A recent Vogue article suggested it is now embarrassing or "cringe" to have a boyfriend. This idea was promoted by influential women and podcast hosts who, despite being in relationships themselves, advocate for not discussing them. They claim this is to show solidarity with single women and to avoid seeming boastful in a difficult dating market.

Rob Henderson interprets this through the lens of evolutionary psychology, specifically intrasexual competition. He coined the term "Girl Boss Gatekeeping" for this phenomenon. It describes how women with power and influence can affect the behavior of other women. By promoting messages that dating is not worth it or that men are undesirable, while privately pursuing conventional relationships, they indirectly suppress other women's opportunities to find partners.

This behavior closely resembles a luxury belief. Rob defines these as follows:

Ideas and opinions that confer status on the affluent while inflicting costs on the less fortunate members of society.

Promoting anti-relationship ideas makes the speaker appear compassionate, but it can reduce happiness for those who adopt the belief. Sociological data consistently shows that married people with children are the happiest. For women specifically, single women without children report the lowest happiness levels, while married women with children report the highest.

This messaging from elite institutions and individuals appears to have a tangible impact. While marriage and birth rates remain high among the highly educated, fertility has declined most significantly among lower-income women. These women may be more influenced by anti-natalist messaging that ultimately guides them away from pathways to happiness.

Relationships are increasingly viewed through an influencer-first perspective, where online perception is the most valuable currency a woman has. This has led to the idea that modern relationships are less about meaningful connections and more akin to brand collaborations.

Most relationships now are more brand collaborations than they are meaningful connections.

Rob notes a societal shift that seems to discourage committed relationships. He references an essay by Freya India which points out a modern paradox. If a 23-year-old woman is single and dating, her parents are likely supportive. However, if she announces her engagement, many educated, upper-middle-class parents might react with horror, fearing she is derailing her career. This is a complete reversal of traditional societal expectations, where finding a suitable partner at a young age would have been celebrated.

Chris observes that much of this dynamic is driven by female intrasexual social status and online perception. When a woman posts about her boyfriend, she often loses followers. While some of these are male followers who were hoping for a chance, many are other women. This can happen for two reasons. First, seeing a successful relationship can make other women feel uncomfortable in a difficult dating market. Second, and more interestingly, relationship content is often perceived as boring. A single woman's life is seen as more exciting than a cute photo of a couple at a pumpkin patch. This prioritizes the excitement of one's online life over the enjoyment of one's real life.

This ties into Goodhart's Law: what gets measured gets managed. Online metrics like likes and followers are quantifiable and visible. In contrast, the quality of a relationship isn't easily measured. People become misguidedly focused on optimizing their online persona, which is tangible, rather than their real-life relationships, which are not.

Recent pop culture, such as albums by Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Dean, often focuses on the immaturity of men or promotes female solidarity over romantic relationships. This trend may be linked to a perceived scarcity of desirable male partners, which Chris defines as men who are attractive, socioeconomically successful, and willing to commit. This shortage intensifies female intersexual competition, making it more subtle and indirect.

When people can't get what they want, they often teach themselves to want what they can get, a concept Rob calls the "inner citadel." Applied to modern dating, if a woman struggles to find a suitable partner, an easier solution is to decide that men are trash and relationships are undesirable. This mindset is reflected in headlines like Vogue's "Is having a boyfriend embarrassing now?"

This behavior can be a way to evade envy. Just as a wealthy person might dress down to avoid being targeted, someone in a happy relationship might downplay it to avoid the envy of their single friends. It can also be a competitive strategy to reduce the number of rivals for a scarce resource. Rob explains this with an anecdote from his time at Yale.

I talk about this a little bit in my book when I talk about what I was observing with the competition for internships at investment banks when I was at Yale. So you would see on Wednesday, Yale grads say, 'Oh, investment banks are emblems of capitalist depression. You shouldn't work at them.' And then on Friday, you would see them at the recruitment session for Goldman Sachs. What they were trying to do is convince you not to go for those jobs because they're so hyper competitive.

