When women can't trust men, men are forced to act feminine in order to win the trust of women. This statement can be generalized further, to say: when humans cannot trust other humans, they are forced to act more feminine to win trust. In a high-trust society, people can act more masculine, stoic, aggressive, terse, Spartan. In a low-trust society, people are forced to be more emotive, apologetic, polite, performative, loquacious, vulnerable, and passive. This is the Zagrebbi Theory of Wokeness in a nutshell.
I am not sure that checks out. Low trust societies are usually more masculine than high trust ones. They are generally full of impulsive, violent men. In terms of trustworthiness, a stoic individual seems far more trustworthy than an emotive one. The emotive person will probably get carried away by their feelings and flake out on their commitments.
This neglects the fact that masculinity can be performative, including performative for other men (as a shortcut to confidence, acceptance, masking vulnerability, etc). Perceptive women are likely to recognize what appears fake/disingenuous, and are less likely to trust someone who has to perform their identity/personality to match a social script. Thus, men may have to drop whatever way they’re “acting out” masculinity to gain trust.
In contrast, masculinity that is natural and tied to genuine confidence and self-awareness is not a red flag for most women, and is generally appreciated.
However, not all women want to deeply know their spouse. Some of them just care about the image he has/how he compliments how she wants to be perceived. Such women may either actively seek out what they view as masculinity (real or performed) or “anti-masculinity.”
Things like narratives, ideology, how interwoven her beliefs are with her identity and how much or how little those beliefs were formed independently, etc—all of these play a role in what a woman looks for and trusts. Is it about really knowing the person, or finding one with the right image that corresponds to narrative recognition?
In general I think issues arise when people are more concerned with what others think or about going out of their way to avoid cognitive dissonance to the point they can’t be themselves/can’t see the other person for who they are.
No, I do not make the assumption that masculinity is natural and not performative. Saying that some presentations are natural and others are performative is a false dichotomy.
I get you’re not assuming masculinity is entirely non-performative, and likewise I’m not proposing a hard split between “natural” and “performative” presentations—that would be a false dichotomy.
I’m talking about a spectrum from self-consistent expression to expression optimized for audience expectations. Both are socially shaped, but they respond differently when incentives change: self-consistent signaling remains stable because it’s grounded in a person’s underlying reasoning and settled values, whereas the purely strategic signaling shifts or disappears when the social rewards change, or reverse/vanish.
So the key variable isn’t masculine vs feminine traits but the extent to which those traits depend on external validation, mimesis, & the epistemic process by which the person forms their beliefs and values.
On an unrelated note, I didn’t notice the username on this comment until now. Funny enough, I’ve seen you pop up in my feed before; I thought I was already following you. If not, I will. Gotta keep some grit in the mix, after all.
Another problem with this theory is that men don’t pretend to be low testosterone, they really are low testosterone. Testosterone levels went from an average of 600 to 450 in just 15 years , from 2000 to 2015. That’s all you need to know about why men are so feminine today . No need for complicated theories about sexual selection .
This has gotta be primarily because we've gotten fatter and more sedentary. I know microplastics is the sexier answer, and I can't imagine they're good for us so we should make an effort to clean our shit up, but it's just so much more straightforward that it'd be increased obesity that's the primary cause, especially given the increase in all the other obesity-related diseases that we've seen:
Why so much pressure on men to behave in a feminine way though? Shouldn't #BelieveWomen be *less* required in a low-testosterone society?
I suppose if I were a radical feminist, I could argue that the patriarchy really had its boot on the female throat back when men were higher testosterone. Now that its boot has been lessened a little bit, we can hear her screaming.
I think it's abundantly clear by now that Woke people - including 3rd wave feminists -and their liberal enablers NEVER STOP seeing and portraying themselves as victims requiring more and more preferential and coddling treatment. See the very recent trans changes OR the very recent super bowl ads about "girl power" OR any race hustler. These people are either zealots living in a delusional fantasy world or liberals enabling them out of fear of -worst case scenario - losing their jobs. Continuously crying hatred and bigotry pays off handsomely and "wins" arguments. (Not really but it'll look like it.)
When has "signaling loyalty" ever been a important factor in men's success in sex and relationships? Such a thing never happened, it would imply lack of loyalty would ever the limit the options of high status men (it doesn't, even when it's obvious). There are good ways to explain the shift in composition of elites in recent years, and women certainly have a lot to do with it, but this theory feels more like a bullshit platitude a feminist might throw at an incel than a good explanation.
This is the opposite of a feminist platitude. Richard is basically saying that men adopt feminist beliefs as a downstream effect of wanting to get laid. Whereas a feminist would say that a high quality man being a feminist would precede any ulterior motive.
While I do think all feminists are delusional in certain ways, I think it depends on how delusional the woman is, feminist or not. I think there are plenty of feminists who believe "All men are dogs and can't be trusted" and there are plenty of non-feminists who are delusional and really believe some guy is treating them great because they have a great personality. I have met these women. (To be fair, I know one guy like this who also thinks women really dig him because of his personality and not the fact that he's very good looking and tall.)
What I meant is that feminists often say that support for feminism makes men more attractive, which is what they often say to unattractive men (like incels). I guess a lot of guys believe the platitude and try to act accordingly, but any guy in that position is most likely low status to begin with, which doesn't track with Richard's theory because he's talking about shifting attitudes in elites.
Sure, feminists tell incels that being a feminist is more attractive but it is hinged on the belief the feminism is sincere. A feminist would be repulsed by a man who pretended to be a feminist just to get laid. And incels almost never use the “feminizing” tactic to try and get women. Instead, they attempt to become more masculine or “chad-like” which tracks per Richard’s theory.
