After a recent reference to “female solipsism” in a HUS comment thread, I felt confused as to its meaning. I decided to learn a bit more about it, and started with a search for the term solipsism, which dates back to the Sophists of ancient Greece. They claimed that objective reality is impossible. This was the foundation of the theory that “the individual’s understanding of any and all psychological concepts (thinking, willing, perceiving, etc.) is accomplished by making analogy with his or her own mental states; i.e., by abstraction from inner experience.” Ultimately, Descartes concluded, “I think, therefore I am.”
Personally, perhaps especially as a female, this seems eminently reasonable, though I was surprised that the ancient Greeks and Descartes had concerned themselves with female nature to this degree. When I drilled down to research “female solipsism,” of course I learned they hadn’t. The only results were from the manosphere – MRA, PUA and Game blogs. I found this surprising, and asked the following question of Vox Day, who had most recently invoked the female solipsism claim.
What evidence can you offer that “female solipsism” is not just another manosphere circle jerk?…Unless someone can offer me some rational explanation for saying that women are especially solipsistic, I don’t accept it.
What I was driving at, in that rather inelegant turn of phrase, was that several of the concepts I have enountered in the manosphere do not appear to be recognized outside it. Rather, a principle often seems to have been coopted and reworked in some way. Hawaiian Libertarian explains:
When MEN first began comparing notes on their experiences with the female gender on teh interwebz, there were a few common characteristics they noticed that were generally applicable – hypergamy and solipsism were two words that sort of fit the bill as to what they were trying to name as generalized patterns of feminine thought and behavior.
…Just like hypergamy is literally defined as “marrying up,” solipsism is one of those terms for which it fits well enough to become a commonly accepted term in describing this observable, common female trait.
Solipsism, which HL defines as extreme egocentrism, “fits well enough” to jibe with ‘sphere denizens’ perception of female nature. HL continues:
In a general way, women are much more ego-centric in their communications and perspectives then the average man is. So from a man’s point of view (and this is the MAN-o-sphere we are talking about here) female solipsism does seem to be a good term describing ego centrism in the female as being extreme in comparison to the average man’s expressions of ego centrism.
That women personalize ideas whenever they partake in an online debate is something commonly recognized by many….NAWALT being the most common expression of female solipsism. It doesn’t have to be extreme, nor does it have to be to the point of deviant narcissism either.
What we see here is the appropriation of the concept of solipsism to be applied in a new way. As someone who has been taken aback by generalized claims of female nature (read: flaws) in the ‘sphere, I can certainly confess to frequent urges to shout NAWALT! (Not All Women Are Like That!) from the digital rooftops.
To be clear, I have no problem with the adaptation of language for one’s own use; it is a great thing that language is alive and malleable to any number of purposes. The term “female solipsism” is indeed a concept corralled by the manosphere and enthusiastically circulated among manospherians, in the service of men better understanding women as they discuss issues relevant to them. This is the answer to my original question.
As someone who draws readers, attention and also skepticism from the manosphere, it is relevant to me personally when I stumble upon the term in my own comment threads. I do have an investment in understanding precisely what the term means, in order that I may respond intelligently when it is leveled as a charge.
So. Are women especially solipsistic? The first step is to agree on the manosphere’s definition of solipsism. Sharing the view of HL that females are prone to extreme egocentrism, Vox states:
One of the hardest things for men to understand or even recognize its significance is female solipsism. What this means is that most women view everything from their own perspective. And by everything, I don’t mean everything that directly or indirectly involves them, I mean everything.
In his recent post responding to my question, VD defined solipsism in the following way, distancing himself from all talk of Greek philosophy and Descartes. (I agree that this distancing is appropriate in view of the phrase’s morphology.) He offers this definition:
extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one’s feelings, desires, etc.; egoistic self-absorption.
Blogger Private Man has gone a step further and identified a mental disorder called FADD (Female Attention Deficit Disorder). His examples of this include drunkenness, grinding on nightclub dance floors, and non-stop social activities. (Who, may I ask, does PM think these women are hanging out with?) In fairness, PM also sees tiny dogs in purses and prepubescent best friends as symptoms.
…It’s actually challenging to find a girl without FADD. It’s been said that attention is the emotional currency of women. A woman who isn’t a slave to her attention-getting behavior is rare.
Objective reality? You be the judge.
Cane Caldo digs deeper and gets at something interesting. He compares female solipsism to the Dark Triad personality, a constellation of narcissism, Machiavellian tactics and sociopathy, generally considered a male constellation of traits. Naming Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton as the epitome of Dark Triad traits (I don’t disagree), he draws an interesting parallel between Game and solipsism:
If Game is about overconfidence; that is: developing Oneitis for yourself (and it is), then Kim and Paris have Game down pat…What’s interesting about the Manosphere is we would never look to them for advice; yet men who act like (even if they don’t think like) Paris and Kim are, here, the teachers on how to get women. Not in the sense of, “Watch out for the sort of girls that behavior attracts.”, but in this way: “How can I attract girls like that?”
Game is the charade of solipsism to better emulate the Dark Triad traits of narcissism, psychopathy, and machiavellianism. These three traits can be practiced unto internalization; until you actually are some combination of narcissistic, psychopathic, and machiavellian. It’s a calculated attempt to become hypergamous, in the worst sense of the word.
Though Game is a perverse pose for a man to take, it is a quasi-logical response to the world around us; in the same way it was logical for Eve to desire to be like God, and for Adam to take a bite at egalitarianism to maintain his relationship with Eve. It is men parodying women to leverage this Feminist paradigm. Not feminine–Feminist.
Now that’s interesting.
Ian Ironwood offers an excellent post at Red Pill Room that is as interesting as it is objective:
According to Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever in their book Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation, “Women often worry more than men about the impact their actions will have on their relationships. This can prompt them to change their behavior… sometimes by asking for things indirectly, sometimes by asking for less than they really want, and sometimes by trying to be more deserving of what they want (say by working harder) so that they’ll be given what they want without asking.”
In other words, women have a greater sense of self-importance and sensitivity to their personal actions than men — signs of solipsism.
Remember, solipsism isn’t “selfishness”, as many Manospherans mistakenly believe; it’s more akin to “self-involvement”, and that can be a positive or negative thing. A woman can be completely giving to the people in her life, sacrificing much, and still be utterly solipsistic. By putting nearly every issue in terms of ”how does that effect me?”or “how do my actions effect others?”, the female solipsistically maintains a frame that has herself at the center of the picture. She might be “self-less”…but she still has the “self” front and center.
Ian speaks truth here, and I can personally relate to this (solipsism!). Women filter their experiences via their emotions. This is undoubtedly reproductively efficient. If we are nurturers, made to carry, bear, and raise children, the question of how things affect us is inextricably intertwined with how our actions affect others, and this is right and good. In contrast, a man’s tendency to see the world logically and analytically, often seeking actionable solutions to concrete problems, is a natural outgrowth of male provisioning, and this is right and good.
Finally, while solipsism and narcissism are not the same – one being the belief that only the self matters and the other seeing the world as a reflection of one’s self – extreme egocentrism is common to both. And on that score, the U.S. is raising ever more self-absorbed young people, probably a reflection of our championing of individualism. Jean Twenge is the foremost authority on the increase of narcissism among college students:
- Two-thirds of college students score above the 1979-1985 mean of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory.
- Scores for both college women and men rose on the trait ‘‘individualistic, particular to me’’ from the 1970s to the 90s.
- In the 1950s, only 12% agreed with the statement ‘‘I am an important person.’’ By the late 1980s, 80% agreed.
- The most recent college students score about the same on the NPI as a sample of celebrities.
- It also appears that women are driving the increase in narcissism, consistent with the finding that the generational increase in agentic traits and assertiveness was stronger for women.
Still, there is some evidence the tide is turning, as Millennials reject their parents’ tendency to navel gaze. Strauss and Howe, generational theorists and authors of The Fourth Turning, offer some reason for hope. “They describe the Millennials (in college early 2000s to late 2010s, sometimes called ‘‘GenY’’) as outer-fixated, group-oriented, and civically responsible.
Are they self-absorbed? No. They’re cooperative team players. Individualism and the search for inner fulfillment are all the rage for many Boomer adults, but less so for their kids, [who are] not as eager to grow up putting self ahead of community the way their parents did.
As a female Boomer, I will undoubtedly continue to exhibit robust self-esteem and a somewhat emotional view of the world, processed through the lens of my inner experience. I’ll happily cop to female solipsism, or whatever the guys are calling it these days. In closing, I’ll offer a comment from Mule Chewing Briars the other day.
Somehow, I get the feeling that the whole discussion of the unsuitability of ‘solipsistic’ female thought processes opposed to those of the ‘rational’ male overlook a very important concept – men and women ‘co-evolved’ to be complementary. I am a pretty rational ‘think things through’ kind of guy, but I rely heavily on my wife’s intuitions, as I believe they reflect an ability to see the emotional impact of my decisions on our family and on our community, that is to say, those people who are emotionally important to us, better than I can.
I have written of this complementarity before, and I too see it as a product of evolution. A world without female preoccupation with emotion? Be careful what you wish for, lads.
In any case, I support the right of the manosphere to discuss issues using whatever vocabulary is most useful, without interference, though I respectfully request a cessation of cheerful misogyny here at HUS. We are outside the circle, and this is right and good.
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First….:)
Good post. Though I would disagree with the thesis that men in general are more likely to look at the abstract big picture rather than their personal picture. I think it’s the case that in any society a minority of men look at the big picture and a much smaller minority of women look at the big picture. The majority of both men and women are rather preoccupied with their personal experiences.
Certainly, narcissism, and with the self-esteem movement solipsism, have become more prevalent amongst women today. But that’s not biological, just cultural, and hopefully it will recede as you suggest.
Also, I still don’t get why you’re complaining so much about the terminology of “solipsism”. It is standard practice well outside the mano-sphere to refer to the very same behavior that the manosphere is complaining about as solipsism. It’s why the dictionary has that one of the definitions of solipsism:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/solipsism
Oh Susan…now watch the flurry of blogs that are going to start criticizing you, saying you hate men and are biased towards women…blahblahblah.
Again, my view is that what people refer to as solipsism is largely the result of the corrupting influence of power. This corruption can appear in either men or women — but the major difference is that women’s sexual power is largely inherited (not earned) and appears early in life, whereas men’s sexual power is largely earned (not inherited) and comes later in life. The stereotypical wealthy scion (male), who *inherits* his power at a *young* age, acts in much the same way as many women today.
Oh btw I’ve been watching the Stargate SG-1 series from the beginning, and I just saw the best IOI ever!
Jackson goes to a parallel universe where Carter and O’Neill are getting engaged. When he returns and tells them about the parallel universe, they think he’s hallucinated or something. Then he mentions Carter and O’Neill getting engaged, and all of a sudden Carter is a lot less skeptical.
Please don’t forget my most important point – when I refer to female solipsism, I don’t do so with the intention of using it as a derogatory term.
It’s just recognizing what it is.
I don’t think it’s the same thing as “narcissism” nor is it some defect or something that makes all women default as self-centered sociopaths.
Female solipsism is an intrinsic part of the female id…it’s a feature, not a bug. It can certainly become a deviant personality defect in some women to the point of clinical narcissism, but referring to the general concept as solipsism is more accurate a term in my estimation.
I think VD’s got it right:
“What this means is that most women view everything from their own perspective. And by everything, I don’t mean everything that directly or indirectly involves them, I mean everything.”
I see it in conversations with my mother, my grandmothers. My sister. My friend’s wives and girlfriends. My cousins and Aunts. Once you see the commonality of the female thought process and it’s typical expression, it’s unmistakable.
I like the term solipsism, because it is not a term that refers to a psychological disorder like narcissism….it’s a more normalized perspective that is more self-centered, and seems intrinsic to the female sex.
As for Cane Caldo, he’s got it all wrong, comparing female solipsism to the Dark Triad personality. He’s just looking for yet another angle to indict the manosphere in our continuing conversations on discerning truth.
The Dark Triad is masculine traits that appear to be attractive to women.
“Tall, dark, mysterious…exuding a hint of danger”
Solipsism has nothing to do with women being attractive to men, and if a man notices her solipsistic tendencies early, it’s a good bet she’s one of those who is self-centered more than normal and trending towards narcissism.
“We are outside the circle, and this is right and good.”
Actually, the (female) solipsism is exactly where the common MR and HUS is linked.
In a sense, using solipsism is essential for pushing the message of importance of men’s rights to greater population. Especially to gain womens support for it.
It’s hard to convince people to consider the hard deal modern marriage makes for men. It makes a better impact to use the female solipsism and frame the problem to “men might not be marrying us anymore.” Strikes a lot better, doesn’t it?
It’s hard to draw attention to the legal issues of family court, draft, shorter life-span, education gap etc. – but remind people, that their own sons will be affected from them, that works for the emotional response.
Political Feminists have used similar tactics very succesfully. Framing violence as a women’s problem, framing educational issues as women’s problem (lack of STEM people), foreign aid policies being about sending symphatetic girls into school…
No male MR can convince women as well as a woman who resonates better with “this has had an impact with me.” That’s why the few female manospherians tend to get a lot more support, coverage and fandom than men. HUS just wouldn’t work if it was another guy telling people how to treat people.
So, female solipsism is how MR uses you and how you end up using them. As a guest and participant in manosphere, you get better treatment, understanding and more voice than most people due to your influence (much of it due to resonating with female solipsism). And that influence seems to be used in a way what is very compatible with what the major manosphere appears to agree with.
