feminine imperative

Suck It Up

suck-it-up

Recently Marellus from Just Four Guys brought this to my attention:

Did you see how the womyn tore apart a commenter, by the name of Redlum, on Jezebel ?

Just because he said this :

Why does feminism have to antagonize and mock men all the time? Men are expected to have no vulnerabilities, this is an oppressive gender role. When men’s vulnerabilities are exposed, such as feeling emasculated or being insecure about women making them “obsolete”, that is a human emotion and gloating over it and mocking it is not only terrible, but also one of the big things giving feminism a bad name.

The top reply was this :

If being in a relationship with a woman who makes more money than you and/or has a higher position than you makes you feel that you are becoming obsolete, maybe you should be mocked for being silly, immature, and sexist. So now, on top of everything else that women have to deal with, we have to comfort men for freaking out whenever a woman surpasses them at something? I’m sorry – if you are in a group that has been privileged over/oppressive of other groups, you don’t get an apology and a reassuring hug every time we get a millimeter closer to some semblance of fairness and equality. Men need to suck it up and deal with life on more equitable terms like adults, without those who do just that expecting a medal for it.

Write a post on what this guy did wrong, if possible.

Redlum’s mistake was twofold. His first error was to ever overtly look for sympathy from a woman (women). We already know women lack the capacity for empathizing with the male experience, but sympathy is another side of the equation. One grave error most blue pill plug-ins make in this respect is a presumption that women owe them sympathy or that women are predisposed to sympathizing with them.

This is usually due to having been conditioned by the feminine for so long to believe that “Open Communication®”, sharing his feelings and being vulnerable will make him the ideal man. This is an unfortunate outcome of the ‘get in touch with your feminine side’ curse of Jung: in a similar respect to the myth of Relational Equity where a man expects his sacrifices and investment in a relationship will be a buffer against women’s Hypergamy, the expectation is that women will appreciate his openness and vulnerabilities. He believes the feminine identity lie that “vulnerability is strength.”

It’s a very seductive fallacy for a dyed-in-the-wool plug-in to make. I’ve read Redlum’s comments before and he doesn’t impress me as a chump, so I believe his comment on Jezebel was really more of a symbolic appeal to feminine reason. What he illustrates here is a common misgiving most Beta blue pill men subscribe to – that they will be perceived as unique, “not like other guys” in his embracing feminine vulnerability. And as you can see from the top Jezebel reply he was met with the same hostility women have for “vulnerable” men.

Hypergamy psychologically predisposes women to hold either contempt or pity for male vulnerability on a limbic level. Even in the most ’emotionally evolved’ women, by order of degree, Hypergamy is always testing for male fitness in order to assess whom she will pair with either in short term breeding availability or long term provisioning availability. When a man overtly expresses an openness to vulnerability, on a subconscious level it telegraphs his insecurity to her Hypergamous nature. Thus, she filters him out, or if she’s paired with him prior to this expression she initiates the mental protocol to leave him for a better match.

The contempt expressed by the Jezebel authoress is a good example of this.

So now, on top of everything else that women have to deal with, we have to comfort men for freaking out whenever a woman surpasses them at something?

You’re a man, suck it up, you shouldn’t be vulnerable by virtue of your maleness. It’s a conflicting message in light of the touchy-feely feminine conditioning men endure in their upbringing, but it is an honest reaction, and one that men need to understand when sorting out the reality of women and their need to unplug.

I’m not gonna write you a love song, cause you asked for one,..

The second (symbolic?) mistake Redlum makes is making an appeal for sympathy. In Empathy I outlined women’s gut-level, evolutionarily selected-for, lack of empathizing with the male experience. I defined the difference between empathy and sympathy, and while women might lack the means for that empathy, they have a very strong sense of sympathy. However that sympathy comes with conditions.

Women involved with high SMV Alpha Men can be some of the most genuinely, organically sympathetic women you’ll ever encounter. Granted, that sympathy may facilitate her own Hypergamous interests, but more so because that Alpha never petitions her for her sympathy.

