In contemporary discourse, very few topics are as fiercely debated or as grievously misunderstood as the so-called “gender war.” Popular narratives paint a picture of a battlefield where women, newly liberated by modernity, have forsaken tradition, seeking power, validation, and promiscuity with the top echelon of men, or men closer to that class. Meanwhile, men are portrayed either as emasculated “simps” languishing in bitterness or as ruthlessly ambitious aspirants clawing their way into the elusive 1%. And, of course, homosexuals are portrayed as largely free from this rancour. This narrative, while not wholly without basis, is, I argue, a profound misreading of the real conflict at play. The truth is both older and more unsettling: the real gender war is not between men and women. It is, and has always been, a war of men against men.
Understanding this requires us to look beyond contemporary grievances and interrogate the very structures underpinning modernity; structures largely created and maintained by a narrow elite of men. As I will argue, a postmodern lens reveals why our perceptions of this conflict are now more fragmented, distorted, and manipulated than ever before. It is an unfortunate tendency of the human mind to simplify complex phenomena into binaries: good vs. evil, conservative vs. progressive, man vs. woman. The “gender war” discourse is a casualty of this impulse. It has fueled the rise of the “manosphere; controversial figures like Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, Myron Gaines, Sneako, GehGeh and others. Influencers who, depending on one’s view, either guide or bully lost and angry young men (the so-called “incels” and “simps”) on how to become “Top Gs” or alpha males.
This reduction of complex social, economic, technological, and psychological transformations into simple stories of betrayal and victimhood blinds us to the deeper reality. Men blame women for embracing a culture they neither fully created nor fully control, and women, in turn, blame men for failing to “keep up.” Yet history is not simply a story of clear-cut causes and effects. It is the story of systems, structures, and struggles, often invisible to those trapped within them. The structures that have reshaped gender dynamics; from social media algorithms to the omnipresence of pornography, were not the invention of women. They were almost exclusively the creation of a small minority of powerful men. Thus, the real battle lines have been tragically misidentified.
First, let us consider the digital landscape; the great architects of modern social life. Mark Zuckerberg founded and dominates Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp); Twitter (now X) was purchased and reshaped by Elon Musk. Meanwhile, the pornography industry, with its overwhelming ownership, production, and distribution by men, continues to thrive. Each of these platforms has systematically altered human relationships, particularly romantic and sexual dynamics. Instagram, with its emphasis on visual perfection and social status, created an attention economy where a minority of individuals, often women, command the gaze and validation of millions. Tinder and its derivatives weaponized appearance into a cold economic marketplace. Pornography divorced sex from intimacy, commodifying the human body into infinitely consumable images.
None of these forces emerged naturally or neutrally. They were constructed, intentionally or not, by men. Thus, it is a bitter irony that so many young men now rail against women for adapting to a world that a few powerful men designed. The complaint that “women today think they have unlimited options” misses the deeper point: They do; but only because technological systems created by elite men made such illusions possible. We no longer live in reality itself but in a simulated “hyperreality,” where images and symbols take precedence over substance. Social media is the purest expression of this hyperreality. Relationships are mediated not by authentic human connection but by curated personas, filtered photographs, and algorithmically enhanced desirability.
In this simulated world, traditional courtship collapses. The average man is no longer competing within his local village or community; he is competing against an endless stream of digitally enhanced rivals, visible to the woman he admires at the swipe of a finger. The “gender war,” therefore, is not merely a sociological phenomenon; it is the postmodern collapse of relational reality itself. Expectations are no longer grounded in the tangible but in the idealized simulacrum. And crucially, this new reality was architected not by women, but by a handful of extraordinarily powerful men.
To see this war for what it truly is, we must abandon the illusion of solidarity among men. Throughout history, it has not been “men” as a monolith who ruled, but a narrow band of elite men who ruled over other men. The Roman aristocracy, the medieval lords, the industrial magnates of the 19th century, all understood a fundamental principle: the surest way to maintain power is to divide those beneath you. Today’s division is more insidious because it is psychological. The proliferation of pornography, the distortion of social values, and the promotion of hedonistic consumerism are not merely profitable industries, they function, whether by deliberate design or emergent effect, as tools of control.
A man consumed by endless dopamine cycles of pornography, masturbation, lust, envy and despair is not a threat to the status quo. He is pliable and easy going. He buys products he doesn’t need. He remains politically impotent. He blames women, not structures of power, for his suffering. If you were among the top 0.1% of men, would you not prefer it this way? Would you not subtly encourage the conditions that keep other men weakened, distracted, and forever competing for illusions?
Even the modern image of the “strong, independent woman” the corporate feminist, the social media influencer, the hyper-assertive ideologue must be viewed with nuance. At first glance, it appears to represent a seismic shift in gender power. But upon closer inspection, much of it was facilitated and amplified by corporate interests, largely male-dominated, who saw financial advantage in promoting certain narratives. The encouragement of women to prioritize careers over families, for example, was not purely a humanistic endeavour; it may have served to double the labor force, increase tax revenue, and expand consumer markets. Nevertheless, this is not to deny the genuine strides toward gender equality, which are both real and laudable. Nor is it to imply that women are mere passive recipients of change. Women have exercised agency throughout history, from suffrage movements to workplace revolutions to cultural shifts in norms around sexuality and marriage. Yet the broader architecture within which these changes occurred remains, for the most part, male-dominated.
Thus, when we strip away the illusions, the real war comes into focus: It is not men versus women nor is it masculine versus feminine. It is the elite few men versus the vast majority of men. The conditions and realities of modernity were constructed not to liberate women or enslave men but to secure the continued dominance of those who already sat at the apex of the hierarchy. Women are not the enemy. They are rational actors responding to the incentives and structures presented to them. The tragedy is that countless men, disillusioned and angry, direct their fury at women rather than at the architects of their disenfranchisement. In this sense, the “gender war” is a masterstroke of misdirection; a false war that obscures the real one. What has changed is not the existence of hierarchy, but its mechanisms. What remains is the truth: The real war has always been, and remains, among men.