There are a fair number of studies in the field of American Undergraduate Looking For Intro Psych Credit Studies (also occasionally known as “psychology”) which purport to establish that (straight) women are more attracted to dominant men. (Here’s one, selected because it’s fairly typical of the genre and not behind a paywall.) Generally whenever these come up in Internet gender discussions it’s because someone wants to talk about how women are chasing after alpha male bad boys and not nice guys like him because women are terrible and therefore sad panda boners.
–I’m going to interrupt myself here to head off two kinds of comments that will make me sad. First, the dominance they’re talking about here isn’t BDSM dominance, it’s the “strong, rugged, competitive, tough, thinks they’re better than other people” kind. Second, blog posts like this always attract somebody who wants to tell us that they/their partner/their best friend/their pet hamster doesn’t like Trait X. Which, okay, but when you average the sexual desires of 3.5 billion women 11 million female American undergraduates, you’re going to inaccurately describe the desires of a lot of people. Maybe the majority of people.
Sad panda boner dude has made the unfortunate mistake of conflating “dominance” and “agreeableness” and “high status.” In all the research I’ve read, women have been fairly consistent about not liking assholes, in the sense of cruel, mean, or aggressive men. (In fact, there’s a whole subsection about that in the article I linked.) Also, I’m not sure what “attracted to high-status men” even means: am I attracted to high-status men because I tend to like guys who are smarter than me? Does this mean that men who like women who are smarter than them are attracted to high-status women? Is there any way of defining “status” so it doesn’t mean “anyone who is awesome in any way whatsoever”? Ugh I hate the word status so much you don’t even know.
Anyway, straight women as a class (or at least straight female American undergraduates) do appear to be more interested in men who are competitive, socially dominant, strong, tough, etc., etc.
…And this doesn’t reflect the predictions of feminist theory how?
I mean, on a very basic level, those results show that straight women as a class tend to be more attracted to men who successfully perform masculinity. Just like cultural influence tends to lead to straight men being interested in women who are conventionally attractive and perform femininity in the socially-approve-of way, cultural influence tends to lead to straight women being interested in men that properly perform masculinity. (Cultural influence has a huge effect on sexuality. I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.)
Or wander off to the radical feminism. As Dworkin’s Intercourse talks about, under patriarchy, violence, coercion, and the subordination of women are eroticized and constructed as inherent parts of sexuality (to varying degrees given how patriarchal the situation we’re talking about is). Crucially, those things are eroticized by both men and women.
So of course there are more women than men attracted to a socially dominant person; the entire patriarchy is screaming at them “You! Woman! Your subordination to a dude is totally sexxxeh!” The only surprising part about all of this is that women as a class are only attracted to socially dominant men and not outright assholes. Presumably this is because social conditioning can only go so far before the human urge not to hang out with douchebags triumphs.
The fact that feminist theory can explain this data doesn’t mean that the feminist explanation is necessarily right, of course. But I find it amusing that I can theoretically explain the whole “women like alpha males” meme with Dworkin.
I reject all implications that women who are attracted to shy men, men who are attracted to tough women, and non-hetero people aren’t influenced by patriarchy, though. :p
That’s the danger in this sort of thing–implying that women who like socially dominant men are suckers who’ve fallen for patriarchy in some way that other people haven’t. And women who like dominant men already get enough shit, dammit. I’ve seen people go down this “they’re patriarchy’s pawns, poor things” path to disapprove of women who engage in traditionally feminine behavior until the point where their disapproval looks almost exactly like plain ordinary misogyny.
Cliff: Right. I should write a song. “Everyone is influenced by paaaaatriarchy, everyone is influenced by paaaaaatriarchy, your behavior is not magically free from influence by social structures of dominaaaaaation.”
I feel like it’s important to separate “this behavior is influenced by patriarchy” from “this behavior is wrong and bad and evil and you should stop having it.” Nothing wrong with liking socially dominant men (more shy men for me); however, women tending to like socially dominant men more than men like socially dominant women is something influenced by the general background radiation of patriarchy.
“American Undergraduate Looking For Intro Psych Credit Studies (also occasionally known as “psychology”) ”
*looks around nervously* Um… yeah… you’ve got us there.
