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culture, blogging, relationships, faith, men and women, hypergamy, Tomassi
So, Tomassi of Irrational Male fame has written a post called, Our Sister’s Keeper. Yikes. Ai yi yi, where to start, with hip waders and goggles I suppose, and a big shovel so we can cut through all the rhetoric, ideology, and hostility, and try to get to the heart of the matter.
Men are their sister’s keeper. We are our brother’s keeper. Whether in the context of faith or simply in the context of biology, it is what it is, total and complete symbiosis between the two genders. We can all attempt to squirm our way out of that truth, but truth it remains. No man is an island and women, well we give birth to men, and the hand that rocks the cradle in many ways, does rule the world.
Tomassi goes on to say, (of Beta game) “Play nice, respect a woman by default, be supportive of her self-image and ambitions to the sacrifice of your own, don’t judge her and do your utmost to identify with the feminine, was the call to action that, deductively, should make a man more attractive to a woman.”
Oh, the sheer horror! Play nice, respect women, be supportive, sacrifice, what a bunch of chumps men are, huh? The next thing you know women will actually demand men get girl cooties on them or something and when that happens you know she has truly harvested your organs and feasted on your very soul.
In the narcissistic, solipsistic soul of the wounded male ego, it never even occurs to them that women are actually also making sacrifices in the equation. Let me tell you, nothing makes you feel like a “beta chump” faster than finding yourself abandoned after the prime of your youth has faded, left behind with a pack of kids to feed because some wanker has decided he needs to go find himself. Naturally the first place he goes seeking himself….. is in another woman.
In fact if you want to get technical about it, hypergamy is actually the male sexual strategy projected onto women, an attempt to both reject the nature of yourselves and to blame women for it, an attempt to excuse and to justify your own dual sexual strategy. Men want security, families, respect, but they do want to sow their wild oats, too. Have modern women learned how to imitate this male biological strategy? Oh yes! Oh yes, and it is the oddest thing to witness, both tragic and funny at the same time. This is why you have college girls hooking up and the morning after saying “Wait, why am I having casual sex with dudes I don’t even like for reasons I can’t even fathom?? Did I even consent to this? Why, there outta be a law! A consent law! I couldn’t possibly have agreed to this kind of stupid, it’s just all wrong.”
It is just “all wrong” and girls are often aware of this on some level, but when you have grown up in a culture where women’s value is presented as an exclusively sexual one, where you have been taught your empowerfulness as a female revolves entirely around your sexuality, it is very confusing. Combine this with normal hormones and the male sexual strategy which usually involves trying to storm the castle gates, or climbing over them or under them, or convincing you to open the drawbridge in some way, and you have questionable female agency. It’s a bit like demanding a woman stand tall in the face of a battalion of armed men coming over the hill. She is expected to not only know the nature of her own self, but to know the nature of men too, to understand the cultural deceptions going on in our world, and to stand there unarmed, deflecting all those arrows flying in her direction.
You know what the average age a woman is when she is expected to show this kind of emotional maturity and deep understanding of the nature of the world around her? 13 years old. It’s rather astounding, but while boys are still splashing around in mud puddles and sneaking off to look at dirty pictures in Nat’l Geographic, 13-year-old girls are trying to navigate the world of so-called sexual agency. They have already encountered those words “slut” and “prude”, “bitch” and “whore.” They have to just learn to pick their poison too, because I assure you which ever persona they chose, it will be the wrong one.
Alas, women are not Batman either, and what you often wind up with is a dead soldier, a bit of collateral damage, full of sexual confusion, trying to make sense of what’s left of the the world around her.
“I’ve always found it fascinating because for all my dealing in cold harsh observable facts I’ve never paused to consider that women might have some excusable reason for their ethically challenged behavior..”