“A world without female preoccupation with emotion? Be careful what you wish for, lads.”
Yep, yep. Hooking up smart implies putting the head above the gina. But at the end of the day, we could all use some more heart from the wimmenz. Like you say, I’m seeing it in the Millenials coming up.
And why I think solipsism is especially a female trait?
Much of manosphere takes an external angle to this thing. A lot of us are well off, empowered and smart individuals with good prospects to life. Educated, white men in the most oppressive sense.
We talk about how society might take an impact from lack of male motivation, mock others (feminists) for their short sightedness with very little constructive input and often frame the status quo as a pig’s paradise (game), although recognizing it as unsustainable.
I think most manosphere takes much more broad view on this than female bloggers.
“What this means is that most women view everything from their own perspective. And by everything, I don’t mean everything that directly or indirectly involves them, I mean everything.”
Most humans do this. How many think about the world and what happens in it from the perspective of someone else?
An extension of that is people who think about things from the perspective of the country they were born in (patriotism being the idea that a country is great because I by chance was born in it), or the perspective of their religion (but of course my religion is the best and the rest of the world should convert to it, even if by force).
Solipsism can either fuel high philosophy, I see some overlap between Metaphysical Solipsism and some schools of Vedantic thought, or it can make one an arrogant and myopic imbecile.
Susan,
Not sure if you caught this. Solipsism is a word that comes up now and again in (mostly post-modern) literary criticism, used in roughly the sense that it is being used here. If one reads the Times Book Review, one will be vaguely familiar with it. It’s seeped from there into the mainstream.
See here, for instance.
From Henry Rollins. Note Rollins’ strong masculine features.
A new find:
The Soliloquy of the Solipsist, by Sylvia Plath
I?
I walk alone;
The midnight street
Spins itself from under my feet;
When my eyes shut
These dreaming houses all snuff out;
Through a whim of mine
Over gables the moon’s celestial onion
Hangs high.
I
Make houses shrink
And trees diminish
By going far; my look’s leash
Dangles the puppet-people
Who, unaware how they dwindle,
Laugh, kiss, get drunk,
Nor guess that if I choose to blink
They die.
I
When in good humor,
Give grass its green
Blazon sky blue, and endow the sun
With gold;
Yet, in my wintriest moods, I hold
Absolute power
To boycott any color and forbid any flower
To be.
I
Know you appear
Vivid at my side,
Denying you sprang out of my head,
Claiming you feel
Love fiery enough to prove flesh real,
Though it’s quite clear
All you beauty, all your wit, is a gift, my dear,
From me.
“The moon never tries to get in on the guest list or use your name to impress others. Be like the moon. When others insult or belittle in an attempt to elevate themselves, the moon sits passively and watches, never lowering itself to anything that weak. The moon is beautiful and bright. It needs no makeup to look beautiful. The moon never shoves clouds out of its way so it can be seen. The moon needs not fame or money to be powerful. The moon never asks you to go to war to defend it. Be like the moon.”
― Henry Rollins, Solipsist
Isn’t taking “solipsism” and coopting it to fit a different concept to express one’s own point of view (as the Manosphere apparently has), solipsism?
Total irony vortex.
Yes, it is Royale, but shush, they’ll hear you.
I’ve never seen someone work so hard to disassociate themselves from a perceived slight.
We get it Susan; you take offense at any hint of a female predisposition toward solipsism. And you will employ all sorts of creative prose to obfuscate an otherwise simple observation.
@Susan
Thanks for linking to me.
@Keoni
You’re not grokking the nature of the disease.
Yes, the female tendency to connect those around her to herself, and so protect them as herself, is a feature. But that’s not what we’re seeing today because the fathers of the previous generations didn’t apply the masculine imperative to their daughters, and so direct the proper growth of this otherwise nutritious fruit. It went bad, and that rot tastes like the Dark Triad; as Christians have always said full-grown sin would.
Now, to say that–by definition–Dark Triad traits cannot be female solipsism, but must be masculine because women like them, and are not normally displayed by women because–again–they attract women, is:
1) begging the question
2) a massive under-appreciation of the swell of: sexual confusion; homosexuality; role-reversal…It’s sexuality by democracy, in 310M cities of one. That’s just from the psychological perspective; nevermind theology.
Here’s one thing that I believe looks solipsistic to men, primarily because they are viewing a female phenomenon through the lens of male experience: the frequent use of the word “I.” While many self-referential statements that come from men are indeed self-aggrandizing, the opposite is often true for women because the unspoken tag line is “but that’s just me.” A man might say, “Volvos are the best cars,” but he means, “You should buy a Volvo.” The unstated assumption is that he is the authority on what you should buy. Women OTOH are reluctant to come off presumtuous or bitchy, so they qualify their views by using “I.” A women may reply with “I drive a Toyoto.” That is a subtle way of disagreeing. She won’t directing argue the merits of the cars because it creates conflict. She will indicate her preference as personal and therefore not really significant in order to avoid debate or forcing her choice on others. Likewise women will preface remarks with “I think,” “I feel,” or “I believe” as a way of more gently stating an opinion. It’s the equivalent of YMMV, the opposite of saying that her viewpoint is the only significant one.
Krauser’s cheerful misogyny post was great. What is your qualm with it?
Good post. Though I would disagree with the thesis that men in general are more likely to look at the abstract big picture rather than their personal picture. I think it’s the case that in any society a minority of men look at the big picture and a much smaller minority of women look at the big picture. The majority of both men and women are rather preoccupied with their personal experiences.
Absolutely. The ‘sphere tends to see the world through INTJ eyes and assume that most men are INTJs who are unemotional, hierarchical, etc. There’s a lot more variation in men then the ‘sphere lets on or is really aware of, probably becasue the sort of man whose opinions would differ radically is not going to spend a lot of time at a computer.
Isn’t taking “solipsism” and coopting it to fit a different concept to express one’s own point of view (as the Manosphere apparently has), solipsism?
Not in the slightest. There are several apparent flaws in this question. Do you truly think a very loosely related group has a self? Many is not one. Second, there is nothing egoistic, much less self-absorbed, than closely observing someone else’s behavior, particularly behavior which is clearly noted as being different than the observers’.
Here’s one thing that I believe looks solipsistic to men, primarily because they are viewing a female phenomenon through the lens of male experience: the frequent use of the word “I.”
The self-aggrandizing is irrelevant. The observed solipsism is that everything is self-referential. It doesn’t matter if the “I” is intended to enlarge or diminish the self, the point is that it makes the self the central reference point.
A man might say, “Volvos are the best cars,” but he means, “You should buy a Volvo.” The unstated assumption is that he is the authority on what you should buy.
The first part is absolutely true. The second part is not. Given the context you’ve provided, the unstated assumption is that he has been asked for his opinion and is therefore giving it. In fact, your hypothetical female response – I drive a Toyota – could even reveal what you claim the male one would, because the unstated assumption in that response is “Of course, you understand that I would not drive anything but the best, therefore the fact that I drive a Toyota somehow disproves your assertion that Volvos are the best”.
Of course, more likely it is simply another example of female solipsism, in which case that assumption does not exist and she is not responding in the context of the implied question “what car should I buy”, but is merely discussing the subject as it relates to her. They’re talking about cars… who cares… wait, I drive a car… and I can direct this totally uninteresting conversation towards me by telling everyone what kind of car I drive!
You can readily observe this behavior by watching a woman who is not momentarily involved in the conversation. Just watch and wait… and more often than not, she’ll rejoin it by blurting something that is at best tangentially related… but starts with “I”. That being said, the most solipsistic and narcissistic individual I ever met was a man. If you so much as said “hello” to him, he would respond by telling you what he had eaten for breakfast and go on from there. My friends used to talk about him and I didn’t believe them until we ran into him in the street one day.
Friend: “Vox, this is X, X, this is Vox.”
Vox: “How do you?”
X: “Well, I decided to have my egg poached rather than fried this morning….”
It was freaking unreal.
These three broads on Fox News provide an excellent example of female solipsism:
youtube.com/watch?v=brHrO792qa8
Why did you do that? You said you weren’t going to do that.
I felt like […tap dancing verbiage.
Her feelings are the only real things.
Not totally bad, they apparently don’t feel like murdering people as much as men do.
Just don’t expect her to stick to her word.
Huh? I actually approve of the term as used in the manosphere, for the purpose of male discussion. In fact, I said I happily cop to solipsism.
What I object to is the hyperbole and demonizing of female nature on my own blog.
She is solipsistic = she is a female homo sapien. (According to the sphere). And yet there is no acceptance of female nature as having evolved to complement male nature. The term is used in a pejorative fashion by some (not all).
Calling women solipsistic for having a normal female outlook is analogous to calling men autistic, which interestingly, is described as having an abnormal preoccupation with the self.
@John
I agree that power corrupts and leads to narcissism, including lack of empathy. Jeremy Nicholson wrote a post suggesting that the sex with more power relative to the other sex is going to become more egocentric. Obviously, the implication is that feminism has created at least two generations of increasingly egocentric women, and I agree with that. Female narcissism is rising rapidly in the population, as highlighted by Twenge.
I haven’t considered this power imbalance as a result of the difference in timing of sexual power as experienced by the sexes, but that makes sense. It also explains the spinster tears we observe being spilled in the media among women over 35. The imbalance in that case is viewed as tragic – not the fault of men per se, more as cruel fate.
However, even now we are conflating the meanings of solipsism as selfish, unempathic behavior vs. experiencing the world by processing it through one’s inner experiences and emotions.
The former is true of some women and some men, the latter is true of all women.
@Keoni Galt
I knew that, apologies if that did not come through in the post. You were very clear that solipsism need not rise to the level of extreme or deviant. What is clear is that the term is not used consistently, even among the population that finds it useful. A little knowledge is always a dangerous thing, and the term is a convenient weapon for those who prefer to list aspects of female nature as flawed or base. (Which of course it is, in part.)
Au contraire, I embrace a female predisposition toward solipsism, if by that you mean the tendency of women to experience the world in terms of how it makes them feel, and how it makes others feel.
I do not believe that females are more likely to be egocentric, as most of the egocentric mental and personality disorders are equally or even primarily found in males. (Though female narcissism is increasing.)
Yes, Ian gave examples of how women behave in the workplace – there is a lot of soft pedaling, more worrying about how one comes across, etc. As someone who has worked in male dominated fields for my entire career (and still does with this blog!) I can attest that the “norm” for professional behavior is very male. I have no problem with this, but it does require adjustment on the part of women. I recall struggling to find the sweet spot between professionalism and femininity. I didn’t want to be “one of the boys” but I did want to hold my own while working with them. It wasn’t easy, and I’m not sure things have changed much in 20 years.
“women’s sexual power is largely inherited (not earned) and appears early in life”
Thus the cheap easy autocock entitlement and the amusing shock look on their faces when men universally and repeatedly commitment-reject them for over-utilizing it
Krauser:
Aside from the profound irony of this statement being made by a man who chases pussy for a living, it’s just wrong. Women have made strong inroads in medicine, law and business, including finance.
I outperformed every male peer I encountered in M&A, then consulting. That guy is stuck in a Mad Men fantasy, but perhaps it’s because he pursues bimbos on the street.
I turn and bow in your general direction Susan. Thank you for saying what I was not able to. Wish I had your gift for writing. After the discussion about solipsism broke out in the manosphere I went into research mode including talking to my college philosophy professor about the topic, and came to many of the same conclusions as you did. Could it be that the manosphere in its youthful ex’uberance is reacting to the narcissistic traits you mentioned in regard to young people? I use to work with the young (15 yrs. ago) and found the growing level of immaturity and self-centeredness was something I rather not deal with. The sad thing about it was these traits were being encouraged by the parents. Maybe a discussion about the affect of “extended adolescence” on relationships would be more revealing.
Women have made strong inroads in medicine, law and business, including finance.
True, but keep this anecdote in mind. I was briefly watching either Fox or CNN and they were celebrating women in business. These were very successful women, CEOs and founders of their own companies. Some were even manufacturing companies developing their own technologies. However… every one was something like a better carpet cleaner, getting toys to kids who can’t afford them, cookie franchises, etc. I don’t begrudge them their success, but it struck me that an economy filled solely with such business leaders and entrepeneurs would rapidly stagnate and find itself stuck at the technological status quo.
The more significant problem is that women have made far too many inroads in government and human resources. Those are both very big economic and social negatives.
“tiny dogs in purses”
Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I saw a woman in a store with a tiny dog under each arm.
@VD
I’m not surprised that most successful women in business are riffing on domestic products. Just look at the website Etsy. I’ve stated that most high-flying companies (and breakthrough innovations) will always be started by men. They are wired to embrace risk in a different way than women are. One might even say they are more egocentric. Certainly most of the men who have changed the world have been extreme egoists – today Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg come to mind. Clinton and Obama as well – the only female with that level of ego I can think of is Hillary.
This is not solipsism, but something like its opposite. Yet the egoism is still central.
I agree. We could reduce both HR and government dramatically in this country and see huge improvements in efficiency/reductions in cost.
“It is standard practice well outside the mano-sphere to refer to the very same behavior that the manosphere is complaining about as solipsism.”
lol. No. I’ve never heard anyone utter solipsism unless it was a philosophical question or debate.
Solipsism is a shit word to use. Most people don’t know what it is and will look it up and chances are good they will think it’s the first definition, just because it’s first. Yeah, Yeah…I know. NAPALT.