Actually, it’s awesome you pointed this out, sampling in Psychology is fucked up beyond belief and the field gets called on it so very rarely. (Also replications, experimental control, the mainstream’s base metaphors… It’s almost like the field totally gets away with Bad Science all the time when it happens to confirm cultural myths…)
And as to the main point, another reason it’s not surprising that women are attracted to successful/high status men is that things like confidence, curiosity, emotional intelligence and social skills are predictive of success. People who attain “high status” are pretty likely to be likable people in general. The “women are attracted to alpha males, who are presumably also assholes” form of the meme comes from frustrated entitlement, and the bullshit evo psych meaning of “alpha”.
Ye Gods, I hate evo psych with a ranty passion.
The problem with the idea of “western hetero women prefer dominant men” is that there’s all kinds of prejudices and assumptions and conflations tied up in the word “dominant”. Like we almost don’t have the language to talk about a confident assertiveness that doesn’t subjugate others. There isn’t a particularly good model of masculinity in mainstream consciousness that is anything other than “benevolently” domineering, non-benevolently domineering (Your Knight / Beast dichotomy again, Ozy) or just weak / shy / undesirable / “beta” etc.
I think a lot of the time when we talk about “dominance” we are actually talking about a level of security and comfort with onesself. Men can use that confidence as a tool to subjugate others with less of it, or, you know, be good people whilst also being “masculine”.
I think one of the better PUA coaches Clarisse Thorn talked to in her (awesome) book on that community said something along the lines of “being an asshole approximates a certain number of attractive traits, like confidence, independence etc but also carries with it a lot of bad stuff, the trick for straight guys who feel unnatractive is to develop those traits assholes have without actually being assholes”.
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+1 to all of the people talking about the word “dominance” meaning different things to different people/in different contexts. Let’s not lump in the confident, assertive people with the bullies.
Hypothetical experiment! Ask women if they’d rather date someone who was “confident and assertive” or someone who was “confident, assertive, and nice.” I will bet $$ on what most of them answer.
Weeeeeeell.. equally “confident” and “assertive” can be euphemisms for “douchebag with no boundaries”. The spectrum of behaviours performed as a part of various “traditional masculinities” has a whole bunch of really ugly stuff in there that is harmful, and some are kinda normalised with that language. And yeah there probably are some straight women who will go for some of the uglier sides of things. People are complex and the adversarial setup of patriarchal gender roles leads to some weird and messed up behaviours. Which I think is the point of Ozy’s Dworkin references (other than it being hilarious to talk about Dworkin and “Alpha males” in the same paragraph)
“I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.”
HA! I see what you did there. (Yay, math jokes!)
But yeah, it always baffles me when feminists are all “patriarchy causes this one thing to happen,” and people are like, “BUT FEMINISTS, that same thing happens, and is non-egalitarian, so feminists are WRONG!” It’s like people don’t even listen to themselves.
I think it’s a lot simpler to see the “dominant” traits that are desired as the sort of traits that genuinely make people’s lives easier. If you’re committed to a partner, you want the one who can get you to the front of the reservation line for your favorite restaurant on Saturday night. Not the one who is too timid to speak up.
And the whole crummy thing is that “assholes” get “ahead” in life. You want a partner who will be in your interest when you don’t want to make a scene? you find someone who is better at that sort of thing.
And the kicker is that it’s men who tend to fit that mould. Not “men” who inherently fit, but that women, overall, aren’t encouraged or feel safe in taking such a position.
I’m dating a “dominant” woman who relies on me (a “submissive” person) to deal with all that for her. I continually wafer myself between being assertive (in a “I was raised as male” kind of way) and being actually beneficent-to-myself.
A lot of people want their partners to do the heavy lifting. That’s what this is about, to me. Those people also tend to fail to see that work is different but same.
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@Anthony “People who attain “high status” are pretty likely to be likeable people in general”
this is flatly not true I don’t think any further comment is required.
Well I think the sad panda boner’s point is that the desire for socially dominant men in wider society has negative consequences for him.
