This reminded me of what my son and his friends used to call an MRS. Mrs. Someone. (I corrected this because someone below was kind enough to jog my memory). If you asked them what a specific girl was going to school for, they would laugh and give this answer. Not for all girls, but some.
Doesn't it, though? I wanted him to find someone, but he just got his second MS and not one mention of love, dang it. I think it's a wonderful thing to go for that reason. If you find someone, great! If not, you're smarter anyway. 😉🤣
As a woman who is a data scientist and works in tech...I think there is something about woman going to college say, around male elite institutions ( even before Harvard allowed female students). Women went to very elite female colleges and lived basically next door to the elite men. So there is some truth to that. A woman who is going to MIT just for that purpose? Doubtful. Same thing in tech. There are a lot of woman who work in tech who do not work in a technical role ( aka engineers etc). They are recruiters, work in sales and marketing, project management etc. I think they have a true front row seat. They are also often very attractive women. I really don’t see this with female engineers ( like myself). To be a female engineer is like going against the grain with no real social payoff. I’m in it because I love math and wanted that financial independence/security. I don’t think men find that attractive.
"To be a female engineer is like going against the grain with no real social payoff. I’m in it because I love math and wanted that financial independence/security. I don’t think men find that attractive."
This comports with my (private, previously unshared) "theory of divided motivation" for why women might achieve less than men (pre-feminism attributed to our intellectual inferiority or our being emotion-dominated).
For men all the rewards lie in the same direction. To be accomplished and/or successful is also to get girls and have children.
For women the rewards come to a big fork in the road and diverge widely. If you fulfill yourself intellectually, artistically, professionally, it contributes little or nothing to your romantic and reproductive life and may even be a detriment to it.
THIS IS LESS TRUE (or more subtle) THAN IT USED TO BE. I went to "Radcliffe" (Harvard for girls, at the absurd moment in the 1960s when we went to classes at Harvard and got Harvard diplomas but lived and, get this, GRADUATED separately). Pre-feminism, the assumption really was that attractive women were kinda dumb and "dumber" (or less ambitious) women were more attractive (so a lot of Harvard men sought mates at nearby Lesley College where women, if they were going for careers at all, were going for "feminine," caring and serving careers like nursing, secretarial, social work, or teaching). Smart women were stereotyped as hairy-legged bluestockings.
"Have it all" notwithstanding, I suspect a subtler, homeopathic version of this fork-in-the-road, choose-half-of-yourself dilemma still hampers women. Partly it's that motherhood, especially of infants, has real, deep satisfactions that bind time and attention in a way that is more optional for men, though more are choosing to experience it. Later motherhood is more just "parenthood" (though the residual bondedness of older child to primary caregiver has to be gratifying), but by that time mothers have to struggle to catch up in their nonfamilial interests.
I think a few things are less true now the in the past. For example, Rob's comment that some women go to college to meet men is much leas true now. I also wonder, regarding things that change, that as women are more suited to jobs in the modern world, it will become more acceptable/desired for women to have trophy boyfriends/husbands. There will not be enough educated men for all the educated women, so I think we will see a change in what some women find desirable. Even now, the husbands who stay home with the kids and the husbands on the PTOs--in my suburban group, we envy the women with those men.
Yes! I can definitely see that shift happening. Have you seen that snl sketch of Jason Momoa with the GE big boy appliances? That’s what I’m invisioning
A Harvard boyfriend actually said to me, "I LIKE AIRLINE STEWARDESSES because they DON'T THINK."
So much to unpack in that statement. (The insult to female flight attendants not least. You'd almost wish on him an in-flight emergency with "stewardesses" who "don't think.") Like the late photographer of Marilyn Monroe Bert Stern (whom I helped with a book) confiding in me, "Women were more fun before they were people."
At least he was honest, albeit showing his own stupidity.
Airlines try hire for great people -- warm, able to handle themselves under pressure, ability to adapt to challenging people, genuine affection for others. Essentially, an effective stewardess must make an approximation of everyone on the airline, how to interact with them appropriately, and how to deescalate tough situations to get the other 200+ passengers to the destination with as little stress as possible.
