If you are cheating at poker, you have nothing to fear. You can’t really lose. But if no one shows up to play against you, you have to go out and earn your money.

Earning one’s own money doesn’t scare most men in the least. I started when I was 10 years old.

For a woman, this represents a failure to get a man to earn FOR her. It’s an embarrassment to her, especially if she is surrounded by a circle of female friends who have men earning for them. It’s not something they ever discuss with men, and men are largely unaware of it. But women are ruthless to each other over this. They are WAY more critical and nasty to each other about this than men are about other men who are lazy or willfully unemployed.

I don’t dispute that they fear the loss of control. But the idea of not being able to find a man to earn for them, and then having to face the merciless ridicule of other women for it, is a similarly terrifying nightmare.

The only thing I could compare it to illustrate would be participation in the Olympics. It’s great if you win. But most men would be happy to have run in an Olympic race and lost. Anyone who was even in the Olympics has something to be proud of for the rest of their lives.

But getting disqualified from an Olympic race for doping or being otherwise defective, is MUCH more humiliating than running and not winning.

For women getting past the point where they can realistically expect to get married, without getting married, is the equivalent of being dumped or disqualified by every man who’s ever met her. But it’s not men who shame her for that. It’s other women, and they are catty and merciless to each other about it.