Women give their sympathies of their own accord, never as the result of a man petitioning it from her. A woman must be inspired to sympathy for a man, asking for it is negotiating for her desire to be sympathetic.

A man who is intentionally vulnerable smacks of a guy who is so in an effort to qualify for her intimacy. It’s similar to the dynamic found in Play Nice, that niceness, that vulnerability that’s supposed to be strength, is perceived as a ruse to better identify with the feminine and thus be more acceptable to it. If feminine Hypergamy is fine tuned for anything it’s genuineness. That’s not to say women wont turn it to their social and biological advantages, but Hypergamy is always testing for certainty and authenticity. I’ve stated before that there is nothing more satisfying for a woman than to believe she’s figured a guy out using her mythical feminine intuition, this is a direct satisfaction of Hypergamy’s need for certainty, but I should also add that there is nothing more mortifying, rage inducing and produces more bitter tears than a woman who’s had her Hypergamy fooled by an imposter. Not only does this deception involve a loss of investment and resources to her, but it’s also an insult to her ego that her capacity to filter for authenticity isn’t as effective as she believes her ‘intuition’ actually is.

Suck It Up

The bigger picture in this Jezebel exchange is really about one of the most basic and useful social conventions ever devised by the Feminine Imperative – The Male Catch 22:

Man Up or Shut Up – The Male Catch 22

One of the primary way’s Honor is used against men is in the feminized perpetuation of traditionally masculine expectations when it’s convenient, while simultaneously expecting egalitarian gender parity when it’s convenient.

For the past 60 years feminization has built in the perfect Catch 22 social convention for anything masculine; The expectation to assume the responsibilities of being a man (Man Up) while at the same time denigrating asserting masculinity as a positive (Shut Up). What ever aspect of maleness that serves the feminine purpose is a man’s masculine responsibility, yet any aspect that disagrees with feminine primacy is labeled Patriarchy and Misogyny.

Essentially, this convention keeps beta males in a perpetual state of chasing their own tails. Over the course of a lifetime they’re conditioned to believe that they’re cursed with masculinity (Patriarchy) yet are still responsible to ‘Man Up’ when it suits a feminine imperative. So it’s therefore unsurprising to see that half the men in western society believe women dominate the world (male powerlessness) while at the same time women complain of a lingering Patriarchy (female powerlessness) or at least sentiments of it. This is the Catch 22 writ large. The guy who does in fact Man Up is a chauvinist, misogynist, patriarch, but he still needs to man up when it’s convenient to meet the needs of a female imperative.

This dualistic, conveniently conflicting, social convention is what defines a condition of ‘equality’ for today’s New Woman:

 Men need to suck it up and deal with life on more equitable terms like adults, without those who do just that expecting a medal for it.

In other words suck it up when convenient and sack up when necessary. In a sense she’s not wrong– an intrinsic part of the male experience is not to complain about adversity, not to complain about pain and not to complain about suffering – in other words, Man Up, be strong and don’t let on to any vulnerability. If that sounds contradictory to a lifetime of feminine sensitivity training for men it should, but only because it’s half of the usefulness of the Male Catch 22. Where our Jezebeler drops the ball is the other half of the con – Man up and be useful, to women, to the Feminine Imperative. The problem is that equality only applies to what benefits the feminine, anything else that constitutes a man, constitutes masculinity, is a liability.

If being in a relationship with a woman who makes more money than you and/or has a higher position than you makes you feel that you are becoming obsolete, maybe you should be mocked for being silly, immature, and sexist.

There is also the option that Men may simply opt out of involving themselves in a relationship with said woman. In this case the Male Catch 22 is used to shame him for his insecurities not only by women for not participating in their potential provisioning, but also by a chorus of plugged in men ready to mock him for his lack of manhood (also in order to convince the feminine of their unique dedication to the imperative and hopefully get laid as a result of it). It’s at this point he’s derided for his ‘fragile ego’ and his ‘being threatened by strong independent women®.”