Perhaps they don’t know their way around excel, but I bet they can identify warm people or jerks a lot quicker than I can!
"The Last Sitting." I helped Bert construct, from interviews, a narrative of his shoot with Marilyn Monroe about 6 weeks before she died, to accompany the photos, the famous ones of her nude behind a filmy scarf. It was odd working with Bert because I identified with him, the looker/creator, more than with the objects of his "male gaze." I was on the "subject" side of the fence (not being, and not trying to be, a sexy beauty).
When we are talking about evolution, we are not much talking about the last 100 years and Western mate selection nor even the last thousand and village norms. I think we have to look more closely at what happened 10,000-100,000 y/a. But there are valuable things to learn there!
Don't get me wrong, I would find it more fun to talk to Atiyasha and Annie about dating careers (I am 70, long-married, but dated Asperger's-heavy and brilliant STEM girls whom I have recently re-encountered around reunions. I wish I had you beside me to observe and comment).
But the history of women was to go away to be married. They were either captured or given, and moved directly into a world of unfamiliar women - men only occasionally. The "man-pleasing" behaviors we make so much of now, whether applauding or disdaining, are better understood as woman-pleasing behaviors, to keep yourself, and thus your child(ren) alive to maturity. No violence, but intense focus on trust and betrayal and networks of support. We see these exact behaviors now in women, but they have different meanings in every culture. But that's why they work - they are flexible.
Men, OTOH have the balance between cooperation in violence for conquering or defending tribes (and thus gaining access to women), but in the very next generation seeing the balance begin to shift to competing with other men with more symbolic violence that does not destroy the tribe. Different attitudes and skills, both necessary at different times. The modern American Musical theater idea of one-man/one-woman choosing each other has little basis in historical reality. Choosing is real, but is much more complicated and likely to be overruled for a hundred years by tribal events.
"men compete with one another to appeal to lots of women. And women compete to be chosen by the highest quality men." This remains the key insight.
But "truly human" for post-menopause women is ... wrong. Eunuchs, unlike wise women, are not known as founts of wisdom. Humans are, intensely, sexual. Even many older women still like sex, and orgasms (which you hardly mention). In our consumer society, sex for orgasm is far far more common than sex for children. "It goes without saying" is not true for comprehensive intro into sex differences. Similarly, the desire for orgasm might well be different for men & women, and possibly even between races, but seems woefully under-studied.
The idea that most women want to be as promiscuous as most men is terribly false - and the huge amount of unmarried mothers raising kids, in sub-optimal situations, is partly due to that specific luxury belief. There might be some top 20% (80 percentile) of women wanting casual sex as much as the bottom 20% (20 percentile) of men, but the cross-over might be even lower. A big argument in favor of gay sex is the increased number of partners and ease of finding sex with someone else.
We need a society that supports more marriage. No Western nation has succeeded yet in dramatically decreasing the rate of out-of-wedlock births, tho some like Hungary are trying. We could use more status for those trying to increase marriage rates, and even increase sex inside of marriage with less sex outside.
Unfortunately feminism has worked against the interests of those women who wish to have a stable family. Sexual liberation primarily benefits men, whose primary reason for entering a committed relationship was sexual gratification. When this is offered willingly without commitment to a stable relationship by ‘liberated’ women the end result is far fewer stable relationships and therefore far fewer children raised to adulthood by two biological parents...or even just far fewer children.
Just a more general thought on the importance of status.....this was first brought home to me on reading of the behaviour of primates ( I forget the source ). In times of food shortage those of low status within the troop were unable to obtain food - only those of high status ‘with connections’ could eat without their meal being stolen. If the period of hardship continued for long enough those of low status could starve to death. Perhaps the desire for status is more fundamental even than for reproduction, and is to do with basic personal survival at least initially?
GREAT insight about why women might want to join men's only spaces : behind the scenes acces to the "best" potential mates. I'm not sure it's entirely true but I like thinking about it.
The truly elite level women in my profession (architecture) are either serious natural beauties (Jeanne Gang, Neri Oxman) or sea witches (Zaha Hadid, R.I.P.) so it seems like physical attributes still come into play somehow, even in professions currently coding male.
