"I'm the prize" is thrown around a lot in women leveling-up and hypergamous communities to build up self-worth and move away from the pickmeisha mindset. While coming from a good place, striving to be a prize has a lot of concerning connotations in the minds of men. Instead, I think what these communities really mean is to be priceless. A trophy wife is a prize, whereas the dream girl is priceless.

Prize Women

This is a woman like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the epitome of class and style in her time. She had a string of fervent suitors and lovers including an American president, Greek tycoon, and British aristocrat. But she was unhappily cheated on and neglected in both her marriages. No doubt, she had high material standards and knew how desirable she was to men. Her problem was that she was a prize. She could be bought by the highest bidder. Men who chased prizes like her were greedy enough to chase other prizes after they had her. They only valued her as a status symbol, as her value as a prize was completely based on the quantity and quality of men who pursue her. And she had to conform to rigid standards to be a prize, because prizes are perfect products designed to entice men.

Priceless Women

Think of Mary Donaldson, the Aussie commoner who married Dutch Danish Crown Prince Frederik. She had no social standing nor known ambition, but had a prince fall in love with her and stay with her for over 16 years. Her words to him, "Sometimes we hit the target without even aiming. That is how I think of our first meeting. A stroke of good luck that became a choice." Notice, she didn't frame herself as a prize to him. Intentionally or not, she presented her presence in his life as a miracle of fate. This is what makes her priceless to him. It shows when he treats her as a blessing in his life, and the entire nation of Denmark do the same. Priceless women can not be bought nor won over with status and pandering. They are exclusive and limited edition. Men have to ardently hope, search, and persist to find and keep one. A man with a priceless woman feels like the luckiest man alive, not like a champion getting the reward he's entitled. No matter how high up in the world he is, he can easily lose her if he doesn't appreciate her enough. Priceless women are not replaceable nor interchangeable, because each one makes a uniquely irreplicable impression on a man's heart. Her value doesn't come from her being chased by men, but rather this uniqueness. Men have another word for priceless women: unicorns. The type of women they can't help yearning for, even while doubting her existence.

EDIT: Thank you to commenters who corrected me on Frederik being Danish, not Dutch.

EDIT 2: Some comments here have pointed out rumors of Prince Frederik's partying and affairs. As disappointing as that was to learn, we can't give men the benefit of the doubt here. I ended up finding some other historical examples of priceless women with HVM who haven't had any known affairs nor scandals. First, is the celebrity chef Julia Childs and her husband Paul Cushing Childs. We also have the Curie women and their husbands: Marie and Pierre Curie, Irene and Frederic Joliet-Curie, and Eve and Henry Richardson Labouisse. The only affair in the family was Marie's after Pierre's death, but that's another story. All incredible women who didn't compromise themselves for men, nor accepted anything less than complete appreciation and support for their endeavors.