Yes, MGTOWs: There is some sympathy here for the devil.
You are absolutely correct that there is a great deal of pressure on men to marry and have families, and that men who choose not to do so are often treated with suspicion or worse. You are absolutely correct that even though all of the various philosophical subsets of feminism should support your choice to live as you wish, that many of the individual supporters of same will revert right back to their societal programming and urge you to "man up" and "settle down."
I know because I have seen it. And, to a lesser but still real extent, experienced something quite similar.
This open letter is to acknowledge that you do have a reason to be angry, and to urge you to find ways to move past that anger. You don't need to move past that anger for the same of women, society, or this little subreddit. You need to do it because right now, your anger and your need to seethe and marinate in it is the only thing holding you back from living as you wish. Not feminism, not the columnists on Jezebel, not that annoying bint at work who keeps trying to set you up with her single-mom sister and calling you a jerk who needs to man up and take care of those four kids by three different dads. (Yes, this is a thing that I have witnessed personally. I believe you when you say it's happened to you.)
For the record: You have a right to live your life as you see fit, as long as you are not hurting anyone else.
Now this is the part where I femsplain what I mean when I say the only thing in your way right now is you. Buckle up, Buttercup.
Ever since I was old enough to talk, I've known I didn't ever want to have kids of my own. Other little girls played with dolls; I played with Tonka trucks. Other little girls played House; I played War. I was horrified when I was told my future role was that of a mother. Before I was old enough to understand what birth control was, I figured I'd just have to live a life of celibacy.
I grew up. I grew older. Everyone around me insisted that I would HAVE TO have kids. The level of vitriol directed at me if I revealed I didn't want to...you wouldn't believe it.
Or maybe you would, at that.
I had to walk away from a marriage because of it. Oh, he was a shit for a lot of other reasons, but that was the thing that tore it for good: He'd been assured by all his family and friends that I would change my mind and give him babies. They were wrong. (And for the record, I didn't take a thin dime from him. I didn't even try.)
I doctor-shopped, trying to find someone to sterilize me, take this cup from my lips. More discrimination. I had doctors lie to my face, telling me it was illegal to sterilize a nulliparous woman my age. (NB: It isn't.)
I took to the Internet. In my searches, I found a number of message boards in which women and men alike swapped stories, shared the names and numbers of friendly doctors, described their procedures. All very useful stuff, to be sure, and hard to find elsewhere. (In fact, that's how I found the GYN who gave me my
Essure.)
The other thing they did was they ranted. Oh, how they ranted. It...got pretty ugly sometimes. They had their own weird little argot. People with kids got painted with a ridiculously broad, cartoonish brush. Every time a parent did something bad that made the news, there they were, breathlessly gloating about how all parents are like that.
Sound familiar?
Five years after my procedure, many of those same usernames are active, posting about "moos" and "duhs" and rejoicing about getting in front of a little kid in line for ice cream and hearing the kid cry.
Sound familiar?
Meanwhile, I got fixed. No more hormonal birth control! No more worrying! My career took off. I bought a sports car. I remarried, a man who also didn't want kids. My husband and I regularly go on expensive vacations.
Sometimes I'll see an opinion column bemoaning how so many women aren't having kids. Sometimes someone (NB: It's almost always a woman) will tell me right to my face that I'm not a "real woman" until I have kids. Or present me with a sheaf of research on getting my non-reversible procedure reversed. (Yes, this is a thing that happened. I bet you believe it, don't you?)
You know what I do? I chuckle. Because alea iacta est, and there isn't a goddamn thing they or anyone else can do about it.
It is "abnormal" to not want to pair up. But once we strip away the negative connotations of "abnormal," all we have is "exceptional." You are an exception. So go be exceptional.
ここには何もないようです