“entering these spaces in order to get a more reliable and honest evaluation of these men by watching them interact with one another.”
What a striking hypothesis. Seems to line up with how common it is for e.g. female economists to marry male economists, among other forms of highly specific assortative mating that are becoming so prevalent.
I think the causality is the other way. For some 20% of women, they like the intellectual challenges and the status feelings of being successful in tech, research, business. Their daily work exposes them to the interactions of men, both single and married, and this honest evaluation is the by-product of their work location. The ability to share your specialized work with a mate, who is also a friend, is usually a big plus.
A few thoughts on "attractiveness," which varies across time and individuals. "Some women do wear makeup not just to be pretty but to be prettier than other women." I don't understand what makeup symbolizes, but it's bizarre to me that women without paint on their faces is seen as plain or even ugly by some, or that face-painted women are prettier. There's a bit of similarity with males who wear their permanent makeup of tattoos, now often common among females. Some women love the male tattoo makeup and I believe for some men and women it symbolizes toughness. I would be interested to know if you have a theory about why tattoos have become commonplace among women. The same thing goes for height. I remember commenting to a friend how weird I found it that female models are generally much taller than the average female, or even taller than most males.
If you are measuring success as reproductive success -- genetic success fo your genes -- it's not having the most children that is the only thing that you should count. In such a measurement, men have an unsurmountable advantage over women. Wilt Chamberlain claimed in his autobiography to have slept with 20,000 women in his lifefime. (And fathered 0 illegitimate children). Even if we take that number as an exaggeration, you can see that a woman who is limited to 1 preganancy every 9 months will never have the breeding potential of a man who really gets around. One in every 200 males are believed to have the genes of a Mongol ancestor -- whether that is Temujin (Ghengis Khan) or perhaps his great-grandfather doesn't matter for the argument. Without a genetic sample, we won't be able to find that one out.
However, though the tracing we do to find Ghenghis Khan's descendents in the existent population relies on tracing through the Y chromosome (so it is patrilineal lineages we are tracing) it is very clear that in the contest of 'who gets the most descendents' -- Temujin's *mother* did very well for herself. She gets the same payoff as Temujin via his offspring, plus any bonus from any other children she had.)
Thus when you look for women competing against each other, it makes sense to watch not only for an advantage that will benefit herself, relative to other women, but one that will benefit her sons, relative to other people's sons.
I like this a great deal. When we are talking about narcissism dark triad etc those are features of character or maturity or the ever popular recent term “emotional intelligence” (not a new idea - just ask Aristotle) as a euphemism for “grow up people!” Theoretically one’s place on a spectrum from narcissism (vice) to character maturity (virtue) should be equal opportunity 50-50 because it’s a conscious function cerebral and volitional NOT instincts which masculinity and femininity certainly are. So I agree with those of you saying there are equal numbers of good and bad people not associated with biological sex.
By the way I am thrilled to have discourse with people like you all and Rob!
Excuse my brashness but you are confusing desirability across contexts. It is not desirable that desirable men don't commit. However desirable men themselves are less likely to commit exactly because they are desirable and modern culture doesn't pressure young people to settle early (i.e. patriarchy). The arrow of causality goes the other direction. Highly desirable men have options, so they either don't commit or are more picky. I don't think I'm considered high value, but committing at this stage feels like putting my balls on the chopping block. I can only imagine what a top 5% guy would be giving up in this modern culture in favor a woman who might self-destruct any attempts at family.
I think many women (not all, but many) see the man who won’t commit and have a bit of a fantasy that they might be the one amazingly special woman who is so enchanting that he will decide to change his ways.
Women who have affairs with married men often think that maybe the guy will be so besotted he’ll leave his wife, and don’t think about the extremely high probability that the man would cheat on them also.
I think women are a bit prone to this type of thinking.
This reminded me of what my son and his friends used to call an MRS. Mrs. Someone. (I corrected this because someone below was kind enough to jog my memory). If you asked them what a specific girl was going to school for, they would laugh and give this answer. Not for all girls, but some.