Similarly, telling other women that men aren't worth it can be a way to reduce competition in the dating pool. This is often disguised in the language of compassion and concern, a phenomenon known as the "bless her heart" effect. Evolutionary psychology distinguishes between proximate explanations (the immediate, stated reason, like "I'm concerned for her") and ultimate explanations (the deeper, Darwinian reason, like reducing mating competition). This is evident in the "red flag" discourse online, where women frequently advise other women to leave their partners, a behavior far less common among men.

Intersexual competition often manifests differently between genders. When a woman starts dating a new man, her female friends might try to introduce doubt by questioning his job or his own friends. This is a form of reproductive suppression that is more prevalent among women. In contrast, when a man starts dating a new woman, his male friends are less likely to try and pick her apart.

This difference can be traced back to evolutionary logic. In a small-scale ancestral society, removing a single male from the mating pool does little for another man's reproductive chances, as one man can father many children. However, for women, who are more reproductively valuable, convincing another woman to exit the dating pool is a huge advantage. It means more resources, social attention, and support for oneself.

Furthermore, female sexual desire may be more modifiable, making collective actions like a "sex strike" more plausible. This is seen in movements like the 4B's in South Korea or calls for women to swear off men after the 2016 US election. For men, these principles tend to be more flimsy. As Rob notes, an incel who gets a girlfriend is likely to immediately abandon the entire community and ideology.

Most guys, if they receive even a modicum of attention from a woman who likes them, they're like oh yeah, forget all that MGTOW stuff. Finally a girl likes me. Our principles are very flimsy in that way.

This dynamic also explains why women often lose their friend groups after getting into a relationship. For men, it is usually because they become less available, tied down by the "old ball and chain." For women, the reason is often different. A friend getting into a happy relationship can throw the single status of her friends into harsh contrast, making them feel uncomfortable. As Chris puts it:

If you're struggling to find a partner and your friend gets into a happy relationship, that throws into harsh contrast the fact that you do not have a partner. And that makes you feel pretty uncomfortable.

Mating and fertility can be suppressed in two different ways. One mechanism is physiological, involving direct hormonal interventions. A potential example of this is concealed ovulation in human females. The other mechanism is social and mimetic, a cultural intervention that influences a person's drive and what they aspire to do.

When someone becomes successful, their old friend group may distance themselves. This is often not because the successful person has changed, but because their success makes the others feel uncomfortable about their own lack of progress. Rob Henderson explains this dynamic is often misinterpreted.

The pattern that I see that's more often that takes place is the opposite where it's the people who feel left behind, they're like, you know, you're doing better than us, so we're just going to stop talking to you because you remind us of the fact that maybe we aren't doing so well.

This idea of subtle social maneuvering extends to female competition, which can be mediated through culture and technology. Historically, dominant female primates have used stress and intimidation to suppress the fertility of subordinates. In human societies, this can manifest through cultural narratives. Memes and ideas are spread that suggest family formation is unwise or that a more fulfilling life can be found by focusing on career and self-care instead of romance. These messages often encourage women to decenter romantic relationships in favor of friendships, which can indirectly reduce fertility.

Another mechanism is the elevation of standards for what constitutes a "successful" family. Rob notes that elite women largely set these standards, which have become increasingly expensive and demanding over the past 50 years. Compared to a middle-class family in the 1970s, today's aspirational model includes private lessons, SAT prep, expensive college tuition, and lavish weddings.

If you can convince women that you're only a successful mother if you can fulfill these very expensive requirements, this also introduces stress... if people lower down the ladder think, well okay, that's what success looks like. And if I can't do that, I don't want to be a mother who can't give my kids everything that is expected of me.

This creates a barrier for women with fewer resources, who may delay or forgo motherhood because they feel they cannot meet these high expectations. Crucially, the elite women who promote these standards often have options unavailable to others, such as freezing their eggs, affording expensive fertility treatments, or using surrogates, allowing them to bypass the very ideals they promote.

