A growing component in the feminist take over of Paganism is to promote the feminizing of boys. Many articles on sites like Patheos, the Covenant Of Unitarian Universalist Pagans and even The Wild Hunt call to “Teach boys feminism to eliminate toxic masculinity”. This tactic of inventing the term “Toxic masculinity” was first used by monotheistic religions. In order to push your alien morals and ideals on a population, you must first demonize the native traits that would give any opposition to your agenda. Pagan cultures revere sexuality as a sacred part of life, so christianity invented “Original sin” where by all are guilty of an evil by birth and only the christian church can save it. The people are literally shamed into seeking salvation they never needed to begin with. Toxic masculinity is the exact same thing. Feminism teaches that all boys are born evil because they have toxic masculinity and that only feminism can purge them of this evil and replace it with “Feminized masculinity”.

But just as many are shamed into the new religion, a growing number of boys and men are starting to see the truth behind the facade pushed on them. Many due to the growing Mens Rights Movement and MGTOW, but there are also many who chose to look behind the curtain because of feminism’s own chauvinistic superiority stance. One such young man was Gled Poole, a self described “Lapsed Male Feminist”.

Poole, a columnist from the UK who wrote this piece for the Telegraph entitled “Boys should have the right to say no to feminism.” Poole is a self-described “lapsed male feminist.” In the column, he describes how he came to reject mainstream liberal feminism. He recalls hearing a speech by a feminist in which she declared that she was proud of her femaleness and femininity and refused to apologize for being a woman. Her sentiment was greeted with applause and praise – even by Poole himself.

Later, Poole got thinking – what if a man said something similar about masculinity? From the column –

However, as a straight, white male from working-class roots living a fairly middle-class lifestyle (a demographic one of my mates describes as “half-classed”), I’m left wondering if there is a stage anywhere in the world where a young man could be applauded for saying:

“I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my maleness and for my masculinity and I want to respected in all of my maleness because I deserve to be!”

It may sound comical but in a truly egalitarian world we would welcome such declarations of male and female empowerment with parity. And yet my personal experience of the feminist worldview that dominates gender politics, is that rather than encourage the empowerment of men, it expects us to apologise for our maleness, our masculinity and our manhood.

So the day I gave up apologising for being my own man – both to socially-conservative traditionalists and to progressive, liberal feminists – was the day I became an unapologetic, card-carrying non-feminist.

From there, Poole explains that boys and men are “evangelized” into feminism by being made to feel ashamed of their masculinity. Feminists teach that masculinity is a difficult ideal to achieve and that forces men and boys into a “hard, small cage” and somehow, embracing feminism is how they break free of that cage. Yet, feminists turn around and demand that people accept their perfect version of feminism – one that has very little room for disagreement or individual adaptation. Basically, if feminists think you’re doing feminism wrong, then you are wrong –

The real problem for feminism is it can’t control what men and boys think, feel and say when we speak out about gender issues.

In her brilliant TED talk, [feminist Chimamanda Ngozi] Adichie acknowledges that gender can be an uncomfortable conversation and like many missionaries before her, she seeks to place a limit on the topics that savage, non-feminist boys should be allowed to discuss.

“Some people will say, ‘well, poor men also have a hard time’ and this is true, but this is not what this conversation is about,” she says.

Oh really? Who decided that only feminist matriarchs get to choose what conversations men and boys can and can’t have about gender?

He’s got a point there.

Poole also takes on the feminist argument of the “fragile male ego” – how men supposedly feel slighted if they aren’t considered “man enough” in certain things. But then he also points out that there is also a “fragile female ego” and that it’s taken the form of the demand for “trigger warnings” (which made me laugh, because he’s so darn right about that!) –

It’s also my experience that feminism – with it’s trigger warnings and its fundamentalist belief that “we should all be feminists” – is the embodiment of a fragile female ego that is incapable of accepting that anyone else (especially men and boys) should be entitled to the privileged position of being considered vulnerable, sensitive and worthy of protection.

Bingo!

Poole also has a ten-minute TED Talk at the sourcelink, which was a treat to watch if you have the time to do so. It’s nice when a former feminist – male or female – sees the kind of problems you run into when you’re trying to hold up one gender over the other. Equality isn’t about shoving men down while lifting women up. It should be about lifting both men and women up. And Glen Poole gets it!