The Great Opt-Out

Not to mention that the annual tally of American births slumped to well below replacement rate a while back, and has kept right on dropping ever since, with nary a sign of recovery to be seen.

No Wonder Men Are Opting Out
The warning signs have been there for decades. Back in 1983, American author Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a powerful book — The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment — arguing that a male revolt was underway. Since the 1950s, she suggested, men had begun rebelling against the breadwinner ethic, inspired by Playboy culture, the counterculture and a desire for personal freedom. They were rejecting the cultural ideology that had shamed them into tying the knot and becoming a good provider, lest they be seen as immature, irresponsible and less than a real man.

Ehrenreich understood that marriage was the mechanism by which society harnessed male productivity. Remove the shame and the yoke comes off.

Forty years on, the yoke has disappeared. In April 2026, the American male labour force participation rate hit its lowest level since records began in the 1940s, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics. One in three American men — roughly 33% — were not working or actively looking for work. The overall male participation rate for men aged 16 and over stood at just 67%, down from 73.5% two decades ago and from 87% in the postwar years when Ehrenreich’s story begins.

The trend is not confined to America. Similar declines — though less dramatic than in the United States — have occurred in the UK, Australia and Canada.

The marriage collapse runs in lockstep with the workforce data. According to US Census Bureau data, married-couple households made up 71% of all US households in 1970; today it’s just 47%. As University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox documents in his 2024 book Get Married, the marriage rate has fallen 65% in the last half century.

Ehrenreich had made the argument that marriage and productivity were inseparable — that the same mechanism which got men to the altar got them to work. The data suggest she was right.

Follows, a dismal recitative of just how seriously godawful modern, hyper-Feminazi-ized American dames really are, after which gruesome litany the Big Q drops like an H-bomb:

What rational man reads this list and thinks: yes, that’s exactly what’s been missing from my life?

Why, I’m sure that LOTS of men would say that they…that is, there’s gotta PLENTY of men who…oh dammit, hold everything; she said RATIONAL men, didn’t she?

Awwww, sheeeeiiiit. Never mind. */Emily Litella voice*

Y’all realize, don’t you, that one of Communism’s first and foremost imperatives calls for the destruction of the traditional nuclear family, right? That no less a shambolic Red-toothed drunkard than ol’ Karl hisself considered this destruction to be no less essential an ingredient in the establishment of World Communism than the official State injunction against religious belief; faith-related totems, icons, texts, and other sacred paraphernalia; church buildings themselves; and/or worship services?

I dunno, must be a weird coinkydink or sump’in, I guess. Why, it couldn’t possibly be that the above-cited procedural guidelines and/or requisite preconditions amount to a kinda-sorta Prime Directive from whence Beastly Benito’s well-known “Everything within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State” formulation derived. I mean, could it?!?

Sheesh. From all that, our aformentioned Reasonable Man (if you can find one at this point) might well conclude that the Almighty Superstate simply abjures competition altogether, in and of itself; views ANY kind of competition as an enemy, a constant, deadly threat; and will never, EVER tolerate such a noxious weed taking root and growing within it. Indeed, the Superstate wiill stick at naught to rip competition from its national soil completely, at the first hint of its presence therein.

By these fruits shall ye liberty-minded know the tyrannical nature of thine government, howsoever vehemently it may proclaim to the contrary. By these lights shall ye descry whether you remain citizens, or have instead been reduced to hapless subjects under said government—no longer Masters of your so-called Public Servants, but groveling, forelock-tugging Servants to them.

Which, in turn, posits a Big Q of its own—the Biggest of them all, the Question which no liberty-minded person can afford to pretend he doesn’t hear.

And then we come to this amusing/annoying/infuriating passage:

“The online feminist scene often feels like one long group therapy session for women to compare notes on how awful men are,” she writes, suggesting this makes men the universal scapegoat, where ordinary male behaviour is routinely framed as toxic or oppressive, while women’s collective resentment is rewarded and amplified. “Casual, low-level male-bashing has become the background hum of progressive online culture.”

Not only does this toxic climate encourage women to be wary of men, but growing up in a hate-fuelled online sewer takes a toll on their mental health. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has long been warning that the toxic world of social media would lead to a rise in mental health problems, particularly in girls and young women. “Since the early 2010s, young people across the developed world are becoming more anxious, depressed and lonely. The increases were even greater in young women,” he said.

Recent large-scale surveys (Ipsos 202-–2026 across 31 countries, Gallup 2025) are showing Gen Z women currently report the highest recorded levels of anxiety, persistent sadness, hopelessness and depression of any female generation at the same age.

Awww, my heart bleeds for you, sweetcheeks. I promise, it really, truly does.

By the by, that faint, squeaky-scrawky sound you may be hearing is me playing Hearts And Flowers on the world’s smallest violin, in expression of my sympathy for your (self-created, utterly pointless) plight.

Awright, awright, AWRIIIIGHT. You want it, you got it—the cold, stony-hard truth and nothing but: serves you dumb fucking Feminazi termagants right for all me, and tough noogies. I have precisely Zero Fucks Left To Give y’uns over here. Now go soak in the depressing bathtub of tears, desperation, boxed-wine, loneliness, and dissatisfaction Uncompromising Feminist Principle long ago drew for ya, whydon’tcha.

If you aren’t in the mood for a bath right this minute, you could go grind out another sweaty, exhausting hour or perhaps two working out at Planet Fitness instead. Warm up with twenty minutes on the stationary bikes, then hit the Nautilus machines whilst checking out your taut bod and smiling at your reflection in the wall mirrors (any old-school Iron Pile musclehead will tell you that REAL gyms don’t have mirrors and machines; only fancy-schmancy, pretentious “fitness centers” do).

After the rough stuff, it’s off downstairs to the always-crowded Olympic-size pool for some laps, thus completing the actual work-out portion of the festivities. You hit the showers, towel yourself (somewhat) dry; get back into street duds, stagger on legs of rubber back up the stairs and out the main exit to the unlit parking lot, where you climb stiffly, even painfully, into your anonymous grey Toyota for the short dash home. “Home” being the word you grossly overstretch to cover the silent, dark, shockingly overpriced, dispiriting Studio (one 300 sq ft room, one bath, kitchenette in the main room) on the 18th floor of a new high-rise apartment/condo tower located in a decidedly dodgy neighborhood in which you *cough-cough* “live.”

All, y’know, by yourself.

Oops, sorry, my bad; didn’t mean to dump all that grief over your head out of the clear blue like that. Whichever meaningless tail-chase you decide upon as a distraction from your sad, unfulfilling reality tonight, just know I’ll be having a high old time laughing my baggy, happily-single old ass silly over here, thanks.

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