The Dumbest Argument Against my Alpha Female Article

Women "have agency" that we should never use because it's bitchy

A few days ago, I published an article called The Men Yearn for the Alpha Female, about why the submissive traits venerated by terminally online men—availability, agreeability, docility and submissiveness—don’t actually earn women romantic success, especially in the early stages of attraction.

I knew I’d get some disagreement, but anyone who is truly steeped in red pill content should know better than to argue (unless they’re a woman, of course) because the entire philosophy says (as I noted before the paywall) that you shouldn’t ask a fish how to be caught, you should ask the fisherman. Despite this being fairly sound advice, men everywhere somehow thought that it was up to them to correct me on what men find attractive, despite the fact that I am a woman who has found romantic and sexual success (this is not going to be universal for all women, but I think monogamous marriage with high mutual attraction is probably the ideal for most straight women.) Granted, this same attractive husband put me on a PIP, but that’s beside the point.

What people say they want is often not what they actually want. Men have no problem acknowledging this when it comes to women claiming to like “nice guys” but also complaining that they “always wind up with assholes.” But somehow they believe men are always completely upfront about their desires, with no ulterior motives.

I won’t even really be addressing the argument I got the most often, entirely from men who didn’t read the article, even the free preview. These men saw the term “alpha female” and concluded that I was praising bossy, domineering behavior, or telling women that their careers made men horny. This wasn’t even remotely what I said. Some of these men (not in good faith) asked me to “clarify” for them. To quote the Tumblr SJWs of yesteryear, it’s not my job to educate you (for free, anyway.) I made it pretty clear that my definition of “alpha female” is not simply Chad in a Skims dress. If you need more information, you’re free to buy a subscription.

The argument I got from critics, which I will address here: that submissiveness and docility actually were preferred traits, both stated and revealed. They said that my own romantic success either didn’t count because my husband is a beta cuck and I’m a battle axe (our relationship is actually so traditional that I am frequently mislabeled as a conservative) or that I scored my husband by pure luck or by being hot alone (haha, I’m not going to argue with anyone who wants to insist that I’m mondo-hot.) They also said that I was “coping” even though barely-reading my article would indicate that I’ve lived most of my pre-marital life as a docile, submissive and spineless woman (or, well, teenage girl.) Life would have been much easier for me if that behavior was rewarded.

The reason I know this argument is wrong comes from a totally different backlash to an article I wrote months ago—The Men Who Sabotage Women’s Fertility.

In that article, I discussed the phenomenon where men date a woman for years—eight, nine, even ten years—nebulously claiming marriage was on the horizon. Typically these relationships end, and the man will immediately marry the next woman they date. I even interviewed men who fell into this category, and a lot of the resistance had nothing to do with an aversion to marriage in general, or not liking their girlfriends. They simply didn’t see the rush, and their girlfriends never pressed them on it. Without societal pressure from families or religious institutions, they were left to their own devices, and their own devices turned into the path of least resistance: doing nothing. Over time this led to resentment, where even if they had proposed, the women likely wouldn’t have wanted it anymore. Many such cases, as they say.

Of course, women bear some responsibility. And people were quick to tell me this! In fact, men from all over Twitter jumped on me for not placing the blame uniquely on women for putting up with this behavior. We have “agency,” they insisted, and any woman who allows a man to string her along for multiple years only has herself to blame.

What did they suggest such a woman do? Well, they had ideas! Such as: breaking up with any man who hasn’t proposed within six months to a year, proposing to a man herself, setting an ultimatum, or refusing to have premarital sex until a man proposes, something they insisted the vast majority of men would be okay with (sure, Jan.)

Well, guess what? These are all alpha female behaviors. These are all examples of a woman asserting strong boundaries, having other options in life, and using her leverage without bluffing. Arguably some of them go a bit too far. But that’s basically all I was talking about when I said “alpha female.” Having a backbone increases a woman’s odds of romantic success, partially because it displays high value and thus increases desirability, but also because it prevents her from wasting too much time.

The funny thing is that when this argument was made—that women who want proposals should simply “exercise agency”—I told these men that they were clearly lying. They would never tolerate that behavior in a woman and if a woman said she set a marriage ultimatum or refused to put out until she got a ring, that they would tell her she was bitchy, demanding and materialistic. At the time, they insisted they wouldn’t say that. But of course they would, and they did—in response to my article about alpha females.

There’s a reason I didn’t say “Men love bossy bitches!” It’s because that wasn’t the behavior to which I was referring. Women don’t even really love “assholes” either, they love confident, charismatic men with lots of options, who tend not to be as invested in them as a result of those options.

By “alpha female,” I was referring to the behavior of having—or at least appearing to have—other options. Not necessarily other men waiting in the wing, but a life outside a man. I was talking about being able to stand up for yourself, put your foot down, or say no—not for the purpose of being disagreeable and argumentative, but because you actually care about something. I was also referring to basic intellectual curiosity—the ability to have a spirited debate about something without mindlessly agreeing to everything your boyfriend says. None of this is “bossy bitch” behavior. And I’m sure plenty of men claim not to like this—because life is a whole lot easier for them if women never challenge them or advocate for themselves. But “making life easy” doesn’t necessarily translate to attraction (men who spinelessly submit to their girlfriends and shower them with gifts also make life very easy, but they don’t inspire much self-lubrication.) And it doesn’t correlate to romantic success.

