In one <em>letter</em>, the problem with modern American women

The pick-up artist community and its bastardization of evolutionary psychology have given us one term that can describe, at root, the psychological problems of the modern American woman: α. Unicode-character U+0251. Alpha. Usually applied to men, I’m going to discuss the unhealthy character of the “alpha female”, and how her counterproductive behaviors have infected American culture. As American men increasingly leave our women behind, this discussion is, for young women, of critical importance.

Let’s first agree on some working definitions for four discernible levels of social status, applying to men in pre-monogamous societies: alpha, beta, gamma, and omega. Each has a different personality, family structure, and survival/reproductive strategy. With the most wives– we define a wife as one whose sexuality is exclusively betrothed to one man, making no religious implications– are the alpha males. They tend to have three or more wives and a large number of children. They’re r-strategists. Their wives are treated like chattel, and paternal investment in children is minimal, as the alpha male has to invest all of his energy in defending and maintaining his status. Beta males, on the other hand, tend strongly toward monogamy. (A beta might take two or three wives if there a severe shortage of men, but is disinclined to do so.) Either unable to acquire alpha status, or uninterested in doing so, they prefer seek out one highly desirable partner and form a pair bond with her. The beta male’s reproductive future relies on one woman, so he values her health highly, and tends strongly toward egalitarian partnership. Paternal investment is high, because the beta has few children and must see them succeed if his genetic line is to continue. Betas, being K-strategists, are the best husbands and fathers. Finally, gammas are the excess men who have no wives. Mostly celibate and angry, their reproductive strategies involve turmoil and risk. They can cuckold men of higher status (risking violence and death). They can start a revolution against the high-status men (risking violent death). Or, if the alphas recognize the danger these low-status, angry men present, the gammas will be sent to war against another tribe (risking violent death). Last are the abysmally low, usually deformed and unhealthy, omegas, the invisible and inert bottom. (What differentiates gammas from omegas is that gammas have the potential to become alphas or betas, often through war and insurrection. Omegas don’t.)

Worth noting is that alpha and gamma males have more in common with each other than with betas. Both sorts are violent, manipulative, subversive, and risk-seeking. The only difference between the alpha and gamma male is that the former is successful and the latter is not; their attitudes are fairly similar. Likewise, beta males have more in common with women than with alpha or gamma men. Having few children in whom they invest highly, they tend to be future-oriented and value stability, wishing for their children to inherit a just society in which they can prosper. They become the priests, scholars, judges, and entrepreneurs. Over time, by virtue of being the predominant contributors to the advancement of civilization, betas end up running it. Eventually, out of a desire to mute the destabilizing effect of polygamy and status-based violence, they enforce monogamy on society as a whole, coercing everyone’s status into the beta region of the spectrum.

According to the male status spectrum, most women are natively beta. Limited in the number of children they can have, they tend toward high paternal investment, a preference for egalitarian relationships, and future orientation. Still, is there an alpha female? Yes, and her reproductive strategy is dissimilar from that of the normal (beta) female, and from that of the alpha male.

Beta females seek quality men of medium-high social status– the most desirable beta men– for monogamous relationships. Alpha females, on the other hand, seek alpha males exclusively. Their evolutionary reason for doing so is obvious: they want their children to inherit the father’s alpha status. In order to achieve this, to have sexual access to an alpha male is not enough; a large number of women have such access, but most of them are not alpha females, and their children will not inherit the father’s status. Women of low status within an alpha’s harem are gamma, not alpha. Their children will be viewed as the alpha father’s bastards, not his heirs. Only the favored wife qualifies as an alpha female. Thus, the strategy of the alpha female is to enter an alpha’s harem and rise to the top of it.

Although the sexual fates of alphas and gammas are different between men and women, there is a similarity between the genders. Both “alpha” and “gamma” represent the winning and losing sides of a social gamble, a gamble for which the betas of both genders have opted out by pursuing monogamous relationships. For men, the contest is for social dominance against other men. For women, it is the contest within the harem to achieve “favorite wife” status.