Why would you assume a feminist would always be able to tell whether a man's feminism is sincere or not? And how do you know incels didn't try the feminization tactic? Sure, I guess guys today who are part of incels communities certainly dont try to appear feminist, but a lot of unattractive guys do or did it at some point, including today's incels. It's common enough to have become a stereotype. See what comes up when you look up "feminist male"
Women are not very good at offering men advice on how to be more attractive. I think the largest part of this it's because having to offer a man advice on such matters is itself very unattractive to women, and the advice which could be offered which actually has a chance of making a making a noticeable difference involves solutions which will take long term efforts before they bear fruit. "Make more money" and "get in better physical shape" would improve the prospects of many loveless men today, but these take months or years of concentrated efforts.
I think there is probably a simpler explanation than the one Richard elucidate, which relates to his concept of EHC (or maybe just to biodeterminism around IQ and conscientiousness). Elite human capital tend to be more thoughtful and have more foresight than LHC. So they tend to understand that superficially attractive traits are not always positive in the long run.
Highly masculine men have many virtues, but they also often have vices like aggression, impulsiveness, and inflexibility. In a long term relationship they might butt heads with a woman over many different issues. An intelligent woman with foresight will likely realize that, so her initial attraction to masculine men will be weakened by thoughts of the long term. The opposite will happen with less masculine men, women of intelligence and foresight will often realize that they are easier to get along with in the long run.
Regardless of whether Richard's explanation is correct, I think it ultimately shows that deception in relationships is bad. Instead of pretending to be someone you are not to get your mate to trust you, work to actually be more trustworthy. Instead of pretending to have such low levels of sexual attraction that you aren't tempted by other women, be the kind of person who can resist temptation. Be an honorable man who keeps his commitments to women, not a man who pretends he doesn't even need to make commitments.
Others are correct that an array of more straightforward explanations for cultural feminization are available (viz., women incorporating into the workforce and feminine traits being correlated with educational/professional success). Feminization is more likely the upshot of women gaining bargaining power and enforcing their beliefs/affinities than about men devising a stratagem to signal loyalty and accommodate female mate selection. One of the key struggles of men these days is precisely their inability to reshape themselves into the girly contours of current female mating preferences. Clever theory though.
Stalin is the wrong guy for that joke. He would send everyone important to the gulag sooner or later, nothing personal! "Elite rotation" was the euphemism.
The appropriate comparison (and this one is allegedly not a joke) is the (much more humane and tolerant) Khrushchev visiting an abstract art exhibition and commenting it with... well, you can read it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manege_Affair .
Isn’t a much simpler explanation that women have been steadily getting more influential over time?
I don’t think women have changed — they never liked getting harassed by their boss (I suppose there were a few exceptions but most 50’s guys were not Don Draper), but they put up with it because they didn’t want to lose their jobs. They mostly don’t like crude sexual language or humor, either.
Once there were more women in management and a legal system to somewhat protect women, women stopped putting up with it as much.
Older, richer, more powerful men could and can ignore this trend to some extent, but regular guys can’t and changed their behavior.
Dating as competition is one way to look at the male female dynamic. It’s more type 1 thinking, drawing upon our primal instinct to explain social behaviors.
Another way to look at it is through type 2 thinking. Type 1 thinking (winning a competition, high quality spouse, etc) leads to sub-optimal outcomes in terms of actual quality of life. The constant threat of divorce, or tension due to mistrust, or lack of commitment and lack of love is not worth playing games. Simple as that. Type 2 thinking distills what exactly is valuable about monogamy and a strong nuclear family and makes decisions that create such an environment.
I think something like zero-sum vs positive-sum thinking respectively? i.e. "winning" a spouse (zero-sum competition with other males) versus building a positive relationship with someone
There’s a book thinking fast and slow that I’m borrowing the language from. It’s not quite 1 to 1 on the definition but essentially type 1 thinking is subconscious, fast thinking, that most people do subconsciously whereas type 2 is deliberate, slow thinking that requires effort.
I have this exact thought whenever I read these competitive, market-based accounts of romance and dating. It seems to both not describe reality accurately, and be too zero-sum.
>Before we relaxed pressures for monogamy, the left wasn’t seen as necessarily less masculine than the right
Leftist movements were more feminist from the start. Women actively participated in the 19th and early 20th century revolutionary movements. If you listen to a history of something like the Russian Revolution, the communists have multiple influential women; the only influential woman on the right is maybe the Tsar's wife.
I don't fully agree with Hanania, but I think his point still stands: he is referring to men being more feminine. Just because plenty of feminists were involved back then (when women genuinely had less rights) doesn't mean the men weren't seen as masculine in the way they are now.
Pretty much the entire "alpha male" "beta male" discourse is projection and cope on the part of its advocates. It takes a few accurate observations about how dating works, and then makes up a bunch of ludicrous psychological explanations for why it works like that. The explanations say far more about their proponents and their misanthropic worldview than they do about the men and women they are supposed to be describing.
One of the biggest "aha" moments I had was when I saw a video by a female comedian where she described dating a bunch of losers before settling down. What was interesting was that she described the exact same phenomenon as described by the redpill/PUA community. Where she differed was her description of the attitude she felt towards the men in question. It was clear that she had no real respect for the men she fooled around with and saw them as beneath her and unworthy of marriage. Her husband, by contrast, was a man she was both attracted to, and respected. The reason she had fooled around before settling down was simple logistics: if she had fooled around after settling down her husband would have been upset!