Thank you sooooo much. My middle-aged brain could NOT remember the exact terminology. It was driving me bonkers.
Doesn't it, though? I wanted him to find someone, but he just got his second MS and not one mention of love, dang it. I think it's a wonderful thing to go for that reason. If you find someone, great! If not, you're smarter anyway. 😉🤣
As a woman who is a data scientist and works in tech...I think there is something about woman going to college say, around male elite institutions ( even before Harvard allowed female students). Women went to very elite female colleges and lived basically next door to the elite men. So there is some truth to that. A woman who is going to MIT just for that purpose? Doubtful. Same thing in tech. There are a lot of woman who work in tech who do not work in a technical role ( aka engineers etc). They are recruiters, work in sales and marketing, project management etc. I think they have a true front row seat. They are also often very attractive women. I really don’t see this with female engineers ( like myself). To be a female engineer is like going against the grain with no real social payoff. I’m in it because I love math and wanted that financial independence/security. I don’t think men find that attractive.
"To be a female engineer is like going against the grain with no real social payoff. I’m in it because I love math and wanted that financial independence/security. I don’t think men find that attractive."
This comports with my (private, previously unshared) "theory of divided motivation" for why women might achieve less than men (pre-feminism attributed to our intellectual inferiority or our being emotion-dominated).
For men all the rewards lie in the same direction. To be accomplished and/or successful is also to get girls and have children.
For women the rewards come to a big fork in the road and diverge widely. If you fulfill yourself intellectually, artistically, professionally, it contributes little or nothing to your romantic and reproductive life and may even be a detriment to it.
THIS IS LESS TRUE (or more subtle) THAN IT USED TO BE. I went to "Radcliffe" (Harvard for girls, at the absurd moment in the 1960s when we went to classes at Harvard and got Harvard diplomas but lived and, get this, GRADUATED separately). Pre-feminism, the assumption really was that attractive women were kinda dumb and "dumber" (or less ambitious) women were more attractive (so a lot of Harvard men sought mates at nearby Lesley College where women, if they were going for careers at all, were going for "feminine," caring and serving careers like nursing, secretarial, social work, or teaching). Smart women were stereotyped as hairy-legged bluestockings.
"Have it all" notwithstanding, I suspect a subtler, homeopathic version of this fork-in-the-road, choose-half-of-yourself dilemma still hampers women. Partly it's that motherhood, especially of infants, has real, deep satisfactions that bind time and attention in a way that is more optional for men, though more are choosing to experience it. Later motherhood is more just "parenthood" (though the residual bondedness of older child to primary caregiver has to be gratifying), but by that time mothers have to struggle to catch up in their nonfamilial interests.
I think a few things are less true now the in the past. For example, Rob's comment that some women go to college to meet men is much leas true now. I also wonder, regarding things that change, that as women are more suited to jobs in the modern world, it will become more acceptable/desired for women to have trophy boyfriends/husbands. There will not be enough educated men for all the educated women, so I think we will see a change in what some women find desirable. Even now, the husbands who stay home with the kids and the husbands on the PTOs--in my suburban group, we envy the women with those men.
Yes! I can definitely see that shift happening. Have you seen that snl sketch of Jason Momoa with the GE big boy appliances? That’s what I’m invisioning
A Harvard boyfriend actually said to me, "I LIKE AIRLINE STEWARDESSES because they DON'T THINK."
So much to unpack in that statement. (The insult to female flight attendants not least. You'd almost wish on him an in-flight emergency with "stewardesses" who "don't think.") Like the late photographer of Marilyn Monroe Bert Stern (whom I helped with a book) confiding in me, "Women were more fun before they were people."
At least he was honest, albeit showing his own stupidity.
Airlines try hire for great people -- warm, able to handle themselves under pressure, ability to adapt to challenging people, genuine affection for others. Essentially, an effective stewardess must make an approximation of everyone on the airline, how to interact with them appropriately, and how to deescalate tough situations to get the other 200+ passengers to the destination with as little stress as possible.
Perhaps they don’t know their way around excel, but I bet they can identify warm people or jerks a lot quicker than I can!
