Not to belabor the fresh input contributed by new Rational Reader ‘S’, but her recent comment regarding The Wall has made me aware that I haven’t yet gone into too much detail regarding the Wall and its socio-psychological effects upon women:
Yeah, it’s a term I have seen before arriving at this blog but have never heard in reality. I always attributed it to a woman losing her looks but to place it at exactly 30 seems to me to be too precise a calculation…as there are many variable to be taken into consideration I would imagine. For example, a party girl, serial tanner and smoker could probably lose her looks long before she reaches 30, whereas a clean living late bloomer might not even realize her potential until her mid to late twenties. I’ve seen women from my school..the most popular girls (with guys) changed the most in a negative manner and the nerds or just the most unexpected girls have become more attractive over the years. It’s freaking odd.
The infamous Wall a woman reaches (or slams into as the case may be) is somewhat of an ambiguous term that was actually coined by catty women long before the manosphere came into existence. It used to be a relatively less combative term that women used for one another in an effort to disqualify a sexual competitor. A woman implying another woman had “hit the wall” was marginally more polite than calling her a slut, but the latent purpose is still the same – disqualifying a sexual competitor from men’s mating considerations.
The Fear of Decay
Underneath the obvious utility of the Wall as an epithet is a more painful truth; the inevitable decay of women’s sexual appeal – their first, and for most, only, real agency of power they’ve ever actualized over men to ensure their long term security needs. In the heyday of 2nd wave feminism, the sisterhood’s message was all about collective empowerment and solidarity, but beneath that was the intrinsic hypergamic need to compete for the best mate their looks and sexual availability could attract. As I’ve written before, women prefer their combat in the psychological and there are few fears women harbor as deep and as long as losing their sexual agency with men. They know the Wall will eventually come, and they don’t like to be reminded of it.
Women’s intrasexual combative use of the knowledge and fear of the Wall did not go unnoticed by men. Therefore the feminine imperative found it necessary to make the truth about the Wall as socially and individually subjective as possible. As with most uncomfortable truths unique to women’s weaknesses, the feminine creates social conventions and ambiguities to misdirect men from becoming aware of women’s eventual powerlessness over them (i.e. the progressive loss of her sexual agency). The Threat of having men become aware of women’s Achilles’ heel before they could consolidate long-term commitment with their best hypergamic option was too great a risk not to form social conventions about the Wall.
Implications of the Wall
Thus, in an intergender social context, the Wall became individualized and subjective for women, and it’s within this framework that women like S are most comfortable in addressing the reality of the Wall. “Not all women are like that” (NAWALT), the go-to mantra of feminized subjectivity, is a direct result of subjectivizing the inevitability of the Wall. In fact, virtually every operative social convention women rely upon for empowerment and self-esteem finds its root purpose in avoiding the fear of the Wall. The Myth of Sexual Peak, the Myth of the Biological Clock, the social convention that Women are just as Sexual as Men, are all very complex social rationales with the latent purpose of convincing the majority of men and women alike that post-Wall women can still be equally effective sexual competitors with pre-Wall women.
It’s important to bear in mind that all of these complex social conventions are rooted in a fear of the Wall. I’m repeating this point to emphasize the importance this has in a feminized society that’s subjected to feminine hypergamy as its most operative doctrine. When enough women, through cultural forces or personal circumstance, can’t capitalize upon what they think is their due, optimal hypergamic male option, then society must be acculturated to believe that women past their Wall expiration date can and should be just as desirable as those in their prime. Think of it as a retroactive social moving of the feminized goalposts. This is the gravity and extent that the fear of the Wall plays for women – feminized society is literally structured around avoiding it.
Defining the Wall
When I wrote Navigating the SMP, the reason I used 30 as the general age women typically hit the ‘Wall’ is really a combination of factors. Most importantly it represents the threshold at which most women realize their lessened capacity to sexually compete with the next generation of women in their ‘actualized’ sexual peak (22-24). However, there is a male part of the Wall equation that needs to be understood. 30 is also the general age at which men (should) become aware of their own, longer-lasting sexual market value and potential. This affects women’s interpretations of the Wall. Once a Man is aware that he has the capacity to attract the sexual attentions of the younger women he’d previously had limited access and understanding of, his actions and imperatives define the Wall for women who are approaching that threshold. And unsurprisingly this is the point at which Wall-fearing women begin their accusations of men’s infantile ego issues, shaming, etc. for preferring younger women than themselves.
