Saturday, April 14, 2012

The career neg

In light of the recent study explicating how careers are little more than fallback plans for women who fear they aren't attractive enough to marry a man of sufficient socio-sexual rank capable of supporting them, the obvious Game utility of the concept practically suggests itself:
The researchers carried out several experiments to come up with their startling argument. They first looked at the number of eligible men in an area, which they called the 'operational sex ratio'. After collecting data from across the U.S., they found that as the number of eligible men in a state decreased, the proportion of women in highly paid careers rose. In addition, the women who became mothers in those states did so at an older age and had fewer children....

Those women who saw themselves as being less desirable than average were highly likely to be career-orientated.
In fact, there are several practical uses to which this information can be put.

1. Working woman neg. The fact that she's a self-identified career girl tells you that she's probably got appearance anxieties that can be profitably played upon. Example: "Wow, you're really quite attractive for a lawyer." (Seriously, your television lies to you. I went to a law school party once at which every woman in the class was there. There was not one single woman I would describe as even remotely attractive there. My investment banking friend and I couldn't believe how uniformly ugly the women were.)

2. Counteracting social pressure on high school and college-age girls. Example: "You're attractive enough to find a husband and have a family, but if you don't think so, college/grad school is probably a great fallback plan."

3. Convincing your wife to stay home rather than seek outside employment. Example: "I suppose I probably am the hotter half. I'll stay home and take care of the kids while you go out and make the money."

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you ever wonder if somebody isn't just planting seeds of thought in these studies? This would fit right in with the population control agenda.

I am always a bit skeptical of mainstream media studies. And really anything the mainstream media puts out that is suggestive as to a change in how one should live their life.

Ian Ironwood said...

And I'm always skeptical of those who see conspiracy behind every study and event. People are largely just too darn stupid and short-sighted to be that subtle in an organized fashion. I think you're giving credit where it wasn't earned.

This makes perfect sense, particularly for the way the Female Social Matrix works. Marriage always trumps career in the FSM. It's a vindication of beauty and charisma, while business is merely a vindication of personal talent.

This is a very useful, but completely predictable piece of information. As Vox says, self-selecting career women are far more likely to have lower self-esteem. The key to the neg, here, is to completely ignore any career successes she touts, while constantly escalating about her tragically lacking sexual/beauty skills. Eventually she'll get frustrated that you aren't showing her attention and she'll crack ("I'm more than just my body, you know!" or "I had plenty of opportunities, but my career comes first!") and you've got the edge.

Follow with weak admiration tinged with just a drop of pity: "Hey, I didn't mean any offense. I've always admired and respected women who can put any hope of a relationship on a shelf for the chance at corporate stardom." Telling a woman you "admire and respect" her is a soft neg of the worst sort: MEN want to be admired and respected, women want to be irresistible and attractive, regardless of their career ambitions. To compliment her with a male-oriented compliment (one you'd be happy to give to your father, for example) is a total broadside to her femininity. She wants to be valued for her intelligence, her success, AND her comeliness -- but if you promote the former at the expense of the latter, it hurts. Hurts bad enough for her to spin up her hamster in your favor.

Follow this with another dig -- "you don't seem the maternal, wifey sort to me, anyway" is a good one. The key is to treat her as a "fellow drone" -- not "one of the guys", which she might see as a positive, but "Oh, you're just another fellow worker bee, just like me. But you have a vagina. Well, it's the vagina I'm interested in, the rest of it is just shop talk, and I'm here to get laid."

You can even goad these women into doing almost anything if you punch the right buttons. It's amazing what a glass of cheap chardonnay, low self-esteem and a buzzing Hamster can do to a woman's common-sense. A line like "You must be very good at what you do, very predictable and secure. I prefer a more spontaneous and sexy girl, myself. What can you tell me about that blonde over there? She looks pretty spontaneous . . ."

These women are gold for a pump-and-dump. Your chances double if you can catch them at a wedding, and by the third chardonnay they're fish in a barrel.

Anonymous said...

"And I'm always skeptical of those who see conspiracy behind every study and event."

And I'm always a bit annoyed of those who take an isolated instance or theory from another and twist it to imply that it has to mean "every study and event."

Anonymous said...

If its a cubicle job, then they are usually ugly.

If its a customer facing job they may be attractive. For instance, lots of failed cheerleaders become pharma sales reps.

Orville said...

You would think, but I saw sun-shriveled, friz haired hag of a woman drug rep the other day when visiting the doc. Standards must be slipping at big Pharma.

Orville said...

For whatever reason, I've mostly worked around women in my various careers, and can say with certainty that cube world has a gnarly collection of women. There were a few exceptions on the VP/Director level, but not many. Land whales were/are common.

mmaier2112 said...

Hey Vox: can we ban Anons over here, too? Just wondering / hoping.

These would be some brutal negs, on certain targets.

Thankfully, those seem to work the best.

Anonymous said...

The study, such as it is, confirms what most men already know. The standard female response is usually along the lines of "I've got a career and I'm good looking" (modesty is rare with women) or "I know many women who are gorgeous and have great jobs".

Typically, if the woman is good looking, her 'career' is a job in marketing...and she's young. Otherwise, it is clearly the exception to the rule. Women have a limited time-frame to attract a decent man. Besides the obvious biological factor, there is simply the inverse relationship between age and beauty. Show me a sexy 40 something career woman and I'll show you a Unicorn.

- Apollyon

CAT said...

Vox Day said: "I went to a law school party once at which every woman in the class was there. There was not one single woman I would describe as even remotely attractive there. My investment banking friend and I couldn't believe how uniformly ugly the women were."

I'm a law school professor. I teach one first year course and 3 2L/3L courses. Before this gig, of course, I went to law school. I have spoken at a number of law schools over the years.