With all due respect, that usually is the position men take when they cannot face the truth of their own “ethically challenged behavior.” Do you know that I have spent years researching men’s ethically challenged behavior? Why? Empathy. A desire to understand why some insist on destroying themselves. To understand the nature of male/female relationships. To try and grasp the nature of the world around me. Can you even imagine trying to do that without ever bothering to understand and empathize with the other gender’s “ethical challenges?” Half the human race?? That’s so narcissistic it’s enough to make me laugh.
He continues, “In my own estimate Hypergamy isn’t inherently bad or good – it just depends on whether you find yourself on the sharp end of it….”
Complete moral relativism, rather astounding actually. See, I don’t believe hypergamy rules women at all, but suppose I did? In that case, what kind of a sociopath would simply say, “whatever, just as long as I don’t end upon the sharp end of your stick, it’s all good?”
“The problem I see in assigning the blame of women’s behavior to men’s lack of control is that, presently, men have no real control nor does men’s concept of justice align with that of women…”
Ah, and now we get to the heart of the matter, the blame and shame game. Men whether they want it or not, have a very protective nature towards women. Their sense of self-worth really is motivated by a desire for respect from women, respect that often comes from having a sense of honor. What really knocks men off base? Shame. Men have a fascinating and profound relationship with shame. You can hear it hinted at in Tomassi’s words, we have no control, it’s not fair, we can’t possibly be to blame… You can hear it all those derogatory remarks about women frequently found in Tomassi’s comment section, those attempts to make her smaller, more devious, more evil than you perceive yourselves to be. That is how we dehumanize an enemy, how we detach in order to try to justify our own behavior towards them. That is what men do when they are feeling weak and powerless, burdened with all of the responsibility and yet none of the authority or control. Full of shame about what is going on in the world but completely unable to do anything about it.
“On a final note here, whenever I delve into the ethical implications of Red Pill awareness I invariably run into the personal responsibility equation. I do my best to make as coldly rational an observation of dynamics I see and allow my readers to make their own judgements. However, those observation are never intended to excuse the behaviors men and women find themselves prone to acting out.”
Well, that’s something at least. Some kind of awareness that perhaps some people may subjectively receive your words and take them as permission, as justification and validation for what I sometimes refer to as wankerhood, no gender designation intended. All in good humor here, but oh, speak to me of the sins of Adam, about how his words just flow like milk and honey, not my fault Lord, not my fault, see this woman you gave me…..
Speak to me of men and their perceived ability to be rational, the great pride they take in allegedly being so coldly clinical, so detached from human emotion, that the first man actually took it upon himself to try to explain the nature of sin to God Himself. Quite sweetly even, so rationally, so logically….and so totally full of coconut candy that he found himself tossed out into the wilderness, too.
Anything, anything at all to try to avoid that awful shame, that sense of responsibility, that deep seated fear that just knows within itself, to whom much is given, much is expected…
Tomassi concludes with,“So are men to blame for the conditions they find their women in? Are we our sisters’ keepers, hamstrung by our own culpability to actually help them be better women? Or do they bear the responsibility to conform to our perspective of justice and police the worst impulses of a Hypergamy most are only peripherally aware of?”
Again, that blame/shame dichotomy I write so much about. What an evident and powerful example of that desire to claim no agency, no responsibility, and yet to reap the rewards, the fruits of having done so. That really is the human condition, something both men and women always struggle with, we tend to want all of the authority, all of the power, all of the control, and yet none of the blame. The buck stops here, what a quaint and outdated idea.
Ironically, the “hypergamy” women are expected to police is not really our own, but actually men’s! Men off running wild with it about the ‘sphere and saying, “meh, not my problem, I ain’t my sister’s keeper.”
Tomassi asks the wrong question because he is trapped in that pride/shame dichotomy, the one devoid of love, the fear based response that first demands to know, just who’s fault this all going to be? Who is to blame?
Like it or not you cannot have it both ways, that is a deception. If you wish to claim your own genuine power and authority, to step fully into those shoes, then you will embrace your own responsibility. The question should not be whether or not women have any personal agency, but whether or not you do. If you chose no, then you will forever be “hamstrung by your own culpability.”