When we (and as women in particular would have us) view the Wall in terms of physical attractiveness we don’t see the full picture and relevancy the Wall has for women. It’s very easy (and often fun) to compare pictures of girls we knew in high school with their current FaceBook profile shots at 40+ years old and get a laugh at how bad she hit the Wall. It’s also easy for women to point out the notable exceptions to the rule and find a hot 38 year old woman with 3 kids competing in the Ms. Fitness USA pageant. It gives them a sense of hope about their own decay.
However the Wall is much more than just the physical; it’s the conditional that accelerates or decelerates a woman’s date with the Wall.
Single mother? Acceleration.
Consistent, bad personal habits? Acceleration.
Careerist obsessive? Acceleration.
Obesity? Acceleration.
Do notable exceptions to these exist? Of course, but they prove the rule. And that rule comes in the form of such an overwhelming fear that contemporary society needed to be restructured to help avoid it. The 38 year old, careerist, single mother of 3 competing in fitness pageants is only a hero because of the fear of the Wall.
July 20th, 2012 at 5:43 am
@NoQuarterForCatLadies
I’m not sure it depends on the girl. I wouldn’t go out with a 6ft 2inch man if he lacked compassion. I’ve been asked out by men who are 6ft 6inches and men who are 5ft 6inches…height for me is not an essential. Maybe that’s just me.
@milch,
This article is sad. 27 and they are “Unwanted”??..I’m sorry but the only “ugly” or old looking 27 year olds I’ve seen are the ones that have abused their bodies. In the late twenties a woman should still be looking relatively fresh. It is clearly a cultural thing.
July 20th, 2012 at 7:18 am
An article I just came across: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2176281/Generation-refuse-grow-No-mortgage-No-marriage-No-children-No-career-plan-Like-30-somethings-Marianne-Power-admits-shes-.html
July 21st, 2012 at 3:10 pm
For every exception who maintains any attractiveness in her 30s there is at least one woman who lost most of her attractiveness in her teens. Was traumatic seeing The One lose all her beauty by 20, and I don’t mean by getting fat…
July 22nd, 2012 at 12:05 am
[…] Male – Value Added, The Wall, White Knight […]
July 22nd, 2012 at 12:47 am
[…] The Wall The same situation exists with Betas/AFCs you know. If you tell them the truth- they’ll say you […]
July 24th, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Jesus C, GeishaKate is f*cking retarded.
July 25th, 2012 at 2:35 pm
Approaching the wall, cannot deny it. Cannot explain what it means to female friends who have seriously turned to cats for love, continue digging through dick, or simply given up on themselves in exchange for potato chips and Huffington Post’s latest list “what women should know at 30″ list.
How can a woman explain it? Unravelling without a final resting place.
Fans of Breaking Bad: Ever noticed Marie’s (Hank’s wife) inclination to steal (though she can afford whatever she desires) and lie to strangers about her children (though she is child-less). The show only hints at her emptiness, but her character is a great example of a woman misguided.
It may be too late to fulfill my desire for gooey babies and a partner to submit to so if nothing else I have two beautiful nieces and a god-daughter to help shape. My brother, best friend and I plan on feeding them the red pill. The wind is changing direction.
July 25th, 2012 at 2:43 pm
You forgot ‘Sexual Fluidity’
http://rationalmale.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/sexual-fluidit
September 16th, 2012 at 9:58 pm
[…] When women hit the wall – http://rationalmale.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/the-wall/ […]
November 14th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
A female’s attractiveness doesn’t take a swan dive after 30. It tapers out slowly and often quite gracefully
November 20th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
[…] to shame men’s natural arousal/attraction cues being based on physicality. As I detailed in The Wall, women have a life long relationship with the impending decay of their only real agency over men […]
December 14th, 2012 at 6:23 pm
A woman’s attractiveness doesn’t take a swan dive after 30. It tapers out slowly and often quite gracefully
December 19th, 2012 at 12:28 pm
[…] market value) progression where she becomes cognizant of her SMV decline and impending date with The Wall. Generally this occurs in women’s late 20′s and possibly early 30′s but as a […]
December 20th, 2012 at 1:51 pm
[…] is probably why she is clinging on so desperately to Alvin. She knows her dating market value is declining QUICK, and she hopes to lock Alvin down as soon as possible. The thing about men is our market value […]
December 23rd, 2012 at 12:35 pm
When do men “hit the wall”?
January 16th, 2013 at 4:05 pm
I have a question:
Can a post – wall female still be attractive?
February 18th, 2013 at 2:55 pm
[…] in the face of a hardwired hypergamy, while facing the constant, inevitable, progression towards the Wall. Cash in too early and face the nagging doubt she could’ve consolidated with a better […]
February 21st, 2013 at 9:53 am
[…] moment in that, while she’s still attractive as she’s aged, she sees the Wall for what it is finally and requires some sense of catharsis, some degree of absolution, for having […]
April 9th, 2013 at 2:05 pm
“It’s very easy (and often fun) to compare pictures of girls we knew in high school with their current FaceBook profile shots at 40+ years old and get a laugh at how bad she hit the Wall.”