People are often not conscious of these underlying competitive motives. Chris Willx distinguishes between proximate and ultimate reasons for behavior. A woman might genuinely believe she is protecting her friends from bad men (proximate reason), while the ultimate evolutionary driver might be to delay her rivals' reproductive timelines. This self-deception can make a person more persuasive.

Very rarely are we aware of what the ultimate reasons for our behavior are. You are much more effective at deceiving other people if you also are deceived by the motivation that you're doing this through.

Chris concludes that female competition is often more subtle and manipulative than male competition, which tends to be more direct and ruthless. Navigating these finessed social dynamics requires a delicate and complex gamesmanship.

Women sometimes encourage their peers to adopt less attractive traits under the guise of support, which can be a form of unconscious intrasexual competition. The goal may be to reduce the number of rivals in the dating pool.

A Bill Burr comedy bit about the WNBA and body positivity illustrates this. He jokes that if women supported the WNBA the same way they support an overweight woman who is no longer a romantic threat, the league would be more successful than the NBA.

Oh, my God, you're a goddess. You're gorgeous. You look great in a bikini. I'd kill myself if I looked like that. Keep eating, keep eating. Lose a toe, you fat bitch.

This is compared to encouraging an alcoholic to continue drinking. While it may be framed with pro-social language like empathy and acceptance, it can serve to convince women to "eat themselves out of the mating pool." This dynamic can be hypocritical, as the person giving the advice might be secretly dieting or using GLP-1s.

This behavior is not always a conscious, malicious act. Our motivations are often hidden from us, which makes it easier to deceive others because we first deceive ourselves.

We have motivations for our behavior that we are not aware of. The reason that we're not aware of it is it makes it way more compelling and easy to deceive others. If we believe it ourselves.

Another example is women encouraging friends to get short "breakup hair." Men on average prefer longer hair on women, as it signals youth and fertility. Research has shown that women who are high in intrasexual competition advise potential rivals to cut off more of their hair.

Male intrasexual competition often seems more straightforward than female competition. Men might openly try to outdo each other for a partner by boasting about being richer, stronger, or better, or even through physical confrontation. Women's competitive strategies, however, tend to be more complex and rely on social finesse, which can sometimes be misinterpreted as manipulative or conniving.

Rob Henderson explains this difference through an evolutionary psychology lens. It is not about women being inherently bad; it is about survival strategy. Because women are reproductively valuable, open and direct competition could expose them to physical violence or social ostracism. As a result, women evolved to use more subtle, plausibly deniable tactics to express competitive ideas. This reduces the risk of being physically harmed or socially excluded. Historically, women who were more tactful were more likely to survive and reproduce, while those who were as blunt as men may have been cast out, ending their genetic lineage.

This ties into the concept of self-deception. Much like animals, humans do not need to consciously understand why a behavior is effective for it to work. Birds do not know why they engage in mating calls, and elk do not consciously understand they are locking antlers to impress females; they are just following instincts honed by evolution.

You don't need to know why a behavior is effective, for it to be effective, for it to work. So birds don't know in a conscious, articulable way why they engage in mating calls. They're just obeying their instincts that have been honed through billions of years of evolution.

Similarly, many human behaviors operate unconsciously. It can be advantageous to believe we are acting for a kind or compassionate reason, while the underlying evolutionary motive is different. This self-deception helps us maintain positive social relationships. This is seen in modern discourse, which often focuses on negative traits or "red flags" to avoid in partners, rather than positive traits or "green flags" to pursue. This emphasis on avoidance, rather than pursuit, frames relationships primarily as the absence of negatives.

Women in positions of power, such as corporate leaders and influential media figures, often create environments that make reproduction difficult for the women below them. This happens through culture and expectations, where long work hours are mandatory and women who prioritize family are passed over for promotions. The underlying message is that serious women do not have children, or at least do not let them slow down their careers.

This creates a puzzling contradiction within modern feminism. Progressive feminists frequently criticize capitalism, corporate exploitation, and the pursuit of profit. However, these same voices often insist that there is no higher priority for young women than organizing their lives around a career. This highlights an inconsistency between criticizing the modern economic system and championing careerism as the ultimate goal for women.