The redpill/PUA community describes the same phenomenon, but projects completely different motivations onto the women in question. They claim that women really respect and are attracted to the alpha males they screw around with and are contemptuously settling for the betas. I realized the redpill/PUAs weren't actually fearlessly facing reality like they claimed. Instead they just sat around making up motivations for women that allowed them to feel hate and contempt for them.
My insight was cemented after I read Ozy Brenan's "Anti-Heartiste FAQ," which had the same theme of agreeing that the behavior that PUAs observed in the dating environment existed, but having different, more accurate psychological explanations for why it existed. Again, I realized that a group that portrayed themselves as fearless truthtellers facing reality were just a bunch of misanthropes taking giant doses of cope. They didn't care about finding the truth, they just discovered a few useful dating techniques by dumb luck and then made up fake explanations for why they worked that let them justify being contemptuous of everyone.
It's isn't a denial of human nature to recognize that violent, aggressive alpha males are usually impulsive, narcissistic morons in the present day. It's just a recognition that the environment has changed since when humans evolved. Traits that were adaptive back then aren't as adaptive now, so most people use their intelligence and prudence to moderate those traits. The only people who fail to do so are one who lack intelligence and prudence.
I am certainly not embracing some kind of beta male slave morality. I am simply recognizing that women are not a monolith and that different dating techniques work differently on different types of women. If I was doing what you accuse me of I would be insisting that beta male techniques work on all women.
It's not a "theory" it's a very bad hypothesis. You make zero predictions based evolutionary theory to back up your supposition. It looks like you've learned evolutionary psychology from pop psych books. This is as bad as Rollo Tomassi.
I'm not sure I follow. Incels are not in any way shape or form associated with feminization. I think it's an unusual stretch to do so. If anything, they're viewed as misogynist and proto-fascists. If you mean the stereotype of guys living in their parent's basement, I can see what you're going for, but incels are not remotely feminized - if the term incel means anything. Incels is a term reserved for guys living in the basement who are angry and misogynist.
Feminization makes low status men seem even lower quality, and therefore more likely to be involuntarily celibate. The literal meaning of incel is involuntary celibate. This is a semantics issue, but even for an incel, as in an angry misogynist, the prerequisite is to also be involuntary celibate, so my point still stands.
Fair point, agreed on this being about semantics. If all you mean by incel is involuntarily celibate, I'm with you. I'm just used to Establishment Media always tying them to "proto-fascist" "misogynists" who would despise feminine things, but yes you're right about the original meaning.
Interesting but it leaves out that women do want the high libido, high testosterone and only settle for less of both after giving up on those men making a commitment. As such, it's a big leap to say the 34 year old woman actually prefers a less masculine man for marriage. More likely the less masculine man is a second choice of necessity. Which also explains why most divorces are initiated by women and in context to your own observations about high class/feminine men; that demographic has the highest percentage of women initiating divorce.
Men and women have different conceptions of high trust and safety. Feminine high trust is school room compliance. Masculine high trust is sports and the market determining merit and loyalty
1. The main problem I see with this idea is that quality and loyalty probably are correlated. In other words, high quality guys also have high impulse control and are less likely to cheat, while low quality guys have low impulse control and thus are more likely to cheat. All things held equal though, I agree that there is a tradeoff--I imagine a low impulse guy who makes a lot of money would be more likely to cheat than a low-income low impulse guy--but, given the correlation, there is less of a tradeoff than one would think.
2. A lot of behavior results from the actions of one's peers and authorities (i.e., culture in some sense). How do you address the objection that the feminized behavior of men is simply cultural and does not result from feminized men succeeding in the sexual marketplace? In other words, prestige-based transmission swamps other effects, and the feminine/high class/liberal tribe and the masculine/low class/conservative tribe simply result from different prestigious individuals driving behavior. Ironically, dominance-based cultural transmission also favors feminization: government coercion, whether that takes the form of a teacher or an employer’s HR lady—is clearly pushing young men towards feminization. The bottom-up, dominance-based transmission that used to ensure masculine young men—bullying and calling certain behaviors gay, for example—has been broken down or neutered. This argument—I will call it the Heinrichean theory of feminization—may more plausibly explain the facts you lay out.
3. Your argument implies some kind of search function among men, where less successful men copy successful men. This obviously seems plausible; however, I would like evidence of men specifically copying feminized behaviors in order to acquire a date. As you know, some men fail to attract women and turn to advice on the internet. The internet advice does *not* advise feminization; in fact, it seems to emphasize becoming more masculine.
I don't see why this would be the case. Our foundational history was as a harem species. Not to mention friendship and love are just much better ways to ensure monogamy, so women who prioritize that are better off focusing their efforts there after they managed to secure a suitably high-quality guy. Not to mention they're more fun.
The idea that quality and loyalty are naturally correlated. Men are much more likely to have affairs in proportion to their excellence, whether by money, talent, or good looks. Hence why i'm convinced it's a much better idea for women who prize loyalty to focus on fostering love and friendship with whatever the most desirous male they can land. Not to mention if he himself is not capable of fostering such, that is also a good sign to leave.
I do not disagree your idea that women should foster love and friendship with their (future) spouse.
As I stated (perhaps unclearly) above, holding all things equal, of course men are more likely to have affairs in they are higher status. But the problem is that reality does not hold all things equal. For example, more conscientious people cheat less; less conscientious (i.e., impulsive) people cheat more. More conscientious people also make more money. There are tons of variables here.
Having an attractive spouse reduces the likelihood of cheating; higher status men have more attractive spouses. In other words, women themselves have status, and men are less likely to cheat with higher status wives. Who gets high status wives but high status men?
In support of Richard's point, it is true that religiousness does strongly predict less infidelity. The idea that non-religious people then need new status-markers then to ensure loyalty is interesting, but I am not sure it can overcome the problems I have identified.