That’s crazy! Also, what book was it that you worked on?
"The Last Sitting." I helped Bert construct, from interviews, a narrative of his shoot with Marilyn Monroe about 6 weeks before she died, to accompany the photos, the famous ones of her nude behind a filmy scarf. It was odd working with Bert because I identified with him, the looker/creator, more than with the objects of his "male gaze." I was on the "subject" side of the fence (not being, and not trying to be, a sexy beauty).
Really loved your insight! Your experience at Radcliffe sounds super interesting
Bravo Rob. Good writing!!
When we are talking about evolution, we are not much talking about the last 100 years and Western mate selection nor even the last thousand and village norms. I think we have to look more closely at what happened 10,000-100,000 y/a. But there are valuable things to learn there!
Don't get me wrong, I would find it more fun to talk to Atiyasha and Annie about dating careers (I am 70, long-married, but dated Asperger's-heavy and brilliant STEM girls whom I have recently re-encountered around reunions. I wish I had you beside me to observe and comment).
But the history of women was to go away to be married. They were either captured or given, and moved directly into a world of unfamiliar women - men only occasionally. The "man-pleasing" behaviors we make so much of now, whether applauding or disdaining, are better understood as woman-pleasing behaviors, to keep yourself, and thus your child(ren) alive to maturity. No violence, but intense focus on trust and betrayal and networks of support. We see these exact behaviors now in women, but they have different meanings in every culture. But that's why they work - they are flexible.
Men, OTOH have the balance between cooperation in violence for conquering or defending tribes (and thus gaining access to women), but in the very next generation seeing the balance begin to shift to competing with other men with more symbolic violence that does not destroy the tribe. Different attitudes and skills, both necessary at different times. The modern American Musical theater idea of one-man/one-woman choosing each other has little basis in historical reality. Choosing is real, but is much more complicated and likely to be overruled for a hundred years by tribal events.
Almost no one had real and conscious choices.
"men compete with one another to appeal to lots of women. And women compete to be chosen by the highest quality men." This remains the key insight.
But "truly human" for post-menopause women is ... wrong. Eunuchs, unlike wise women, are not known as founts of wisdom. Humans are, intensely, sexual. Even many older women still like sex, and orgasms (which you hardly mention). In our consumer society, sex for orgasm is far far more common than sex for children. "It goes without saying" is not true for comprehensive intro into sex differences. Similarly, the desire for orgasm might well be different for men & women, and possibly even between races, but seems woefully under-studied.
The idea that most women want to be as promiscuous as most men is terribly false - and the huge amount of unmarried mothers raising kids, in sub-optimal situations, is partly due to that specific luxury belief. There might be some top 20% (80 percentile) of women wanting casual sex as much as the bottom 20% (20 percentile) of men, but the cross-over might be even lower. A big argument in favor of gay sex is the increased number of partners and ease of finding sex with someone else.
We need a society that supports more marriage. No Western nation has succeeded yet in dramatically decreasing the rate of out-of-wedlock births, tho some like Hungary are trying. We could use more status for those trying to increase marriage rates, and even increase sex inside of marriage with less sex outside.
Unfortunately feminism has worked against the interests of those women who wish to have a stable family. Sexual liberation primarily benefits men, whose primary reason for entering a committed relationship was sexual gratification. When this is offered willingly without commitment to a stable relationship by ‘liberated’ women the end result is far fewer stable relationships and therefore far fewer children raised to adulthood by two biological parents...or even just far fewer children.
Just a more general thought on the importance of status.....this was first brought home to me on reading of the behaviour of primates ( I forget the source ). In times of food shortage those of low status within the troop were unable to obtain food - only those of high status ‘with connections’ could eat without their meal being stolen. If the period of hardship continued for long enough those of low status could starve to death. Perhaps the desire for status is more fundamental even than for reproduction, and is to do with basic personal survival at least initially?
GREAT insight about why women might want to join men's only spaces : behind the scenes acces to the "best" potential mates. I'm not sure it's entirely true but I like thinking about it.
