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On the FDS subreddit, we gave men the opportunity to discuss their value to women. The purpose of the question was to get some sense as to what kinds of things men work on to make themselves valuable partners..
I expected this to be a straightforward question; all men had to do was tell us all the positive traits about themselves that a woman would find attractive. Easy, right?
NOPE! Turns out they have no clue ladies (*cries inside*)!
Take a gander at the comments for proof (especially the collapsed comments):
I was honestly SHOCKED to find it wasn’t simple to answer. Truly. A lot of men have clearly never in their life thought about what value they actually have to offer a woman.
Let’s first consider that if you ask a selection of women what our value to men is, we can usually break ourselves down to a science:
Physical: “I have big boobs/pretty face/fat ass/“
Emotional: “I’m supportive/good listener/take interest in his hobbies...”
Community: “I take care of my grandma, volunteer at the animal shelter”
Sexual: “I’ve practiced ___ sexual act or wear this because my SO likes it”
Domestic: “I keep a clean home, I remember birthdays”
....etc!!
Notice how all of the items listed are tangible and concrete examples of what women do (or possess) that bring value to men and to our communities.
We have been groomed to be of value to men and to see ourselves in relation to how we benefit men from DAY ONE!
But men. Men have no goddamn idea what their value is to us and it’s sending me right now.
The post attracted hundreds of comments, and the vast majority of men could not complete the exercise. The comments overwhelmingly fell into these disappointing tropes:
Men use the fact that we deal with them at all as evidence they have value. It's complete tautology that boils down to “we have value because you value us”
Very few men had concrete and tangible things to describe to us other than sex (which most of them actually suck at! Ha!)
Men attempted to reverse the question to ask us our value as women. So basically they refused to answer.
Men pointed to things other men have built as evidence of their value even though they had nothing to do with it!
It was very frustrating to read comment after comment of men having absolutely no clue why women should even be bothered with them.
Well if you don’t know, homies and gents, then we here at FDS don’t EITHER!!!
If it were not for the few men who demonstrated bare minimum self awareness, I would have closed the thread. But even these brave souls were limited in their ability to provide concrete answers.
The most helpful answers we got out of hundreds boiled down to:
Protect us from even shittier men
Financial contributions
Odd Jobs around the house
True Friendship and support (which is rare)
This discussion was eye-opening, in that It confirms to me that most men get women coasting on the groundwork of patriarchy, which has historically disenfranchised women (legally, socially, economically, etc) so severely so that we are literally forced to seek value through men.
Men use emotional abuse tactics designed to undermine our self worth to the point that we would look at any raggedy scrap of man as better than nothing, and then convince ourselves we can do without.
We convince ourselves we don’t need to orgasm every time. We convince ourselves situationships are good enough. We convince ourselves we’re happy. All because now we have a man.
This is how much of the manosphere "RedPill", "Game" and "Seduction" tactics are able to exploit unsuspecting women, they work to convince us that we need them despite literally providing nothing.
This is quite possibly the greatest swindle of all time.
Men’s inability to articulate any concrete benefits to being with them is a large part of why FDS does not advocate monogamy unless you are headed toward marriage. There is usually very little tangible reward other than a vague feeling of false relief at being “validated” because a man committed to you, a man who may very well be completely worthless and a drain on your time and energy.
You have a finite fertility window and a finite amount of time on this earth; don’t waste a second on men who do not actively make you ecstatically, blissfully, happy 90% of the time.
Ladies, look at any man who approaches you with a ruthlessly discerning eye, because if he is not actively contributing to your life, he is quite literally robbing you via opportunity cost.
You win literally nothing by tying yourselves to the vast majority of men but the ability to say you were chosen. This is the definition of playing a stupid game and winning a stupid prize. And honestly, they think you’re stupid for dealing with them because even they have no idea why you bother.