By virtue of his maleness, he literally cannot win, and any expression of this condition, even the questioning of this situation is then perceived as his complaining about it – and overt confession of vulnerability. What I’m describing here is the core issue blue pill, plugged in men have with Game and the red pill – just asking a question or making a critical observation about the feminine with regard to the male condition is always conflated with men complaining – something men aren’t allowed to do. It comes off as “poor men”, just as our Jezebeler recounts, but it distracts and discourages real discourse about those conditions.

That is how effective the Male Catch 22 is, it kills all critical inquiry before the questions can even be asked.

Nursing Power

matriarchy_rome

Needless to say, last week’s post sparked some interesting, not to mention predictable, conversations and response. After sifting through all of the ego-invested brinksmanship by the token feminist reader of RM, the takeaway was actually a better understanding of the latent purpose of feminism.Perhaps not the understanding she intended, but certainly a confirmation of premise.

A handful of my male readers often ask why I don’t moderate comments, or that the message of Rational Male would be better served if I banned certain commenters. I’ve mentioned on several posts and threads as to why I won’t ever do that (except for blatant spamming), but in a nutshell it’s my fundamental belief that the validity of any premise or idea should be able to withstand public debate. People who aren’t confident of the strength of their assertions or ideas, or are more concerned with profiting from the branding of those weak assertions than they are in truth, are the first to cry about the harshness of their critics and kill all dissent as well as all discourse about those assertions.

That’s the primary reason I’ve never moderated; if people think I’m full of shit I’m all ears – I’m not so arrogant as to think I’ve thought of every angle about any idea I express here or on any other forum. However, the second reason I don’t censor, ban users or delete comments is that I believe it’s useful to have critics (usually women or fem-men) provide the gallery with examples of exactly the mentality or dynamic I’m describing in an essay. With a fair amount of predictability, a blue pill male or an upset woman will just as often prove my point for me and serve as a model for what I’ve described.

I never intentionally try to make rubes out of the critics I know will chime in about something, but I will sometimes leave out certain considerations I may have already thought about something, knowing it will get picked up on by a critic. I do this on occasion because the I know that the “ah hah! I got him, he forgot about X,Y, Z” moment serves as a better teaching tool and confirms for me that a critic does in fact comprehend what I’m going on about.

Take the Power Back

So it was throughout last week’s commentary about the branding of the Strong Independent Woman® social template offered and reinforced by the feminist mindset, and endorsed wholesale by pop-culture and popular media. Considering the new outside awareness the manosphere is receiving courtesy of Return of Kings these days, I expect we’ll see more of the point-and-sputter, dismissive ignorance of offended egos, or we’ll see more cathartic overwritten mission statements repeated by feminists confronted with logical arguments that contradict their comfortably solipsistic world-view.

Doctor Jeremy actually started me back on considering gender power dynamics with his comments here:

As always, your article is insightful. I get concerned with the limit to the progress the manosphere can make, however, because I think the discussions are missing a central concept – power. The goal of this branding, social engineering, and gender-role change you identify is the redistribution of various forms of power and influence within our society. For some reason, however, much of the manosphere’s writing and discussion does not seem to include that level of analysis. This is unfortunate, as feminist and women’s discourse is often focused on redistribution of power – and quite successful as a result of that focus.

As support for my point, please review the quotes I have extracted from livingtree2013′s various comments [emphasis mine]:

“But it is not because women want to eliminate men from the equation. It is because women have historically been entirely dependent on men for their survival, which gave men far too much power over us, and we have worked tirelessly to extract ourselves from that position of inferiority.”

“So why would you expect anything different from us? Its simply not going to happen, at least not until the men in power actually force us to obey their will, which truly, I can see coming in the near future.”

“Unfortunately, you guys didn’t want us doing those things because it negatively affected you in the power balance, but that didn’t stop us from needing it.”

