Seeing a lot of women around here get very defensive about being called hypergamous, making arguments that women either aren't hypergamous or that men are also hypergamous, so as to avoid women being uniquely labeled.

The reaction is as if they are being accused of some moral failing. But "hypergamy," in it's various uses and iterations across TRP adjacent spaces, isn't actually a value judgement...it's an observation. Babies cry, dogs bark, bees sting, men like tiddies, and women like to mate upwards.

Or is it a value judgement? Is there something morally wrong with being hypergamous? If not, why do women fight so hard to avoid the label? Especially given that there are plenty of mating behaviors that attributed to men, that men seem to acknowledge full throatedly?

My suspicion is that this upsets the societal fairy-tale that women's attraction is "just" (instead of ruthlessly utilitarian) and that women enjoy this flattery. And also that a lot of men actually do use "hypergamous" as a synonym for "heartless bitch" but I wanna hear y'alls take.