Feminists Think Sexist Men Are Sexier than "Woke" Men

Hue

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Feminists Think Sexist Men Are Sexier than "Woke" Men

Recent psychology today article popped up on my news feed. Essentially, it acknowledges a study that shows women see "benevolent sexist" male partners as more attractive than those without. It questions some of the commonly understood beliefs on attraction and explores some different dynamics.

Some quotes,
Women who admit to liking bad boys—being attracted to men who are assertive or dominant—are sometimes criticized as having “internalized” misogynistic attitudes, or simply as naïve and foolish, failing to recognize or admit that sexism is damaging. During the 2016 presidential campaign, female fans of then-candidate Trump proudly invited their candidate to grab them, following release of tapes of Trump discussing grabbing women without consent. These women were proclaimed traitors to other women, or decried as simply deluded. Others have suggested that women may choose bad boy types in order to acquire protection from other, more aggressive and hostile men, a theory referred to as the “protection racket.” Some simply suggest that sexism is insidious, and that these dynamics infiltrate our choices without us noticing.

Past research has suggested that evolutionary biology explains these dynamics, pointing to findings that women reportedly prefer men with more masculine features and more indicators of “fitness.” However, many of those sensational findings are in question, with failed replications leading to doubt that these effects can be reliably predicted or measured.

Gul and Kupfer take a related tack, but head in a slightly different direction. They suggest that female interest in sexist men, specifically men who display “benevolent sexism” may be seen by women as being more interested in investing resources in a woman.

Benevolent sexism is a concept describing a form of sexism which is overtly less hostile and misogynistic, and are beliefs that I was taught, as a man from the US South. Benevolent sexism includes beliefs that:

Women should be “put on a pedestal”
Women should be cherished and protected by men
Men should be willing to sacrifice to provide for women
Women are more virtuous than men
Women are more refined and pure, compared to men

Benevolent sexism (BS) has detrimental effects on women, yet women prefer men with BS attitudes over those without. The predominant explanation for this paradox is that women respond to the superficially positive appearance of BS without being aware of its subtly harmful effects. We propose an alternative explanation drawn from evolutionary and sociocultural theories on mate preferences: Women find BS men attractive because BS attitudes and behaviors signal that a man is willing to invest. Five studies showed that women prefer men with BS attitudes (Studies 1a, 1b, and 3) and behaviors (Studies 2a and 2b), especially in mating contexts, because BS mates are perceived as willing to invest (protect, provide, and commit). Women preferred BS men despite also perceiving them as patronizing and undermining. These findings extend understanding of women’s motives for endorsing BS and suggest that women prefer BS men despite having awareness of the harmful consequences.

Interestingly though, these women weren’t love-struck fools, but had their eyes open about these men. Despite being attracted to them, and seeing them as good mates and partners, the women saw these males as being undermining and patronizing men who were more likely to place restrictions on the women.

Women who find sexist men attractive are not being traitors to other women, nor are they naïve women who don’t understand their choices. Instead, they are women who are making rational decisions, accepting tradeoffs. They are women who recognize that it may be more beneficial to have a partner who is committed to them and willing to sacrifice for them and their family, than it is to have a “woke” feminist man who wants them to be independent.

Even though women recognize that these guys are patronizing them and perhaps failing to recognize their negative attributes (or rather, are more willing to put up with these negative attributes), they still report being attracted to them. And this is why some women choose the beta for a more boyfriendy/girlfriendy relationship or marriage - it's a pretty good tradeoff some of the time to go with the security and resource a white knight might have to offer even though he's not a lover or her even in love with him. There's nuances of attraction, some of the time it becomes an intuitively rational option for girls to be drawn to these guys / make it work with them.

When I think of male feminist though, I think of these super left dudes who are also benevolently sexist, rather than the traditional feminist who seeks to empower women from legitimate mental and legal boundaries they may be experiencing and cultivate real independence (and as you'll find, not everyone WANTS to be be independent because it can be a lot more work and responsbility!) Also found it fitting that the women saw the same men as more likely to place restrictions on them. Perhaps men with these glorified positions on women feel they need to force congruence with their belief and the behavior of women around them.