She is not talking about independence. She is not talking about self-esteem. She is talking about who has the power to control the interaction and call the shots…

As far as power is concerned I think anyone who’s read the Rational Male for more than a few posts knows I quote Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power more often than any other resource here, and regularly use those laws to illustrate how they apply to intergender relations. That said, I have dedicated posts to the influence power has in personal dynamics, and I certainly recognize, if sometimes indirectly, the power dynamic in Frame, Dread, and certainly in The Feminine Imperative.

I fully understand the redistribution of power in our gender landscape from a social perspective, but the fundamental question about any form of real power isn’t about who has it or not, but to what ends they apply it.

I felt so strongly about the Truth to Power essay that I included it in the Rational Male book. The salient point in that post was this:

Real Power is the degree to which a person has control over their own circumstances. Real Power is the degree to which we control the directions of our lives.

I expect that would align with what our token, self-identifying feminist LivingTree was repeating, but the underlying question is what are women using that power to achieve?

As I stated prior, feminism as a social influence, has never been about its stated goal of egalitarian equality between the sexes, but rather it’s been about restitution and retribution from the masculine it perceives as its historical oppressors. This was the original intent of feminine independence (before it became the brand it is today), a separation from the dependency (perceived or actual) of women on men. However, the problem inherent in that separation is that in creating a new, autonomous sex role for women, the innate differences and deficits that the former complementary interdependence with men satisfied had to be compensated for.

All of the inherent weaknesses of the feminine that were balanced by the masculine’s inherent strengths had to be provided for in order to achieve this new independence from the masculine. I should also point out that in this feminist separation the masculine is also left in a deficit of having its own inherent weaknesses balanced by the compensating strengths of the feminine.

Power Slaves

I’ve quoted that feminism is the mistaken belief that a more equitable society can be achieved by focusing efforts solely on the interests of one sex.

Sarcasm aside, this is exactly the use to which women have applied the power that feminism and the feminization of society has afforded them since the sexual revolution. Feminism is not, and has never been about leveling a playing field or equality amongst the genders, it’s been about power and applying it to separating from, marginalization of, and eventual eradication of, the masculine influence that the feminine imperative wants restitution and retribution from. LivingTree illustrates this for us here:

Independence for women meant we didn’t have to tolerate abuse anymore because we had the option to leave. It meant that if you left us, we wouldn’t be completely desperate. It meant we didn’t have to cling to you guys for support. It meant we could make decisions about our own lives. It meant we didn’t have to be “seen and not heard”. It meant we didn’t have to be a slave to a stereotype anymore. It meant we could be self-actualizing if we wanted to. It meant we could pick and choose which man we wanted to mate with. And it meant we could admit we had sexual desires.

Tucked into LT’s recitation of feminist boilerplate is the true application and intent of use of the power women’s emancipation from the masculine wants to achieve – direct control of the conditions dictating their innate hypergamy.

The gist of LT’s reasoning for women wanting power, and “Independence” (as a brand or otherwise) from men is due to women’s innate need for security. This need for security and certainty is literally written into women’s DNA, their neural wiring and hormones. As the ‘nurturers’ of the next generation of humanity, evolution selected-for, and reinforced the biological and psychological mechanisms of women with the best capacity to filter for situations that would provide her and her offspring with the best possible security in a chaotic and insecure world. This drive for security is what’s at the root of hypergamy, and in all fairness has been a successful survival mechanism for the human species.

Hypergamy’s constant, limbic, survival-level question for women is “Is this the optimal condition I can secure to ensure my wellbeing and my (future) children?” Whether she’s been married for decades or is out on the town with her girlfriends, that question nags a woman in her hindbrain from childhood to death. Hypergamy’s question and doubt is at the heart of every unconscious shit-test a woman will ever deliver. Hypergamy’s unrealizable quest for optimization extends from the individual woman to women’s social influences. From the micro to the macro, Hypergamy’s constant want of an unachievable contented security defines the Feminine Imperative.