I just feel like that’s mean…the sort of hateful glee a lot of guys get in the manosphere about the wall is not nice.
April 14th, 2013 at 1:02 pm
When a woman hits 30, her vagina is going to turn dry and churn out dust
May 16th, 2013 at 2:35 pm
[…] their life. So, for instance, they don’t marry until (or get divorced) past the age of 30, despite that this is well after they’ve peaked in value. Or, more women go to college, but then they accrue tens of thousands in debt in a major that […]
May 20th, 2013 at 2:00 pm
[…] of social media and social conventions intended to alleviate the anxiety of the approaching Wall. However, the underlying psychology of that indignation is rooted in women being forced to […]
June 2nd, 2013 at 1:16 am
Wow. None of you poor idiot boys are getting laid, are you? What sad little dears.
June 4th, 2013 at 1:33 pm
[…] constant search for a man they consider “her equal”, and is the cause for many post-Wall women’s common lament of not being able to find the guy she thinks she […]
June 5th, 2013 at 7:30 pm
Bonding is how women beat the Wall. It is how they can keep a man even after they fade. Women no longer know how to bond. If they ever did. Dudly Do Right’s girl friend, Nell, knew how to do it. “My hero”. Sigh. But it does look stupid. But it does work.
June 20th, 2013 at 12:08 am
[…] I should point out that a 3:1 pairing may also be the result of a 2:1 pairing that lasted into a man’s peak years and bumped him up a point, or more likely, the woman depreciated down a point or more as she hit the Wall. […]
June 20th, 2013 at 4:15 pm
[…] the most undignified, undesirable, and unappetizing proposition a man should never face. A post-Wall spinster used up after riding the cock carousel who will never respect her husband (for choosing […]
July 9th, 2013 at 5:12 pm
LOL, I love how having a career somehow accelerates ‘the wall’ oooh, don’t get a career little girls of the world! You will magically age faster!
September 20th, 2013 at 3:48 pm
“The age of Wall impact varies from woman to woman, but it generally converges for most women between the early 40s and 50. Some exceptional female specimens with a fortuitous suite of anti-aging genes can perhaps extend meager traces of their former physical glory well into their 50s, but these are exceedingly few in number. 99% of women you meet in daily life will have hit The Wall by their 50th birthday. An unfortunately larger minority of women will have been unlucky in beauty longevity and hit The Wall as young as their early 30s. Sadly, tragically, the first glimpses of The Wall cresting the horizon will be visible to most women by their 35th birthdays.”
Source: http://heartiste.wordpress.com/
September 20th, 2013 at 4:09 pm
CH has much lower standards than I do.
October 20th, 2013 at 7:07 pm
[…] to acknowledge her decaying SMV and lessened capacity to compete in the SMP (i.e. the impending Wall) we conveniently see 27-30 year old women preferring and pairing with men who are, or are just, […]
November 29th, 2013 at 11:50 am
[…] detailed explanations of The Wall from The Rational Male and from Chateau […]
January 16th, 2014 at 2:19 am
[…] graph on top was taken from the site rationalmale.com and completely shows the relationship of the SMV and SMP indents in both sexes. If you can look […]
January 21st, 2014 at 11:03 am
The “wall” is a bad term. Some women gradually decline from 30 onward, and some fight frantically to keep their physical shape and appearance up into their 40’s or even 50’s. The latter are rare, and I think they “fall off like a rock”, where most women have this slow but noticeable decay. I am in my mid forties – non-smoker, non-drinker, exercising daily… and I am watching pounds melt away and years melt off my face as the stress of being married to a demanding and needy woman is now gone. Even the added stress of being a part-time dad is somehow more manageable. So, do I want to “shack up” with some single-mommy my age (or slightly younger) for the sheer sake of more financial viability by sharing accommodations? HELL NO! My goal is to be 100% financially independent from women, as they want to be independent from us. I will be damned if I remarry and help ANOTHER woman build up a personal estate so she can flutter off and claim independence (while proudly failing to mention how she got there too…)
I want to raise MY kids and I don’t much care to integrate some other guys kids with mine. I don’t want his ex, his baggage and I don’t expect a childless woman to want mine.
Right now, my only two plans of action in the medium term is a) pump and dump women as a hobby only or b) go the MGTOW route, with some sort of mechanism for sexual release on the side.
