Summary: AF/BB mating strategy makes a lot more sense when you stop to consider why it might exist and what purpose it serves. It is also likely a very recent development in human history, as alpha traits used to equal successful offspring and overall success. Today's world has blunted the need for them, however.

Body: It is accepted as a given that women have an AF/BB mating strategy. Examples abound on this sub and others, so this post will accept as a premise the existence of AF/BB. In addition, I will be making a number of assertions and inferences that may or may not be supported by evidence. The point of this post is to try to get all of us thinking about why mating strategies are what they are today, not to prove anything.

What I'd like to address is why AF/BB exists. Pondering and reading about this helped me immensely in understanding why this makes sense, which helped me accelerate through the anger phase. This is not really an evolutionary psychology post, it is more of a thought experiment to help reframe how you think about this dynamic and helpfully grow in your own understanding of the world.

Imagine the world 5,000 years ago. Life is hard. It is basically still survival of the fittest for mankind. If a woman needs to ensure that her offspring will thrive then she needs someone who can protect the campsite, kill a boar or two for dinner, and fight off would-be marauders. This is the mate that will give her children the best chance of success. That is the fittest mate; strong, savage, hard-working, and very alpha.

Now think back 500 years. The industrial revolution has not yet taken hold. Labor is at a premium, but the definition of the fittest has changed a bit. Now the ideal mate for a woman is a strong man who can till a field, kill the bear that tries to kill you, and can build a shelter with his bare hands if need be. Again, this is the mate that will give her children the best chance of success.

Now go back 100+ years. The industrial revolution is in full swing. The definition of the fittest has changed again, but only slightly. Now the ideal mate for a woman is the man who can go to work in a factory, build a house, or otherwise trade his physical labor for a secure living. The traits necessary for success in a man are still physical. Strong, healthy, determined.

Up until this point in the thought experiment, women are not necessarily employing a dualistic mating strategy. The most fit man for her progeny is a also physical specimen who can create a secure environment for her children using his labor, strength, and physicality. These are alpha traits.

Now look at the present day. What traits in a man will provide the best opportunity for her children? Smarts. Knowledge. Money. The new economy has effectively deemphasized alpha traits in favor of these non-physical skills. Success can be acheived without ever leaving a computer terminal. Robots do the heavy lifting at the docks, in the factories, and elsewhere. Now the definition of the fittest has very little to do with physical fitness and much more to do with economic fitness.

The information economy (or service economy if you prefer) has changed the rules of the game for men and for women. Women spent the last few dozen millenia evolving to seek successful traits in men, but what those traits are has changed in the space of a few decades. We cannot expect women to adjust their evolved nature in so short a time period, so they have necessarily split their mating strategy. Their base nature is looking for the hunter and pack leader. Their pragmatism knows that these things are no longer necessary for success in today's reality.

For men the new rules dictate a different skill set. Most programmers I know would be eaten by a bear within a day of fending for themselves in the wilderness. Likewise, most bear hunters would be lost writing code. In different time periods, a different one of these will succeed.

Whereas women used to be able to seek alpha traits only, they are now in the unenviable position of having to seek beta traits for success, something to which they are not naturally attracted. This is against their nature! For men, we are told to study hard, stay in school, learn a lot, and this will be successful. This is also against our nature. We are hunters, fighters, protectors, and breeders by nature. But these traits are less and less likely to make us successful in today's world.

Lessons learned: You can blame the "feminist imperitive" for AF/BB, you may blame the pussification of men, you may blame the suffregettes, but consider also that the current state of affairs is really nothing more than survival instincts, survival of the fittest. AF/BB is an adaptation to a new reality that forces women to choose mates based on criteria that they are programmed to disdain. The problem is that progress has flipped the definition of fittest on its head and evolutionary conditioning cannot be undone in just a couple of generations.