I cannot help but think that there is an element of female intramural competition involved in what passes as “solipsism”.
When I was growing up I always wondered why advertisements for products marketed to men were decorated by images of beautiful women, but advertisements for products marketed to women were decorated by images of beautiful… women?? It didn’t make sense to me.
For men, the acquisition of an attractive woman is a bonum per se, good in itself, and the admiration (or resentment) of other men is just icing on the cake to a man who acquires an attractive woman as partner. But I cannot shake myself of the idea that the very definition of an attractive man is somehow tied to how attractive he is to other women, and that men for women are a bonum per qua, something good because it furthers an ultimate goal – the admiration (or envy) of other women.
As a sex, I believe “other women” are more important to any individual woman than “other men” are to any individual man. I think this adds to a perception of ‘solipsism’.
“I agree that power corrupts and leads to narcissism, including lack of empathy. Jeremy Nicholson wrote a post suggesting that the sex with more power relative to the other sex is going to become more egocentric. ”
If this was true, then one would have expected men in the 1950s to be more egocentric than men today….yet one of the studies you cited showed that the percent of college students agreeing with “I am important” is much greater today than it was then. I didn’t see a breakdown by gender, but it’s hard to imagine such a high % change if it was only women becoming more egocentric (on that measurement).
@J
Overrated and overrepresented. Someone in another thread mentioned the unenviable combination of high IQ + low EQ. I had been thinking about that since Susan took her brief break. It seems like somewhat of a curse. And certainly doesn’t encourage moderation.
@Susan
This is not solipsism, but something like its opposite. Yet the egoism is still central.
This is megalomania. It is to solipsism as centrifugal is to centripetal, but you are right, the fucus is still the ego.
Haha, this is common in France. In my entire life I have only seen a dog in a purse in the movie Legally Blonde.
Krauser said…”Considering the business as it’s own pseudo-household, women are deployed in internal-facing roles that manage the warmness of the environment ro support the external-facing men.”
I know an awful lot of women in sales and sales management positions, which are about as external-facing as you can get. And I’m not talking about consumer products, either, but about high-level business-to-business sales, with significant amounts of money at stake and often with complex products and services involved.
VD…”watching either Fox or CNN and they were celebrating women in business. These were very successful women, CEOs and founders of their own companies. Some were even manufacturing companies developing their own technologies. However… every one was something like a better carpet cleaner, getting toys to kids who can’t afford them, cookie franchises, etc.”
Just as a guess, the TV people probably focus on consumer-related stuff because they think it’s something their viewers can relate to. If a woman starts an ERP software and cloud-services company, it might take more time than the TV folks want to explain to viewers what these things actually are.
@Susan
Very good post. My two cents:
I would argue that female solipsism is not so much solipsism per se but more of a reflection of different ways of relating, as you point out. Women are far more people and emotion-oriented than men are, and this causes them to view the world through the lens of human interaction. And if you view the world through human interaction and emotion, then the most proximal and readily available frame of reference for that is your own experience. Thus women naturally gravitate to fields that focus on people, such as marketing, PR, healthcare, etc. This isn’t bad or good, it’s just how it is. Men, who tend to take a more abstract view of things (call it logical, analytical, etc), gravitate to fields where they can utilize this frame, such as engineering, research science, or quant-heavy fields such as M&A. To me, a man being surprised or aggrieved by female solipsism is like a woman being upset at men loving shows like Modern Marvels.
Secondly, I think the increase in the discussion and description of female solipsism is directly linked to the surge in female narcissism. While one can argue that female narcissism is more visible than ever only due to the increase in cases, I would argue that that increase is magnified two or threefold by the media, because for hundreds of years narcissism in females was far more rare, and therefore this increase is magnified. It’s covered as “a doubling in rates of female narcissism” instead of “female narcissism now matches males”. Also, female narcissism is magnified by the fact that it is more of a deviation from standard female behavior than male narcissism is from standard male behavior. Many non-narcissistic men boast, put down others and trumpet their accomplishments from time to time, so male narcissism can be viewed as an extreme expression of natural male traits. Women, however, tend to be more self-effacing and less confrontational, so that when a woman is boastful and egotistic it stands out as a more unnatural behavior.
david foster,
“If this was true, then one would have expected men in the 1950s to be more egocentric than men today….yet one of the studies you cited showed that the percent of college students agreeing with “I am important” is much greater today than it was then. I didn’t see a breakdown by gender, but it’s hard to imagine such a high % change if it was only women becoming more egocentric (on that measurement).”
It’s a result of the (disastrous) self-esteem movement in education and parenting. Some discussion here – widely acknowledged now. Teachers are trained to focus on praising actions, not students. Where the value of criticism/judgment is appreciated, likewise the focus needs to be on the action, not the person.
It was observed that successful people owned their own homes, went to college, and had high self-esteem, so the leadership class sought to make these things available to all. What they missed was that those things are the results of good character traits well applied, not the source. So now we have a housing, higher ed, and self-esteem bubble.
This is not solipsism, but something like its opposite.
Yep. Steve Jobs certainly didn’t think everyone thought like him. He thought they were all idiots and morons who must be forced to do things the way he decided they would do things. I hated pretty much everything about Apple post the //e, but you have to respect the effective megalomaniac.
“It was observed that successful people owned their own homes, went to college, and had high self-esteem, so the leadership class sought to make these things available to all.”
Nope, it was observed that these people voted Republican and, falsely, assumed that these people had more small “c” conservative social institutional commitments. As it turns out, renters have higher measures of social capital than owners.
“As someone who has been taken aback by generalized claims of female nature (read: flaws)”
Hmmmm…. I don’t think generalized claims of female nature are meant to be thought of as “flaws” any more than my saying “Men are visual creatures” is some type of statement of a “flaw” – it is a statement based upon observation, and while something may not in common parlance in the media (let’s be honest the media is true to its agenda and only its agenda) so I wouldn’t expect to see any factual information there. After all media is little more than a BLOG these days.
So, back to the case at point. While generalizations may not be specific to ALL, if it is true to within one standard deviation of the mid-point – that is all that is needed to qualify. Heck, the concept of insurance is based upon this principal which looks at the “odds”. So saying “a woman is like this” should be viewed with that type of filter. It may not be true of “all” but it is of the vast majority. Of course, just as some men will deny things about their nature, women deny things about their nature – especially when it is something they are embarrassed of – women tend to be more embarrassed of their behavior then men are (there is that one-standard deviation from the norm again).
Susan, WADR, you have Descartes completely wrong.
“Cogito ergo sum” is not an expression of solipsism. It is, rather, D’s attempt to work through an epistemological problem that he sees inherent in all prior philosophy: how do we REALLY know what we think we know or claim to know? The ancients had two responses to this, which I can go into if need be, the first was “noetic heterogeneity” and the second was “zetetic skepticism.”
Descartes regarded both as insufficient bases for knowledge. So, everything we think we have “known” up to now, he says, we have not really known. “zetetic” or searching or longing skepticism is insufficient. What’s needed is a radical skepticism that rules out absolutely everything that cannot be known for absolute certain. We must begin from a starting point of absolute certainty. Descartes thinks his way backward from that point and finds that the only thing he can know for certain, that he can prove, is that he thinks, therefore he is. He then works forward from that point as the foundation to build a new epistemology through which permanent truths can be discovered, catalogued and disseminated. This leads to, among other things, the scientific method.
Now, we can say that Descartes was “right” because the ancients would never have come up with the scientific method and in fact their natural science has been shown to be rather embarrassingly bad. But, returning to “noetic heterogeneity”, the method has been quite incomplete at explaining other aspects of nature, above all human nature. What insights it provides are better seen through the lens of pre-modern philosophy.
As to the reference to Gorgias, it’s funny that wiki makes so much of him. All his works are lost. He is today most famous for having a Platonic dialogue named after him. The topic of “solipsism” never comes up.
However, having looked into it a little, I think the best statement on this that I could find is in Plato’s Theatetus. That is THE dialogue on epistemology. Nearly all the dialogues are centered on a “what is … ?” question, in this case “What is knowledge?” As is often the case, the dialogue poses three possible answers, the first of which is “Knowledge is perception”. This is rather quickly and easily knocked down. I always interpreted that as Plato’s refutation of Heraclitus, not Gorgias, who was kind of a nobody philosophically.
df,
“If a woman starts an ERP software and cloud-services company, it might take more time than the TV folks want to explain to viewers what these things actually are.”
That may also just be the Marie Curies doing their thing – strength of our society that it facilitates that. My experience with female managers unfortunately is a lot closer to that described by Ian Ironwood in his solipsism piece. An example:
I was called into a (female) principal’s office so that she could tell me to stop sending students to her asking her to hire me. 2-3 times per week a class will ask me why I don’t want to be a real teacher. I tell them I do, but I’m not the one who does the hiring. I always stay very positive about the regular teachers (in fact, I’ve come to hold them in pretty high esteem – I teach in high SES suburban public schools).
She perceived a steady stream of students enthusiastic about a teacher as a headache for her, instead of an opportunity to enhance her school. This is a woman I love dearly and think does a wonderful job on a personal level creating a high-trust environment for students and teachers, and she believes that she has always supported me – she’s often been very encouraging, and she’s one of the references I use when I apply for jobs.
Still, academic excellence has suffered at that school, and many of the top students have gone private.
Desiderius…”She (the principal) perceived a steady stream of students enthusiastic about a teacher as a headache for her, instead of an opportunity to enhance her school”
I wonder if SHE doesn’t have hiring authority, or has it only within very over-specific guidelines, so that the stream of students is a constant reminder about her own lack of true power?
Escoffier,
Unfortunately, vulgar Cartesianism as practiced in contemporary society does in fact often boil down to solipsism. Part of Karol Wojtyla’s power was his offering of the alternative “we act, therefore we are” in his phenomenology.
Desiderius…I believe the self-esteem movement started with some sane ideas….it is better to praise people when they perform well than just to kick them when they perform poorly, and if you expect more of people you will usually get more. (Somebody said of a WWII general…can’t remember which one…”He didn’t try to MAKE men better, he expected them to BE better.”)
Unfortunately, the movement degenerated to the point that it now expects people to be praised, however bad or trivial their performance may be, and to reduce rather than increase expectations to avoid the danger that someone’s elevated view of themselves might be damaged.
I’ve written quite a few posts about the excesses of the self-esteem movement under the heading “Superheated ‘Steem” (searchable)…see especially A Superheated ‘Steem Explosion:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_archive.html#110877050132189896
Also Superheated ‘Steem Hits the Workplace:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_archive.html#113790569352355017
df,
“I wonder if SHE doesn’t have hiring authority, or has it only within very over-specific guidelines, so that the stream of students is a constant reminder about her own lack of true power?”
She does, but I don’t think she ever came to terms with the extent of her power (she was replaced by a man this year – unclear whether that was voluntary, as she now works for the district). I’m not sure how much the struggles of females in power have to do with female nature as much as just being new to having that power in the first place.
I got her frustration, and my relationships with administrators are improving as my (low-level, internalized) anger at the injustice takes a back seat to my empathy for their struggles. But it is what it is – women are having trouble doing the job up to the standards of the men they replaced. Excellence is losing out. That’s a net dead-weight loss for society.
“Solipsism” is not an intrinsic part of the female “id”, what the men here are describing is a debased form of empathy. Empathy is the ability to put yourself into someone else’s shoes and identify with them. So for example, when the tsunami hit Thailand a few years ago, I couldn’t identify because I’ve never been there, have never been in a tsunami, so I have no personal experience to directly relate and cannot fathom an analogy. The gf at the time, similarly had no direct experience, but was able to craft a bizarre analogy and empathize. She gave money, I didn’t. On the other hand, a charity like Kiva.org I can get behind because I don’t have to imagine the circumstances of how my money is helping.
So,
autism + narcissism = Steve Jobs.
empathy + narcissism = Paris Hilton.
I don’t look at a woman’s behavior and think to myself, “That’s solipsism.” I might think she’s self-centered, but in women that more commonly manifests as being pathologically self-conscious. I have met the self-centered purse-dog Lululemon-wearing yoga-instructor type, but they aren’t super common.
df,
Frequent, easily-attained praise is mutually exclusive with high-expectations. Praise itself is about what the teacher wants, and in an environment in which kids are all-too-familiar with PC bullying from their elders, that itself is a dicey place to start. The effective teacher helps the student critically analyze their own wants, and whether they are in line with the student’s own values.
The underlying centuries-long cultural memory is still strong in those – it’s fought through tougher foes than PC.
Time to get back to work…
If this was true, then one would have expected men in the 1950s to be more egocentric than men today….yet one of the studies you cited showed that the percent of college students agreeing with “I am important” is much greater today than it was then. I didn’t see a breakdown by gender, but it’s hard to imagine such a high % change if it was only women becoming more egocentric (on that measurement).
I would disagree with the idea that men from the 50′s have the same sexual power than women nowadays. Promiscuity and premarital sex were frown upon, if you got a woman pregnant you have to marry her no on demand abortion and so on. I think is a different kind of freedom, YMMV.
“Now that’s interesting.”
Mmhmm, very interesting.
Desiderius…I believe the self-esteem movement started with some sane ideas….it is better to praise people when they perform well than just to kick them when they perform poorly, and if you expect more of people you will usually get more. (Somebody said of a WWII general…can’t remember which one…”He didn’t try to MAKE men better, he expected them to BE better.”)