Another name for “hamstrung by your own culpability,” is trapped in your own shame. It needn’t be that way. There is a much better way of being in the world. Now, I may well have a very romantic and idealistic expectation of men, but that is neither a delusion nor a fantasy, it is based on truth and the example set by so many men who rise to the challenge, who actually perceive themselves precisely as I do.
I am my brother’s keeper, rather shamelessly not “hamstrung by my own culpability.” That is what it means to walk fully in faith and love.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
From the referenced blog…
“women’s inherent solipsism”?
Seriously? I must have missed that part of my character building while I was up all night…many nights in a row…nursing my sick baby, or helping my sister recover from open heart surgery(3 times), or hanging tough and nursing Mr. Gypsy through two bouts of cancer while his body has been furiously working on the third. Or maybe I just spent too much time in the bathroom doing my make-up.
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I know, right? Don’t take it personally, there are actually some people in the world who don’t believe women are even capable of love, something that totally broke my heart when I landed in the midst of it. What can it be like to not even believe in love? I cannot even imagine.
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“If you wish to claim your own genuine power and authority, to step fully into those shoes, then you will embrace your own responsibility. The question should not be whether or not women have any personal agency, but whether or not you do.”
Truer words cannot be spoken.
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My feelings are summed up in song: https://youtu.be/ij8LeLgqUdg
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Ah, how perfect! Such a sweet song, thanks for sharing it.
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When we can weep for each other, the war will be over.
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IB, sorry in advance for the long post. I believe you are making a fundamental error when you ascribe hypergamy as a male quality that some men project onto women. It is not. Oh, we men certainly have our own flaws (and I will address some of them), but hypergamy is not one of them.
Hypergamy is the idea that women are attracted to men who possess the qualities that women most admire in themselves (or wish they had) in equal or greater measure. Hence the idea of wanting a man who is “taller than me”, “smarter than me”, “makes more money than me”. But, more important than this, it is the idea that as a woman’s priorities change over the course of her life, what she wants in a man will change concomitantly. Thus, a 19 year-old girl who most prioritizes her own attractiveness and social status will be most attracted to a man for his attractiveness and social status. But that same woman, at age 29, may alter her priorities such that she now most values her desire for children and stability – and will be attracted to a man for his desire for children and stability. Further, that same woman at age 45, having had her children, may alter her priorities yet again and now value something else – thereby altering what she is attracted to in a man.
This is the concept of hypergamy, and it is NOT a quality of men that we project onto women. Frankly, much of men’s problems comes from the fact that what we want in women tends NOT to change over time. Hence Christian Rudder’s findings in his book “Dataclysm”, basically stating that men remain most attracted to 22-year-old women throughout their lifetimes. Unfortunately for men, what we want from women tends to remain fairly static, while the women we marry do not. That is our own problem, but it is quite the opposite of hypergamy.
The projections of one sex onto the other do pose problems for us all – as demonstrated by another point that I fear you may have mis-understood. You ridiculed Rollo Tomassi for implying that male sacrifice for women is neither appreciated nor useful, but perhaps you might not have understood his context. Men are attracted to women who overtly prioritize them and do things for them – this makes a man actively more attracted to a woman, and men project that the reverse should be true – that women should be attracted to men who do things for them. And they AREN’T. Women do want men to prioritize and sacrifice for them….if the women are already attracted to that man. But the sacrifice is not, in and of itself, an attractant. Hence the dilemma of the “nice guy” who believes his sacrifices will make a woman more attracted to him. Hence the dilemma of the man in the sexless marriage who tries to please his wife through doing housework, only to find her attraction elusive. Men do project onto women (and vice versa), but hypergamy is not part of that equation.
The most common complaint of married men is that their wives CHANGED over time. The most common complaint of married women is that their husbands NEVER CHANGED. And while both of these tendencies – of women to change and of men not to change – create problems in marriage, men are punished for their delinquencies by law and social convention while women are (generally) encouraged by law and social convention.