But anyway, I wasn’t writing about male sexual strategy. I wasn’t even writing about female sexual strategy (I don’t really give dating advice.) I was commenting on a social phenomenon, and I was right.

Let me illustrate some examples of alpha female versus low-value female behavior with the following scenarios:

Scenario 1: A guy cancels on a date because he got sporting event tickets that night, and asks to reschedule next week

A low-value woman might immediately agree to the new date, perhaps even move things around for him. An alpha female would not move anything around to accommodate the new date, although she might agree to reschedule at a time that works. He would realize that there was a larger cost to canceling on her—she had other places to be. The incentive is now on him to keep his word, because who knows if she’ll be available at all next time? Maybe next time he’ll prioritize the date with her and buy tickets for another day.

Scenario 2: A guy has been dating girl for over a month, but says he “doesn’t know if he wants something serious” and he’s “still figuring it out.”

A low-value woman might say, “Yeah, me too!” even though she actually does want something serious. She might stick around waiting for him to change his mind. She might pretend not to want kids. She might agree to a polyamorous relationship she doesn’t really want (nothing wrong with polyamory if everyone actually wants it.) An alpha female would be up-front and say, “Oh, I’m actually looking for something serious. Maybe this isn’t a great fit.” The ball is in his court to change his tune—or perhaps they’re just not going to waste each other’s time.

Scenario 3: A woman has a close female friend. Her new boyfriend doesn’t like the friend, and tells her to stop hanging out with her or refuses to hang out in a group if the friend is there.

A low-value woman would drop the friend or try to keep both relationships going by preventing having them in the same room with each other. An alpha female would refuse to drop the friend, and reject any ultimatum asking her to choose between him and the friend. That doesn’t mean she would be mean to him—it’s an unreasonable request for him to ask her to stop hanging out with her close friend in the first place (unless his reason was related to something serious, like the friend being the head of a crime ring or something.)

Scenario 4: A woman is on a date with her new boyfriend and he mentions thinking Seinfeld is the funniest show of all time. She doesn’t really like Seinfeld, but she loves Arrested Development.

A low-value woman would simply agree Seinfeld is funnier. An alpha female would approach the issue with curiosity and spark. She might say she didn’t like Seinfeld and ask more about why he liked it. She wouldn’t tell him it was a terrible show or that he was stupid for liking it, but she wouldn’t pretend to agree either. She might even playfully tease him and challenge him to watch an episode of Arrested Development to see if she could convert him (again, joking, of course.)

Scenario 5: A woman notices a new museum opening in her city and she asks her boyfriend if he wants to go. He says it sounds boring and he doesn’t want to go.

A low-value woman might agree with him that it’s boring after all and decide not to go. An alpha female would simply go with a few girlfriends instead, as opposed to missing out on the opportunity because her boyfriend doesn’t like it.

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Another sub-argument was that only looks matter, which I already covered. Yes, looks matter (I never said they didn’t) but not every hot woman is romantically successful. Plenty of hot women still get cheated on (part of this is about choosing the right partner, and by the way, I’d be wary of any partner who has strong feelings about wanting his wife to be meek and compliant.) If two women are equally hot, they will not necessarily have the same love life. Luck is part of it, but behavior absolutely matters.

Hopefully, this illuminates alpha female behavior for anyone who was previously confused about what I meant (although I doubt anyone could have read the full article and still been this confused, but you never know!) For those on the other side of the argument—who thought I was prescriptively telling women to pretend to be boss bitches and ignore their true nature—I wasn’t doing that either. Personally, I tend toward submissive behavior, although nobody could ever call me “quiet.” But you can be a naturally submissive person without being a complete pushover and having zero personal boundaries. The story I shared about my own history was laced with anecdotes about me pretending to be someone I wasn’t, but I’m not saying everyone has to do what I did, and those stories were mostly there for comedic relief (although regrettably, they were true.)

Anyway, the “high value” phenomenon extends beyond dating and relationships. Just the other night, my husband was looking for restaurants where he would make a reservation. He was deciding between three restaurants, all of which had great reviews. Two of them were almost fully booked and he was barely able to find a spot. The third one was inexplicably available all day, multiple days that week. He said that immediately, he soured off the available restaurant, because so much availability made him wonder if it wasn’t that great after all. Someone might say “Fuck that, the only thing that matters is if a restaurant has good reviews and good food.” All of them did! But the extremely available one suddenly seemed less appealing to him. Of course, people are not restaurants, but it illustrates my point that making things too easy generally doesn’t reflect well on your value.

Hopefully that clears it up, although again, I’ve committed the heinous crime of making half the article paid, so the people who needed this response probably won’t see it. Oh well. I look forward to sending them cryptic screenshots on Twitter.

For the rest of you, thanks for joining me on this ride- hopefully much more to come :)

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