It would be interesting to test whether Hanania’s model or my Heinrichean model better explains the rise of feminized behaviors among men. If Hanania is right, then higher status men on average should be more feminized; if I am right, then exposure to liberal institutions per se (e.g., higher education) will correlate more with feminization. We could look at how women swipe as well. If Hanania’s theory is correct, then women should be more likely to swipe right with men who display feminized beliefs/traits. If the Heinrichean theory is correct, then men’s success should depend more on traditional masculinity or other variables, and feminized men would not actually perform better in the swipe game.
This explains a lot of the chaos going down in the reality tv show ‘the real
Housewives of Beverly hills’.
To add, I always thought loyalty equalled quality, but I’m working class.
And men cant become feminised imo. I think what we are calling feminisation is a masculine response, a castration anxiety phase. Calling it feminisation is sort of the ‘blaming mother’ arc teenage boys go through in attempts to become men, before becoming men.
You don't believe men can become feminized? For god's sake we can make people who are willing to blow themselves up in the name of an invisible being they've never seen. Or more immediate: get MOST PEOPLE - even powerful people - to go along with the idea that transwomen are women! You've seen videos of whole swarms of people sitting at events watching a man beat out women and no one says boo because they know that worst case scenario, they lose their jobs or future careers.
As for your Freudian explanation, I put that in the circular file where I put most Freudian explanations. Far too strained.
So you believe men can become feminised but they can’t become women? So would you agree this ‘feminisation’ of yours is inherently male, a male mutation/fantasy projected onto women through a sulky ‘feminisation did it!’? Just as you don’t want trans women in sports because they are not born women, I don’t want male ‘feminisation’ in the definition of women. As far as I can see, feminisation is a male issue and has nothing to do with the female sex. Rather it is a symptom of the makes failure to deal with his own sex, a masculine identity crisis for men who can’t hack the fact they were born of women
The only one projecting here is you since you believe “feminization has nothing to do with the female sex”. I on the other hand have never said that women can’t be feminized and it is only limited to men. Of course women can be more or less feminized or feminine. This is obvious is it not? Depends on their nature and nurture.
Also, I think the “feminized male” in this discussion refers to a man behaving in ways he believes women will like - behaving more “beta” for lack of a better word. What does beta mean here? Prioritizing the FEELINGS and emotions of preferred identities over demonstrable practical and PHYSICAL safety concerns.
Boys and men PLAY rough - especially verbally- much more than women and girls do and they don’t quiver and worry about inadvertently and unintentionally hurting the FEELINGS of the most over sensitive member of a preferred identity group they can imagine.
Ok well I think we should agree to disagree as we have very different ideas and angles going on here? I’ve heard some of your angles before (as the feminisation notion is fairly popular a concept) and tbh they don’t make a lick of sense to me. Perhaps we are fundamentally and irreconcilably different in our perceptions
I have no idea what it is that I wrote that makes no sense to you but what I wrote is not "a fairly popular concept". You seem stuck on your evidence-free mind-reading belief that a "feminized male" doesn't exist except in the minds of men who are bothered by the fact that they have mothers. What I wrote is straightforward and demonstrable:
the kind of 'feminized males" being discussed on this thread - from what I've seen - are the kinds of men who display allegiance to MOSTLY (but not always) female/feminine worldviews: prioritizing the FEELINGS of preferred groups over practicality, PHYSICAL safety, OR REALITY itself. Obvious example: every problem caused by trans ideology falls into this basket (i.e. "transwomen ARE women" - untrue - and therefore men can enter women's spaces simply on their claiming being a woman). Boys and men "play" rougher than women - especially verbally - they bond by insulting each other and so AVERAGE men have a great deal of trouble buying the idea that language or words are violence or make people "unsafe".
What I’m suggesting is that what you say is ‘feminisation’ is less a feature of real female women and more a feature of men. And that men call it ‘feminised’ to distance themselves from it and not take ownership of it being theirs. In your initial example you used ‘going to war’ (prior to the trans example) as being a symptom of this so-called feminisation, like a brain dead conformity of sorts. And indeed it is men who go to war and take orders way more enthusiastically than women, but sure let’s veil that in the cope of heroism. Being a minority, trans women are easy pickings for conformist men, a useful distraction from their own failing-to-be-men. Atleast the trans women had the balls to differentiate from the trembling horde, in this sense, trans women are more masculine than some of your straight men (if we are here equating masculinity with macho free-thinking).
And yes your use of the trope ‘feminisation’ and your take on trans is incredibly common and predictable. Masculinity in real life is evidently not independent and heroic, it is radically conformist and eager for fatherly authority/instruction. No, that is not because you have become ‘feminised’, but ofcourse you will insist on that in order to distance yourself from any icky responsibility of self-reflection. The feminisation you speak of is everyday masculinity and it is utterly unimpressive.
I am lucky to have a good father, and an example of the masculine that takes responsibility for itself.
Though I might start calling what you call ‘feminisation’ instead ‘masculinisation’, as like I said, it’s a man thing, a man problem
When women can't trust men, men are forced to act feminine in order to win the trust of women. This statement can be generalized further, to say: when humans cannot trust other humans, they are forced to act more feminine to win trust. In a high-trust society, people can act more masculine, stoic, aggressive, terse, Spartan. In a low-trust society, people are forced to be more emotive, apologetic, polite, performative, loquacious, vulnerable, and passive. This is the Zagrebbi Theory of Wokeness in a nutshell.