Hence the question – who is responsible for bad female behavior? It is not to imply an absence of bad male behavior. Rather, to question why the risk/reward ratio for bad behavior is so different for males versus females. And the answer is that men are responsible for creating that un-equal risk/reward ratio, through their tendency to sacrifice for women at their own expense. Because contrary to what you wrote, that male sense of “honor” is more often exploited by women rather than appreciated by it. Women are not attracted to honor. They desire honor from the men to whom they are attracted. And there is all the difference in the world between those concepts, unfortunately.
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No need to apologize for your long response, it was very thoughtful of you.
I did not marry a man that was smarter then me, made more money then me, or had any of the qualities I admired or desired in myself. Although you got me on the height issue, that was certainly a plus. So when I look at my own life and then go out and look about the world, I do not see anything that resembles hypergamy in the least.
Men often believe women “change.” Everybody changes somewhat, but I suspect that what really changes is men’s perception of her. It is astounding how many men do not even bother to try and get to know their wives, who simply marry someone based on who they imagine her to be. When they discover who she really is, they accuse her of having “changed.”Then they proceed to create elaborate theories about what caused the change.
“Because contrary to what you wrote, that male sense of “honor” is more often exploited by women rather than appreciated by it. Women are not attracted to honor. They desire honor from the men to whom they are attracted.”
The entire world will line up to exploit someone’s honor and women often do take advantage of it every chance they get. Many don’t even recognize it for what it is. The thing is, honor is not supposed to be about what is appealing to women, it is supposed to be about how you define your own self, who and what you are yourself. To base your honor on what may or may not be appealing to women, isn’t really honor at all.
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The original definition of hypergamy was marrying “up”, or marrying someone from a higher social class than you.
Even with your definition, Jeremy, I don’t see how height would fall into the hypergamy category. If the average woman is 4 or 5 inches shorter than the average man…then most of the men will be taller than her. Wouldn’t height be part of what a woman might find conventionally handsome in a man?
While I don’t doubt that some women are indeed hypergamous, most ordinary couples contain people that are a mix of qualities, it seems.
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Each woman will admire/desire different qualities in herself. Not all women seek a man who is smarter, higher-earning, etc. Rather, they look for men who share their most important priorities. In a sense this is good – since sharing priorities implies compatibility. But in a sense it is bad if priorities will change predictably over time.
I disagree with you that women’s propensity to change is mostly a matter of male perception or lack of getting to know the person. This disagrees with my observations of friends and acquaintances, and what I read in popular culture. How often do we hear men complaining that the woman who used to prioritize him now ignores him and prioritizes the children? How often do we hear women complain about their husbands never having changed or “grown up”? Why is it that women drive the divorce market? Why do men not make similar complaints about women, if the sole problem was perception? Women change – and they often change predictably, whereas men rather predictably don’t change. When you hear it said that men can not alter hypergamy, this is to say that men are not in control of women’s changing priorities. In bygone times, priorities remained somewhat anchored by religious beliefs. Further, divorce was discouraged due to legal and social penalties, and thus in spite of changing priorities, women were largely prevented from acting on those changes. No longer.
You are quite correct that men should define their own concept of honor and strive to live by it. Yet that very sense of masculine honor is what has provided the impetus for bad female behavior – and the reduced risk/benefit ratio for bad behavior that we have discussed above. It would be one thing if male honor provided men with tangible incentives – such as female attraction, or status/respect in society. It does not. This is the unfortunate reason for the nihilism you see in the manosphere.
Forasmuch as I might argue that men are (at least partially) responsible for bad female behavior, the reverse is also true. If men no longer see reason to be honorable, it is because women do not provide an impetus for honorable behavior (and, in fact, provide several penalties for it). The crisis of masculinity in today’s culture is actually a crisis of motivation. Men do not need to be shamed into behaving properly. They need to be given a good reason to do so.
