Women are dishonest about this stuff because they’re programmed to be. Their greatest weapon is their sexuality, but they also face social backlash for being too overtly transactional with sex, so women embrace ambiguity where they’re able to use sex to their advantage while maintaining plausible deniability Some examples: -Wearing sexy is outfits isn’t for the male gaze or to flex on other women for status, it’s just to feel good about themselves apart from any social factors -Dancing provocatively is not a sexual display, it’s just recreational fun -Marrying a rich guy isn’t about the money, he’s a good guy who provides security for their family -Wearing makeup and high heels to work isn’t to impress men and sway them, it’s just to feel confident I want to address a tangent here, which is that women will argue that these things are not sexual displays, because they do them at social events that are exclusively other women. I reject that: it’s still an indirect sexual display for the purpose of status Sexual attractiveness is perhaps the purest form of status that a human can possess. You’re desirable merely by your existence, you don’t even have to do anything. Women recognize this in each other and they will begrudgingly, although often subconsciously, recognize the status of other women who are more attractive (“ugh, she’s so hot, maybe I should set her up with one of my successful guy friends”). When women dress up for other women, they’re showing that they’ve got the goods to be a high status social ally. It’s a flex. Back to the main point, which is that we subsume our sexual behavior beneath socially approved motives. The thing is, women often aren’t being duplicitous when they say these things: their minds have convinced them that it’s the truth The human brain is incredible at rationalizing our baser desires. Men genuinely like sports. The reason we like them is probably because in our evolutionary environment, games like that prepared us for war. But men wouldn’t say they like sports because it’s preparation to kill the neighboring tribe; our brains simply find them fun. We enjoy doing adaptive things without consciously thinking about them Women engage in sexual signaling and sexual competition without deliberately thinking about it, and that’s a superpower because they can be disingenuous without lying. Their brains have disguised their motivations even to themselves. They don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. Women don’t want sexual behavior to be discussed explicitly, because it makes it more difficult for them to use it to their advantage. The ambiguity and optionality work to their advantage. If a hot guy hits on them, they can receive the advance. If an ugly guy hits on them, they can reject him and say they weren’t asking to be hit on. If one woman tries to slut shame another for an outfit that distracts men, the wearer can claim that she’s simply wearing something that’s comfortable and cute Ironically, women also can’t acknowledge that this is why they’re upset, because the whole game is that they have to avoid discussing it directly and explicitly. That’s why all the outrage and criticism deflects from whether these outfits are overtly sexual (they obviously are), and turns it into jockeying over social status and norms where women try to make it verboten for men to even comment on it Shane Gillis, by making a snarky comment, threatened women’s sexual power and sent their defense mechanisms into overdrive