Sign the gamma up for girly

The power of the Gamma Delusion is such that the gamma will attempt to redefine any criticism, however objectively accurate, into a self-styled triumph for himself. We've seen John Scalzi attempt to do this with "rabbit", with "insect", and even with the term "gamma male" itself. Now, however, he has gone so far as to attempt to redefine "girly" and "lesser":

Now, no doubt the status-anxious dudebros will delight in my shocking admissions here, because they are silly little boys who apparently think that a man who can happily live with, and help raise, women who are better at various things than he is (including things they entirely erroneously suppose to be inherently masculine) must be therefore weak and inferior and girly. Two points here.

One, there’s the obvious point that in the Scalzi household “girly” means strong and smart and capable and better than decent with ranged weapons. All of which I would happily be. So yes sign me up for girly please.

Two, and to repeat, these sad, frantic lumps of manflesh are proclaiming that a man who is pleased to share his life with women who are strong and smart and capable, and who has no problem acknowledging when their skills are superior to his, is somehow actually lesser for it. This should tell you all you need to know about the intelligence and sensibleness of such a world view.

The Gamma's Gamma, John Scalzi, is attempting here to defend his public announcement that his own high school daughter is stronger than he is, for which he was much mocked by many men and women alike. And indeed, it tells you a great deal about the intelligence and sensibleness and even sanity of Scalzi's worldview that he would publicly insist that something LITERALLY lesser is not lesser at all.

There is no shame in women being strong or lifting weights. I have trained many women in how to lift; my wife has been lifting weights regularly as long as I have known her and she's more hardcore about it than I am.

Scalzi tries a little pivot when he insinuates that he is only being criticized because his critics have an intrinsic problem acknowledging when women's skills are superior. That isn't the case at all. No one would laugh at Scalzi if he admitted that his wife was better at knitting, or darts, or shooting, or accounting, and I, for one, have absolutely no problem believing that his daughter might be a better writer than he is. The bar is not exactly what one would call high.

What Scalzi is being derided for is being a weak, soft, and physically pathetic figure. And he is also being correctly scorned for his deluded gamma insistence that his embrace of his own effeminate weakness is not only a strength, but a strength that demonstrates his superiority to higher-status, more masculine men. Being insecure, the gamma male does not understand that for most men, status consciousness is not synonymous with status anxiety. His various accusations are not only false, they are observably ridiculous.

In a gym in which I worked out for many years, there was a sign in the weight room that many found inspirational.

This room is for the weak, that they may become strong.
This room is for the strong, that they may learn humility.

This message resounded with the strong and the weak alike because it is natural for the strong to take pride in their strength and to harbor contempt for the weak. The iron teaches that every man has his limits, and that there is always someone else who is stronger. It is natural for the weak to seek to become strong. The iron helps them do that. What is twisted, unnatural, and contemptible is for the weak to take pride in their lack of strength, to celebrate their weakness, and insist that the strong should, rather than despising their weakness, aspire to it. The iron can do nothing for such creatures.

Now, I love the iron. I have a long and enduring personal relationship with it. The iron transformed a 135-pound spaghetti-armed weakling into a 180-pound full-contact fighter with 17-inch guns. I love the iron even when it turns on me and I can't lift heavy while my various middle-aged training injuries are slowly healing. I think everyone of every age, male and female alike, would benefit greatly from lifting free weights on a regular basis. And, having lifted weights with hundreds of men and women on three continents over the years, I can say with authority that you will find nothing in any gym, male or female, more contemptible than a girly gamma male who is proud to proclaim that he cannot lift as much as a teenage girl.

One can't honestly call John Scalzi a lesser man for his admissions and pretensions, because that would be to give him too much credit. He is no man at all, he is a revolting low-status parody of one. Sign him up for "girly" indeed.