Why Women Like Jerks

When I was teaching classes on gender, the subject of women’s sexual objectification came up. I pointed to the inherent contradiction between the law, which stipulates that women under a certain age are off limits (unless their parents give them permission to marry – ew) and popular culture, which puts girls as young as 14 in revealing clothing, pushes them down catwalks, and generally promotes the ideal of the sexually available female.

One of my students very angrily insisted via her research paper that, as she had learned from a professor of evolutionary biology, the sexualization of teenaged women was perfectly natural, because it is when women become fertile, and that NOBODY was going to change her mind! Not having the time or energy to spend on one overly opinionated young lady in a class of 135, I mostly ignored her vehement argument. I could have informed her that being totally intractable and unwilling to consider alternate explanations is nothing to be proud of, no matter what the (soon to be former) president says. But I doubt it would have had an impact.

But then, in the spirit of responsible scholarship, I can’t completely reject her professor’s theory either. Although I suspect that any middle-aged man who so enthusiastically defends the idea that underage women are suitable sex objects is being at least a little self-serving (again, ew), I don’t doubt that being attracted to fertile women has its evolutionary advantages. And yet, people have all sorts of sexual urges that don’t seem to have any logical explanation. Where is the evolutionary advantage to homosexuality? And it clearly has something to do with biology, because chimps, dolphins and penguins all do it, too. And I can’t even begin to imagine what Darwin would think of foot fetishists or furries, or why being fetishized and sexualized also makes young women such prime targets for rape and murder. Some evolutionary biologists think the rape part is perfectly logical, but I’m not so sure they can explain the murder part. It doesn’t seem advantageous to me to remove a healthy, fertile young woman from the gene pool.

It all leads me to examine my own sexual proclivities. Among other things, I like mean men. Not the boorish or the bloodthirsty, but highly intelligent, sarcastic, abrasive, arrogant men. I know from talking to other women that I’m not the only one. Rock stars don’t have a reputation for being particularly sensitive or kind, and as we all know, they attract chicks like flies to dog shit. Some of them are reputed to have eaten the heads of animals and engage publicly in pyromania. Add bed-wetting, and you’ve got the serial killer triad.

I’m not so much of a masochist that I’ll let a man treat me poorly in order to get my mean-guy fix. I have actually turned away men who were interested because they were too mean, or at least not smart enough to realize that sometimes you have to be civil or people don’t want to be around you. I’m not sure if that actually makes me attracted to psychopaths or not. Regardless, a little attitude goes a long way – learning this is an important part of having social skills.

One of the hallmarks of the arrogant man is competition. Professional athletes, lawyers, politicians, CEO’s and generals all tend to enjoy competition, and wouldn’t much enjoy their work if they didn’t. Dr. House is an interesting character partly because he’s motivated by the desire to lord his superior abilities over others, rather than the altruism we expect from physicians. He’s probably closer to real doctors than we’d like to admit. I’m sure most doctors are perfectly decent people, but they can’t all be Mark Green or Jack Shepherd. Talk to a nurse for five minutes, and I’m sure you’ll hear more than enough about the arrogance of the average doctor.

To take a somewhat tired, structural-functionalist and socially Darwinist approach, competitive men are Alpha males and as such, women seek them for the protection they offer from the likewise-competitive Alpha males of their enemies. The competitive, Alpha-type man also has the hunting instinct to acquire better shelter and more goods, thus providing more comfort for his mate and children. It makes perfect sense from that perspective, and seems to be a popular approach among women. But is it really what motivates my taste in men?

At the other end of the psychological spectrum is the Freudian perspective, which states that we are all born in a state of polymorphous perversity and learn to fixate on either appropriate or inappropriate sex objects depending on our experiences. I believe Freud would consider the Alpha-type male a highly appropriate object for a woman, but he’d probably think I ought to be more afraid of them and overwhelmed with shock and awe at what they want to do with me. I’m sure a Freudian would think that my lack of a father growing up has something to do with my attraction to Alpha males. It seems to make sense, but I’m not sure that’s the case. My primary caregiver during much of my childhood, especially my earliest years, was my mother, and she has a tendency to worry and doesn’t handle crises well. Alphas, on the other hand, are calm under pressure and very useful people to have around. Still, the lack of a strong male figure in my childhood can’t really be discounted.

