Women are outpacing men in college, they are taking on men’s jobs, and traditional gender roles are changing. 

If you've ever fallen down the rabbit hole of the internet and stumbled across the term MGTOW, congratulations! You've officially met the grumpiest men of the internet, who’re convinced we’re having a masculinity crisis (it’s actually a self-confidence crisis).

What Does MGTOW Mean? 

MGTOW stands for “Men Going Their Own Way”. While it may sound like the next big divorced-dad rock band, it is actually a group of men who vow to separate themselves from women, society, and common sense. It is yet another category of men perpetually disillusioned with their (lack of) success with the female variety. Sorry to disappoint. 

What is MGTOW?

MGTOW is a movement that believes that society is so corrupted by feminism, that the only logical response is to go off-grid. Dating, marriage, kids? These guys want nothing to do with it. Hell, they’ll even avoid being in the same room as a woman if they can help it. Through online forums, memes, manifestos, and conspiracy theories, they maintain their club alive. These are the rules:

• Feminism is a virus: MGTOWers believe modern “Western” society has been corrupted by feminism. Their “proof”? That they don’t get any matches on Tinder with L.A. ladies but maybe a lot in Southeast Asia (ahem.)
• Feminism is evil: to them, feminism works to disproportionately discriminate men.
• Keep away from women like they’re the plague: To escape from this perceived societal demise, these dejected MGTOWers think the solution is to withdraw completely from society, avoid interactions with women or men who are feminist sympathizers, and any other culture they perceive as feminist. 
• Guilty until proven innocent: MGTOWers think all people and cultures are feminist until proven otherwise. They are paranoid and defensive.

At its core, MGTOW is a cocktail of male supremacy, anti-feminism, with a sprinkle of good old-fashioned misogyny. To them, feminism is a vast, sinister conspiracy that’s turned modern society upside down, making men the real victims. Women fighting for equal pay is just an alimony trap for these people.

How Did MGTW Start?

The MGTOW movement started in the early 2000s when men took to blogging their woes about feminism, for example the No Ma’am blog from 2001. These disillusioned men wrote about their desire to separate from a society that, allegedly, systemically favored women against men. Things escalated in the 2010s, when memes, YouTube rants, and testimonials made the ideology go viral — even social scientists wanted to have a go at inspecting this strange breed of man. 

In 2014, Milo Yiannopoulos wrote an article for Breitbart, describing the behaviors of the MGTOWers: men retreating from society, locking in to their computers, and replacing having a real girlfriend for substance abuse, video games, and internet pornography. This article helped terms like “MGTOW”, “Men Going Their Own Way” and “Sexodus” become popular, making the MGOTW movement “attractive” (that’s as close to sexual appeal as these guys are ever going to get).

Naturally, with great fame comes great banishment. In 2021, Reddit finally pulled the plug on r/MGTOW for violating its policies — which the group took as “proof” of feminist oppression.

What Does MGTOW Stand For?

The MGTOW stand for the total rejection of women, using isolation tactics. While incels want to plot revenge against women and trick them into sex, MGTOWers seem to want to dodge them altogether. MGTOWers follow a lifestyle that is conveniently divided into levels of increasing distance between the genders:

1. Level 1: The “Red Pill” – It’s for those who understand “the truth” about feminist corruption, but that won’t change their behavior or participation in society.

2. Level 2: The “Purple Pill” – No cohabiting, no marrying, but maybe a one-night-stand.

3. Level 3: Total Withdrawal – No interactions with women. Ever. Just bros, beef jerky, and YouTube.

4. Level 4: Hermit Mode – Goodbye society! These men are living off-grid, jobless, and paranoid to avoid the festered feminist wound that is society. They call it “Going Monk”, and honestly, they’re doing us a favor.

While MGTOW might sound like a parody or satire, some members take things dangerously far. In April 2025, self-proclaimed MGTOW Owen “Oz” Lawrence injured two women using a crossbow in the UK. He had ranted on Facebook one hour right before the attack. This underlines the darker side of MGTOW: these are real men; their short-sightedness and propensity for real-world violence (verbal or physical) must be taken seriously.

In short, the MGTOW are a sect of masculine victimhood, with a refusal to engage with reality. With some luck, maybe we won’t see them emerge from the mountains (or the internet) for a while.

Conservative men who like a trad wife are not MGTOW men. Women are part of Western society, folks. And you should be happy about that, because the involvement of women is of the explanation of why the West is so much better than anywhere else in the world. That's why people from all over the planet pick the West to immigrate to, and not the other way around.