Femininity isn't dead, it just atrophied in the face of the disappearance of its necessary counterpart: masculinity.

What is a "good woman"? the expression evokes something your older relatives might say when trying to give you life advice: "find a good woman and marry her". Intuitively we all understand what they mean: a woman who is proper, caring, faithful. The unstated implication is that such women are rare and ought to be treasured.

If young men had to add to the list of qualities from above, they would include a woman who is pleasant and takes good care of herself. The whole package makes up a concept as old as, and probably older than, civilization itself: femininity. If feminine women are in short supply nowadays, why is that? what made it so that they were, at least in the popular perception, once commonplace, and aren't so today?

The religious might point to the erosion of traditional values and indeed that is part of the reason. The sociologist will look at the change in our economies putting more women into work and thus revolutionizing their gender roles, and that is also part of the reason. But there was a brief time, right after the end of WWII, when women were still feminine, and yet worked and were under much more liberal religious values than ever before (if you think the 1950s were conservative, try the 1850s). So those can't account for the whole difference.

Indeed I argue that those factors are not even primary. To understand why, we must look at the evolutionary nature of femininity.

In evolutionary terms, a woman's main task is to secure the prime genetic material of a worthy male, and then do her best to raise his offspring. The alpha male daddy didn't necessarily need to involved, and indeed cuckolding seems to have been more of a rule than the exception, but if she could also keep the alpha in a provider role that would all the better. How could she accomplish such a task?

A woman who wanted to attract and then keep an alpha male would need to take care of her looks, of course. She would need to be pleasant to him, indeed submissive, as an alpha male with abundance would be unlikely to stick around with a woman who constantly challenged his authority. And she would have to be faithful, or at least be good at hiding her improprieties, because an alpha male would not accept being possibly a cuckold, in fact he might even react violently to the simple suspicion.

Such efforts and self-restrictions would be a worthwhile investment to secure the commitment of an alpha male, but would be wasted on a beta, in fact they would be counter-productive: for the use of a beta is to be a cuckolded provider, so being pleasant and non-challenging with him, and faithful to him, would all serve the opposite purpose of associating with the beta.

Femininity is an evolved response to masculinity, designed to attract and retain a valuable alpha male. In the presence of a beta, femininity is not just abandoned but actively withdrawn. Femininity is a response to masculinity, lack of femininity is a response to lack of masculinity.

The reason why women have progressively become less feminine is not simply that it's no longer demanded of them. Those socially-enforced demands were the collective product of a society of men that individually demanded femininity in their women. For a little while after those socially-imposed demands faltered, women remained feminine, as the men themselves hadn't been changed yet. It was only with the effects of the relentless agenda of emasculation that new generations of men were raised without the tools and attitudes to properly develop and wield their masculinity; indeed they were raised with attitudes antithetical to it.

This long process unwound through the decades until today, when the effects of emasculation are so pervasive women themselves are writing pained screeds against the lack of 'manly men'. In fact, the rampant lack of femininity is precisely its result, because women are fundamentally incapable of being feminine without the influence of a male figure who will nurture and bring out that side of them.

The converse side of this process is that those few men who, by dint of upbringing or life circumstances or conscious transformation, have retained that set of attitudes and behaviors which we call masculinity enjoy a position of potential sexual privilege unknown for thousands of years.

Whereas since the advent of civilization the apportionment of reproductive access among all men, alpha and beta alike, has prevented all but the very top few from enjoying unlimited sexual access, nowadays the sea of emasculated betas is as a flat desert in which even the smallest amount of masculinity stands out like a hill, and real 'manly men' as mountains.

The practical applications in terms of game can not be understated. It is often observed in TRP that even the smallest crumbs of game and pretend-self-confidence can achieve immediate results. That is because women, whose natural instincts crave masculinity as the completion of their own being, today exist in a constant state of deprivation from such stimulus, so that the tiniest bit of it elicits a disproportionate response. The hypermasculine nature of men in women's relationship porn, where men are generally depicted as domineering both physically and mentally, is a further indication of this trend.

Personally, I have found that masculinity is the most effective practical guidance to rely on in the moment. All theories one reads, ponders on or even makes up for himself are not available quickly enough for immediate application when needed; whereas innate instincts towards masculine behavior, if properly cultivated and brought out, are near-infallible.

The question then becomes how to cultivate and bring out such instincts in men who, we assume from statistical considerations, have had them repressed and extirpated since childhood.

I will dedicate future posts precisely to elucidating the practical uses and advantages of entrenched masculine attitudes, as well as practical ways to cultivate and express them. For now, keep in mind that much of the work of TRP can be recast in precisely these terms, and that all our practical advice ends up either furthering innate masculinity or teaching you masculine behaviors from a rational perspective.