From a more contemporary perspective, however, adulation of the Alpha male in society is not limited to women and is a product of the institutionalized bias that maintains male privilege, as well as class and race privileges. A white male like Dr. House gets away with far more misbehavior than any woman or minority ever could. Likewise, his status as a doctor grants him extra privileges above and beyond ordinary people. In the context of his show, his misbehavior often results in the noble, but sometimes unintended, consequence of saving lives, which redeems it and provides justification for his increased privilege.

It’s always a matter of some debate whether men need to engage in some form of aggression or if they do so because they are allowed to get away with it. Indeed, men are encouraged to be aggressive through the rituals of organized sports, the prevalence of armed conflict around the globe (both state-sanctioned and otherwise), and the fetishization of the military. One sociological theory, something of a gender spin on strain theory, holds that it is the disconnect between the levels of power and permission men are raised to expect and what most men can realistically achieve that makes men aggressive.

And yet, not all men are aggressive, and there is a wide variety in the type and intensity of aggression. Many men satisfy their need by participating in ritualized violence, often vicariously. Organized sports are clearly the most common of these rituals, including the theatrics of “pro” wrestling as well as those that require actual skill. Violence is integrated into the culture through a variety of rituals, all of which involve uniforms. Military institutions, law enforcement, sports, and sadomasochism all fit the bill.

When the violence occurs without a uniform, outside of a culturally sanctioned ritual, then it carries social disapprobation, the severity of which depends on the manner and degree of the violence. Mob hits and gang warfare tend to rate as not especially problematic, since the victims are widely assumed to be fellow criminals, and this is used to explain away the undertones of racism inherent in the argument. Bar fights, jealous lovers and insurance vultures don’t frighten us too much because they seem pretty easy to avoid, by staying out of seedy bars, being faithful to one’s mate or avoiding entanglements with the greedy and unscrupulous, respectively. But in all cases, we disapprove, and reserve our strongest objections for those who prey on the helpless – children, animals, the sick and elderly.

In offender studies, it turns out that men who commit violence against women, especially their intimate partners, come in very distinct varieties. There is the “hot-blooded” offender, who has intense feelings of anger and resentment and poor impulse control. This type of person, when provoked, becomes very agitated and literally increases in body temperature. The other type, the “cold-blooded,” is not easily provoked, and offends mostly because they get enjoyment from it (and interestingly, actually displayed a lack of body heat in laboratory experiments.) This is a commonly cited feature of a set of psychological disorders, ranging from narcissistic personality disorder and malignant narcissism to antisocial personality disorder. The person suffering from antisocial personality disorder is frequently labeled a psychopath or sociopath.

The anti-social personality type, or sociopath, does not feel empathy for other people or creatures and views others largely as objects to be manipulated for personal gain or pleasure. Not all people with this condition commit violence, but it does seem to come in handy in that instance. Serial murder seems to occur when this condition is combined with a sexual interest in controlling others, which can be carried to the degree that one is sexually excited and sated by violence and murder. Curiously, a large number of serial killers also have a history of head trauma.

Could it be that some of these traits – cold, calculating, manipulative – have persisted because, sometimes, they provide some social benefit? Maybe it’s like sickle-cell anemia. The gene that causes sickle-cell provides protection against malaria when only one allele is present, but with both alleles, the person develops the disease. Maybe in some situations, a lack of extreme emotions comes in handy. Maybe it enables some people to remain calm under distress and provide leadership during a crisis. Perhaps the lack of empathy is just an unfortunate variant of this otherwise useful personality type.

Or maybe it’s just because cold, narcissistic, manipulative and sometimes aggressive behavior tends to allow the individual to survive in situations where others wouldn’t. Survival of the fittest does not always translate into a benefit for the social unit. Society has long attempted to rid itself of these traits. In earlier eras they would be called “unfeeling” or “unchristian”. Today, we recognize the danger inherent in some of these behaviors and attempt to protect our more vulnerable citizens from being harmed by them. But we never seem to make any progress.

Do we need men to be aggressive, or to believe that they are entitled to an upper level in the hierarchy, in order for our society to function? Or does this merely reproduce patterns of oppression and injustice that went unchallenged for centuries? Is it a vestigial trait left over from less civilized eras of humanity in which real, deadly violence was necessary on a daily basis? And if it’s no longer necessary, does it attract women because they retain a genetic stamp from that earlier era, or because they have likewise been trained to want it by the same institutions that create men’s behavior?