Rigging the Game

In terms of women’s pluralistic sexual strategy (Alpha Fucks and Beta Bucks) that question extends to who she selects as a sex partner to breed with, as well as whom she selects to be the provider for her long term provisioning. At the heart of it, women’s desire for independence and the perceived power they believe it should give them is an effort in controlling the conditions that they believe will satisfy Hypergamy’s question. Every popular woman’s issue you can list will find its way back to the want for control of the circumstances that dictate how well a woman can satisfy her Hypergamy.

Fat acceptance, the right to vote, child custody and paternity laws, divorce laws, slut walks, accusations of rape culture, more women in the boardroom, feminization of men and culture on whole, hell, every item LivingTree mentions in her comment, just name the issue and underneath the social or personal veneer is the clutching after of some usable power to control the conditions that will satisfy her need for security and optimize women’s Hypergamy.

LT is correct, women don’t want to eliminate men, they simply want to control them, both directly and indirectly, socially and personally, subtly and subconsciously as well as overtly when necessary, to comply with satisfying their innate hypergamy. They want independence from men’s influence in the process of satisfying hypergamy – they want to rig the game by replacing his genuine desires by forcing him to comply with her control of his conditions. Women want the power to control men’s desires, their ideologies, their sexual response, their individualism and the decisions that result from them all in order to optimize hypergamy

The problem in all this effort for control is that nature stagnates in homogeny. Androgyny, homogeny, are the first order for inbreeding. For as much as women make efforts to emancipate themselves and change the rules of the game to better fit their deficiencies, they are always confounded by the innate drives and desires of men. They get frustrated with men who wont play their version of the game, or worse, the ones who play it more poorly than they themselves do. So they jail them, they shame them, they pathologize his sexual impulse, they condition feminization into them from their earliest development, they punish them for not playing the game that should  always end with them optimizing hypergamy’s nagging doubt – in spite of falling short of it under organic circumstances. For all the delusions of independence, autonomy and the fantasy of some form of control of the process, they find men will simply not cooperate. They wont give them the satisfaction of optimizing their solipsistic hypergamy, because the Men who have the capacity to do so, the ones women want to be satisfied with simply aren’t playing their version of the game.

The Hypergamy Conspiracy

Rollo Tomassi:

“Hypergamy is a selected-for survival mechanism.”

Aunt Sue:

“Hypergamy states that a woman seeks a man of higher status than herself for marriage. Nothing less, nothing more.”

Escoffier:

“I don’t think that’s right.

The theory is more like this, from what I have read. Hypergamy is a woman’s natural (which is to say, genetically wired) preference for a higher status male–that is, higher status than herself and also higher status than the other men in her field of vision and also perhaps higher status than men she has known in the past and even (at the extremes) higher status than most men she can personally imagine meeting. That cuts across a range of possible relationships, all the way from a ONS to marriage. In all cases, women naturally prefer the highest status man they can get. And sometimes they want so much status that they won’t settle on ANY man they could actually get.

“Status” has a varied meaning in this definition. Certain things correllate with high status, for intance money, prestige, social standing, etc. However a man can have all of that and still be low status because of low status intrapersonal behavior (i.e., needy schlumpitude). The highest possible status male would be rich, good looking, fit, well dressed, high social cache, high prestige job (preferably one which involves risk, physical risk being better than mere monetary risk), and also extroverted, dominant, the leader of his group of friends, able to command any social situation, and so on. However, women are wired to be turned on more by the latter BEHAVORIAL traits than by be the former SUBSTANTIVE traits. So, if you have have to choose one or the other, to get women, be socially dominant and a broke societal loser rather than socially awkward and a rich societal winner. But best to be both, if possible.

As to marriage, sure women want to marry up. But this does not exhaust the effects of hypergamy. Women can marry up–both intrinsically and in their own mind–and still ditch their catch because someone “better” comes along. That is hypergamy at work.

Also, when women are pursuing short and medium term mating, hypergamy has no less force. They always prefer the most socially dominant male they can get. This is often relative (A&B are both a little dweeby but A is more alpha than B and since I want someone NOW I choose A) but sometimes it is more intrinsic (A&B are both a little dweeby and even though A is a little more alpha, since I don’t have to have someone NOW, I am going to hold out for the Real Deal).

