romance. Now the data says they’re going their own way. The reasons the WSJ offers for the change will be familiar to Highly Respected readers. More women are graduating from college, buying homes, and focusing on “personal development” than men. Younger women’s earnings are starting to outstrip that of their male peers. There’s also far less social pressure to marry; at the same time, people–particularly women–set higher expectations for potential partners.

The article further reinforces the growing power imbalance between young men and young women. Women are having it all while men fall behind. But women don’t really know what to do with this newfound power. We’ve never had a society with these dynamics before. People growing old without families is something that didn’t happen at a grand scale in the past. Now a lot of people are doing it, and women claim to be living their best life. This is likely cope, but women genuinely believe it.

This sounds awfully like the female version of MGTOW (men going their own way). MGTOW is an online trend where men vow to give up on women because they’re too feminist, focusing instead on looksmaxxing, AI girlfriends, and video games. This “movement” is more of a punchline than a real trend. There aren’t any indications men (at least the ones with options) are going their own way. Incels, as befitting the name, aren’t giving up romance by choice.

It’s more that the women are going their own way. It’s not an act of protest; it’s just simply how things work out. They have the power, the financial success, and the social support here. The men don’t.

Men aren’t going their own way—they’re being left behind. As a society, we don’t seem to care that much about this development. Occasionally, a major outlet will report on how men aren’t doing so well. But it never rises to the level of concern of, say, women experiencing low-self esteem over what they see on social media. No outlet would ever dare write about men’s complaints about dating. Only women’s complaints are heard and sympathized with. If a guy refuses to settle down, he’s a manchild who deserves to be shamed. If a guy can’t get a girlfriend, he’s an incel who deserves to be shamed. Or worse yet, if a man dates a younger woman, he’s basically a “pedophile” who deserves to be shamed. These guys would not receive glowing profiles from the Wall Street Journal.

The women profiled in the piece may have their shit together, but they are unbearable. One just needs to read their own stories to figure out why they struggle to find Mr. Right. These women, however, feel no need to change their behavior or settle for less than the exceptional. It’s the average guys who suffer here. As a recent Substack post argued, average men don’t have the cards. It would be logical to think an average guy with a college degree and a decent job would have a significant advantage on the dating market. There are fewer of them, so they would stand out. But that’s a mistake. Their competition is with other things women could be doing rather than with other guys. If a woman feels a guy isn’t up to her high standards, she’ll do something else with her time.

These women absolutely do not want to settle for average men. They only want exceptional men, regardless of how unexceptional they are. They will just be alone if they can’t find what they want. Guys are far more likely to settle. That’s why you see plenty of normal guys with behemoths for girlfriends. The looksmatching meme is real.

Average men are often encouraged to develop some special skill to make themselves stand out in the pack. That’s decent advice, but it does illustrate the power imbalance here. Men have to devote several hours to self-improvement and learning some skill just to land a date with a frumpy five. The average woman, on the other hand, doesn’t need to invest any time making herself more appealing. If she’s not obese, she has plenty of options and feels she has the cards. Society tells her she’s perfect just the way she; the problem lies with the men.

Men without options have to make due with insufferable women. High-value men don’t. They don’t want dates to be like interviews and they don’t want to be nagged to death about their views on the gender paygap. If they know they have options, they will not endure unceasing shittests.

High-value men operate on the dating market in a manner similar to most single women. They both develop “rosters” of potential dates, frequently ghost dates, and bounce around other options. The difference here is that when men do these things, it inspires an inquisition against the male offender. For women, it’s expected and they will ignore their own behavior to castigate cads.

This explains the attempted cancellation of liberal influencer Harry Sisson for the crime of… texting multiple women while being single. These women, like incels, felt entitled to date Sisson and him not doing so was a grave crime. If we flipped the genders here, no one would care because this is common practice for single women. The same can be said for the “West Elm Caleb” story from 2022. A bunch of women in New York City took to TikTok to attack a local man named Caleb for ghosting them. Somehow this became worthy of attention from serious news outlets. All of these women do the same thing as the pilloried Caleb, but we never have to worry about their jilted dates publicly shaming them. It’s bad form for men to do this.

Twisted dating dynamics explain why marriage is in decline. Women are beginning to hold more power and wealth in our society. There are fewer men around to meet their expectations. They are not going to alter their expectations to marry a janitor, or even just a guy who doesn’t check every box. They’ll just accept singlehood.

This isn’t all women, of course. The data still shows a majority of women want to get married and many of them will. But there are going to be an increasing number of unmarried adults in America. That will shape our society and politics. Already, we’re seeing serious gender polarization at the ballot box. That polarization will further accelerate as fewer men and women pair off together.

Conservatives pine for policies that will increase family formation. There are ideas to encourage families to have more kids, but there aren’t any proposals that can resolve the issues laid out in the WSJ report. Unless the government decides to boost the income of young men and decrease the earning power of women, these issues will stick around.

Most of the Right will still get this issue wrong. Conservative commentators will still endlessly whine about GOOD MEN scarcity, treat “redpill” content as a moral crisis, and encourage girlbossing among young right-leaning women. None of these things address the problems, but it does cater to the Simp Society.

And in that kind of society, average guys really are screwed.