You may want to hold your nose if you go below the fold. The National Review waded into the sewer of right-wing misogyny, and decided to spruce the place up by taking a giant steaming shit:
NatRev — What do women want? The conventional biological wisdom is that men select mates for fertility, while women select for status — thus the commonness of younger women’s pairing with well-established older men but the rarity of the converse. The Demi Moore–Ashton Kutcher model is an exception — the only 40-year-old woman Jack Nicholson has ever seen naked is Kathy Bates in that horrific hot-tub scene. Age is cruel to women, and subordination is cruel to men. Ellen Kullman is a very pretty woman, but at 56 years of age she probably would not turn a lot of heads in a college bar, and the fact that she is the chairman and CEO of Dupont isn’t going to change that.
Wow, hard to believe the author, Kevin Williamson, is still single, eh ladies?
So the thesis statement is might makes right, and Mitt Romney is an alpha male, yo, and that’s how evolution works, so why argue with it or hide it? This is something to celebrate!
Well, for one thing, luck is not heritable, and Mittens owes his entire fortune to luck. Either that or he somehow overcame the handicap of being born the son of a CEO governor, while his opponent started from the enviable vantage of being the biracial son of a single Kansas mom living much of her life in third-world countries and went on to become the first black president of the United States. So evolution doesn’t do us a lot of good here, Kevin. Find a good luck allele and we can talk. Until then my money is on the black guy.
The second laughfest is the author’s infatuation with the concept of an alpha male and the harem society. This is an item of interest in anthropology for a number of species … like mountain gorillas. I suppose if Mittens had missed the apex of the evolutionary ladder by a notch or two and yet somehow retained his purported superior characteristics, he would have been a highly successful silver-back now munching the leaves of a banana tree surrounded by his sexy hairy harem and adorable frolicking young.
Of course we are not gorillas, our closest relative is the chimpanzee, where leadership is a far more fluid thing shared between male and female groups that function something like a criminal gang. In that society younger and less fortunate members are often beaten to within an inch of their lives, or gang raped, or both. It’s true that in many cases the biggest baddest chimp male does more than his share of beating and raping, but can we all agree that chimp behavior is not an ideal roadmap for preferred human conduct?
Indeed, raping is one possible way spread your genes if you’re a chimp — unless the females happen to have secret secretions that shut those invader sperm down, a belief that probably has far more currency among those who reject human evolution than those who study it. Another great way to win in evolution’s casino is to steal your competitors food and mates, better yet just murder their children and rip off their testicles. Problem solved, victor Roma.
But generations of humans have worked real hard, with varying degrees of success, to eliminate those brutal reproductive strategies from our repertoire. I think we’d all say we’ve done that for the betterment of all and that includes idiots like Williamson. Lucky for him other bloggers can outline the shortcomings in his brand of submissive brown-nosing with just an affectionate symbolic scratch on the exposed belly, instead of biting off his penis and driving the point home by raping his mate.
It’s amazing when they want to apply pseudo-biological/evolutionary claptrap, and when they don’t. One of the things that happens when certain social organisms are too brutal and have too much power is that they get beaten to death by the group. “Alpha males” are only useful to an extent, and less and less in our species, but we agree to follow rules and not kill them even if they don’t follow rules, and are weak and stupid.
But they want it every which way when it is a convenient rationalization for them.
Ah, half-assed evo psych. The misogynist’s best bet for sciency sounding rationalizations of the status quo.
BTW, when considering our closest relatives, don’t forget bonobos. We’re just as closely related to them as we are to chimps. And their society is female dominated. Also everybody screws everybody, without respect to age.
Funny how they never notice that in societies like that, most males (ie the non-alphas) are plumb out of luck, mating rarely and furtively if at all.
I made the mistake of following the link. I’ve seen circle jerks that were less masturbatory.