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Jeremy, I always found your take on hypergamy interesting (think I first red it at Bloom’s place, RPGN).
The only part I disagree with is…I’m not sure the equation depends so much on what the woman values “about herself” as what she finds valuable. I always liked that my husband was an assertive and gregarious person who could speak in front of a crowd of thousands without breaking a sweat. I’m the complete, utter opposite of that and I (frankly) hate that about myself.
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@Liz, “Hypergamy is the idea that women are attracted to men who possess the qualities that women most admire in themselves (or wish they had) in equal or greater measure.” It’s the “or wish they had” that seems to apply to you, though the way you put it is equally valid. For what it’s worth, I’ve always found your perspectives refreshing as well. Shame that the J4G site is dormant – some great conversations were had there. I enjoy IB’s insights too – I just happen to disagree with her on this particular issue.
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“Forasmuch as I might argue that men are (at least partially) responsible for bad female behavior, the reverse is also true. If men no longer see reason to be honorable, it is because women do not provide an impetus for honorable behavior (and, in fact, provide several penalties for it). The crisis of masculinity in today’s culture is actually a crisis of motivation. Men do not need to be shamed into behaving properly. They need to be given a good reason to do so.”
Thanks Jeremy, that’s very insightful of you and I quite agree. Do you have any idea how we go about, “giving men a good reason to behave properly?” I mean in general, within the culture at large?
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“Do you have any idea how we go about, “giving men a good reason to behave properly?” I mean in general, within the culture at large?”
I will respond with another long post, as the question is not simple. Female behavior has always been the primary motivator for male behavior, though the reverse is not true.
For women, the meta-goal (the ultimate goal toward which all their other goals point) is usually to have a certain lifestyle – to have kids (as many as they want, when they want), to have a social circle, societal status, a certain level of security, a balanced work/life ratio, a nice home, and…oh yeah, a husband too, would be nice. But the husband, nice as he is, is only a part of the picture and a means to an end, to achieve the meta-goal of the desired lifestyle. Even little girls fantasize about this when they play house – often without boys to play the husband (or with the boys in a supporting role, at best). The power to choose a lifestyle is the ultimate motivator for women…..but not so for men.
Most men do ultimately want to get married and have a family. Heck, there was a recent long-term study done at Harvard which concluded that the most important factor in long-term male happiness was love and family. Men have ALWAYS been motivated toward good behavior with the promise that “if you work hard, do well in school, and get a good job, you will find a wife and have a family.” In other words, your hard work and income will be your gateway to sex, family, and happiness.
But men’s meta-goal is the woman herself, not the lifestyle. Men do not (generally) fantasize about their home decor, their social circle, their work-life balance, etc. Men fantasize about WOMEN. This is why male pornography revolves around female sexuality, desire and admiration, while female pornography (the images women look at and fantasize about, often to their own detriment) revolves around home decor magazines and images on facebook of the lives of their friends and acquaintances who have “more” than they do. Certainly men want children too, but their view of children is much like women’s view of husbands – nice, and definitely part of the big picture, but not the ultimate meta-goal (at least, not before they have those children – afterward it is a different story).
So if we are to address the question of how to motivate men to better, more “mature” behavior (ie. to behave as women wish they would, in order to give women what they want), we must first understand what men tend to want, and how those wants differ from those of women. Men want women. They desire female sexuality, but more than this, they desire women who admire them for their masculine works and qualities, and reciprocate by creating a physical and emotional “home” which the man desires to return to each day.
How can women motivate men to behave? By understanding what men want, and offering it to them in exchange for their good behavior….instead of demanding that men acquiesce to female behavioral styles and prerogatives and arranging the very structure of marriage itself to enforce the feminine (even in the event of divorce).