I have long been amazed at the attractiveness of the female law students. Your experience is one I have never encountered. I suggest you try again.

Matthew said...

CAT, are you female?

Anonymous said...

Now that I'm back for a bit from enjoying this gorgeous sunny day. I will elaborate further on my thoughts here. So as to be clear as a crystal.

The writer here is labeling these unmarried women as less than desirable. And following up with this line of thinking by pigeon holing these unmarried's into higher paying jobs. Again, all because of their undesirability. Okay in assuming the term eligible men being used here correlates to men who are paid well enough to support both themselves and the woman/family. The fact that there were not many eligible men left in these particular areas. Also points to the obvious fact that these higher paying jobs in these areas are more than there for the taking for the leftover unmarried women.

So why wouldn't the women in these areas be taking these jobs then? We are no doubt a money driven society. And it appears that these unmarried women are the only ones left in these areas with the qualifications for these jobs. The rest have been taken by the married (men) providers. So it simply stands to reason the women would have/end up with the remaining high paying jobs.

Then there is the double viewpoints within the article. The economist in the article claims aptitude and ambition play a far larger role in women garnering higher paying jobs. I would tend to agree with this myself. While a university of Texas San Anton researcher claims this is due to the ratio of men to women. Well of course the southern US researcher is going to come to this conclusion. The south is all about getting married early and often. All because it is clearly a man's world down there. This is the basic thought process from that particular locale of the U.S. Try this line of thinking out on the west coast and see where it takes you. My money says it will correlate more with the economists line of thinking. It all comes down to aptitude, ambition and the remaining supply and demand in the higher paying jobs market.

The underlying message or tea leaf reading can still point back to my original thought. In saying, hey ladies take the high paying jobs early on and get married with a kid or two later in life. As opposed to crapping out 4-5 kids early while married to a male provider. > Pop control theory. The hidden message.

And this line of thinking in no way takes away from Vox game theory points 1-3. All the neg's still can be used very effectively, whether this article was written or not. The principles are there for the using regardless. It's simply situational usage pertaining to each individuals current status.

CAT said...

Matthew asked: "CAT, are you female?"

No. Straight, middle-aged man.

Anonymous said...

Vox,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erlw-ODVZxU

A WILD SIGMA pokemon has appeared!

Spectator said...

http://now.msn.com/now/0413-private-sperm-donor.aspx?ocid=todnow11http://now.msn.com/now/0413-private-sperm-donor.aspx?ocid=todnow11

Now where does THIS man fall on the hierarchy. Even the Alphiest of Alphas and Siggiest of Sigmas haven't fathered over 80 children. Now sure, you'd say outwardly gamma or omega, but think of it this way: This man will likely have a larger genetic impact on the future generations than most Alphas ever will. Sure they Presidents and CEOs but statistically their ancestors will be greatly outnumbers by Little Eds

JCclimber said...

I think this is all to the best. The more attractive women can keep passing along their genes with their husbands who make enough money to support a family.

win win.

The best looking women career-wise that I've seen in post-grad programs are pharmacy students. The rest seem to have a high ratio of very unattractive women in them.

Anonymous said...

CAT,

I went to lawschool and I think Vox's experience is indicative of the general trend. For the converse of lawschool, you really need to check out a communications class at a sunbelt state u. I know such a thing might be below a law prof, especially if at a top tier northeastern school, but you aint seen the light if you haven't attended basic communications 101 at Arizona State or hung around Alpha Phi at USC.

CAT said...

Anonymous at 11:47 said: "For the converse of lawschool, you really need to check out a communications class at a sunbelt state u."

I would argue there is an element of 'apples & oranges' at work here, in that we are now comparing graduate school to undergraduate school. We have an undergraduate program here I participate in as a lecturer. I see attractive coeds in those courses...then I see them in law school after they graduate. Those same students in the communications class you speak of, the smarter ones on average, end up in law school. Some of those Alpha Phi "hotties" on my campus end up in my law classes.

I believe we have to compare law school to other graduate schools. When I do that, I can't think of any other common graduate programs that compare to law school outside of vet school and dance. Maybe MS degrees in nursing. (I'm discounting pocket specialties like 'fashion studies' and other such "graduate day camp" programs.) But certainly not STEM, feminist liberal arts, and medical school.

(Note: with medical school, personal taste is a lurking variable. Our med school attracts a large amount of [to me] plain jane foreign students, largely Indian and Asian. YMMV, and, I admit, I see them in scrubs and not well-cut-but-work-safe pencil skirts, so they don't have a chance to put their best feet forward.)

Obviously, there are many individual exceptions.

I think it maybe has something to do with obesity. Smart people seem to be thinner on average. We get energetic, smart people in law school.

Also, for what it's worth, I work for a "sunbelt" school.

Nate said...

"3. Convincing your wife to stay home rather than seek outside employment. Example: "I suppose I probably am the hotter half. I'll stay home and take care of the kids while you go out and make the money."

***thumbs up***

Samson J. said...

Note: with medical school, personal taste is a lurking variable. Our med school attracts a large amount of [to me] plain jane foreign students, largely Indian and Asian.

Well, I don't know anything about lawyers, but the girls in my medical school class were almost all white and mostly pretty attractive. I've come up with various theories on why this is, but here are the main ones:

-medical school girls are driven and thus put effort into their appearance, especially into maintaining a healthy weight.
-medicine tends run in families and most of these women had physician fathers who married hot babes.

dice3510 said...

Roissy would say that appearance-related negs are bad game.

Carlotta said...

BULL!

Carlotta said...

There is NO WAY this is a man! Ok, "Cat" !

CAT said...

Heh.

If I were a woman trying to post as a man, the absolute last handle I would pick would be anything relating to a cat.

Unknown said...

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