Stacy:
Many or most of them really haven’t, actually. It’s their explanatory (+ exculpatory) framework for why they can’t get a woman to pay attention to them. “Beta” male Nice Guys are the majority by definition; it’s not their fault (it’s not!) if the Alphas “pull” most of the “tail”. This line of thinking is generally followed by a bitter rant about how those damn women had better choose themselves a nice Beta to marry for support before age steals their looks (this is generally estimated to happen about 27) and the Alphas abandon them to starve in the woods. I’m pretty sure that’s what this dude’s talk about age is hinting at.
And the older man in the college bar somehow isn’t considered desperate and/or creepy in their world?
I feel like my IQ dropped after having read the link above. What scares me most, is people will agree with that crap.
So glad to have a nice “Beta” male who respects me and treats me as an equal, not as an accessory.
“Alphas” tend to only care about themselves.
Ewwww! Why would a 56 year old woman who is the CEO of Dupont want a college kid in a bar? No doubt she can hook up with men who are mature, educated, solid, and, since age apparently isn’t rough on men in this guy’s world, very possibly quite sexy.
Of course, she might be quite happy single, too. That absolutely would never occur to them, that this woman might be having lots of great single sex, and has no desire to give that up for an alpha male (or a beta male, either).
That’s what bugs guys like this, though. The idea that there are women out there that don’t spend their entire time, all day long between soap operas and pedicures, thinking about men. They are able to exist in a world without needing a man, and are free to spend time with a man or not. This is a scene that usually makes a great impression when it’s a guy (think James Bond), but when it’s a woman, everyone thinks she’d better settle down quick.
Combining what amethyststarling and iknklast said, I doubt very much that a male 56-year old CEO, however rich or handsome, would have much luck getting casual sex in a college club either; he’d be seen as a creeper and a skeeve, and no one would talk to him. OTOH, I also have no doubt that if Ms. Kullman wanted a purely sexual relationship with a man in his twenties, she would certainly be able to achieve such with little, if any, more difficulty than a male CEO of similar wealth and status would in finding female companionship on the same terms. Of course, like many people, she may prefer a more nuanced relationship with someone closer to her own age and experience, and I doubt that she would have any particular difficulty with that either. (note that the genders of the hypothetical partners can be changed without affecting my thoughts, but the jackass at NRO was talking exclusively of heterosexuals.)
If the male college students in a college bar knew who Ellen Kullman was, half of the Bus. Ad majors would be slobbering at her feet begging her to “be my cougar tonight”.
And if we’re going to do politics, religion and primates: Mittens might be thinking about what it would be like to be the silverest of the silvebacks, Joseph Smith or Brigham Young.
Judging by the title of the article and the content it looks like Mr. Williamson takes the Lonely Island song as a guide to life. I wish I could unread it.
Doesn’t it always sound stupid when someone takes general tendencies or slight statistical variations (whether verified to exist or mere urban legend) and then theoretizes about them as “rules” or “laws”.
*raises finger
I’ll be remembering that myself next time I open my mouth.
Considering that Williamson may have been attempting “humor,” and therefore shouldn’t be held to factual account for individual statements; what a great sense if timing to come out with this unapologetic, chest-thumping heman woman-hater’s club piece while abortion and “legitimate rape” are leading the headlines.
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Hey girl, XOXO Paul Ryan
Oh, well, he used an anecdote involving Nicholson and then gave a counter anecdote that goes against his point.
Well I’m convinced. Of his point. Whatever it was.
Frankly, I don’t know why any rational human being would even bother reading on after that point. There is no worthwhile content that you could in any way connect to that introduction.
So, the “coventional biological wisdom” is that women like super-successful corporate alpha male douchebags like Mitt Romney?
Must be why Obama has a double-digit lead among women voters.
Hunh. I thought Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt answered that for us already.
This piece seems to be a joke of some sort, but I’m not sure what his point is.
The point is that conservatives have difficulty being intentionally funny.
how old is the author of the piece? Wanna take bets what he does with his weekends?