I am not sure that checks out. Low trust societies are usually more masculine than high trust ones. They are generally full of impulsive, violent men. In terms of trustworthiness, a stoic individual seems far more trustworthy than an emotive one. The emotive person will probably get carried away by their feelings and flake out on their commitments.
Replace low trust with high social complexity and it makes more sense
This neglects the fact that masculinity can be performative, including performative for other men (as a shortcut to confidence, acceptance, masking vulnerability, etc). Perceptive women are likely to recognize what appears fake/disingenuous, and are less likely to trust someone who has to perform their identity/personality to match a social script. Thus, men may have to drop whatever way they’re “acting out” masculinity to gain trust.
In contrast, masculinity that is natural and tied to genuine confidence and self-awareness is not a red flag for most women, and is generally appreciated.
However, not all women want to deeply know their spouse. Some of them just care about the image he has/how he compliments how she wants to be perceived. Such women may either actively seek out what they view as masculinity (real or performed) or “anti-masculinity.”
Things like narratives, ideology, how interwoven her beliefs are with her identity and how much or how little those beliefs were formed independently, etc—all of these play a role in what a woman looks for and trusts. Is it about really knowing the person, or finding one with the right image that corresponds to narrative recognition?
In general I think issues arise when people are more concerned with what others think or about going out of their way to avoid cognitive dissonance to the point they can’t be themselves/can’t see the other person for who they are.
Well said
No, I do not make the assumption that masculinity is natural and not performative. Saying that some presentations are natural and others are performative is a false dichotomy.
I get you’re not assuming masculinity is entirely non-performative, and likewise I’m not proposing a hard split between “natural” and “performative” presentations—that would be a false dichotomy.
I’m talking about a spectrum from self-consistent expression to expression optimized for audience expectations. Both are socially shaped, but they respond differently when incentives change: self-consistent signaling remains stable because it’s grounded in a person’s underlying reasoning and settled values, whereas the purely strategic signaling shifts or disappears when the social rewards change, or reverse/vanish.
So the key variable isn’t masculine vs feminine traits but the extent to which those traits depend on external validation, mimesis, & the epistemic process by which the person forms their beliefs and values.
On an unrelated note, I didn’t notice the username on this comment until now. Funny enough, I’ve seen you pop up in my feed before; I thought I was already following you. If not, I will. Gotta keep some grit in the mix, after all.
Another problem with this theory is that men don’t pretend to be low testosterone, they really are low testosterone. Testosterone levels went from an average of 600 to 450 in just 15 years , from 2000 to 2015. That’s all you need to know about why men are so feminine today . No need for complicated theories about sexual selection .
This has gotta be primarily because we've gotten fatter and more sedentary. I know microplastics is the sexier answer, and I can't imagine they're good for us so we should make an effort to clean our shit up, but it's just so much more straightforward that it'd be increased obesity that's the primary cause, especially given the increase in all the other obesity-related diseases that we've seen:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10763932/
Why so much pressure on men to behave in a feminine way though? Shouldn't #BelieveWomen be *less* required in a low-testosterone society?
I suppose if I were a radical feminist, I could argue that the patriarchy really had its boot on the female throat back when men were higher testosterone. Now that its boot has been lessened a little bit, we can hear her screaming.
I think it's abundantly clear by now that Woke people - including 3rd wave feminists -and their liberal enablers NEVER STOP seeing and portraying themselves as victims requiring more and more preferential and coddling treatment. See the very recent trans changes OR the very recent super bowl ads about "girl power" OR any race hustler. These people are either zealots living in a delusional fantasy world or liberals enabling them out of fear of -worst case scenario - losing their jobs. Continuously crying hatred and bigotry pays off handsomely and "wins" arguments. (Not really but it'll look like it.)
When has "signaling loyalty" ever been a important factor in men's success in sex and relationships? Such a thing never happened, it would imply lack of loyalty would ever the limit the options of high status men (it doesn't, even when it's obvious). There are good ways to explain the shift in composition of elites in recent years, and women certainly have a lot to do with it, but this theory feels more like a bullshit platitude a feminist might throw at an incel than a good explanation.
This is the opposite of a feminist platitude. Richard is basically saying that men adopt feminist beliefs as a downstream effect of wanting to get laid. Whereas a feminist would say that a high quality man being a feminist would precede any ulterior motive.
While I do think all feminists are delusional in certain ways, I think it depends on how delusional the woman is, feminist or not. I think there are plenty of feminists who believe "All men are dogs and can't be trusted" and there are plenty of non-feminists who are delusional and really believe some guy is treating them great because they have a great personality. I have met these women. (To be fair, I know one guy like this who also thinks women really dig him because of his personality and not the fact that he's very good looking and tall.)
What I meant is that feminists often say that support for feminism makes men more attractive, which is what they often say to unattractive men (like incels). I guess a lot of guys believe the platitude and try to act accordingly, but any guy in that position is most likely low status to begin with, which doesn't track with Richard's theory because he's talking about shifting attitudes in elites.
Sure, feminists tell incels that being a feminist is more attractive but it is hinged on the belief the feminism is sincere. A feminist would be repulsed by a man who pretended to be a feminist just to get laid. And incels almost never use the “feminizing” tactic to try and get women. Instead, they attempt to become more masculine or “chad-like” which tracks per Richard’s theory.