I really think relationships with this female-defined “ideal commitment” is a complete fallacy… the women whine and b1tch about commitment and vows and promises when they want the man to do what they want, but as soon as the relationship stops stimulating her, interesting her, serving her or helping her with her agenda, she is out the door citing “fine print” like a gunshot.
Since marriage and adherence to it’s vows is now so optional, there is no reason to enter into such a laughable “commitment” with any woman. Plus, she can start off seeming reasonable but turn nasty, unreasonable, indifferent or change her mind at a moments notice.
February 21st, 2014 at 12:01 pm
[…] slowed by offspring, habits such as diet and exercise, and overall pleasantness and femininity. Rollo Tomasi has a great article about The Wall that goes into further detail about these […]
February 23rd, 2014 at 1:50 am
It’s ironic that the picture you are using for this article, is of a grandmother with a family who is praying at the western wall. I can tell by her clothing and ethnicity, that she is probably a Jewish religious married woman (religious women cover their hair). Her wrinkles and face tell me, she’s a healthy older women, which means she’s probably had a good 6-8 children, since a woman who is willing to cover her hair in that manner probably doesn’t use contraceptives. And consequently she probably has grand kids. The wall itself is almost certainly the Western wall in Jerusalem. And she is clearly deep in prayer.
Basically, this is a woman that EMBRACED the reality of the wall, and has a good life. Versus those women who ignore and run right into it at 60mph
February 25th, 2014 at 8:07 am
[…] slowed by offspring, habits such as diet and exercise, and overall pleasantness and femininity. Rollo Tomasi has a great article about The Wall that goes into further detail about these […]
March 26th, 2014 at 10:42 pm
[…] awareness a woman has of her sexual market value in relation to her eventual date with the Wall can no longer be subconsciously repressed and […]
May 4th, 2014 at 2:40 pm
[…] Artículo de Rollo Tomassi, The Rational Male […]
June 30th, 2014 at 11:37 pm
[…] was an effective convention then because it played on women’s fear of the Wall and built upon their, feminine-as-correct, moral / intellectual superiority of men, who could only […]
July 28th, 2014 at 7:06 am
thanx Guys, very enlightening, and ,no i ‘m not buying the “privacy ” EXCUSE for the female who won’t post her picture,… how,…. CONVIENENT
August 3rd, 2014 at 11:24 am
[…] reach their mid 30s. Their ability to attract a quality mate, drops accordingly. This is called the Hitting the Wall in the manosphere.) Sensuality and beauty, natural or created, does temporarily put an […]
September 3rd, 2014 at 6:59 am
[…] of your actions, moreso for women, whose sexual market value suddenly drops when they hit “the wall“. I’ll be honest and say that men don’t have it that hard, and rightly so, based […]
September 26th, 2014 at 12:33 pm
Ridiculously late reply, but I just had to acknowledge the brilliance of NoQuarterForCatLadies last post. This thought experiment really nails the concept at the gut level.
November 1st, 2014 at 1:25 am
When women are approaching The Wall, they realize that Winter Is Coming :)
November 2nd, 2014 at 8:46 pm
[…] world has been created to allow for greater hypergamy for women and an extension before hitting The Wall. Online dating results in a 3 times higher rate of divorce as well, and we all know how well divorce […]
November 26th, 2014 at 7:58 am
This is a myth, i can tell you how i know. Any man would pass up a 20 year old in shape woman who is strong and athletic for a 30 something feminine type in a dress who is willing to submit.
Its the same reason men pass up pretty young women from a lower social class bracket in favour of more mature well spoken mutton.
So keep up with the clock ticking nonsense, and remember time waits for no man.
I will let you know how i used to think for most of my 20s! And how i think now.
I used to think, do i have to wait until im too old and tied to feel like going about the world to be able to do so without sexual harassment, do i have to be nearing the menopause to no longer be seen as here for reproductive meat.
Then at age 30, and now at age 33 i look back at all the years of youth and energy and wish i could have had the type of conditional freedom i have now then. Women have to be too old to have the energy to do anything before they get their body for themselves and by the time it comes its not worth having, having to compete with men for your own body is the real reality of women, and yes time is ticking.
November 26th, 2014 at 8:00 am
I bet i will be there at 40 with unconditional freedom, as in no harassment no matter what i wear or do!
Tick tok!
December 1st, 2014 at 11:21 pm
[…] New commenter (and I use the term loosely), unilantern, graciously provides us with some insight on this with her comments on The Wall: […]
March 14th, 2015 at 7:09 am
[…] “The Wall” is the psychological model that governs females behavior in their 30s, then “happiness […]
March 20th, 2015 at 3:57 pm
[…] the counter-question: Why should a never-married or divorced woman who has hit the wall think she deserves a Silver Fox who can clearly do better? She […]