Status, Scarcity & Hostile Sexism
Everyone wants status, especially men. Status goods are highly valued, as they signal success and secure peer respect. The Ivy League and beautiful girlfriends are both examples of scarce status goods. The average American guy now struggles in both departments. This may be contributing to hostile sexism.
Ivy League Competition
Competition for the Ivy League is incredibly tough. Only a tiny minority are admitted, and that’s precisely why parenting has become more intensive. Desperate to secure their children’s elite status, parents are redoubling their efforts.
But what happens to guys who don’t make it? And who do they blame?
Intense competition for status goods may be contributing to hostile sexism.
One young queer woman from California told me that she was the only woman who stuck it out on the debate team. All the others caved in response to male sexual harassment and ostracism. On the bus to a debate competition, a couple of guys started rapping about sleeping with a fellow debater. Another evening, when prepping for debate, two guys began stripping. Their goal was to make the women feel so uncomfortable that they would quit. The Californian woman was tenacious, she stuck it out, and was extremely successful. Yet still her male debate partner felt uncomfortable, he didn’t like her being so victorious. She posed a direct threat to his status.
Others have suggested that hostile sexism is due to the rise of female education. This is not quite correct. Female education is not the issue per se. As I see it, some men are now struggling to secure status goods, which are necessarily finite. And that generates resentment.
Girlfriends
Girlfriends may be similarly difficult to secure. As you may recall from my “Unified Theory of Marriage”, people only marry for love, money or respect. In societies that are economically developed and culturally liberal, women can earn a decent salary and live alone without stigma. Absent the pressure to marry and make babies, the urge to find a husband is thus at an all time low.
On top of this, 1 in 5 Gen-Z Americans are identifying as LGBT. It’s not obvious that all are queer in practice, but this at least suggests diminishing demand for men.
Since women are economically independent and free to pursue whatever makes them happy, they seek loving companionship. As a New Yorker remarked to me yesterday,
“Women only want men who are entertaining!”
Everyday this past week, I’ve been to Soul Cycle on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. One of the instructors is absolutely hilarious and widely adored. All the pretty young women smile and laugh at his high-interval comedy. It’s a quasi-religious cult. All our spin bikes face in his direction, fit bodies bob down in ritual synchrony, keeping up with the beat. Our leader is bitchy, catty, judgemental, flamboyant and openly gay.
Many heterosexual men may well like to have this level of female worship and adulation. But herein lies the problem.. In Chicago, New Haven and California, female students tell me that guys on dating apps are often downright dull. Bored and unimpressed, women simply move on. The average man wants to feel admired. In reality, some are being ghosted.
Obviously, there’s a spectrum - it varies with attractiveness and economic success. Tall doctors and bankers are still attracting partners, but poorer heterosexual males are now struggling. The share of unpartnered men has risen. Unpartnered men tend to be $20,000 poorer, lacking a bachelor’s degree, and living with their parents.
It’s difficult to know why people do stuff, but if you accept that men care about status, and that the Ivy League and girlfriends are both status goods (in short supply), this could be contributing to growing frustrations.
On TikTok and Instagram, some men talk about women benefitting from ‘quotas’. In truth, girls are thriving in education (perhaps partly due to early development of their pre-frontal cortex). Even if quotas are non-existent, the discourse itself is revealing. It indicates resentment, which some try to legitimise by claiming unfairness.
It was always my impression that men frequently pursued status because being higher status made them much more attractive to women.
Different subcommunities have different status ladders. It is why middle/junior high school is such hell, the subgroups are in the process of splitting apart. By high school and later (in the US) you have different subgroups, each with their own status ladders.
It disheartens me when women and girls drop out of educational opportunities when males make them uncomfortable. This is how these little mofos win! Debate teams train skills for future attorneys or even judges, these are powerful roles that shape the policies of our society.
Tell crude jokes about incels and community dicks. Film them if the male students start to strip in public. When there is a will, there is a way. You go girls!