Career/success/status/money/muscles - all things that impress other men, not women. Why do men fixate on things that largely impress other men?

PutsWomenOnPedestal · 2021-11-29T12:46:20+00:00

Because for men who aren’t attractive, money/status/career can give them a chance to find desirable women. Not saying it compensates perfectly for not being attractive but that is my experience from a traditional culture.

OfficialKGB98 · 2021-11-29T06:49:00+00:00

Projection

GoWest7 · 2021-11-29T04:49:54+00:00

Wow, great question. As a female, I've asked myself the same thing (about men's values).

To expand on this, men base their values on what other men say, and even who they will pursue or be attracted to on other men.

It has almost nothing to do with women, like you pointed out.

ftomsteyer · 2021-11-29T04:53:19+00:00

I know men who are broke, and they still have a girlfriend. So my perspective on dating may be different than men who live in other regions.

kaustix3 · 2021-11-29T05:44:30+00:00

Eh I don't think most men strive for success just to get women.

Bbonzo · 2021-11-29T14:29:08+00:00

I think you're generalising a lot here. Some women don't care about status/money/muscle, some do. Some women date broke criminals, some women date lawyers and doctors.

absolutebeginners · 2021-11-29T12:56:11+00:00

Lol what

Gmed66 · 2021-11-29T18:31:30+00:00

[permanently deleted]

juliuspepperwoodchi · 2021-11-29T16:50:24+00:00

This is a short, somewhat snarky answer, but frankly, the simplest answer to me is internalized homophobia mixed with the fact that to most human beings, if societal pressures to be hetero weren't there, ass is ass and a lot of men don't know how to reconcile looking at other men with they warped sense of what masculinity supposedly is.

Elfich47 · 2021-11-29T17:37:23+00:00

Go back to instinctive territorial and tribal behaviors. I am going to be pretty primitive in my discussion because trying to clean this up would likely white wash it. I am going to touch on some topics people may find a little uncomfortable.

In tribal behaviors (group sizes of maybe a couple hundred at the extreme upper end), there will emergence an alpha male, and an alpha female. The alphas get their choice in food, territory and mates before anyone else. Men tend to be a bit more blunt in their completion of being the alpha male, while women tend to be more subtle. But the competition is there in both cases.

So in tribal society (which is how humans lived for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years), members of the same sex are considered the competition, and the other sex is the prize. The other sex can see who the alpha male is, and in small tribal societies, the alpha male is normally the one the has the best results with producing offspring and providing for those offspring (among men part of the competition of becoming the alpha male involves cowing, killing or driving off the competition). So there is competition on the other side (ie the women) to get to the alpha male because the alpha male is the proven provider.

And people stayed in a tribe because of group protection, strength in numbers, ability to hunt and gather successfully. All you had to do was submit to the alpha male. Those who didn’t were exiled and likely died alone and without producing offspring.

Before anyone says: that isn’t how it happens. Look at high school sex politics.

High schools are in the range of 100-1000 students all the same age. Adults don’t count because they are perceived as speed bumps. This breaks down into tribal and clique societies pretty fast. The alpha male jocks float to the top of the pack: well developed, muscular, able to defeat all comers and receives favorable treatment from the powers that be. If the teachers were not there, the alpha male would chase off the competition of other males and attempt to keep as many females around as they could manage.

Boy that’s pretty primitive isn’t it? What does that have to do with the Red Pill?

Tribal politics breaks down quickly once you get out of high school. The group sizes are to big and people can too easily enter and leave groups so the alpha male dominance games are harder to play in order to maintain a cohesive tribe under the alpha male.

And there is the fact that assaulting someone in the city street to assert you are the alpha male lands you 5-10 in a small room.

So men have resorted to indirect displays of alpha male power: pay checks, flashy cars, well tailored suits, washboard abs, a winning smile, an immaculate haircut, a Rolex that doubles as a scuba mask on your wrist. The subtext of GQ advertising (with male models with big shoulders, a day of stubble, in expensive suits lounging on cars worth more than a small country and women fawning over them) is this: all of the lesser men have been chased off and these things surrounding you (cars, castles, women) are yours by right of conquest because there is no one left to challenge you. You are the master of this world and any who remain shall bow before you and submit.