Modern humans are generally impossible to classify as “alpha” or “beta”– society strongly encourages us to be beta, but both strategies live within our genetic lineage and tendencies. Our term for a person with overbearing alpha-male traits is psychopath– a person with narcissistic and promiscuous tendencies, lacking empathy and conscience. (Most psychopaths are male; that female psychopaths exist is indicative of that female “alpha males” can exist.) What does an alpha female look like? A less physically violent analogue of the alpha male, she’s a hypercompetitive, gossiping, catty, back-stabbing, relationally aggressive bitch. She’s the hypergamous Carrie Bradshaw, lusting after “Mr. Big” despite his repulsive and obnoxious character. She’s what a perverse offshoot of feminism has told young women that it’s “empowering” to be.

As societies become more civilized, they tend to marginalize the true alpha male, outlawing polygamy, rape, and domestic violence, and demanding paternal investment (child support) in biological children. So the worst traits of alpha males have been criminalized, and rightly so. Such men are senselessly violent, parasitic, and extremely disruptive. However, the alpha-female variety of behavior is too subtle to control by law. Where a man would physically lash out at someone, the woman is inclined to inflict grievous social harm, and it’s easy to do this without breaking any laws. The alpha female, nearly as much of a monster as the alpha male, is allowed to roam free.

Modern Sex and the City culture has trained a generation of women to think of men as accessories, placing the status benefits of the pairing at a substantially higher priority than the quality of the relationship itself. The result is that American women have, as a group, lost interest in the skills necessary to make a relationship work, instead concentrating on the quest for the high-status male. This has turned them, unwittingly, into alpha females. The nightmare of hypergamy, “soft polygamy”, casual sex and combat dating that the modern dating landscape has become is a direct result of this.

An interesting question about the “alpha”/”beta” debate is that of whether it is “better” to be one or the other. For men, this question is difficult to answer, because a substantial proportion of men have an “alpha” desire for sexual variety, especially when they are young. Alpha males seem to be significantly happier (and more respected) than low-beta and gamma males, but less content (and less respected) than high betas. People admire loyal high betas like Barack Obama (with one highly desirable wife and two daughters, all of whom he clearly loves) more than mid-alphas like Jonathan Edwards, or low-alphas like Bill Clinton. On the other hand, alpha males are able to achieve a lifestyle that an inordinate number of men envy; I’m sure Silvio Berlusconi is much more envied for his sex life than Obama is. Though most men would agree that it’s more mature to be a high beta, there’s no clear hedonic superiority of one approach over the other.

For a woman, the question can be more clearly answered: it is preferable to be beta. The alpha female tolerates a philandering and dangerous husband not for the sake of her own well-being, but to impart the father’s status to her children. Her attraction to the violent, narcissistic, and cruel sort of men who achieve high status puts her in danger, and if she does not achieve “favorite wife” status within the harem, her fate is chattel slavery. Nature is playing a devilish trick on the alpha female, bringing her to be attracted to dangerous men, thereby sacrificing her own interests, for the benefit of her progeny.

A perversion of feminism has glorified the lifestyle and behavior of the alpha female, starting with Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl and continuing into the current era via television shows and movies like Sex and the City. The alpha female’s promiscuous and hypergamous lifestyle, however, is not conducive to a woman’s happiness. Even most men would find it utterly empty. For this reason, women are becoming unhappier despite their improved position in society.

Most feminist advances have been of great benefit to women and society. Women must have the right to vote, and to be respected equally within the workplace. We simply can’t afford to ignore half of our nation’s talent go ignored. On the other hand, the rise of the modern, “post-feminist” Sex and the City alpha-female has been a disaster for men, women, and dating as a whole. It’s great to live in an time where women have the same political freedoms as men, and are encouraged to enjoy and explore their own sexuality. However, upgrading the beta-female “angel in the house”– and the concept of a lady– for a more liberal era is the correct response to these new freedoms. Letting the alpha bitch off the leash is not.

(Irrelevant but amusing side note: the alpha female’s prevalence extends beyond the female gender. Consider the social structure of corporate capitalism. CEOs love to cast themselves as “alpha male” leaders, but the behaviors of rival executives within a modern corporation have little to do with the natural behavior of a real alpha male. The real alpha males are those with the money, the influential and extremely wealthy shareholders. What are top-level corporate executives? Though men, they’re essentially alpha females, those who have successfully risen to the top of the corporate harem hierarchy. It’s fun to point this out to the Reaganoids and the Randists.)