...would love to see a study that reports how satisfying women find relationships with several different types of men (betas, male feminists, players, alpha male 1.0's and 2.0's).. would love the recruitment flyers for that one ;P


Anyway, thought I'd throw it in here. Cool to see real research on the same ideas that GC expert's experience and write about.


Hue
 

Lover

Cro-Magnon Man
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Women who find sexist men attractive are not being traitors to other women, nor are they naïve women who don’t understand their choices. Instead, they are women who are making rational decisions, accepting tradeoffs.

This quote lacks common sense... or maybe trying to inspire it. I mean, how can a woman betray other women by going for the kind of man she desires the most? (=

I encourage you guys to read this article about a female feminist tired of dating male feminists. Imo she makes a joke of the common male feminist, and she pretty much proves that men do whatever they can to maximize their access to the possibility of sex. She didn't tell exactly what kind of guys she would date in the future... But if you read the article, it probably won't be a guy that thinks getting blowjobs is degrading
 

Hue

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Women who find sexist men attractive are not being traitors to other women, nor are they naïve women who don’t understand their choices. Instead, they are women who are making rational decisions, accepting tradeoffs.
Yea, I think it's an argument / comment directed towards ideologs who find personal decisions such as mate preference an act of violence, somehow.


She didn't tell exactly what kind of guys she would date in the future... But if you read the article, it probably won't be a guy that thinks getting blowjobs is degrading

Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite so simple. From the man who opened a text conversation with a photo of his naked chest and encouraged me to reciprocate in the name of the Free The Nipple movement, to the fellow who agonised over accepting a blowjob because, despite enjoying them, he found the act simply too degrading to let me perform; dating male feminists turned out to be one of the least empowering decisions I’ve ever made.
Lol. Honestly, there's probably been worse ways of asking for a nude. I saw an instagram post of a guy pleading with this girl that because she wouldn't fuck him she's not a true feminist and/or sexually liberated.. caption read "these fuckboys are evolving" haha.
 

Chase

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Oh, interesting. Good find, Hue.

Nice to see some follow-on research to this.

I covered the original 2009 benevolent sexist study 3.5 years ago in this article. The study authors didn't try to prove a reason for the preference; they just showed it existed.

Worth noting that of the three types (benevolent sexist, hostile sexist, and non-sexist), the benevolent sexist is the most sexually attractive too. It is not just white knights in this category. You should find many legitimate 'alphas' are benevolent sexists, rather than hostile or non-sexists.

To get an idea of the distinctions:

  • Non-Sexist: "women are the same as men and all of us are equal."
  • Hostile Sexist: "women are liars and cheaters who are slaves to their emotions and can't be trusted."
  • Benevolent Sexist: "women are cute little minxes who need a strong man to look after them."

It actually gets a bit more nuanced than that, in that one individual can contain multiple different sexism alignments... a guy can be a benevolent sexist about some things and a hostile sexist about others.

The 'alpha/beta' (as in: winner vs. loser) dichotomy I don't think fits as well with these types of sexism, since you can really have a guy in any of the three sexist categories who ends up a winner or a loser. You can have dominant hostile sexist winners who have ugly views of women but are powerful dudes and succeed with women anyway. You can have non-sexist winners who have polyamorous relationships with women and are totally uninterested in providing for them but also don't let those women walk all over them. And you can have dominant benevolent sexist men who think well of women but still keep a firm pimp hand on them (for the woman's own good, of course).

I'd probably actually revise my 2014 article in that way... back then I interpreted it as "non-sexists are all male feminist namby-pambies, and hostile sexists are just bitter spurned dudes" but it wasn't as nuanced. You can have dominant winner guys in any of these categories. That said, it does still seem to me that far and away most of the men who are successful with women are benevolent sexists -- they like women, look out for women, but also view women as silly and cute, and prone to doing things that might not be best for them and thus needing someone with a little more foresight to look out for them.

Chase
 
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