Self-identified incels are popularly thought of as being "redpilled" right-wingers, but are actually more likely to lean to the left https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/news/incels-are-not-particularly-right-wing-or-white-but-they-are-extremely-depressed-anxious-and-lonely-according-to-new-research
Why would you assume a feminist would always be able to tell whether a man's feminism is sincere or not? And how do you know incels didn't try the feminization tactic? Sure, I guess guys today who are part of incels communities certainly dont try to appear feminist, but a lot of unattractive guys do or did it at some point, including today's incels. It's common enough to have become a stereotype. See what comes up when you look up "feminist male"
I never assumed that, I said a feminist would never prescribe for an incel to be an insincere feminist
Women are not very good at offering men advice on how to be more attractive. I think the largest part of this it's because having to offer a man advice on such matters is itself very unattractive to women, and the advice which could be offered which actually has a chance of making a making a noticeable difference involves solutions which will take long term efforts before they bear fruit. "Make more money" and "get in better physical shape" would improve the prospects of many loveless men today, but these take months or years of concentrated efforts.
I think there is probably a simpler explanation than the one Richard elucidate, which relates to his concept of EHC (or maybe just to biodeterminism around IQ and conscientiousness). Elite human capital tend to be more thoughtful and have more foresight than LHC. So they tend to understand that superficially attractive traits are not always positive in the long run.
Highly masculine men have many virtues, but they also often have vices like aggression, impulsiveness, and inflexibility. In a long term relationship they might butt heads with a woman over many different issues. An intelligent woman with foresight will likely realize that, so her initial attraction to masculine men will be weakened by thoughts of the long term. The opposite will happen with less masculine men, women of intelligence and foresight will often realize that they are easier to get along with in the long run.
Regardless of whether Richard's explanation is correct, I think it ultimately shows that deception in relationships is bad. Instead of pretending to be someone you are not to get your mate to trust you, work to actually be more trustworthy. Instead of pretending to have such low levels of sexual attraction that you aren't tempted by other women, be the kind of person who can resist temptation. Be an honorable man who keeps his commitments to women, not a man who pretends he doesn't even need to make commitments.
Others are correct that an array of more straightforward explanations for cultural feminization are available (viz., women incorporating into the workforce and feminine traits being correlated with educational/professional success). Feminization is more likely the upshot of women gaining bargaining power and enforcing their beliefs/affinities than about men devising a stratagem to signal loyalty and accommodate female mate selection. One of the key struggles of men these days is precisely their inability to reshape themselves into the girly contours of current female mating preferences. Clever theory though.
Stalin is the wrong guy for that joke. He would send everyone important to the gulag sooner or later, nothing personal! "Elite rotation" was the euphemism.
The appropriate comparison (and this one is allegedly not a joke) is the (much more humane and tolerant) Khrushchev visiting an abstract art exhibition and commenting it with... well, you can read it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manege_Affair .
That’s a good one. Amazing how masculine everyone was 60 years ago!
It doesn’t take much to be more humane and tolerant than Stalin, admittedly… :)
Isn’t a much simpler explanation that women have been steadily getting more influential over time?
I don’t think women have changed — they never liked getting harassed by their boss (I suppose there were a few exceptions but most 50’s guys were not Don Draper), but they put up with it because they didn’t want to lose their jobs. They mostly don’t like crude sexual language or humor, either.
Once there were more women in management and a legal system to somewhat protect women, women stopped putting up with it as much.
Older, richer, more powerful men could and can ignore this trend to some extent, but regular guys can’t and changed their behavior.
Dating as competition is one way to look at the male female dynamic. It’s more type 1 thinking, drawing upon our primal instinct to explain social behaviors.
Another way to look at it is through type 2 thinking. Type 1 thinking (winning a competition, high quality spouse, etc) leads to sub-optimal outcomes in terms of actual quality of life. The constant threat of divorce, or tension due to mistrust, or lack of commitment and lack of love is not worth playing games. Simple as that. Type 2 thinking distills what exactly is valuable about monogamy and a strong nuclear family and makes decisions that create such an environment.
What is "type 2 thinking"? I've heard of Type I vs Type II error.
I think something like zero-sum vs positive-sum thinking respectively? i.e. "winning" a spouse (zero-sum competition with other males) versus building a positive relationship with someone
I'd never heard the phrase used in such a way before.
There’s a book thinking fast and slow that I’m borrowing the language from. It’s not quite 1 to 1 on the definition but essentially type 1 thinking is subconscious, fast thinking, that most people do subconsciously whereas type 2 is deliberate, slow thinking that requires effort.
Sounds like "system 1" vs "system 2". A separate issue from zero-sum vs positive-sum.
I have this exact thought whenever I read these competitive, market-based accounts of romance and dating. It seems to both not describe reality accurately, and be too zero-sum.
>Before we relaxed pressures for monogamy, the left wasn’t seen as necessarily less masculine than the right
Leftist movements were more feminist from the start. Women actively participated in the 19th and early 20th century revolutionary movements. If you listen to a history of something like the Russian Revolution, the communists have multiple influential women; the only influential woman on the right is maybe the Tsar's wife.
But, were the men on the Left more feminine?
I don't fully agree with Hanania, but I think his point still stands: he is referring to men being more feminine. Just because plenty of feminists were involved back then (when women genuinely had less rights) doesn't mean the men weren't seen as masculine in the way they are now.
Pretty much the entire "alpha male" "beta male" discourse is projection and cope on the part of its advocates. It takes a few accurate observations about how dating works, and then makes up a bunch of ludicrous psychological explanations for why it works like that. The explanations say far more about their proponents and their misanthropic worldview than they do about the men and women they are supposed to be describing.
One of the biggest "aha" moments I had was when I saw a video by a female comedian where she described dating a bunch of losers before settling down. What was interesting was that she described the exact same phenomenon as described by the redpill/PUA community. Where she differed was her description of the attitude she felt towards the men in question. It was clear that she had no real respect for the men she fooled around with and saw them as beneath her and unworthy of marriage. Her husband, by contrast, was a man she was both attracted to, and respected. The reason she had fooled around before settling down was simple logistics: if she had fooled around after settling down her husband would have been upset!