The truly elite level women in my profession (architecture) are either serious natural beauties (Jeanne Gang, Neri Oxman) or sea witches (Zaha Hadid, R.I.P.) so it seems like physical attributes still come into play somehow, even in professions currently coding male.
“entering these spaces in order to get a more reliable and honest evaluation of these men by watching them interact with one another.”
What a striking hypothesis. Seems to line up with how common it is for e.g. female economists to marry male economists, among other forms of highly specific assortative mating that are becoming so prevalent.
I think the causality is the other way. For some 20% of women, they like the intellectual challenges and the status feelings of being successful in tech, research, business. Their daily work exposes them to the interactions of men, both single and married, and this honest evaluation is the by-product of their work location. The ability to share your specialized work with a mate, who is also a friend, is usually a big plus.
A few thoughts on "attractiveness," which varies across time and individuals. "Some women do wear makeup not just to be pretty but to be prettier than other women." I don't understand what makeup symbolizes, but it's bizarre to me that women without paint on their faces is seen as plain or even ugly by some, or that face-painted women are prettier. There's a bit of similarity with males who wear their permanent makeup of tattoos, now often common among females. Some women love the male tattoo makeup and I believe for some men and women it symbolizes toughness. I would be interested to know if you have a theory about why tattoos have become commonplace among women. The same thing goes for height. I remember commenting to a friend how weird I found it that female models are generally much taller than the average female, or even taller than most males.
Fascinating 3rd bottom status trait is shared by a frightening majority of high status people
If you are measuring success as reproductive success -- genetic success fo your genes -- it's not having the most children that is the only thing that you should count. In such a measurement, men have an unsurmountable advantage over women. Wilt Chamberlain claimed in his autobiography to have slept with 20,000 women in his lifefime. (And fathered 0 illegitimate children). Even if we take that number as an exaggeration, you can see that a woman who is limited to 1 preganancy every 9 months will never have the breeding potential of a man who really gets around. One in every 200 males are believed to have the genes of a Mongol ancestor -- whether that is Temujin (Ghengis Khan) or perhaps his great-grandfather doesn't matter for the argument. Without a genetic sample, we won't be able to find that one out.
However, though the tracing we do to find Ghenghis Khan's descendents in the existent population relies on tracing through the Y chromosome (so it is patrilineal lineages we are tracing) it is very clear that in the contest of 'who gets the most descendents' -- Temujin's *mother* did very well for herself. She gets the same payoff as Temujin via his offspring, plus any bonus from any other children she had.)
Thus when you look for women competing against each other, it makes sense to watch not only for an advantage that will benefit herself, relative to other women, but one that will benefit her sons, relative to other people's sons.
I like this a great deal. When we are talking about narcissism dark triad etc those are features of character or maturity or the ever popular recent term “emotional intelligence” (not a new idea - just ask Aristotle) as a euphemism for “grow up people!” Theoretically one’s place on a spectrum from narcissism (vice) to character maturity (virtue) should be equal opportunity 50-50 because it’s a conscious function cerebral and volitional NOT instincts which masculinity and femininity certainly are. So I agree with those of you saying there are equal numbers of good and bad people not associated with biological sex.
By the way I am thrilled to have discourse with people like you all and Rob!
Excuse my brashness but you are confusing desirability across contexts. It is not desirable that desirable men don't commit. However desirable men themselves are less likely to commit exactly because they are desirable and modern culture doesn't pressure young people to settle early (i.e. patriarchy). The arrow of causality goes the other direction. Highly desirable men have options, so they either don't commit or are more picky. I don't think I'm considered high value, but committing at this stage feels like putting my balls on the chopping block. I can only imagine what a top 5% guy would be giving up in this modern culture in favor a woman who might self-destruct any attempts at family.
I think many women (not all, but many) see the man who won’t commit and have a bit of a fantasy that they might be the one amazingly special woman who is so enchanting that he will decide to change his ways.
Women who have affairs with married men often think that maybe the guy will be so besotted he’ll leave his wife, and don’t think about the extremely high probability that the man would cheat on them also.
I think women are a bit prone to this type of thinking.
I love this term, "hoe-flation"