I think this is an incomplete assessment. Some people respond better to praise than to negative when they make mistakes, but some other people respond better to being taxed when they make mistakes as praise. The One size fits all reward system to regulate behaviour is part of the issue IMO. Trying to find out what works better (Punishment vs Reward) depending on the person should work better, YMMV
Descartes was the opposite of a solipsist. In fact, he essentially accused all philosophy prior to him of solipsism. All prior philosophy based on observation and dialectic was inherently colored by the perspective of the observer. It’s unreliable. What’s needed is a new basis for knowledge that removes this cause for unreliability and puts knowledge on a firm, objective basis.
To see how radical Descartes’ skepticism really was, consider his “deus Deceptor” argument. Descartes said, how do I know that what I observe and touch is not the completely false “reality” imposed by a clever demon to mislead and deceive me? All the “evidence” of the senses might be completely false if such demon is at work.
Descartes should have gotten a screenwriting credit for the Matrix! You might even say that he invented the red pill …
This is all circular logic.
if you define masculine as- all that is logical and good/necessary for society
and you operate from an imperative that men are good
and you define feminine as – all that is supplicating, duplicitous, and necessary for sex and assume that all women must be feminine to be women then men are better than women.
If you define solipsism as – being self-absorbed and then say that women are self-absorbed, then all women are solipsistic, as Royale W. cheese said.
Congrats, another manosphere victory.
First of all women are not alone in thinking, ” what’s in it for me.” men are certainly not purely altruistic, after all, do any of the men here on HUS ask not to be paid for the work they do?
Probably not.
But all this is less important, what I don’t understand is why we are here discussing the dark game/alpha game, because from what I understand , the type of girls you get through alpha game aren’t the ones you want anyway. The girls you want are the loyal/dependable ones, who will love you for you, who will still want to be married to you now and 20 years from now. Whom still want to have sex with you when you are 85 and have hit the wall. Alpha game won’t get you these girls, marriage game probably won’t make a slut into marriage material. You have to choose well and it takes luck/practice and a bit of blessing to find her. I don’t care what alphas say, I don’t need 500 men, I only need one, good guy. Similarly, what’s the use of 200 women you slept with and feel nothing for, with whom you could never build a life or even recognize the day after you had sex? There is none. These women have no value to you. One woman who loves you is better than a hundred you don’t love, at least to me. So men here need to make that choice. What do you want? If you want to learn alpha/dark triad game, go do such, but for most of the men here, I suspect that they are just a little proud of being beta good guys and they want to find a woman who loves that about them. Similarly, i could buy breast implants, but i’d rather find a guy who likes my small breasts and me for me. The question of life is this : How do we find that guy/girl?
The Wikipedia article, well it’s not wrong but it’s a bit misleading. Solipsism is the belief that only your mind exist. Everything else: your friends, your family, the trees and mountains–those are all figments of your imagination. This view is not taken seriously in the philosophical community. Descartes wasn’t a solipsist; he started with “I think, therefore I am” but from there he reasoned that God must exist, and if God existed then objective reality must exist.
Solipsism is a pretty wild accusation, and it’s misogynist say it’s a female only problem.
@TG4
I can honestly say that I never heard the word before I found it in the ‘sphere. I admit to never having studied philosophy, but that hardly makes me unusual. Naturally, I googled it and did focus on the first definition, in part because it seemed like a more reasonable generalization to make about a whole gender than “women are egoists.”
@Mule
Definitely. Women have more and deeper emotional links to other people. Female competition for men is fierce, though this line has some truth as well. Often we just want to be the top female, regardless of male interest:
@David Foster
That’s a good point. I wonder if we’re missing something in using solipsism, egocentrism and narcissism interchangeably, although Jeremy Nicholson did define solipsism as selfishness:
I’m defining “solipsism” here as a focus on one’s own self interest, needs, and goals, while lacking empathy and understanding for the condition of others.
All of these concepts are related but not identical.
I do think there’s some merit to the claim that those in power tend toward insensitivity regarding the less powerful.
That’s not correct. What many are describing as “solipsism” can indeed be more clearly understood as plain old narcissism. And while most narcissists (i.e., solipsists) don’t suffer from the full-blown clinical disorder version, mild narcissism can be dysfunctional and should be viewed along the same continuum. Use of the word solipsism–a term with philosophical roots–for the more benign levels of narcissism introduces a distinction that need not be made. It just confuses things.
One can take the 40-question Narcisist Personality Inventory here: http://personality-testing.info/tests/NPI.php. I think you’ll find many of the measures indeed tap into the construct the manosphere is talking about. Keep in mind that not every one of the 40 NIP measurement items describes narcissism in ways that directly relate to the dating-mating context. Narcissism is a multi-faceted concept.
Susan Walsh September 26, 2012 at 10:49 am
Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I saw a woman in a store with a tiny dog under each arm.
Haha, this is common in France. In my entire life I have only seen a dog in a purse in the movie Legally Blonde.
———-
People bring their dogs with them to the bank, real estate offices and chain cafes like Panera now in the US.
From my cultural and personal perspective this is totally bizarre and unclean. However if you don’t smile at both the dog and the owner when you spot one, you are scowled at as if YOU’RE the one in the wrong.
When did this start?
Interesting that in Total Recall (1990), the main character was offered a red pill, which would allow him to “return to reality” and escape a “paranoid delusion” or something like that. Judging by what happened next, it was most likely some kind of high-tech cyanide pill.
@Zach
Agreed. This is why I’m happy to own solipsism as part of my nature, though that reflects your definition, not any and all definitions of female solipsism that may be floating around.
You have made some great points about female narcissism here:
Yes, a lot of the coverage is sensational. I remember feeling terrified when I heard that the rate of AIDS among straight white women in the U.S. was skyrocketing. Yes, it was a 100% increase in one year, going from .025% to .05%. It’s a variation of lying with statistics.
Yes. I have recently seen psychologists reference Dark Triad Females, just as Cane Caldo did. AFAIK, this is brand new, though I am not surprised. Personally, I think there is great value in publicizing this information – it’s part of the diagnosis of dysfunction in society (and the SMP) and is therefore useful in combating it. It’s also not hard to connect the dots between the Women’s Movement and all its attendant bennies, and female narcissism, e.g. AA, female norms for learning and behaving in school, and increase in marketing of “female fabulousness” in all manner of products and media.
Susan, “I’m not surprised that most successful women in business are riffing on domestic products. Just look at the website Etsy. ”
What do you mean by “riffing”? Women comprise the majority of small business starters in the US right now. And yes, Etsy is one of their mediums of exchange.
There was a TV news special about women in the workplace and some famous feminist, forget who, was on it. One of the conclusions was that while women were still not totally breaking through the glass ceiling by becoming CEOs of large MNCs in swathes, they were starting new small domestic business in larger numbers than men. One of the women, I think it was the famous feminist, hypothisized that this business model was more in keeping with womens’ general practical lives and values.
Funny because the Manosphere bloggers misunderstood the segment and thought they were complaining because women were NOT creating new businesses and they (the Spherians) concluded that’s because “women don’t have entreprenuriel spirit” and would prefer to be cogs in an MNC wheel.
In other words, the M-spheriens got it all twisted and backward.
Royale W. Cheese September 26, 2012 at 1:24 am
Isn’t taking “solipsism” and coopting it to fit a different concept to express one’s own point of view (as the Manosphere apparently has), solipsism?
Total irony vortex.
—-
As far as I’ve read Solipsism is one among many philosophical outlooks on the nature of life and being, parallel to Existentialism.
Don’t be surprised that the Manosphere twisted it. Read my comment 68 above.
@Doc
Well, we don’t have actuarial tables for these concepts, so arriving at “truth” or “objective reality” can be very difficult. As I said, I have no problem with people gathering to discuss any topic and reaching consensus on that topic. In this case, what I found especially confusing was the variety of references and definitions of female solipsism, which ranged from “slutty behavior is solipsism” to “tiny pets are for solipsists” to “women are too solipsistic to be capable of real work.”
There is a necessity to “consider the source” here – ad hom or not, it’s relevant and real.
@Escoffier
Thank you for clarifying re Descartes. I stand corrected. It is more useful than I would have expected to have a resident philosopher handy.
Re: solipsistic individuals. Without really trying to determine the difference between a truly solipsistic individual and a simply self-absorbed person, I personally find that in any case they usually have some immediately recognizable behavioral tells:
1. Vulnerability to the fundamental attribution error. If the solipsistic person accidentally cuts someone off in traffic and the other driver pounds on the horn, the solipsistic person feels that he made a simple, momentary mistake and does not deserve being attacked. Indeed, the other driver may somehow be to blame.
On the other hand, if the other driver cuts the solipsistic person off, the solipsist will be quick to claim that the other driver is categorically stupid/dangerous, a permanently reckless menace who has no place on the roads of civilized society.
In other words, there is a lack of a fully developed “concept of mind” that allows the solipsist to appreciate that the other driver may be a good person having a bad day, may have been inattentive because he just spilled coffee on himself, etc. These mitigating circumstances or excuses for “bad” behavior are held privately and are only made available to the solipsist.
When the solipsistic person tells stories, he will almost always cast himself as the hero, the narrative will usually feature some kind of “winner takes all” conflict structure with an adversary or foil and a revenge or domination arc, and the adversary will be described as an inert, imbecilic, evil creature who the hero “defeats” through some superior attribute display.
2. As an extension to #1, the solipsistic person will want to use a categorical schema that reduces nuance and allows for sweeping statements about other people. Judgment is passed on limited information so that the solipsist can return to her own favorite subject—herself. So-and-so here is a “bitch”, so-and-so over there is a “whore.”
On other hand, she will want to spend a great deal of time reflecting on the intricate richness of her own inner emotional world, opinions, life story, etc. When she meets friction and argues, she will insult people, declare victory for herself, and claim that she is “just being honest” (rather than being tactless, socially inept, an example of incompetent diplomacy, etc.).
Interesting, Ian Ironwood focused on that aspect as well. Which suggests that it is lack of self-esteem, e.g. “Do you think the presentation went OK? Did everyone seem to like it? Did anyone say anything?” It’s an obsession with self, born of fear rather than delusions of grandeur or even selfishness. The woman might be eager to learn the cleared a baseline hurdle for acceptability, rather than that she knocked the cover off the ball. I have worked with women like this, and they’re consumed by low self-esteem.
I am excluded from all the cliques at my gym, which require Lululemon clothing as the price of admission. I just can’t see my way clear to paying $80 for workout pants. All the young women love that stuff though – my son has given it to his gf as a gift before.
@Just a thought
Nice job there of bringing the “choose well” idea into a new thread and applying it to males! I thought it was interesting that Cane Caldo referred to that very thing – having experts teaching men how to land these awful women rather than women who are interested in and capable of going the distance.
I agree with you re most of the guys here, but PUA types are strictly short-term oriented, so they couldn’t care less how awful a woman is “inside.” He’s going to be in and out and onto the next attempt. (Or just always attempting with a short-term payoff in mind.)
@MNL
I took the NPI test and got a 14, slightly less than the US adult average of 15.3
@Susan
Cane Caldo is some kind of tradcon / socon, of course he’s going to place all the corrective measures on men. For White Knights / Manginas everything is the fault of men.
His popularity at ‘D’s isn’t exactly high right now, or UMan.
If you say his name three times in a row in front of a mirror, the urban legend is that he appears…poof!
@Just1X
I don’t know Cane – I believe I recently saw an MRA blogger singing his praises. In any case, I think the analogy between solipsism and Dark Triad is an interesting one. Ignore the stuff he says about Game if you like.
and religion too?
@ MNL
“What many are describing as “solipsism” can indeed be more clearly understood as plain old narcissism. And while most narcissists (i.e., solipsists) don’t suffer from the full-blown clinical disorder version, mild narcissism can be dysfunctional and should be viewed along the same continuum. Use of the word solipsism–a term with philosophical roots–for the more benign levels of narcissism introduces a distinction that need not be made. It just confuses things.”
I agree with you totally. Solipsism is an epistemological problem and to turn into a private language by use in the Manosphere is counter-productive.
I feel the same way about “Alpha,” which is a term first used to describe the Alpha COUPLE among wolves, which were the only ones that bred (they could also be overthrown by lower-ranking wolves).
@Susan:
I’ll lay my fundamental biases on the table first:
1) To misquote a misquote, “It’s the behaviour, stupid.”
2) All models are wrong; some are useful. Their utility is in proportion to which they may be relied upon to make accurate predictions.
3) Models are meaningfully different to the extent that they make different predictions.
So I’m over here wondering what distinct predictions the “females are solipsistic” hypothesis yields and how they are fundamentally different from how men would be predicted to act.
Let’s try a few on for size:
1) Vox: “What this means is that most women view everything from their own perspective.”
I’m not even sure how this is different from what men do–we all have a perspective from which we view the world. Ergo while true, this statement doesn’t differentiate women from men.
2) Ironwood: “By putting nearly every issue in terms of ”how does that effect me?”or “how do my actions effect others?”, the female solipsistically maintains a frame that has herself at the center of the picture.”
When the context is the organization of which one is a part or the head (company, family, military unit, etc) then the question of “How do my actions affect others?” starts to read suspiciously like what so many here would say men ask on a daily basis. Men ask the question “How will this affect me?” all the time–when new policy changes come out, new laws, etc. Recognition of impact to other people (family members, business partners, etc) which spills over onto ones’ self means necessary entails an understanding of the impacts to others of an event, rule, or act.
3) Mrs. Walsh: “Women filter their experiences via their emotions. “/“I embrace a female predisposition toward solipsism, if by that you mean the tendency of women to experience the world in terms of how it makes them feel, and how it makes others feel.”