This pattern can be seen as an unconscious, evolved mechanism, similar to dominant female primates suppressing the reproduction of their subordinates. It's a way to reduce competition in a world that is perceived as increasingly competitive. If you can convince rivals to opt out of paths that lead to success, it can benefit you and your own children.

This bias is also reflected in media narratives. Rob shared a conversation with a magazine editor who admitted his publication ran a story about a married woman who got a divorce, started an OnlyFans account, and wrote about her newfound happiness. When Rob asked if they would publish the reverse story of a woman quitting OnlyFans to find happiness in marriage and children, the editor said they would never run that. On a basic level, the story of leaving a husband for OnlyFans is more sensational and clickable. It aligns with a popular narrative of the hyper-independent woman, even if it contradicts the happiness data for women who are married with children.

A key question is why a successful woman, who already has a husband and family, would care about suppressing the opportunities of younger women. Even after reaching a secure position, an evolutionary impulse to reduce competition can persist. This can be partly explained by the 'absent father hypothesis,' which is related to the 'grandmother hypothesis.' The grandmother hypothesis posits that women live long past menopause to help their daughters with child-rearing. The absent father hypothesis adds that this was especially crucial when fathers were absent, which happened not only due to high mortality from warfare or hunting but also because high-status men often left their wives for younger partners.

This evolutionary psychology, developed in small societies with limited desirable mates, can still influence behavior today. A woman might be married to a successful CEO and have a family, but she may still feel insecure as she gets older, knowing that high-status men remain desirable to younger women. As a result, she might use her position of influence, perhaps as a magazine editor or corporate leader, to promote ideas that discourage younger women from pursuing relationships or family life. This strategy serves to reduce potential competition and protect what she has.

In the modern world, this can express itself as, 'Wow, my husband's a CEO, maybe I'm getting a little bit older. And I know that men as they age are still often very desirable to younger women. And so I'm going to convince younger women, actually you shouldn't be dating men, you shouldn't be interested in men.'

This dynamic is often visible in the discourse around age gaps in relationships. The people most upset about age gaps are frequently older women who feel stressed about younger women dating older men, especially if those men are in their own social or age bracket.

There are often unconscious, evolutionary motivations behind deeply held beliefs, such as the stance on abortion. A theory from Jamie Krems suggests that pro-life positions, which increase the cost of casual sex, can be viewed through a lens of mating strategy. For example, women, particularly older women, are statistically more pro-life than men. One evolutionary explanation is that an older woman in a committed relationship may unconsciously support policies that make casual sex costlier for younger, potential rivals, thereby protecting her partner's investment in her and her children.

This can be an uncomfortable idea because the stated reasons for being pro-life are often noble, like protecting unborn children. Rob points out that when a belief aligns with personal interest, the sincerity of that belief is strengthened, not weakened. There isn't necessarily conscious duplicity at play.

If something is aligned with your interests, your belief in it isn't reduced, it's increased. Your sincerity is increased, not decreased. So if you tell me that, if you support this thing and it's going to help you in some way, I'm going to sincerely believe it and I'm going to tell you how great it is and there's not actually going to be any kind of layer of duplicity necessarily.

This framework extends to a broader pattern. Pro-life stances tend to align with a more monogamous reproductive strategy, aiming to raise the cost of promiscuity to encourage pair-bonding. Conversely, pro-choice stances can align with a short-term, casual mating strategy, seeking to lower the costs of promiscuous sex. A similar pattern was found in research on the legalization of drugs, where stances were more strongly predicted by attitudes toward casual sex than by other factors like religiosity. This suggests many sophisticated arguments may have a simpler, evolutionary motive operating beneath the surface.