The redpill/PUA community describes the same phenomenon, but projects completely different motivations onto the women in question. They claim that women really respect and are attracted to the alpha males they screw around with and are contemptuously settling for the betas. I realized the redpill/PUAs weren't actually fearlessly facing reality like they claimed. Instead they just sat around making up motivations for women that allowed them to feel hate and contempt for them.
My insight was cemented after I read Ozy Brenan's "Anti-Heartiste FAQ," which had the same theme of agreeing that the behavior that PUAs observed in the dating environment existed, but having different, more accurate psychological explanations for why it existed. Again, I realized that a group that portrayed themselves as fearless truthtellers facing reality were just a bunch of misanthropes taking giant doses of cope. They didn't care about finding the truth, they just discovered a few useful dating techniques by dumb luck and then made up fake explanations for why they worked that let them justify being contemptuous of everyone.
It's isn't a denial of human nature to recognize that violent, aggressive alpha males are usually impulsive, narcissistic morons in the present day. It's just a recognition that the environment has changed since when humans evolved. Traits that were adaptive back then aren't as adaptive now, so most people use their intelligence and prudence to moderate those traits. The only people who fail to do so are one who lack intelligence and prudence.
I am certainly not embracing some kind of beta male slave morality. I am simply recognizing that women are not a monolith and that different dating techniques work differently on different types of women. If I was doing what you accuse me of I would be insisting that beta male techniques work on all women.
It's not a "theory" it's a very bad hypothesis. You make zero predictions based evolutionary theory to back up your supposition. It looks like you've learned evolutionary psychology from pop psych books. This is as bad as Rollo Tomassi.
Feminization of men is another luxury belief.
For high status men, it allows showing that they have both high quality and loyalty.
For low status men, it just makes them seem even lower quality than otherwise. Hence, incels.
I'm not sure I follow. Incels are not in any way shape or form associated with feminization. I think it's an unusual stretch to do so. If anything, they're viewed as misogynist and proto-fascists. If you mean the stereotype of guys living in their parent's basement, I can see what you're going for, but incels are not remotely feminized - if the term incel means anything. Incels is a term reserved for guys living in the basement who are angry and misogynist.
Feminization makes low status men seem even lower quality, and therefore more likely to be involuntarily celibate. The literal meaning of incel is involuntary celibate. This is a semantics issue, but even for an incel, as in an angry misogynist, the prerequisite is to also be involuntary celibate, so my point still stands.
Fair point, agreed on this being about semantics. If all you mean by incel is involuntarily celibate, I'm with you. I'm just used to Establishment Media always tying them to "proto-fascist" "misogynists" who would despise feminine things, but yes you're right about the original meaning.
Interesting but it leaves out that women do want the high libido, high testosterone and only settle for less of both after giving up on those men making a commitment. As such, it's a big leap to say the 34 year old woman actually prefers a less masculine man for marriage. More likely the less masculine man is a second choice of necessity. Which also explains why most divorces are initiated by women and in context to your own observations about high class/feminine men; that demographic has the highest percentage of women initiating divorce.
Men and women have different conceptions of high trust and safety. Feminine high trust is school room compliance. Masculine high trust is sports and the market determining merit and loyalty
1. The main problem I see with this idea is that quality and loyalty probably are correlated. In other words, high quality guys also have high impulse control and are less likely to cheat, while low quality guys have low impulse control and thus are more likely to cheat. All things held equal though, I agree that there is a tradeoff--I imagine a low impulse guy who makes a lot of money would be more likely to cheat than a low-income low impulse guy--but, given the correlation, there is less of a tradeoff than one would think.
2. A lot of behavior results from the actions of one's peers and authorities (i.e., culture in some sense). How do you address the objection that the feminized behavior of men is simply cultural and does not result from feminized men succeeding in the sexual marketplace? In other words, prestige-based transmission swamps other effects, and the feminine/high class/liberal tribe and the masculine/low class/conservative tribe simply result from different prestigious individuals driving behavior. Ironically, dominance-based cultural transmission also favors feminization: government coercion, whether that takes the form of a teacher or an employer’s HR lady—is clearly pushing young men towards feminization. The bottom-up, dominance-based transmission that used to ensure masculine young men—bullying and calling certain behaviors gay, for example—has been broken down or neutered. This argument—I will call it the Heinrichean theory of feminization—may more plausibly explain the facts you lay out.
3. Your argument implies some kind of search function among men, where less successful men copy successful men. This obviously seems plausible; however, I would like evidence of men specifically copying feminized behaviors in order to acquire a date. As you know, some men fail to attract women and turn to advice on the internet. The internet advice does *not* advise feminization; in fact, it seems to emphasize becoming more masculine.
I don't see why this would be the case. Our foundational history was as a harem species. Not to mention friendship and love are just much better ways to ensure monogamy, so women who prioritize that are better off focusing their efforts there after they managed to secure a suitably high-quality guy. Not to mention they're more fun.
You stated, "I don't see why this would be the case." What is "this" to which you refer?
The idea that quality and loyalty are naturally correlated. Men are much more likely to have affairs in proportion to their excellence, whether by money, talent, or good looks. Hence why i'm convinced it's a much better idea for women who prize loyalty to focus on fostering love and friendship with whatever the most desirous male they can land. Not to mention if he himself is not capable of fostering such, that is also a good sign to leave.
I do not disagree your idea that women should foster love and friendship with their (future) spouse.
