This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Rational Male" by Rollo Tomassi. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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How are women manipulating men? How does feminism undermine masculinity?
According to Rollo Tomassi, the author of The Rational Male, the women’s rights movement is being used to undermine men’s power and masculinity. To that end, women have designed social practices geared towards upholding their dominance. Tomassi asserts that those social practices now pervade every social institution and convention, including media, religion, law, and education.
Here’s how women manipulate men through the feminine agenda, according to Tomassi.
How Women Manipulate Men Through the Feminine Agenda
Tomassi says the ultimate aim of the feminine agenda is to keep women in a position of power, which is how women manipulate men into prioritizing women’s needs and sexual strategies over their own.
(Shortform note: Is women’s goal really to be in a position of power, as Tomassi says? Possibly not—most efforts in women’s rights movements have focused on increasing women’s safety and gaining access to equal opportunities. Those goals included increasing women’s access to education and securing legal protection against rape and domestic violence.)
Women must constantly assess the qualifications of the men around them to ensure they’ve got the best protector and provider they can possibly attract. To guarantee they are positioned to constantly assess men, women promulgated a narrative—through the women’s rights movement—that women’s needs and wants take precedence over men’s. This is why, Tomassi argues, we take for granted that “women come first” and expect men to set aside or suppress their personal ambitions, needs, and desires.
(Shortform note: There are conflicting views on whether the “women first” ideology benefits or constrains women’s social standing and influence. Some contend that it actually reinforces the notion of male dominance by suggesting that men must accommodate women’s inherent weakness and ineptitude, putting women first to make up for their apparent inferiority. For example, men are taught that it’s chivalrous to open doors for women and spare them from hard physical tasks like moving furniture and mowing the lawn. The implication is that women are fragile and need men to take care of them.)
Women Hold Dominance
Now that this “women first” narrative has taken hold of our culture, Tomassi explains, women are in the dominant position, which enables them to manipulate men and set the “rules” for men’s behavior. Men, consequently, are in the subservient position, relying on women to guide them on how they should think and act—because, they’ve learned, their role is to ensure the comfort, safety, and approval of the women around them. So, instead of following their own impulses and needs, men constantly compete with one another to impress and attract women.
However, the rules set by these dominant women are always shifting. Depending on the circumstances, women expect men to be alternately strong, intimidating protectors; gentle, supportive partners; reliable, stable providers; and exciting, alluring studs. These shifting rules, says Tomassi, keep men off-balance and disconnected from their value as a man.
How can men fulfill all of these contradictory demands? They can’t. Why do they try—and why do they sacrifice their ambitions and natural urges in the process? Tomassi says it’s because they believe the lie women have told them—that this is how they will get the sexual access they desperately desire.
Why Men Are Complicit in Advancing the Feminine Agenda
As the feminine agenda took hold, women designed social practices—now dominant in our culture—that uphold the “women first” narrative. For example, women manipulate men in the judicial system because judges favor mothers in the vast majority of child custody cases. They also rarely require women to pay alimony even when they’re the primary breadwinners.
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- How women use a feminine agenda to manipulate men
- Why sex should never be a transactional arrangement
- Why men don't need long-term relationships
