You Are Not An Alpha

A lie, Mark Twain famously wrote, can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. This may explain why people are still talking in terms of "alpha male," derived from the social structure of the wolf pack, when we have known for years now that is not a thing.

Image credit: Wilda3 on Pixabay

In case you missed it, and didn't click the above link, the cases where a wolves ran in packs, with alphas and betas and all of that, came entirely from wolves observed in captivity. Wolves in the wild run in families. And while there is dominance in the pack, it's the dominance of the parent over the child, which ends when the child grows up and is sent off from the pack.

But I'm not here to talk about nature, as fun and cool as it is. Because this is Feminism Sunday, and I want to talk about people. Specifically, dudes who justify shitty behavior towards women by saying they are "alphas."

My man, you aren't an alpha. You're an asshole.

But let's go back to those studies for a second, and what they can tell us about dudes who behave this way. Wolves act in this unnatural way when imprisoned. The unnatural conditions of captivity create the wolven version LORD OF THE FLIES. A society ruled by force and cruelty.

Dudes who act this way are in a prison of their own. What is it? You guessed, it's patriarchy.

Image credit: Pixel-mixer on Pixabay

It's funny. The sort of person who relies on outdated animal sociology is often the first to mock and reject current human social sciences. But as pat and obvious as it is, patriarchy is precisely the prison you are in.

Here's a thing about feminism opponents tend to ignore: Feminism isn't there just for the women, because patriarchy doesn't only hurt women. This veneer of toughness, this lack of emotional expression that patriarchy tells you is the way to be as a man? It's is hurting you. It is making you mean. It's not actual toughness. There is no correlation between having a "tough guy attitude" and being tough in a crisis.

So if you choose to be an asshole, well, that's definitely a life choice you made. But please, don't try and justify it with fake, outdated science that was never about people and isn't even true about wolves.