I am a man.
I strive to be a good man.
I like to think I’ve done the best I can in that regard. I know I’m not perfect, but I still strive to improve. I also try my best not to judge others who don’t do as well or struggle to be the man they seek to be.
I say all of this as a precursor because I’m about to go on an angry rant, of sorts, on those who take advantage of insecure, vulnerable men. That rant will include profanity, tirades, and insults. So, if that doesn’t appeal to you, this is your warning. I’m just sharing that as a common courtesy.
Having gotten that out of the way, I’d like to make some important statements that hope finds its way to men and women alike.
Fuck every man who calls himself an alpha male.
Fuck every man who promotes the whole alpha male mentality.
Fuck every man who actually buys into the bullshit behind alpha males.
I understand that’s a bit terse, but I promise I mean every word. I only wish the English language had stronger forms of profanity to get my point across.
Because as a man who has written about men’s issues in the past, I have nothing but abject hatred and disdain for those peddling the objectively stupid notion of the alpha male. I would go so far as to argue it’s worse than the idea of “toxic masculinity,” another label I think is built on a foundation of bullshit.
But the notion of the alpha male isn’t just stupid and wrong. It’s dangerous.
It presents men with a rigid dichotomy that supposedly determines whether they’re a “real man” or just some loser weakling who can’t open a pickle jar. Either you’re some muscle-clad, sports-loving, macho douche-bag who builds his day around how many women he sleeps with or you’re some pathetic, scrawny weakling who deserves to get shoved into lockers in high school.
There’s nothing in between. You’re either one or the other. And unless you’re constantly striving for that alpha status, then you’re somehow a failure as a man.
Again, that’s all bullshit. I seriously cannot emphasize that enough. There is no such thing as an alpha male. That is not a thing in science, biology, or objective reality.
In fact, the whole concept behind “alpha males” is based on horribly flawed study about wolves in captivity that was later disproven. If you want to know the details, please see the following from Phys.org.
If you don’t care to read the whole thing, the long and the short of it is simple. The study that first coined the terms, alpha male and alpha female, was based on observations of social structures of wolves in captivity. However, that social structure does not manifest in the wild.
Instead, the structure is largely based on adult wolves looking after their pups. It’s not too different from how most social animals look after they’re young. We don’t call their parents alphas. That’s just a byproduct of having a particular social structure that relies on adults protecting, teaching, and guiding their young.
That’s exactly what happens in humans, too. We don’t call the parents of children alphas. They’re just parents. Their role is the same as the wolves observed in the wild. They raise their children as a family unit, looking after them and teaching them so that they can survive on their own.
At no point is there this alpha male of the pack who gets all the females and makes all the lesser males do his bidding. That’s not a social structure we find in nature. That’s a social structure we find only in cults, namely the dangerous ones.
That’s exactly what keeps the whole alpha male myth going. It feeds into the agenda of selfish, power-hungry narcissists who need some excuse for being the one who gets all the money, sleeps with all the women, and gets others to do his bidding with little to no compensation.
I won’t name names. But if you follow the news about people who throw around the whole “alpha” label, you know who I’m talking about.
Again, fuck those men and every asshole who buys into their bullshit.
Because that’s what this stupid concept propagates at the end of the day. It’s an enabling force for assholes seeking to exploit those who are vulnerable. Every cult leader in history does the same thing. Organized religion and toxic fandoms do it too. But the people who embrace the alpha male label are just uniquely insufferable.
So, the next time you hear someone throw that alpha male label around, remind them that it’s based on bullshit science and only exploited by wannabe cult leaders. And if they refuse to accept that, then don’t give them the courtesy of calling them alphas. Just call them insufferable assholes. Because that’s what they are and that’s what they’ve always been.
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