Essay:

https://therationalmale.com/2018/01/15/hypergamy-the-misconceptions/

Excerpt:

Hypergamy is a Straightjacket

This is easily the most common misperception I read. Hypergamy is an evolved social dynamic. That is to say it is the behavioral extension of biological factors; most notably Ovulatory Shift. I’ll delve into this in the 21 Convention talk, and I’ve covered this in Your Friend Menstruation, but Hypergamy is a sexual strategy exclusive to women. It is the behavioral manifestation complementary to women’s hormonal and biological realities. Hypergamy at its root level is about the most efficacious, pragmatic, means of women becoming fertile with the best genetic breeding opportunities, and simultaneously pairing in the long term provisioning opportunities available to a woman.

To a strictly deductive, analytical mindset Hypergamy seems a lot like a straightjacket. If you measure up, you’re golden. If you don’t, you’re fucked. This reflex is a binary either / or extreme and as such it paints Hypergamy as something insurmountable and very deterministic. I will admit, I’ve read some Red Pill guys either triumphantly or defeatedly cop to this idea about Hypergamy. What both fail to consider is women’s individual capacity to optimize Hypergamy in relative contrast to their own SMV. I’ve seen low SMV Pickup Artists pull off what to this mindset should be impossible. There is so much more to Hypergamy than just what a man’s looks presents. There are factors and circumstances that can circumvent Hypergamy, and there is nothing deterministic about it. Yes, Hypergamy is often ruthless, but resigning oneself to binary extremes about it gets men nowhere.

Hypergamy is overemphasized in the manosphere

I see this more and more because as women openly embrace Hypergamy in a public sphere this leads to men becoming more sensitive to their (often ugly) roles in that strategy. There’s a real want to mitigate the importance Hypergamy plays in men’s lives because most men don’t like the idea of being controlled. Which then goes back to the straightjacket notion. Men accept Hypergamy, but they refuse to see it’s larger influence on social and political dynamics. I wrote about this in The Political is Personal. It’s almost impossible not to be accused of being conspiratorial, but in a feminine-primary, gynocentric social order it is women’s interests that define what is ‘correct’ discourse.

We read all the time about how western (millennial) society has become overly PC (politically correct), but I would argue that we are overly female correct. When women are afforded unchecked power their first imperative is controlling men to accommodate the Feminine Imperative. Women’s Hypergamous interests influence and dictate legislation and political discourse. It may not be something most men want to consider. Most guys in the sphere are only focusing on women they know personally, but there is a larger social narrative that is inspired by women optimizing Hypergamy.

Hypergamy only applies to men with the best social / provisioning status

I’ve seen this one-sided perspective promoted by Dr. Jordan Peterson. The idea is that, in women’s natural beneficence, they will only be attracted to the man with the best capacity to provide for her long term security and parental investment. This idea myopically ignores the Alpha Fucks side of the Hypergamous equation. This concept is very complimentary to women and usually guys who limit their definition of Hypergamy to the inherent goodness of women also tend to think of Alpha in terms of men being pro-social, leaders of business and community. This is false on many levels, but it’s very virtue-satisfying for men who believe that they’ll eventually be rewarded by women (quality women of course) who will after time think “nothing’s sexier”. I should also say that this fallacy is very popular for Betas in Waiting.

It’s men who are responsible for Hypergamy

This is a reversal of the origins of Hypergamy, but from a socially constructed perspective. I see a lot of well meaning Red Pill moralist men trot this out as a complement to (again) their hope that women might ever find their virtuousness at all attractive. This fallacy presupposes that men are the real power distributors and the nebulous Patriarchy women complain of is something a majority of men are in someway in control of. It also reverses the origins of male dominance hierarchies. It presumes those hierarchies exist separate from the women who actually perpetuate them with their own Hypergamy and upward sexual selection.

This appeals to men who’ve bought into the ‘Man Up for the Red Pill’ ideology. Women are only as Hypergamous as men allow them to be. While there’s some truth in that in certain cultural contexts, it is women who are deciding for themselves how Hypergamous they wish to be today, and they’ve got the full force of the law and social norms to enforce their choices. While I’m all for men establishing a dominant frame that women naturally want from men, I think it’s unnecessarily self-defeating to believe that women don’t understand how their own sexual strategy works and are responsible for it.