As I stated (perhaps unclearly) above, holding all things equal, of course men are more likely to have affairs in they are higher status. But the problem is that reality does not hold all things equal. For example, more conscientious people cheat less; less conscientious (i.e., impulsive) people cheat more. More conscientious people also make more money. There are tons of variables here.
Having an attractive spouse reduces the likelihood of cheating; higher status men have more attractive spouses. In other words, women themselves have status, and men are less likely to cheat with higher status wives. Who gets high status wives but high status men?
In support of Richard's point, it is true that religiousness does strongly predict less infidelity. The idea that non-religious people then need new status-markers then to ensure loyalty is interesting, but I am not sure it can overcome the problems I have identified.
It would be interesting to test whether Hanania’s model or my Heinrichean model better explains the rise of feminized behaviors among men. If Hanania is right, then higher status men on average should be more feminized; if I am right, then exposure to liberal institutions per se (e.g., higher education) will correlate more with feminization. We could look at how women swipe as well. If Hanania’s theory is correct, then women should be more likely to swipe right with men who display feminized beliefs/traits. If the Heinrichean theory is correct, then men’s success should depend more on traditional masculinity or other variables, and feminized men would not actually perform better in the swipe game.
This explains a lot of the chaos going down in the reality tv show ‘the real
Housewives of Beverly hills’.
To add, I always thought loyalty equalled quality, but I’m working class.
And men cant become feminised imo. I think what we are calling feminisation is a masculine response, a castration anxiety phase. Calling it feminisation is sort of the ‘blaming mother’ arc teenage boys go through in attempts to become men, before becoming men.
You don't believe men can become feminized? For god's sake we can make people who are willing to blow themselves up in the name of an invisible being they've never seen. Or more immediate: get MOST PEOPLE - even powerful people - to go along with the idea that transwomen are women! You've seen videos of whole swarms of people sitting at events watching a man beat out women and no one says boo because they know that worst case scenario, they lose their jobs or future careers.
As for your Freudian explanation, I put that in the circular file where I put most Freudian explanations. Far too strained.
So you believe men can become feminised but they can’t become women? So would you agree this ‘feminisation’ of yours is inherently male, a male mutation/fantasy projected onto women through a sulky ‘feminisation did it!’? Just as you don’t want trans women in sports because they are not born women, I don’t want male ‘feminisation’ in the definition of women. As far as I can see, feminisation is a male issue and has nothing to do with the female sex. Rather it is a symptom of the makes failure to deal with his own sex, a masculine identity crisis for men who can’t hack the fact they were born of women
The only one projecting here is you since you believe “feminization has nothing to do with the female sex”. I on the other hand have never said that women can’t be feminized and it is only limited to men. Of course women can be more or less feminized or feminine. This is obvious is it not? Depends on their nature and nurture.
Also, I think the “feminized male” in this discussion refers to a man behaving in ways he believes women will like - behaving more “beta” for lack of a better word. What does beta mean here? Prioritizing the FEELINGS and emotions of preferred identities over demonstrable practical and PHYSICAL safety concerns.
Boys and men PLAY rough - especially verbally- much more than women and girls do and they don’t quiver and worry about inadvertently and unintentionally hurting the FEELINGS of the most over sensitive member of a preferred identity group they can imagine.
Ok well I think we should agree to disagree as we have very different ideas and angles going on here? I’ve heard some of your angles before (as the feminisation notion is fairly popular a concept) and tbh they don’t make a lick of sense to me. Perhaps we are fundamentally and irreconcilably different in our perceptions
I have no idea what it is that I wrote that makes no sense to you but what I wrote is not "a fairly popular concept". You seem stuck on your evidence-free mind-reading belief that a "feminized male" doesn't exist except in the minds of men who are bothered by the fact that they have mothers. What I wrote is straightforward and demonstrable:
the kind of 'feminized males" being discussed on this thread - from what I've seen - are the kinds of men who display allegiance to MOSTLY (but not always) female/feminine worldviews: prioritizing the FEELINGS of preferred groups over practicality, PHYSICAL safety, OR REALITY itself. Obvious example: every problem caused by trans ideology falls into this basket (i.e. "transwomen ARE women" - untrue - and therefore men can enter women's spaces simply on their claiming being a woman). Boys and men "play" rougher than women - especially verbally - they bond by insulting each other and so AVERAGE men have a great deal of trouble buying the idea that language or words are violence or make people "unsafe".
What I’m suggesting is that what you say is ‘feminisation’ is less a feature of real female women and more a feature of men. And that men call it ‘feminised’ to distance themselves from it and not take ownership of it being theirs. In your initial example you used ‘going to war’ (prior to the trans example) as being a symptom of this so-called feminisation, like a brain dead conformity of sorts. And indeed it is men who go to war and take orders way more enthusiastically than women, but sure let’s veil that in the cope of heroism. Being a minority, trans women are easy pickings for conformist men, a useful distraction from their own failing-to-be-men. Atleast the trans women had the balls to differentiate from the trembling horde, in this sense, trans women are more masculine than some of your straight men (if we are here equating masculinity with macho free-thinking).
And yes your use of the trope ‘feminisation’ and your take on trans is incredibly common and predictable. Masculinity in real life is evidently not independent and heroic, it is radically conformist and eager for fatherly authority/instruction. No, that is not because you have become ‘feminised’, but ofcourse you will insist on that in order to distance yourself from any icky responsibility of self-reflection. The feminisation you speak of is everyday masculinity and it is utterly unimpressive.
I am lucky to have a good father, and an example of the masculine that takes responsibility for itself.
Though I might start calling what you call ‘feminisation’ instead ‘masculinisation’, as like I said, it’s a man thing, a man problem