Leaving aside all issues of whether or not it is possible for emotion to be in conflict with reason (another ancient debate), there’s no predictive power in these statements. I see a woman and believing she experiences the world through her emotions and her beliefs about the emotional responses of others, then what do a predict she will do? Unless we also know what emotions are elicited by a given situation and how the woman feels about how she believes others feel, we can make no prediction.
4) Bastiat: “the solipsistic person will want to use a categorical schema that reduces nuance and allows for sweeping statements about other people.”
Fair enough and applies just as much to men as to women. Further, it doesn’t speak to what categorical statements are going to be made, thus does not enable prediction.
Suffice it to say, no matter how much I think about the hypothesis that women are solipsistic, I am left asking “So that means she will do what, exactly?”
@Susan
just dropped you an email with an interesting article. I’m under the impression you don’t respond anymore but read it.
@JQ
That’s great food for thought. I continue to feel we have a lot of varying and in some cases conflicting definitions crashing around here – feels like the CERN collider.
FWIW, you are the only commenter who has ever bothered to object to a study’s design or statistical analysis with specific and coherent reasons. Your credibility in this realm of logic and abstract reasoning is very high, at least with me. I will be curious to see how others respond.
@Lokland
I haven’t received it – did you send it via the Contact form? Perhaps you could send it directly to walsh.susan1@gmail.com? Thanks.
Why are you under the impression I don’t respond? It’s true that there is no way I can respond to all emails requesting advice, so I feel it’s important to let people know that.
But I definitely respond to commenters I have a relationship with, although not always in a timely manner. :-/
In any case, I’d love to see the article.
Susan,
Interesting, Ian Ironwood focused on that aspect as well. Which suggests that it is lack of self-esteem, e.g. “Do you think the presentation went OK? Did everyone seem to like it? Did anyone say anything?” It’s an obsession with self, born of fear rather than delusions of grandeur or even selfishness. The woman might be eager to learn the cleared a baseline hurdle for acceptability, rather than that she knocked the cover off the ball. I have worked with women like this, and they’re consumed by low self-esteem.
I went and read Ian’s article. It is very long. It mostly describes women using shame in a social setting.
The word solipsism is an unnecessary addition to the lexicon when we have perfectly suitable words (i.e. self-conscious) that everyone already understands. The fact that different men have different definitions only underscores the fact that ‘solipsism’ is NOT some fundamental trait, but a mash-up of other garbage. This argument over this word is analogous to a theological debate on how many angels can dance on the head of pin.
The expectations put on women nowadays are just brutal and failing to meet them must be corrosive to one’s self-esteem. One of your pieces of advice for women is to hold eye contact with a man for three seconds and then smile. I know few women who can do that. Maybe one in fifty? I always gauge interest on the basis of a double take, not maintaining eye contact. ThePrivateMan has a post on how he thinks the problem is women have too much self-esteem.
http://theprivateman.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/the-female-self-esteem-crisis/
I can’t identify with it at all and I think it’s 100 % backwards. I think maybe he’s conflating confidence with arrogance? Whenever I see a female friend post a glamour shot on Facebook there’s always all these comments from her female friends, “you’re so pretty/beautiful/gorgeous/etc.!!!!!!” I always think to myself, “wow she must have low self-esteem to need that affirmation from her female friends, because evidently she isn’t getting it from men in her life.” Said woman is usually single, or has “It’s complicated” status.
Lululemon is hilarious because they treat their customers with contempt and their customers lap it up. It’s pick-up artistry practised in the corporate world! And women rationalize their Lulu purchases similarly to bad lifestyle or relationship choices. It’s all status-seeking by people who lack genuine high-status: fancy cars, McMansions with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, Lululemon clothing with the purse dog, $100 hair cuts. All fakery, zero personal accomplishment.
@Susan
Resent to the one you posted.
I thought you said you didn’t respond to emails anymore. that was a few weeks ago. maybe I’m nuts.
“Lululemon is hilarious because they treat their customers with contempt and their customers lap it up. It’s pick-up artistry practised in the corporate world! And women rationalize their Lulu purchases similarly to bad lifestyle or relationship choices. It’s all status-seeking by people who lack genuine high-status: fancy cars, McMansions with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, Lululemon clothing with the purse dog, $100 hair cuts. All fakery, zero personal accomplishment.”
Is that the company that promotes Ayn Rand’s ideas and manufactured those “Who Is John Galt?” yoga shirts and yoga mat bags?
I took the NPI test and got a 21, which puts me in the 80% percentile for narcissism. So now I know I’m a solipsist and a narcissist. What’s next, mutilator of small animals?
Susan, I’d be surprised if you weren’t on the narcissistic side of the population, considering you have your own blog
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Neurodiversity is good and all that
Sounds like a misunderstanding. I definitely do, and as I say, I never ever ignore an email from someone I know via the site.
Good post Susan and an interesting debate. But at some point this becomes too hard. Like math. Just give me a few more Roosh in Estonia stories. I need to laugh occasionally.
Interesting, Ian Ironwood focused on that aspect as well. Which suggests that it is lack of self-esteem, e.g. “Do you think the presentation went OK? Did everyone seem to like it? Did anyone say anything?” It’s an obsession with self, born of fear rather than delusions of grandeur or even selfishness.
Which, I’m sure you will note, obviously distinguishes it from narcissism.
1) Vox: “What this means is that most women view everything from their own perspective.”
I’m not even sure how this is different from what men do–we all have a perspective from which we view the world. Ergo while true, this statement doesn’t differentiate women from men.</b.
No, they view EVERYTHING from their own perspective. Including things that have absolutely nothing to do with them. Men don't do that. Unless the subject is completely over their heads, they have an amazing ability to turn themselves into the subject under discussion. Seriously, try it. I'm going to start experimenting and seeing what subjects women can and cannot manage bring around to themselves and seeing how long it takes them to do it. I think even the most skeptical will be convinced if women are observed to solipsize everything from the socionomic link between skirt lengths and the stock market to Roman aqueducts, Pablo Picasso, and the rings of Saturn.
Female solipsism manifest as tax funded agenda driven child indoctrination with no parental permission that of course does not mention women’s role as gatekeepers of sex -
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2012/09/26/the-femisphere-education-and-teaching-bloggers/
God help us
.
Sounds like a misunderstanding. I definitely do, and as I say, I never ever ignore an email from someone I know via the site.
I think it was a confusion when you mentioned that you had a lot of emails for questions and had no time anymore to answer privately. It was a comment like a month ago or so.
I think even the most skeptical will be convinced if women are observed to solipsize everything from the socionomic link between skirt lengths and the stock market to Roman aqueducts, Pablo Picasso, and the rings of Saturn.
Wow Vox why do you have to talk about me like that? You know the Roman Aqueducts are just applied science and that I hate Pablo Picasso cheating ways and that Saturn’s rings remind me of my wedding ring forged in space…you just need to be direct if you want to tell me something J/K Couldn’t resist it.
Still no evidence that women are more solipsistic than men.
*Some* people assume their views are everyone else’s, as exemplified by the “most” argument recently used by Stevo under the “Women Need Men” thread;
stevo September 26, 2012 at 9:09 pm
“only one point of disagreement- most men don’t want women to be interested in their feelings”
-
In Sanskrit we say, “atmavat manyate jagat”. As I am, so I think all others are.
From Abbot’s link
Name: Ileana Jiménez
Age: 37
Location: New York, NY
Blog: Feminist Teacher
Blogging since: 2009
Twitter: @feministteacher
Occupation: high school English teacher
Favorite subject in school: English
How did you start blogging about education/teaching? I kept seeing a tremendous gap in the conversation regarding the teaching of women’s, queer and ethnic studies. There was an aching silence that left high schools out of the equation. Most people in higher education see these fields as solely the purview of college classrooms. But I wanted to show how this work could also be done and is being done in high schools. My blog Feminist Teacher both documents the academic and activist work I do with high school students on issues of gender, racial and economic justice as well as provides a platform for other K-12 teachers to bring that work to their own classrooms.
—-
I get Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies but am stumped with Queer Studies. What’s that all about?
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2012/09/26/the-femisphere-education-and-teaching-bloggers/
I just think that women have a different biological underpinning of their self-concept and this make sense in evolutionary terms, women and men are usually valued on different metrics.
@ Susan
“They describe the Millennials (in college early 2000s to late 2010s, sometimes called ‘‘GenY’’) as outer-fixated, group-oriented, and civically responsible.”
I think this study with Jean Twenge shows this may not be the case:
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2012/03/fame-giving.aspx
Susan,
“I took the NPI test and got a 21, which puts me in the 80% percentile for narcissism. So now I know I’m a solipsist and a narcissist. What’s next, mutilator of small animals?”
That’s the problem with the normal/abnormal model. Sure, if someone is dangerous/dysfunctional, a distinction needs to be drawn, but to divide the world into normal (good/perfect) people and abnormal (bad/flawed) people, which is what we do when one talks about “narcissists” as if that defines a person, then the people in the normal group who have narcissistic tendencies don’t get to work on those issues, and the people in the abnormal group get cut off from the social ties that could encourage them to improve as well.
FWIW, I scored 14. Vanity, superiority, and authority were high, unsurprisingly.
@ Susan
“They describe the Millennials (in college early 2000s to late 2010s, sometimes called ‘‘GenY’’) as outer-fixated, group-oriented, and civically responsible.”
There are 2 trends happening simultaneously in this country. There is one group of young to middle aged people who are extremely positive, spiritually minded and civically responsible. These are the people I work and socialize with, and it is the type of people I am consciously creating through my own work.
Then there’s the other type that are tuned into mainstream media and pop culture who are more or less vapid.
Then, perhaps the largest group, is a 3rd track, who are a mix of both.
You’ll notice there’s a trend “consciousness” in today’s pop culture. Its largely external and they’re doing it to try to stay ahead of the curve.
End of the day, like I said before, I do think our culture is headed in a more positive direction, but it will take a while to get there. From out here in the trenches, I can tell you that it IS happening.
FWIW, I scored 14. Vanity, superiority, and authority were high, unsurprisingly.
We had done this test before and I scored 13 again my low vanity and superiority and 0 entitlement, Explotaitiveness is the highest as usual.*lesigh*
“Thank you for clarifying re Descartes. I stand corrected. It is more useful than I would have expected to have a resident philosopher handy.”
Ah, the perennial appeal of authority. Hope you’re not too quick to discard the initial intuition there. I would be hard-pressed to defend the proposition that philosophy (literally, the love of wisdom) should be grounded in a self disconnected from both the social ties that make life worth living and the ties to tradition that give life meaning, let alone that such a proposition qualifies as “the opposite of solipsism”.
Ana,
“0 entitlement”
We’re evidently a couple by-our-bootstrap-puller-uppers.
“ThePrivateMan has a post on how he thinks the problem is women have too much self-esteem.”
I agree with his post. I just think self absorbed is more like it. Self Esteem doesn’t sell. For example there’s plenty of “real women” ads by Dove that have not caused women to switch to dove. A lot of what seems to sell is the fantasy of what one deserves to be, simply because they are fabulous.
It seems to be causing paper-thin ego and vapid materialism, but not actual self-esteem.
” I would be hard-pressed to defend the proposition that philosophy (literally, the love of wisdom) should be grounded in a self disconnected from both the social ties that make life worth living and the ties to tradition that give life meaning, let alone that such a proposition qualifies as “the opposite of solipsism”.
There are different kinds of, and levels therein, of philosophy. Non-attachment definitely has its place.
Tell me about it! I log in after a long day at work and it’s all, “let’s argue about the various definitions of one word no one outside the manosphere has even heard about until today!”
Ugh, please, half the time I comment it’s after I’ve had a glass of wine. @__@
@Ion
I agree that their is not enough true self-esteem but rather outer bitchy bravado and inner insecurity. Men are not immune from this in their own ways either.
As someone who has worked in male dominated fields for my entire career (and still does with this blog!) I can attest that the “norm” for professional behavior is very male.
Yet a woman can’t take on that style without being perceived/resented as a bitch.
I recall struggling to find the sweet spot between professionalism and femininity. I didn’t want to be “one of the boys” but I did want to hold my own while working with them.
That sweet spot is indeed hard to find. If you were to give young women advise, where would you say it is?
Also a 14!
Someone in another thread mentioned the unenviable combination of high IQ + low EQ.
That was Obs talking to me. My response was that high IQ and low EQ don’t necessarily have to go together but that, when they do, it produces a type that most of us recognize and dislike.
It seems like somewhat of a curse.
It can be.
And certainly doesn’t encourage moderation.
No, it encourages being put in moderation.
@ Susan Walsh and David Foster,
David wrote:
[quote] If this was true, then one would have expected men in the 1950s to be more egocentric than men today….yet one of the studies you cited showed that the percent of college students agreeing with “I am important” is much greater today than it was then. I didn’t see a breakdown by gender, but it’s hard to imagine such a high % change if it was only women becoming more egocentric (on that measurement). [/quote]
There are a couple of misconceptions here:
1) Solipsism (self-focus on one’s own needs, feelings, and goals) is not the same as narcissism (an over-inflated sense of self-importance). It is entirely possible to be focused and preoccupied with ones self, without actually “feeling” important. Someone with depression, for example, can be highly focused on their own emotions, issues, and needs, without feeling important. Similarly, a middle manager in a company can have power and assert his goals over the needs of his subordinates, without feeling like a “big shot” in the company overall.