It’s not all about marriage. It’s about mate selection accross the range of circumstances.

That, at any rate, is how I believe the manosphere understands “hypergamy.”

Aunt Sue:

“Yes, because they made it up. Researchers do not recognize that definition. It’s pure Game.”

The main reason I only sporadically participate in the comment threads at Aunt Sue’s echo chamber Blog is because conversational gems like this have a marked tendency to get buried under, sometimes, thousands of other comments. I think it’s a shame really. I wanted to draw particular attention to the difference in interpretation of terms with regards to the dynamic of Hypergamy here.

Escoffier makes an astute analysis of Hypergamy in a much broader perspective than Susan’s definition-approved “researchers” are willing to recognize. On the fem-centric side we have Sue casually dismiss “Hypergamy” (twice) in this context as some fabrication of the Game-set and therefor not a legitimate analysis. A rose is a rose, and as I’ve stated in prior threads, Hypergamy is a term that should have a much broader definition when considered in context with the feminine imperative and the eminently observable feminine behaviors that manifest as a result of Hypergamy’s influence.

That the term Hypergamy should be so wantonly limited in its definition, and in such a way that it serves to deliberately confuse a better understanding of it as an evolutionary impulse on the feminine psyche, speaks volumes about the importance of maintaining its misunderstanding to the feminine imperative.

It’s almost ironic that the collective feminine ego should even need to deign to recognize Hypergamy in the terms that it is cast as in Susan’s default response. “Hypergamy states that a woman seeks a man of higher status than herself for marriage. Nothing less, nothing more.” forces the feminine to at least begrudgingly accept that women are in fact basing their long-term commitment prospects on status (as defined by researchers), and not some ephemeral soul-mate, emotional precept. God forbid men (PhDs or otherwise) should have the temerity to extrapolate any further social, psychological or evolutionary implications that could’ve influenced that Hypergamy dynamic into existence.

While I wont argue the credentials of the researchers Sue will undoubtedly quote – I often acknowledge all of the same in other posts and comments – I will however make the point that her interpretation (as is everyone’s) is subject to bias. And in this case, that bias serves the feminine imperative in keeping the definition of Hypergamy in as closed a way as possible to benefit the feminine. In the evolving understanding of the motivators that influence intergender relations there are going to be terms that describe concepts.

AFC’s, Alpha, Beta, Hypergamy, etc. are all defined by the concepts they represent.

‘Hypergamy’ serves well in a much broader capacity, but should the feminine imperative find that broader definition threatening to its purpose it will casually dismiss it as illegitimate. The real question then is, why would that concept be threatening to the feminine? You can delegitimize the term, but the concept is still the operative issue. Why is the concept of that larger scope of the term so offensive to a fem-centric society?

The Conspiracy that Wasn’t

One issue many of my critics have is that in exposing these inconsistencies, these operative social conventions and the latent purposes behind them, my writing (really most of the manosphere) seems to take on a conspiratorial tone. I can fully appreciate this, and it might shock a few readers to know that I  reject much of the popularized MRA perspective in this respect. I agree with an MRA perspective in a rational analysis to a certain degree, but there is no grand conspiracy, no secret mysterious cabal pushing a negative perception of masculinity – and this is exactly why what I outline on this blog is so pervasive. There doesn’t need to be a unitary group of ‘anti-men’ bent on some melodramatic goal of world domination; because this feminized ideal is already embedded in our socialization. Fem-centrism IS our collective social consciousness.

It doesn’t need a centralized directorship because the mindset is already so installed and perpetuated by society at large it’s now normalized, taken for granted and self-perpetuating. AFCs raising AFCs leads to still more AFCs. This generation doesn’t realize their own bias because it’s been standardized, encouraged and reinforced in them, and society, over the course of several generations now.

What’s to question, especially when calling attention to the feminization dynamic leads to ridicule and ostricization?

So to answer the conspiracy question; no, there is no illuminati shadow conspiracy and that’s exactly what makes feminization the normalized and overlooked default.