There appears to be remarkably little resistance from men to modern narratives like toxic masculinity. Rob Henderson suggests this might be explained by an insight from anthropologist David Gilmore's book, "Manhood in the Making." After surveying pre-industrialized societies worldwide, Gilmore found that many cultures independently created rites of passage for a specific reason: if left to their own devices, young men often don't want to become men in the traditional sense. They are content to be withdrawn, lazy, and self-interested.

These manhood rituals arose to inculcate ideals of bravery, productivity, and being a net contributor. They were necessary to shape the raw ingredients of masculinity that exist in young men. In modern society, which lacks these rituals and instead promotes concepts like toxic masculinity, many men retreat. They make excuses online, claiming they would try harder if society encouraged them. Rob argues this is self-interested reasoning. Even if all criticism stopped, these men would not suddenly become strong and positive figures; developing such character takes years of effort and is not so easily derailed by mean tweets.

This dynamic extends into relationships, as highlighted by the concept of a "swag gap." The idea, popularized on TikTok, is that a person with high social status or style (swag) cannot be with a partner who looks like a "mess." Chris Willx analyzes this phenomenon, suggesting it reveals a shift in priorities. The primary value of a relationship becomes a branding opportunity, judged by how it is perceived by others, rather than relational satisfaction. This mindset assumes the relationship is transactional and temporary. Therefore, one's social status with friends and followers, which is seen as more permanent, is prioritized. Rob agrees, framing it as optimizing for the approval of other women over building a secure attachment with a man. Chris puts it succinctly: "The followers are forever, but boyfriends are fleeting."

The "swag gap" describes couples where one person, typically the woman, is far more stylish than their male partner. Examples like Justin Bieber in a hoodie and Crocs next to a glamorous Hailey Bieber are often cited. This disparity may arise because men and women are judged differently on status and appearance. Women's desirability is more closely tied to how they look, while a man's is more indexed on social status. A high-status man like Bieber can "counter-signal" by dressing down. His fame is so secure that he doesn't need to dress well; his casual attire is a statement of his power.

This kind of counter-signaling doesn't work the same way for women. The female equivalent might be a beautiful woman who doesn't have a job, with the unspoken message being, "I'm so beautiful I don't have to participate in the rat race."

However, the swag gap isn't a new phenomenon, with historical archetypes like Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin being famously unstylish partners. The key difference today is economic. In the past, a woman might accept a partner's lack of style as a trade-off for his financial support. Now, as more women are financially independent, that trade no longer makes sense.

I don't feel like this is a new phenomena. It's just that the trade that was being made, I will put up with his lack of swag because he is keeping a roof over our heads. That trade no longer makes as much sense when you can afford the roof over your head without it.

As men's traditional role as the primary provider diminishes, they may feel pressure to contribute more in other areas, such as physical appearance. This is amplified by the rise of dating apps, which place a heavy emphasis on looks, and advancements in cosmetics that allow women to enhance their beauty, raising the bar for men as well.

When a prominent figure deviates from the ideology of a group they represent, it can be seen as a betrayal. Adele's weight loss, for instance, was met with accusations from the body positivity community that she had betrayed their cause. This reaction is similar to how some in the child-free community reacted when Taylor Swift entered a relationship. The sentiment resembles that of an incel community when one of their own finds a partner; it reframes the group's collective status as a personal failing rather than a systemic issue.

It's like saying Usain Bolt should cut off his legs in solidarity with the disabled community.

This dynamic highlights the performative nature of many modern solidarity movements. The rise of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic has starkly exposed this within the body positivity and fat acceptance communities. The argument is that these beliefs were an "inner citadel" for people, but the moment a simple way out appeared, many took it.

The GLP1s have just proven that body positivity was a scam all along. Body positivity was the inner citadel for these people. And the second that they had a free route out of being bigger than they wanted to, who is not taking that?

This performative allyship isn't limited to body image. Rob Henderson observed a similar pattern in academia, where prominent white male university presidents would publicly state the need to stop hiring people who look like them. However, they never offered to step down themselves to make way for a woman or person of color. This failure to act on one's stated beliefs reveals them to be "luxury beliefs"—ideas that are espoused for social status but require no personal sacrifice.