It is funny that you brought up the story of Adam and Eve, and the original sin, IB. I think that this story has been mis-understood over time, and can be better explained in light of the male vs. female meta-goals I’ve posited here. In that story, the Snake tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit – he tempts her by offering her a lifestyle that she wants. He claims that it will make her more god-like, and she sees that the fruit is beautiful to look at, and psychologically exciting – and so she eats it. Then she gives it to Adam, who eats it with no need for convincing and for no other reason than that his wife gave it to him. When God asks Adam why he ate the fruit, he replies that it was because his wife gave it to him. We have taken this to mean that he was trying to pass the buck and blame someone other than himself. But what if that isn’t the meaning? If the meta-goal of Man is Woman, and if Eve, the flesh of his flesh and the bone of his bone ate the fruit, how could he not? Would he want to live in a world where she was expelled from Paradise while he remained? Where she was punished but he was not? Female behavior is the motivator for male behavior, because the meta-goal of man is woman.
And, interestingly, God punished Eve for her lack of judgment by proclaiming that she should, evermore, defer to her husband’s judgment. But He made no complaint about Adam’s judgment. Instead, He proclaimed that because Adam ate a forbidden food, food would no longer be provided to him free of charge. That was the punishment for ignoring God’s law. But Adam’s judgment would, thereafter, supercede Eve’s – since his reason for eating the fruit was love of his wife, while hers was a desire for a lifestyle.
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Thanks for your response, Jeremy. I’ve had some good Adam and Eve discussions on this blog before. To try and understand the motivations behind their behavior can be very interesting, mostly because of what it reveals about us, our own perceptions of the world.
I really don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, and I quite agree with this part, “How can women motivate men to behave? By understanding what men want, and offering it to them in exchange for their good behavior…”
That works very well on an individual basis and creates some delightful marriages. It does not work on the culture at large however, because that equation, that exchange, has forever been rewritten. Women have little or no reason to motivate men’s behavior, in fact women have little or no need of men at all. Needless to say, I believe this course ends in complete disaster for everyone, but it is what it is. Most women aren’t even aware of it, many men either, so it’s not likely to change anytime soon.
So, from a Christian perspective, I have to believe that men must learn to get their honor and motivation from some other source, like Christ perhaps? Which is really what men should have been doing all along. I know what men “want,” from women, but that “want” should never be one’s sole motivation for one’s good behavior. Expecting women to simply change, to suddenly start understanding what men want and to respond accordingly, is still expecting women to be the moral leaders of our culture.
“But Adam’s judgment would, thereafter, supercede Eve’s – since his reason for eating the fruit was love of his wife, while hers was a desire for a lifestyle….”
It’s a very sweet theory, but it promotes the idea that Adam’s sin was simply motivated by a deep love of his wife, therefore rendering his sin, not really sin at all, but just the actions of a love sick man to stupid to know better, a man who continues to this day to try to claim that he is just responding to the cultural expectations of his wife and she is really the one who is leading us farther into a broken world.
Until we finally arrive at Tomassi’s post where a bunch of Adam’s descendents now sit around asking themselves if they even need to bother with the idea that they just might be their sister’s keeper.
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I assume that you do it unwittingly, Jeremy, but you portray men as hapless, two-dimensional entities who lack self-awareness, are externally motivated, and frighteningly prone to manipulation.
That would explain well why you spherians disavow this unflattering image and project it onto women with such dogged insistence.
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Mmmm, we’ve discussed this before – that responsibility and authority are two parts of some one thing and one cannot have one without the other- one either has both or neither, in the long run. To my mind God “dis-integrated” Himself to make this universe – and it is our job to create ourselves by choosing to move towards God by re-integrating that which belongs together (mind you God is far, far greater than this universe – so we are just a small part of Him, the re-integration is for our benefit). Hence Socrates belief that we don’t really invent – we discover, all knowledge is already out there.
As afar as solipsism is concerned – I do believe that each individual is both a part of the whole and individual and unique. One of those paradoxes in God – we can be and are both simultaneously.
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Tomassi’s blog should be called ‘The Rationalizing Male.’ Although ‘The Irrational Male’ would do, too.
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IB, this is an excellent post.
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What a sad commentary on male/female relations.
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