2) Men were never “in power” in the 50′s. That is rhetoric and propaganda. What was never considered in the 5o’s was women’s sexual, reproductive, and child-raising power. Only men’s economic and political power was under review socially. In the 50′s then, as opposed to today, we actually had a balance of power between men and women. Men could not be self-centered because they needed women to have sex and reproduce (as they do today). Women also could not be self-centered because they needed men to survive and be protected (unlike today). The model of “men bringing home the bacon and women cooking it” was reciprocal dependency and power sharing – not men in control. That’s why they brought home the bacon instead of cooking and eating it alone!
Given the above, we can begin to tease apart the two different trends. BOTH men an women are becoming more narcissistic (feeling important). That is a result of general individualism, consumer culture, and being told they are “special” without having real talent, skill, or ability. Although, I would argue, women are rising faster. This is primarily due to cultural support for women’s narcissism – both classical beauty products and new “go grrrl” empowerment. In contrast, men are widely socially shamed, devalued, and disempowered.
However, larger groups of women are primarily becoming more self-focused on their own needs, wants, and goals without considering men. Because they are no longer dependent on men, they have the ability to do as they please (the result of em-power-ment). Men, in contrast, are still sexually and reproductively dependent. While this may seem great some to women to hold all the cards, the power differential does have implications for their male partners and future children.
Essentially, this power imbalance, self-focus, and resulting lack of concern for men’s needs appears, to me, to be at the heart of the “solipsism” label. Groups of men are frustrated that women no longer listen to them – because they don’t have the power or social value to make them anymore. However, men have to listen to women more and more every day – to get sex, have children, keep their homes, not get divorced, keep their jobs, not go to jail, etc. The situation is all one-sided, unlike the 50′s where both men and women had power and needed each other.
Rather than griping though, the solution is clear. Men’s empowerment. Become powerful (both individually and as a group) and others will have to respect you, acknowledge you, and address your needs once again. Work to become individually valuable, persuasive, and dominant (i.e. Game). Change the laws, lobby, and work the political side (i.e. MRA). Do something besides whine that women don’t listen. People in power never do, unless they have a compelling reason (your power and value).
We’re evidently a couple by-our-bootstrap-puller-uppers.
LOL!
Zing!
After having read a biography of Lenin sometime ago, I’d have to say he was probably high IQ, *no* EQ. How else could you explain a quote like this?
You can say anything you like, but I have the right to shoot you for it.
“Become powerful (both individually and as a group) and others will have to respect you, acknowledge you, and address your needs”
Given the uphill battle that would require, its a pretty even tradeoff when considering the complexities of expatriating. However, the latter option would get you where you want to be much much faster.
Dr. Jeremy,
There are many ways to fight a war. I’ve recently entered college as a guy in my mid-20′s and I’ve enrolled in a college that has far more women than men. Something around 80 females per class, with only two or three guys.
Most of the girls are from the EU(I’m European) and they’re nearly all of them are extremely attractive and young(18-25). It’s summer over here still so most of the women are nearly naked as they go about their business.
Yet, the very few guys who are there – with a handful being Alpha males – don’t pay attention to the women. I’m not sure if this is a result of being near women for so long that they are no longer capable of feeling sexual desire for them, and losing the capacity to feel something for them(both scenarios quite advantageous to young men) or if there’s something else working in favor of women.
Yes, it is true that men are still dependent on women for sexual pleasure on a greater scale… but I’ve gone to other Colleges as well to visit friends and I have seen too many guys completely ignore women in favor of hanging out with their friends.
I’m not talking only about more sexually liberated women, but more about the whole lot of them. I have seen many 18 year old guys preventing their eyes(or are they becoming increasingly immune to women’s draconian sexual power?) from resting on extremely attractive young women who had their butt cheeks and breasts almost completely exposed.
This doesn’t make any sense to me. One year difference in the age of 17 to 18 is not enough to warrant an increase of emotional maturity, at least enough for a red-blooded young man to choose to ignore his sexual urges. In my last year of HS most of the guys were still enthusiastic(never caught it , too) chasers of women and several of them were 18 years old at the end of the 12th grade.
What gives? Are men growing weary of the sexual lash? Are men becoming more evolved than women? Even among the few guys who are students in my college aren’t in relationships(at least with any of the girls there) despite their good-looks, height, and social status. They could have any girlfriend they wanted.
Maybe they’re having sex with the girls on the side and it’s all hush-hush. I do not know. What I do know is that, I spend most of my days with teenagers who now have the freedom to indulge in every ”white-knighting” possible with the support of the manginas in charge(male teachers) and the feminist female teachers, and they’re all playing arcade games at that place down the road instead of approaching and chatting women up.
Speaking from personal experience – I still look very much like I did in my late teens; average.
I didn’t learn game and I am not rich nor do I have high status. Yet, I’ve found college women to be far more agreeable and pleasant than High school girls, when I was in high school.
I did become more ”confident” aka, I don’t give a damn about saying whatever I want to say because no matter what I do I have absolutely no chance I’ll even get a kiss from a woman because I’m just average looking, and even the most unattractive/obese of the girls will still want to hypergamy some 6-10 Alpha male, but I have no problem in ”trolling” women and they respond quite openly to it.
It’s like, there are only 3 guys or 4 max in every class I have and with each passing day I get more and more females in my classes, but the number of the guys stay the same or decreases. Probably due to the lack of Alpha males in the class(one of the guy is slightly obese, the other guy is a big mess of hair and beard and the other dude is gay) I spend quite a big part of the class noticing that most of the women are always preening their hair and doing stuff to it, and I’ve noticed that several of the more attractive(I used to have a thing for natural blondes) stare at me throughout class and will freeze and look the other way as fast as possible if I caught then looking.
Attractive girls are also trying to get my attention during class after I’ve ”trolled” them for a bit, this only happened yesterday. I had met that girl a week before, and she was responding quite favorably to my trolling, going as far as asking how long I’ve been at this college because I was so ” relaxed, I know how to talk so well” etc and she asked for my schedule to see if I was going to have more classes with her.
Fast forward a week, and due to my classroom being entirely full and more students(women, obviously) enrolling in that class, many of the girls had to sit on the floor; this blonde girl in particular sat in front of me because there was no other free space but she’d look at me from time to time, for seconds at a time, to draw my attention.
When I did look at her, she smiled, said something sweet and asked me something which prompted me to pick a piece of paper and troll her by asking her if she was going to be present at the presentation of my work today. She replied with ”yes, of course I’m going to!”. She drew a flower on the paper and for 5 minutes or so talked via paper.
At the end of the class she was the first to leave but she slowed down to allow me to get close to her(she’s 5’9”; average height for men my age in my Country is 5’7” which I have) and despite being so close to a tall, very feminine-looking natural blonde, I basically felt nothing. Despite the very enthusiastic ”game” I was laying on her.
I felt nothing. No pleasure in talking to this Claudia Schiffer. No amount of sexual desire. It was like being near my own brother. She had to pick the train and she was in a hurry, but she was moving slowly and she was taking the time to convince me that the way she was going was the shortest. She only quickened the pace when we got the school’s gate and I also had to leave.
I’m not used to this and yet, I’m skipping class today despite having created a kickass project that would probably impress her, for she’s interested in becoming an actress and she knows I’m destined to become a noted novelist.
Yet, I made her believe that I wanted her there. I made her think she has some importance to me. Regardless of the fact that I don’t even remember her name at all. To me she’s just another pretty face, a face among five thousand more female faces.
To be truthful, I’m deriving more pleasure from imagining that right now she’s probably waiting for me to show up, and I’m here enjoying the disappointment she is going to experience as it dawns on her that I was trolling her hard(I had already told my 2 other work group girls that I wasn’t going to come to class).
I suspect that this is a result of losing their sexual power over me, over men. They might be incredibly confused at why, at the height of their sexual power, most of the guys who are studying in our college aren’t introducing themselves. My teachers take around 10 minutes beyond the set schedule to arrive and the guys are hanging out with their guy friends instead of going up to the girls and talk.
The girls have their backs against the wall, are holding their books tightly(I never really understand why the girls I’m trolling hug their books so much. Probably a sign of feeling that I’m sexually interested in them, thus they’re protecting their ovaries or something) and they spend those 10 minutes looking at the guys, with the guys not even giving them a glance.
You know, it kinda makes me proud. When I was a teen, life was a hell. I had food, water, healthcare and such, but most of the girls already at the age of 12 looked like mini-pamela andersons and they make it their life’s quest to sexually frustrate as many betas as possible. Now I’m 25, almost 26, never had a girlfriend etc, I notice that many of the ”high school” cheerleaders are giving me many signals of interest, and I have very attractive women moving around me every day, but I can’t really lie.
I simply have no interest in dealing with them. They’re either interested in entrapping me(some ask me what I want to do with my life) or they want a free source of male attention. Some want a boyfriend, not sure if it’s a title without rewards, lol, and some seem to have the hots for me, for they touch me and slap me gently on the arms for no reason at all and get mad when I troll them with how hot Asian girls are etc.
It is indeed very hard for men above the age of 25 because they are still addicted to women, but I have great hope that my generation(or at least the next male generation) is going to completely disregard women, thereby destroying women’s throne of absolute power, and we’ll have a world that will be divided into 2 sexes; men interacting with men, women interacting with women.
Look, lets be honest. Women and men should be free to do what they want. Nevertheless, all women(I’m not interested in hearing how some women from a poor-dirt Asian Country or Africa is deeply in love with an average man from the states or from Germany, and she’s really hot to boot! Give me a break) are only sexually interested in Alpha males, and game is not natural, its nothing more than a set of tools that can momentarily create sexual attraction, but I am not interested in becoming a monkey, forever pulling my shorts down to please women and get some peanuts.
Since women only marry or enter relationships with average guys(I’m not talking about average guys holding out for above average women) after they’ve had at least 20 Alpha penises in them, it is not in my best interest to form a relationship with a woman.
I’ m not interested that said woman is a 18 year old top-model and that I’m punching far higher than my ”league”; she’s still hypergamous and she’ll still cheat on me with the bigger, better deal, without taking into consideration the great pain in the butt an average woman is, let alone a woman who has the beauty of the cosmos in her eyes and in her lips.
I am also not interested in marriage or in living with women. Sex is the cancer that keeps on giving; the man who has never had any sex becomes irrationally dependent on the woman to provide him with those ”supernatural” satisfactions.
Lets face it. Its far easier for an obese woman to get laid, and get laid with women who are top models, than it is for a hot man to get laid hot women and in some cases, with average women.
Plus, most married women close their legs(for their husbands) right after having babies, and a couple of years into the marriage they file for divorce and the dude loses his house, future pension, half his wage, and he’s now forever a ball and chain slave of the Matriarchy.
Expating is not an option. I am not interested in moving to a Country where people die of a tooth infection for a woman. Its just not worth it. I place my dignity far higher than I do, where it comes to having sex.
So, what’s there out there for a young man, to do and to feel?
Become the man you want to be, not because it can help you attract a woman; but because that is your wish.
I also advise young men to forget college until the age of 25. At age 18 you are still vulnerable to female sexual power. If you play your cards well, you’ll reach your 30′s without any stds(because you are not having sex with women), no debt(from dating women/marrying women) and you won’t be interested in a lifelong partner anymore, only a bit at most..
@Escoffier
Descartes was just plagiatising St. Augustine
“Si fallor, sum” “If I am deceived, I am”
“dubito ergo sum”"I doubt, therefore I am”
@Maggie
Strauss and Howe are definitely at odds with Twenge – two completely different viewpoints of Millennials. I do not doubt a strong increase in narcissism, especially among women. At the same time, it may be that a generation that argues “I am an important person” will make different (and better) choices than the previous generation. For example, according to Pew Research, more than 90% of Millennial men and women say being a good parent is an important life goal, and 83% says marriage is. In contrast, only 50% say that being successful in a high paying career is important.
I would expect women to be more focused on career than family in an era when narcissism is rising, so we’ll have to see how this plays out.
This post needed to be written – I had issued a challenge and needed to follow through. I have one more not-fun post to write, which is about how one changes the culture and how that directs my strategy here. Consider it cleaning house, and then it’s back to basics. Every single day, 60% of my readers are new to the site – if I’m fighting with the menz over female nature, I keep 0% of them. By focusing on the protestors much of the time, some of whom would love to see HUS go away, I’ve neglected my core mission.
It is my goal to resist being drawn into pointless and repetitive debates. Anyone who sees me sliding down that slope should feel free to slap me upside the head.
@J
I thought I’d written a post on this, but I can’t find it. I must have talked about it in a comment. I found that it worked best to be distinctly female in my demeanor – I did not adopt male styles of communication or negotiation. At the same time, it is imperative that nothing, nothing a woman does or says may be interpreted as flirtatious. Many times I pretended not to hear remarks rather than respond to them. I also found it necessary to be more serious at work than I liked. I had to save my irreverent goofiness for after work, because it made me appear unprofessional and invited too much personal interaction.
Do you have advice you would give young women? Maybe this would make a good post with a variety of perspectives.
LMAO! I love to start the day with one of these.
@Dr. Jeremy
This is the reason I deplore all the female fist pumping about The End of Men (the trend, not the book). It reveals the goal of female supremacy. How women can celebrate when men are struggling is beyond me – I can only assume that all of this noise is being made by the small percentage of women who truly have no need of men in their lives. As a society, we allow them to control the debate at our own peril.