The more primal version of this is Conan the Barbarian, literally on a mountain of corpses with a woman wrapped around his leg. Conan has defeated all comers, so of course she is glomming onto him.

So the red pill is caught between this tribal threat display system of cowing or chasing off other men (that works in tribal systems because if you leave the tribe, you are likely going to die. and as a process of elimination only the remaining men are going to be the one siring children) and acknowledging that tribal systems are not what govern our world these days - and this includes the fact that women have a great deal of agency in who they choose as a mate.

So the red pill continues the belief of the Alpha Male, (as mentioned before which works in small group sizes because of tribal politics) but is trying to extend this concept onto the entire planet (where this falls apart because people can walk away from the alpha male and safely set up shop without the protections the alpha male provides to the tribe).

And high school sex politics is where most people get introduced to dating. It is small enough to be tribal and everyone sees how the local alpha male gets his pick of the litter.

So the red pill gets this gooble-de-gook mess of believing that that if they become “alpha” and chase off all of the “non alpha” by default the women will swoon over them (again see high school sex politics).

Yes, this is ignoring that women have agency, which gets into the mess of self justification about women the red pill gets into when women turn them down (which is so weird I can’t even begin with it).

So where are women in this? Realizing that men are cheap and plentiful and that they don’t want to date the high school jock (which the Red Pill is still aspiring to out alpha).

So where does that leave us: with red pill people believing that tribal alpha behaviors of cowing the other males (which they may have seen successfully operating in high school) and leaving women no choice but to mate with the alpha male can be made to work with larger group sizes; even though large group sizes allow the women the opportunity to skip the “alpha male” and find other traits they deem to be more important when searching for a mate.

Which leads to the inevitable: “I’ve gone to the gym, I’m all big and strong and I’ve gotten rid of the little guys around me”. - response “and you’re an asshole”

DissonanceBadger · 2021-11-29T21:04:25+00:00

Every credible piece of research into the subject says that women like successful men. The reason why men are having trouble with this concept is that they don’t see the connection between being successful and invoking instantaneous lust in a woman, so they think that other factors like looks and height have to be more dominant, because at least the connection between them and instantaneous lust makes some sort of sense, unlike the mythical connection between career and lust, and the reason why it makes sense is because that is how their own (male) attraction mechanism works. But what they fail to realize is that they are measuring cause and effect using the wrong criteria, because women don’t operate from the point of quickly emerging lust. Female attraction is gradually emerging, and depends on much more complicated evaluations than male attraction. Being successful is a big plus in your favor, which is why they are bragging about it to their friends later.

Another reason why men don’t see the connection between success and attraction is that it’s not as clear cut for people in their late teens and early 20s. Being successful is relative to how successful you can realistically expected to be at your point in life, and when you’re young, you don’t have a career, you have temp jobs and student debt. So it’s much harder to conceptualize what it means to be “successful” at that stage, but make no mistake, you are evaluated on competence even then, even if it’s potential competence at that point.

It is however true that muscles aren’t attractive to women. The research on that is clear as well.

ManufacturerNo4612 · 2021-11-30T10:04:16+00:00

Career/success/status/money/muscles - all things that impress other men, not women. Why do men fixate on things that largely impress other men?

You say women are not impressed by all of the things you just mentioned. Well, the most attractive women are picking them. The prerogative is not to impress women, it’s to set a strong foundation.

A guy who is successful, or has lots of muscles or whatever is often used as an example by men as "the ideal guy." (I'm exempting pro athletes or celebrities from this)

That’s called leading by example. Men who strive for the most ideal version of themselves can only benefit by surrounding themselves with other men who carry the same attributes. Having healthy amounts muscles is a strong indication of a healthy amount of testosterone. Testosterone is linked to most of men’s living functionality which is crucial to living a healthy and productive life. Let’s not go into steroid talk, that’s not my point.

Although you did exclude athletes, how do you think men perform better in their corresponding sport? By coexisting with OTHER MEN. This applies to men in all circles of job fields and interests.

