It starts like this: women are lesser. Not quite worthy, not fully equal to men. The ultimate justification for this varies, but always hinges on an inherent, inferior difference of the mind, body, soul, whether singly or in combination; feminine virtues, if they exist, are subordinate virtues. Individually, women are dangerous; collectively, they require protection. (Unless, of course, it’s the other way around.) And yet no society can do without them, if it means to continue: a necessary evil. Women cannot be wholly abrogated, and so must instead be taught the importance of serving men, which makes their labour a resource. (An almost Marxist impulse, this: controlling the means of production.) There is, of course, perversity in the execution; call it a type of glitch. Among such men, the ability to attract women is frequently more valued than the ability – or say rather, willingness – to support them once attached. Caveat emptor, then: women, attracted, are a resource; women, attached, a burden. (This is not unusual, in the scheme of things: by definition, a resource diminishes with use, and needs must be replenished.)

Social bonding, of course, has never been aimed purely at the opposite sex. Possession of resources confers status within a peer group, provided such possession is at least perceieved to exist, regardless of actuality. Possession unwitnessed or doubted confers no advantages, while attachment – as distinct from attraction – is a double-edged sword, on the grounds that it invokes the spectre of a different type of parity, a new set of priorities. Attachment in this system is the end-game of attraction, but cannot be universally acknowledged as such, lest it call its own rules into question. After all, if attachment is truly desireable – if women attached become, not burdens to men, but assets – then a pattern of serial attraction with no attachment speaks more of failure than skill. (Women are resources either way; the difference is in their treatment. Serial attachment, by contrast, is something else altogether: women might still be assets, but more in the sesnse of possession than helpmeet.)

Remember: women are not quite equal, which serves to see them differentiated, culturally and legally, from men. But women are also held to have a weakening effect on men: their foibles are potentially contagious, if men treat them laxly, with too great a degree of indulgence. As such, men cannot rest on their laurels, but must actively assert their difference to, and superiority over, women, lest complacency upend the applecart. More, they must be seen to thus assert themselves, such that their personhood becomes deeply vested in, not just a preference for masculinity, but the performance of it.

That being so, there’s no utility in attracting women by taking an interest in what they like, not least because such a concession implies that a supposedly passive resource in fact has an active preference to be courted. Feigned interest is an acceptable ploy to use, but only temporarily: genuine concern for unmasculine interests devalues your peer-personhood too much to be worth the risk, and anyway, if such things were objectively important or worthwhile, they wouldn’t be left to women. (In the event that something is done by both men and women, of course, the male contribution is always more important. Women who succeed in such arenas are to be congratulated for their emulation of value, but not allowed to mistake their lesser contribution for a greater one.)

The ability to attract women is therefore predicated on the successful performance of masculinity as graded by other men. As such, the system depends on women being, not just a resource, but one primarily controlled and apportioned by men – otherwise, they might value their own, inferior preferences ahead of more masculine priorities. A similar danger is therefore presented by men who, for whatever reason, refuse to support the hierarchy of giving the most resources to the most masculine men. Masculinity must self-police against such individuals, lest the whole house of cards collapse: a refusal to defer to the masculinity of others becomes a failure of masculinity in oneself, and therefore a failure of personhood. The apex of this failure – or nadir, rather – is for a man to be so unmasculine as to be like a woman. Under this system, there is no worse insult – even, somewhat paradoxically, for women themselves.

Of necessity, ferocious importance is thus attached to determining what is – or is not – masculine. It’s here we hit an interesting bifurcation as, regardless of any additional moral/spiritual failings, women are frequently held to be both the physically weaker and intellectually inferior sex, thereby presenting men with two different ways to show their masculine prowess. However, in deference to the need to establish a heierarchy of masculinity – and it must be a hierarchy, or else all men would be equally entitled to the same share of feminine resources, with no means of distinguishing their peer-superiority – these avenues are traditionally pitted against each other. The ascendency at any given time of strength over intellect, or intellect over strength, is based on a mix of history, environment and context: the habits of the past, the needs of the present, and the specifics of control. Overlap between the two groups, or at least a deep respect for those who excel in both skillsets, is usually reserved for instances where there’s an immediate practical benefit to cooperation; otherwise, the competition – both presently and historically – is fierce.

Where one type of masculinity is perceived to be in ascendence, such that its adherents are similarly perceived to hold the greater share of resources – which is to say, women – there is a corresponding tendency for the secondary masculinity to go on the defensive. After all, if attracting women is the ultimate proof of masculinity – representing, as it does, the deference of other men in handing those women over (or at least, not arguing their dispersal) – then a failure to attract women – or the attraction of fewer women, or women deemed less valuable – lays such men open to the charge of being unmasculine; or worse, of being like women themselves. As this system can levy no greater insult, a response must therefore be made.

A scarcity of women in a secondary masculine group is therefore framed, not as a lack of desireable resources, but as the absence of an unwanted burden. Women do not understand masculinity and male pursuits; ergo, seeking to attract them takes valuable time away from real male work, be it soldiering or science. If strength is in ascendency, women are stupid to seek it; if intelligence, they are weak to want it. This is why secondary male environments are often more hostile to women than those with greater (masculine) social power: their antagonism serves both to protect against accusations of effeminacy and to redefine the ability to attract women as a negative, the gateway to a destructive, feminizing influence. Should this logic eventually effect a change in the masculine hierarchy, the effect is not revolutionary, but is rather a slow reversal: the teams might change goalposts, as it were, but they’re still playing the same game.

This is patriarchal logic laid bare: a simple, biased premise serving as a foundation for greater, later abuses. If women cannot be fully trusted, either morally or with their own self-governance, then systems must be established for men to both use and control them. That we (mostly) decry this underpinning logic, especially when phrased so baldly, doesn’t change the fact that such patriarchal systems have long since become habit, a locked-in aspect of our cultural upbringing. Sometimes, we don’t even recognise them, let alone consider that they still have a negative impact despite our intentions or other social changes. Pushback against these systems, which are seen as normative, is therefore viewed by some, not as a step towards equality, but bias towards a group who – surely! – are equal enough already.

Equal enough. A paradox whose brevity speaks volumes.

(Source: fozmeadows.wordpress.com)