This is the crux of the problem. When one drills down to the underpinnings of “female solipsism” in the manosphere, it becomes clear that the rage (and it is rage) is directed at feminism and feminists. The irony is that the women reading and earnestly debating here are not feminists. The feminists are entirely dismissive of men’s POV, while women here are not. And yet we have little choice but to stand in for the Marcottes and Valentis and even the Hillary Clintons because we are here, and we are listening.
The problem is that the men most passionate about men’s rights are by and large unwilling to ally themselves with women, even women who might help. XX makes one the enemy, full stop. Females did not come into power without significant help from men, and they do not remain there without considerable male support. The playing field cannot be leveled again without the participation of women.
The sexes need one another. That is the antidote to feminism. Until that is acknowledged and embraced by both sexes, there will be no empowerment for males.
Sorry, D, she had Descartes completely backwards. The rest of your points are, as ever, completely unintelligible.
@Susan,
“The problem is that the men most passionate about men’s rights are by and large unwilling to ally themselves with women, even women who might help. XX makes one the enemy, full stop. Females did not come into power without significant help from men, and they do not remain there without considerable male support. The playing field cannot be leveled again without the participation of women.”
Thought you might like this article that was recently published on A Voice For Men regarding welcoming women into the MRM.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/a-voice-for-men/mrm-blueprint-for-bridge-building/
Some quotes from the article:
“I always knew though, that if the men’s movement was ever going to gain traction it would depend greatly on the voices of women to do it.”
” claiming to be a human rights movement and not including everyone is a deadly hypocrisy that can only lead to a reversal of our recent fortunes.”
“Feminism, as it has on most anything it ever touched, half-recognized a problem and then promptly screwed the entire pooch on what to do about it. Nowhere is this more evident, nor has it resulted in more destruction, than where it concerns the relationship between men and women.”
Not only that, but the vast majority of the comments are positive. I’m not sure if you’ve ever visited the site, but they go out of their way to distinguish between feminists/feminism and women as a whole. Anyway, just thought you should know that NAMRAALT…
@Travis
I love that Paul Elam article, it is balm to my soul. Thanks for sharing it. Interesting how many women donors there are and how he was surprised by that. It makes sense to me – every mother of a son is a potential ally.
@Susan,
” every mother of a son is a potential ally.”
Couldn’t agree more. Here’s one more quote from the comments section-
“Men’s issues ARE human rights issues. Anyone who’s a mother, a sister, a daughter, or a wife or lover to a man has every reason to care about these things we talk about.
The men’s movement offers something to women what feminism promised but never delivered: treatment as fully mature adult human beings with all the rights AND responsibilities and consequences of same. It’s a slightly tougher road, but infinitely more rewarding.
Men and women need each other: that should not be a radical statement.”
By the way, (Sorry. This will be my last comment on the MRM stuff, then I’ll shut up about it.) regarding women in the MRM, Kathleen Parker, a columnist for the Washington Post, and Christina Hoff Sommers were my first dose of the Red Pill. And IMO the most articulate and intelligent voice on Men’s Rights belongs to GirlWritesWhat. And for the record, I personally regard you as an important ally, also. Women have already made a HUGE contribution. And men DO appreciate it. Just not the guys you’re likely to find at The Spearhead or Darlocks. Please don’t judge the whole group based on a few crazy voices…
“Women filter their experiences via their emotions.”
I’ve also been confused by the concept of “female solipsism,” but I suspect the above statement is a good way to look at it. I think of the classic difference of how fathers and sons interact compared to mothers and daughters.
I’m wondering if this concept can explain the “Sandra Fluke phenomenon.” In a time of economic hardship and international unrest, SF receives inordinate attention because women emotionally respond to her. Never mind that SF makes arguments that are, to put it lightly, intellectually deficient. Never mind that SF claims to be both empowered and a victim, or that she receives her empowerment because she was first insulted by a man (Rush), and then supported by a man (Obama). For some reason, women hail her as a hero, where a guy who behaved that way would be dismissed by other men.
I think this issue is worth pursuing because it reveals how many feminists view men as their “complement.” If women define their identity by their emotional perception of the men around them, then feminists want men to exist only to support their self-view of the empowered victim. The women don’t “nurture” to make their men stronger, but instead want them to either be offensive (so they can be the victim) or whipped (so they can be empowered). Men with game can take advantage of those women by turning the tables on them.
Back on topic, I think one sign of female solipsism are marketing campaigns where the company says “for every X of our products you buy, we donate Y to Z do-gooder charity. Spend your money on consumer goods and save the planet!!!”
The male reaction to this is, first, not to care. Either we want the product or we don’t, the donation is irrelevant. The second reaction, if we think about it, is to be annoyed. Why should they jack up the price of this item just so they can preen about what good citizens they are? After all it’s MY money that they are donating, while hogging all the credit for themselves. If want to give to charity X, I will do so, making sure they see my name on the check and that I get the tax deduction, not some rich corporation.
Women OTOH tend to like those gimmicks and identify with them. It makes them feel like they are part of something, like the purchase is more than a transaction, that it is somehow bigger and also “about them”. Women are the reason that these initiatives “work.”
BTW, Susan, I am not saying that as a random misogynistic observer I am saying it as someone with some inside knowledge of corporate marketing and I assure that the people who design these schemes know exactly what they are doing. You will never see them applied to a male-only product.
Hi, Susan,
Nice post. I must say I’m with the crowd that believes both men and women can be solipstic, so I can’t say I see the point of the manosphere debate on this.
Oh, and I think you will love this, this song from long ago reminds me of the theme of this post: Tony Bennett on “Girl Talk.” Real nice!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_Ym7Lj6ko0
oh, please excuse the typo: solipstic
It won’t work. Many feminist women have sons, but that doesn’t stop them from supporting feminist laws. They think that while men as a sex are scum, their son is, of course, a special snowflake, properly indoctrinated with the one true ideology on the face of the Earth, and has nothing to do with patriarchal-minded male brutes. Of course he’ll never gut butt-raped in divorce court. Of course he won’t be slapped with a false rape charge. He’s one of the New Men, with brains cleansed of patriarchal filth.
“Our sons are not like that!”
@Benton
This is how I’ve always experienced it, the degree to which a woman remains solely focused on her emotional needs seems to vary, though, based on her level of self-importance and her influences. And that level of self-importance is affected by how much ego-reinforcement she’s gotten from the people around her (a big part of which is determined by how attractive she is) and upbringing.
@Susan
Susan, you are correct with this, but here is what you need to learn that may help you bridge the gap between the majority that are “like that” and your audience of “not like that” women, if you haven’t already seen this in your focus groups. Even a girl who’s “eyes are opened” to the reality of the gender state of affairs can swing between solipsistic and flat-out selfish, because the prevailing me-first female viewpoints pushed by the mainstream (and it’s feminist underpinnings) are emotionally attractive to her (and for good reasons). This is why you will see guys complain that their girlfriend starts acting up and becoming more self-absorbed when she starts hanging around certain groups of female friends – because it’s EASY for her to drink the kool-aid that they are all drinking already, especially when it comes to their dealings with men in relationships and in social situations. When the underlying theme of selfish thought is framed as “empowerment” and entitlement, why wouldn’t they listen?
You have to understand that there is a fine line between a regular girl and a “feminist”, because individual women incorporate feminist viewpoints to varying degrees into their own thought process, and as a result, are somewhere on a scale from “solipsistic” (in the way the manosphere describes) up to selfish. As a guy, when you date enough women, you can recognize this potential for selfishness right away- any time she is really good at lying to herself or excusing her own behavior as it pertains to your relationship to her, you need to be wary of how this will play out if you get deeper involved. This is EXTREMELY widespread, and I would say this is the reason why the definition of “solipsistic” is a bit fluid on “manosphere” sites- because where a woman falls on the spectrum of “solipsistic” to selfish can vary based on her influences (and can vary day to day). It’s very much a fluid attribute.
What you can do to help, is make sure women aren’t buying into ideas or listening to people that turn their “solipsism” (read: emotional filter) into something that can sabotage them in a relationship. I can only speak for me, but I suspect a lot of guys will tell you the following; when they meet a girl who has that tendency to rationalize and it’s TOO strong, I start to write her off for a relationship.
When I use the term “self-knowledge” when referring to women, this is what I’m talking about- know how your natural tendencies can be used against you (and not necessarily by men, but by feminists who don’t have the best interests of the average woman in mind).
This is simply a part of a larger phenomenon.
Look at the ‘Mommy Wars’. There’s a group of outspoken, self-proclaimed anti-feminist women promoting the stay-at-home-mother lifestyle, opposed by another group of outspoken women promoting the working mother lifestyle, demanding subsidies for working mothers.
Or look at the endless brouhaha about abortion. On one side there’s a group of rabid feminists, opposed by a group of tradcon women, nominally anti-feminist.
The defining characteristics are the same: these are debates by women and about women. It’s basically a group of women debating over men’s heads. Men play no part in these debates whatsoever, even though they happen to be the group that’s supposed to facilitate women’s wishes, no matter which side wins in the end. The idea that their needs and desires should also be considered doesn’t even occur to these women. They’re merely expected to be the facilitators of women’s whims.
The same thing is happening with the MRM. The feminists want to co-opt it, which isn’t that surprising considering that they did the same thing to Western Christianity and the conservative movement. Now there are even feminists who declare that they’re the only true supporters of men’s rights, whereas MRAs are just bitter, small-dicked, whining losers. Women are entering the MRM and changing it from within.
The result will be predictable. The MRM will be yet another movement about women, and dominated by women. Their loudest, most rabid opponents are already women. We’ll have another example of two groups of women arguing over women’s issues, fears, desires, concerns etc., while men just keep checking out and going their own way. In the end there’ll be no men left in the building.
I’m sorry, Mrs Walsh, but it doesn’t work like that. Feminism is not this semi-divine ”Eye of Sauron” that creates greed and lust for power in otherwise good-natured women; feminism gave women what they’ve wanted all along – the ability to have sex with Alpha males and then the lack of accountability(as in, incapable of finding a husband due to their unruly past) when it came to find a good man to marry them.
Feminism and all of the heavy-weight elite of feminism is not keeping men and women from finding itself, similar to how Roissy, RooshV, Mystery and Neil Strauss are not creating a mass amy of PUA’s whose goals in life is only to sleep with Hot babes 6-10 and somehow the PUA is to be feared because to ‘red-pill” women, all of the women who are being targeted by Alpha males are hot babes and thus don’t have much of a ”’man-base” to work upon as most men are afraid of approaching them.
Or something like that.
Mrs. Walsh. I know you want to see people have fulfilling relationships but that just won’t happen. It is impossible to make women(or men) escape from their biological imperatives. Women are wired to seek Alpha men and to squander their youth, beauty, health and ferility in the hopes that the individual woman that throws herself at a dude which only accomplishments in life is being born 6’0” and good-looking and who is also going to dump them as soon as the new crop of average/hot/super hot girls come of age.
You could pick the most level-headed girl from any Church and she’d drop her panties faster to Cristiano Ronaldo than a speeding bullet. This is not annectode; this is me thinking back to my days of being a faithful member of the church and seeing ALL of the girls(and by all I mean, ALL) dating the tattooed, ear-pierced, shaved head and 3 days stubble guy who was stuck at 6th grade at the age of 17.
Then when I went to college I notice that, despite being in a mostly feminine college, only 50 guys or so had sex. Is it normal for 6 thousand females to be banging 50 guys? Yes. That’s how hypergamy works. Women will always look upwards and they’ll step on anyone who’s below them – below being the guys who are 5 on a scale from 0 t0 10, regardless of how average the women might be.
I’ve always been a smart guy. Beginning at elementary school I noticed that all of the girls were only interested in a handful of guys, so I deducted that there migt something about this that the female teachers aren’t telling us.
By middle-school I was witnessing a barrage of promiscuity originating within the female population of the school; all of that sexual energy directed at the douchbags and the bad boys and the Brad Pitts, obviously.
I don’t even want to talk about high school. All I can tell you is that whenever an average friend of mine came up to me to tell me how he was crushing average jane, I’d tell him to give it up and better chase after May Jane Hot babe 10 because he had as much of a chance of sleeping/dating Spider-Man’s girlfriend than he had, of dating a girl in his league.
It is also impossible to define for each individual woman what is average as they base their buying power on many diffent factors, one being their height; if the woman is average height, she needs a 6 feet tall. If the girl is taller than most women she will ask for a 6’2” upwards male.
Doesn’t really matter if the average guy interested in her is taller than her and weights more than her thus allowing her to still feel feminine.
The other fact is that good women like the ones present on this forum are extremely rare. No, I am not inquiring for a good woman who is tall, natural blonde, with natural D cups that defy the laws of nature and never sag, a vagina tigther than Fort knoxxs doors and a sex drive as voracious as the love of Andre the Giant for beer.
It’s just can’t be done. The way we have it in the college world and everwhere is; women are raised believing they are all Jessica Simpsons.
They spend the 5 stages of education(elementary school/middle school/junior high/high school/and college banging away the Alpha males and PUA’s and draining free male attention from their beta orbiters; then when they can no longer fulfil ther biological drive, they mate with a beta male and make him pay for all the free sex the Alpha males had.
I’m sorry, but I’m tired of being treated like a creep just because I happen to look at a woman when she’s in my way to the guys’ bathroom and I really have to go. Its even funnier because nowadays you can’t look at average women or at good-looking women even for a passing second because all of them believe that you, the average man, is thinking of sriking a conversation with them – and that just can’t happen!