Just as women/feminists are right to say that the male (on average) prefference for ‘beautiful’ women who can ‘perform femininity’ in the correct way has negative consequences not just for women who are judged not to meet the standard but for most women.
The same is true of men, I think in that male dominance hierarchies are (partially) given their comparative ferocity by the preference of women for men at the top of those hierarchies.
Also How do Dworkin’s words above explain the desire for a socially dominant but agreeable man, if anything her words above explain the desire for a cad and or bounder.
Lastly this may have some biological component [possible evo-psyc warning]
https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/psychology/news/archive/title,86866,en.php
Good on Cliff for pointing out how we’re ALL influenced. Like, the patriarchy doesn’t only shout at women that subordinance is sexy, it also shouts out that men are a threat, which may be an influence behind how some women prefer thin and weak-looking and/or shy guys. *random example*
The idea that only sheeple are influenced by their culture in any way may also be a reason why so many people are so eager to claim that they were “born this way” when it comes to sexual preferences btw *nods to the post about culturally influenced sexuality*
Cliff: And women who like dominant men already get enough shit, dammit.
Say what? We must live in very different parts of the country and associate with very different classes of people. Come on down to the working class south, and you’ll see that these women are GREATLY REWARDED and FETED and the rest of us looked at like we are weirdos. (At least if you are over 40 or 50, and that could be another reason our experiences differ so much.)
I have dealt with hostile interrogations all of my life, over my choice of males. And when I was with the “right kind” of man, no one would **tolerate** my criticizing him (even when/if they noticeably treated me like shit), and people would even make all kinds of excuses for him! But if I was with the “wrong kind” of man–they would rudely question me about him and then criticize him FOR me. Even when I insisted he was wonderful.
I just saw a commercial for one of those popular dating services (not five minutes ago) and a woman is saying “I like a man with a lot of confidence!” blah blah blah, so I don’t think women attracted to dominant men get any shit at all.
At least, I have never seen it.
I’ve seen this conversation happen around (and with) me and in my experience the list of requirements almost never stops at social dominance. I’ve also seen (pseudo-?)feminists say they want a man that’s constantly stoic, doesn’t ever cry, must attain the Hollywood physique, runs his own business etc. Whenever I point out that that’s about as obvious a sign of sexism as a man saying “I want a woman that’s dumb as shit and just stays in the kitchen looking hot with an itty bitty waist and perfectly perky DDDs and making me sandwiches and not giving me any back talk ever” the response is usually something along the lines of “look, some things are just natural for women to like, okay?”. How convenient.
Basically from my limited sample size there seems to be a fucking obvious problem of women and even feminists refusing to even acknowledge that their standards might be some kind of sign that patriarchy has rendered them a shitty person and that they should do something about it.
And you CAN do something about it, by the way. My taste in women changed radically and rapidly when I started thinking about how I think about women.
Hasn’t this pretty much always meant rich and answers to as few men/attracts as much women (on a shallow basis, rock star-style) as possible?
Because I can think of a billion ways to define “awesome” that have nothing to do with or directly contradict those things, but I couldn’t also label them “high-status”. Being the most badass garbage man in the city is awesome, and even attractive, but it ain’t high-status.
Ozy,
there is, of course, also another explanation for that: that Andrea Dworkin (and others) were wrong to attribute this tendency to erotization within patriarchy. What if it were the other way around? If these preferences contributed to the institutionalization of patriarchy (which then, once established to help men deal with these sexual preferences, went over the top)? As always, it comes down to an axiomatic question – do you believe behaviour to be a consequence or the origin of social practices. The real world and Giddensian? answer is that it’s *both*, which, in this case, means that female preferences aren’t merely the creation of patriarchical erotization, but also a cause thereof. Doesn’t mean we can’t handle things differently socially, just that whatever social system we establish to handle our behaviour would need to take into account that women (and men) do (in their respective heterosexual aggregates) tend to exhibit certain preferences with respect to the gender performance of the opposite sex. And I do say *certain* because I believe that the plasticity of what’s considered attractive is underrated in populat discourse, and considerably overrated in feminism, although less so, in my opinion, in academic feminism (which tends to stay away from those matters and stew it’s own deductive thinking).