But in reality, the ideal guy (from a woman's perspective) for heterosexual dating purposes is someone who is emotionally and physically attractive. Attractive face, good personality +/- tall. In conversation with women, those are the things that always come up initially. Yes, many months later into the relationship, the girl likes to bring up how her bf is a very successful business owner and in excellent shape or an interventional cardiologist. But anything that isn't discussed in the initial stage isn't relevant.

Exactly. You just proved the opposite of what you’re trying to disprove. Simply being attractive isn’t enough. Men have to have an underlying value beneath that. Job titles are important.

Like seriously, do women ever bring up big time CEOs or top notch doctors when talking about the ideal person for dating? Or do they only bring up men who are conventionally attractive? Answer is obvious there. But if you flip it around, men like to often bring up the super successful as being the epitome of what a woman wants. I added the "muscles" part in there too since guys love to get into bodybuilding thinking it's a huge deal. Does it help a little? Sure. Do most women care? Not at all, but men do!

Women can’t claim anything until it’s at their convenience. If their man was flipping burgers, she’s not going to be jumping with joy in conversation. Now if he’s a brain surgeon, that sets a completely different precedence.

I just find it interesting that men assess what women want, through their own lens only.

Try being a low income man who is deemed conventionally unattractive.

SkyrEnthusiast · 2021-12-06T06:37:17+00:00

People, regardless gender, tend to focus on indicators of resources.
All things that takes effort/money/time. Caring for your looks. Nice teeth ("Not sick"). Good looking hair ("not stressed / young"). It makes 0 sense to wear a suit, yet we judge people on their suit and how well fitted it is.
So many functions in the body are directly or indirectly shown in your looks.

This evaluation is then used to figure out how much time or resources should be invested back in that person. The scale can range wildly, and it depends on your own resource base (wealth/looks/social standing, or interpretation of such (self-esteem) as well.
If you look important, people will treat you like you're important.

This is why you ignore the homeless person saying hello.
This is why you will treat an average cashregister worker casually.
This is why a boss or potential social influencer (as in, your boss' friend etc) can ask you to do favors and you will do it.

I work mostly from home, and especially in these covid times, the difference is immense. Any time i have a in person business meeting, i need to schedule barber time, prepare suits and under clothing, get the right colognes (if out), check/fix any skin issues with my face, bathe excessively, air out my apartment/change bedding (to remove smell that persists after bathing), have a nice watch, have a nice laptop, have a nice briefcase instead of my rucksack, shine my shoes, clip nails...list goes on man.
Compared to just getting up and sitting at my PC in bathrobe with a cup of coffee. Lockdowns really make you realize how much time is spend on this whole social ratrace.

There's plenty of things i can't afford that i would like to have, status wise (car and appearel), but just don't have the resource base to have that.

All in all, this leads to quite a few people looking at the status symbols as the achievement itself. Nice car, nice clothes, nice looks. Their achievable social appearence becomes a hobby.
For me, i would have to ditch a handful of other actual hobbies to afford more status symbols (be it for money or time).

And this is why men care about it. Because everyone else cares about it. Women, men. Their peers, their friends, their mates.

If you don't display the proper cues indicating your worth, you cannot work with people. An extreme example, but if a hobo ran up to you and pitched a business idea, you wouldn't even stop to listen.

Jealous_Screen_1588 · 2025-12-18T23:50:14+00:00

Many men are insecure and all they wanna is impress other men ( funny how at same time they feel need to announce how not gay they are)

Men would benefit more in life if they did a little more focus than 0 on improving aspect that actually impress average women.

Women developed backbone to care less for what society thinks, men still care a lot for what their bro thinks.

Title	Career/success/status/money/muscles - all things that impress other men, not women. Why do men fixate on things that largely impress other men?
Author	Gmed66
Upvotes	15
Comments	54
Date	November 29, 2021 4:47 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/ExRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/exredpill/comments/r4nqzx/careersuccessstatusmoneymuscles_all_things_that/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/ExRedPill/careersuccessstatusmoneymuscles-all-things-that.1085996 https://theredarchive.com/post/1085996

Comments