Oh yeah, and I gotta mention again that the very vast majoirty of the good girls are only good because they hadn’t had(yet) the chance to indulge themselves on Alpha penis. Watch how the sweet, caring girl turns into most devilish slut as soon as she tasted Alpha penis.
Happened to this one girl I ”dated” when I was 18. She was devoted to her Church, wsa a great daughter and a straight A student in all of the hardcore sciences. She wanted to wait for marriage. That is, until an Alpha male send her a text-message and one week later I’m getting the ”Lts just be friends” and she’s banging the guy, lol.
Well, at least we can admit that the girl held-off for a long time. Usually, women drop their panties 5 minutes into meeting an Alpha male. I guess she wanted her first time to be special.
10 years later I had to pick a bus that stopped precisely at her house, and guess who I see? Her. Dressed like a skank and entertaining a couple of thuggish looking men. Since women define who is a good man, I have to concede that the 2 guys who looked like drug dealers had more value than me; a med student, with NO COLLEGE DEBT, my own 5-room house(inherited), a good bank account and great values.
No, I wasn’t aiming for a hottie.She was 5’6”, with breasts that I later came out to find(the dude bragged about sleeping with a true virgin in bar I was drinking at) were skinny-like and uneven. She had a very small but, a nose that would look horribly on a 80 year old man let alone ona 18 year old woman; big, uneven teeth with spaces between all of her front teeth, and she had absolutely no sex skills.
Yet, I’ve heard complains from a lot of men from a lot of different group ages. This is not an isolated case, and it is rather silly for a young man to waste his youth, money and hairline on chasing a dream that will never come to life.
You cannot change biology. Women are disgusted by beta males, and I’m not interested in handful of foregin women who are married to white men, nor am I interested in giving the white knight speech to my younger brothers. They know the true story by now and they’re peparing themselves to when they enter high school and college.
“Sorry, D, she had Descartes completely backwards. The rest of your points are, as ever, completely unintelligible.”
As if.
I’ve seen this in both genders too.
For examples:
A woman will tell a guy to do a home renovation project without really realizing how much goes into it. She thinks it’s just going to happen.
Similarly, men don’t always realize how much work goes into a lot of social occasions (organizing food, etc.). They just show up and eat.
I don’t think it’s so much a gender thing as it is not realizing how much work goes into certain things.
Reminds me of this exchange from the movie Walk the Line.
“Johnny Cash: These things will work themselves out.
June Carter: No, these things don’t ‘work themselves out’. Other people work them out for you, and you think they work themselves out.”
”The same thing is happening with the MRM. The feminists want to co-opt it, which isn’t that surprising considering that they did the same thing to Western Christianity and the conservative movement. Now there are even feminists who declare that they’re the only true supporters of men’s rights, whereas MRAs are just bitter, small-dicked, whining losers. Women are entering the MRM and changing it from within.”
Well, that is the one thing that is making me fear for the sake of my younger brothers. I know that more and more young men are dropping out from college and choosing to not chase women(what’s the point of chasing women when all they want to do is to chase Alpha males?) but all of these women thinking they’re giving young men a reason to aim for higher things and positions in life by saying ”work hard, study, go to the gym and pump some iron, put hair-implants or whatever, because if you do you’re gonna get love and sex from women who spent their teens and 20′s servicing Alpha males like public toilets service the men who go to the mall”
it sure doesn’t sound like a great deal. Wouldn’t it be better to be a man extremely financially secure(for his sake alone), a great education, a great career, house, guy friends, and pets than settling for women who’ve had boyfriends/abortions/are infected with stds/suffer from ”this dude will do until my hypergamy hits me again” ?
Life is not all about sex and most men don’t have it anyway, within our outside of commited relationships and marriages .What’s the point of entering a prison when one can admire the prison from outside and without suffering the side effects of liberated young women?
Wow, echo, it’s like you’ve been cataloguing all of Susan’s complaints from the past couple of months and decided to write a post encapsulating them all. If that was meant as a parody, then well done. If not, well …
”ore than 90% of Millennial men and women say being a good parent is an important life goal, and 83% says marriage is. In contrast, only 50% say that being successful in a high paying career is important.
I would expect women to be more focused on career than family in an era when narcissism is rising, so we’ll have to see how this plays out.”
The majority of women with high numbers of sexual partners tell the truth to the men they want to marry?
The players tell women they’re going to pump and dump them?
Do wives-to-be swear they’ll stay ’till death with their future husbands?
Who cares about words? I can tell you I would refuse sex with a 18 year old virgin Angelina Jolie. Would you believe me? So why do you instantly believe the people who tell you what you want to hear?
”Wow, echo, it’s like you’ve been cataloguing all of Susan’s complaints from the past couple of months and decided to write a post encapsulating them all. If that was meant as a parody, then well done. If not, well …”
This thread’s the only thread from this blog I’ve read so far.
in a long time but I tend to agree with echo.
D, your posts to others when you talk about your own experience make sense but your posts to me never do.
The definition of solipsism is seeing the world and the phenomena through the lens of one’s own perception and experience, the inability to achieve an intellectual vantage point that transcends the personal and the particular. Well, that is Descartes’ precise indictment of ancient and medieval thought and the reason why he finds it necessary to invent the scientfic method. How you can then twist DESCARTES’s thought into “solipsism” is completely beyond me, whereas I can see the basis for Descartes’ indictment of the Greeks even if I (mostly) disagree with it.
You also seem to indicate that I endorse Descartes’ revolition or that I find it superior to what it replaced. If so, you read me about as well as I read you. I am sorry for that but I do at least endeavor to be clear.
“The majority of women with high numbers of sexual partners tell the truth to the men they want to marry?”
Um, yeah, if there were actually enough men who did not care. But alas, that is not the case. Can there be any thing more revolting that a woman can do to a man’s life than that? Someone is going to do a study that will reveal just how many slime dupes exist and will cause the entire shit show charade to collapse
Vox: “Unless the subject is completely over their heads, [women] have an amazing ability to turn themselves into the subject under discussion.”
I hardly find it news a person’s favourite topic of conversation is themselves–it’s a sentiment so common as to be trite. Unless by this you mean that if the woman is question is not the explicit topic of conversation she will make herself the implicit topic of conversation. In which case, I have no interest in finding out what my female engineering professor was implicitly discussing in the guise of teaching signal processing.
Vox: “Men don’t do that.”
I smell a false dichotomy. There are really no men whose world (including their conversations) don’t ultimately revolve around themselves? Let us not forget that “You’re So Vain” was written about a man. Caricature only works because it reflects underlying truth–namely that men are just as capable of making everything about themselves as you suppose women.
The only thing I can draw from this is that it is normal for conversations to eventually turn to the personal given enough time, effort, and opportunity. This is not surprising in the least. Accepting this as normal behaviour, I choose not to be upset by it unless in doing so the counter-party prevents effective communication about other topics. Should this be the case, it is now easy to give feedback: “When you shift the topic of conversation to yourself before resolving the original issue, it makes you look shallow and self-centred while making others less likely to talk to you about important issues. Can you change that?”
@ Susan:
Thank you and you’re welcome. I was trained by a statistician who made it very clear unless the assumptions of the model are met, then the results of applying the model to a given problem are worthless–suffice it to say, the attitude rubbed off on me.
>> “You will never see them applied to a male-only product.”
What about those “Livestrong” bracelets? I remember a lot of the jocks at my high school had one.
@ Collegestudent
I agree that many men are becoming disinterested in women. The reason for that is something called Learned Helplessness. If you punish an animal (or human) repeatedly, without it having any control over the situation, it ultimately gives up trying. You sum this feeling up well in your comment:
Your feelings are from a lifetime of punishment, frustration, and disempowerment. Society has not supported you. So, it is understandable that giving up looks like the best option. That is Learned Helplessness.
However, you are still in control and responsible for your own life. You are not truly helpless – that is just an easy choice. Rather than turning your feelings off and accepting the current situation, there are numerous ways of empowering yourself. You always have the option of becoming a valuable and powerful man. Only you can take that option away. Also, only a valuable and powerful man can truly get what he wants and alleviate the frustration you feel.
Also, I think there might be some confusion over my terms, when you say:
Frankly, I have a bone to pick with the PUAs who do devalue game in this way. Some are dancing monkeys, trying to get into a woman’s pants, simply for the validation it brings. That is NOT male empowerment though…just the opposite. I am not suggesting you become something just to “beg” for love, attention, or sex. That isn’t power.
True “game” is about influence, persuasion, dominance, and confidence. It is about men learning to be powerful leaders of themselves (and then of women). It is about negotiating and influencing women from a position of power and worth, not through begging and supplication. That is the true source of “alpha” – not the bad boy b.s. that women mistake for real leadership and dominance.
So, to avoid the confusion, let me not use the term “game” that has been so misconstrued. Instead, let me say that men should become powerful, influential, successful leaders. THEN, they also need to learn how to negotiate with women as valuable partners to get their needs met too – rather than as needy little boys who want validation.
So, you are on the right track by not looking to women for validation. However, you are not quite there, still holding on to your reactionary hurt and frustration. Instead, become a valuable and influential man. Then, make sure others treat you in accordance with that value and reciprocate with your kindness…or, if they are not respectful and valuable back, kick them to the curb.
Emily, those are more status markers. What I’m talking about are products that you need anyway (eg. toothpaste) and you choose brand A over brand B because A sayst they will donate to Habitat for Humanity. Marketing research says that women do this in vastly greater numbers than men do and that, in fact, women are in effect the whole market.
Frequent, easily-attained praise is mutually exclusive with high-expectations. Praise itself is about what the teacher wants, and in an environment in which kids are all-too-familiar with PC bullying from their elders, that itself is a dicey place to start. The effective teacher helps the student critically analyze their own wants, and whether they are in line with the student’s own values.
+1000
I’m not against parents choosing a values-based education for their children, but the use of Skinnerian extrinsic motivators (praise, fancy pencils, cheap toys and prizes, etc) to encourage kids to sell themselves out sickens me no matter what value system is being encouraged. The best teachers/mentors/parents work with a child to develop alng the lines that are most compatible with what the child’s natural gifts are.
@ Susan Walsh and BroHamlet,
Susan, I couldn’t agree with you more about the co-evolution of men and women. While some men and women may go off on their own, the majority will still need to relate and mate. At least, if we want some semblance of humanity to continue.
So, I agree when you say:
The problem, as I outline in my article, is that the powerful do have a natural tendency to slip into self-focus (solipsism). Frankly, most people don’t think about the needs of those they do not have to consider. Even much of “altruism” is to make one’s self feel good and validate a self-concept.
Therefore, while the average woman may not be the raving feminist that manosphere guys detest, she is still enjoying the fruits of that feminist empowerment. In fact, she may even fall for the rhetoric and feel very entitled to the power, perks, and status. Heck, even some non-feminists hotly contend that women are the only sex with issues, oppression, and inequality. Therefore, many “regular” women cannot help but be influenced by the propaganda – and also come to feel entitled and comfortable in their status.
Of course, there are exceptions. A mother might give up power for her son. A sister may feel sympathy for a brother. But, the average woman may not be so quickly moved to empathy over the average, nameless, faceless man. In fact, she’s probably been told he is an abusive, oppressive, controlling, rapist. So, why would women be concerned for Joe Everyman? In fact, why would they even give up or willingly share power with a husband?
It is much easier to use a man, cuckold a husband, divorce, get half the assets, take the kids and go on to the next. All of the social instruction and rewards drive her that way. So, it takes a truly strong women to remain fair, equal, and balanced in her dealing with a man – even though society, courts, and police give her all the power and social norms encourage and justify her using them to get her own way. Few humans (men or women) have the strength of character to not succumb to using such unilateral power for their own ends. Power corrupts…
I believe this is why BroHamlet says:
Given all that, while I agree that women’s help in finding a true solution is ultimately necessary, I think there are other steps that must happen first. Yes, some women with vested interests (mothers and sisters) will join the cause early. But, others won’t join until men have power and value enough for them to take notice. That means men learning to better themselves, become leaders, stop looking for women’s validation, and amassing their own sources of power and worth. It also means men-driven social change, by rejecting the devaluing and oppressive social roles and titles placed upon them (loser, deadbeat dad, rapist, oppressor, creepy, misogynist, etc.). Only after those changes will it become “worthwhile” for the average woman to join the cause.
After all, male support for women’s issues wasn’t altruistic either. It was in the best interest of Alpha’s to “free” women, so they could have the harems they now enjoy. Or, it was in the best interest of politicians to make women dependent on a socialist state, which kept women voting them into power. Or, it was the sexual strategy of “white knights”, trying to supplicate, beg, and be a “good guy” to get sex. In any case, groups of men helped women get em-power-ed because it was good for them.
Therefore, until there is “something in it for women” to help men, why should they? Or, until they “have to” listen an negotiate, why bother? Love, like business, ultimately comes down to the WIIFM (what’s in it for me?). We had an established, reciprocal, mutually-dependent WIIFM in the 50′s between men and women. Now, the average guy either needs to re-empower himself to find a new one. Only then will the bulk of women help.
Until then though, I have the utmost respect for the women who do join the cause early. Concerned mothers. Loving sisters. Especially women with character, conscience, values, and morals, who know right from wrong without an incentive. In return, I hope men get over their frustrations with women in abstract and at least learn to see you supporters as friends, lovers, and partners.
Lenin + high IQ+*no* EQ+power.
All head. no heart is as dangerous, if not more, as no head, no heart. And I say this as an INTP.
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