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Hello! First post here :)
I follow a number of Youtube channels discussing financial advice for women, and a topic that has recently come up was the phenomenon of "Stay at home Girlfriends". These girls, usually early 20s, are influenced by the "divine feminine energy" content creators on tiktok. They buy into being in your feminine energy to atrract a high value provider man who fully provides for them.
Don't get me wrong there's nothing wrong with that as a principle on its own. My problem comes when these girls take it to the extreme by i) giving up their financial independence without any backup plan or financial security outside of the relationship, especially without being protected by marriage ii) hawking a narrative of being superior to other women who choose to pursue a career and deprioritise having a man, just because they can manage to attract a man who pays for them. "These independent women will become overworked and tired and will regret it!" they say
I am going to tell a story about a girl I met at a Christmas party through a mutual friend last year. She was a friend of a friend, and dating a semi-famous male influencer who is decently well-off. I was mingling around at a party and struck a conversation with her along with other women in a group setting. When someone asked what she did, she mentioned she had graduated college three years ago but hadn't worked apart from a few fashion workshops and occassionally modelling lingerie on instagram. She said she usually travelled around the world on trips with her boyfriend, fully sponsored by him, and that she intended to quit the part-time job she was currently working to go on holidays in Italy with him, and hopefully convince him to allow her to move in with him. I replied that she was very lucky to be able to travel with her boyfriend to Italy, that I loved the place too and had spent months saving up so I could eventually go the following year. What she replied shocked me, she first asked if I was single and I said at the moment yes, then followed up with "No surprise you are working yourself to the ground just for a holiday then, masculinas will only get dusties". Taken aback, I asked what she meant by that. I said I had intended to go on a solo trip as a reward to myself for getting my promotion last month and it had nothing to do with masculinity. She said that "hustling" was masculine and that I will realise real men wouldn't care about my achievements and money because they won't leech off me, and would take care of you as long as you were beautiful because "it was how I make him look and feel" that is important, not my personal accolates. (I am a lesbian) I got quite upset and thankfully the other women in the group helped keep the peace, by telling her that solo trips were amazing and I deserved to be happy about saving up for one. She ignored all of us for the rest of the evening and just clung to her boyfruebd. I was taken back by that completely uncalled for comment and sad to say I hadnt really learned to let things go back then so I went to check her public IG, believing that her life couldn't POSSIBLY be that great. Her IG was full of nothing but photos with her boyfriend, and occasional "modelling shots" where she was dressed for and posing for the male gaze, and yes, A LOT of "divine feminine energy" content dragging on women who work and who are not "feminine". She ironically calls career women "pickmes" who are trying to impress men with our knowledge and earning ability, because well everything we do is for the approval of men I guess. It also didnt look like she was being paid for "modelling". I figured I was wasting my time, snapped out of it and completely forgot about her until a while back. I was having dinner with the mutual friend when said friend brought up the girl. (I remember it being the same girl who left a rude comment about me because she had a very unique name) The mutual friend said that the girl was being ghosted by her boyfriend now, and that the boyfriend had deleted all pictures of them both on his public IG and was apparently chasing a wealthy heiress now. The girl, unemployed for months by now, is still trying to move in with this boyfriend who is ignoring her. When she asked him for money to pay her rent and he refused, she went to my mutual friend for money. She was now chasing him across towns to his events, uninvited, and posted about the events on her tiktoks as if they are still together. And when he did finally relent and agree to meet her (but not alone, with a whole group of other friends including this mutual friend), the mutual friend described how this girl would literally hug and cling onto him and take a hundred photos with him in forced intimate poses. I went to look at her IG again, and had a bonus discovery- she now has an OnlyFans link on her IG profile. The mutual friend told me she was concerned about her friend and asked what I thought. I simply shrugged my shoulders, told her that I hoped the girl recognised the situation for what it was and moved on. But I have reflected on that situation for quite a bit and this is what I have gained from this story. 1. Even if you do make the choice to have a man provide for you, never relinquish your financial independence. This has been discussed to death on this forum but worth repeating. Even if you have a HVM partner now, he can pass away, get sick or into an accident and you may be forced to return to the workforce. You don't want to find yourself unemployability Keep your skillset active and always have a hand in passie income, investments and some side hustle so that if push comes to shove and you are forced to fend for yourself, you won't struggle or be forced into sex work. 2. Performing femininity for men is still being a pickme, even if you (think you) are reaping maximum benefit from it.
WHile these "divine femininity" girls look at 50-50 women with disdain, they should also recognise that their behaviour is also PICKME-ISM, it just manifests on the other end of the spectrum. The best way to respond to social conditioning to want to cater to and appeal to men, is to question it and detach from it completely. You want to dress feminine? Do it for yourself. Want to be educated and intelligent? Do it for yourself, not in hopes that this will lead you to a HVM.
3. You SHOULD want a HVM in your life. But if it doesn't pan out, you MUST have something going on for yourself and not allow a man to define you.
For obvious reasons, the man she is dating is an LVM. But this is also what happens when you allow your whole identity to be tied to the man you date and have no career, hobbies or passions to define you outside your relationship. You turn into the very "masculina" you claim to hate. Courting your man, chasing him, trying to impress him by doing softporn and wearing barely nothing. This is all the more true when you are financial dependent on him and losing him means losing your ability to pay rent and ending up on the streets. This woman is beyond my sphere of influence and I am in no place to convince otherwise. However, I have a number of younger naive nieces who are consuming this content on tiktok, and believing they have it figured out and are more enlightened than older women who choose to stay single and provide for themselves. I'll do everything I can to make sure they don't end up abused, abandoned, impoverished and on a sugar baby website at 27 because they wasted their prime years banking 100% of their life plans on a man.
NEVER RELY ON A MAN FOR ANYTHING!
I had called this "masculina" bullshit in a previous post. This content is extremely toxic and antifeminist imo and I'm not happy when I see it here. You're just proving my point. I agree with every word you say.
"Feminine energy" influencers have found a way to rebrand dependency from a man as empowering for women. That's why they target young women, who have no memory of the struggle we had to go through in order to become independent and no memory of what it means to find yourself destitute because a man has decided to replace you with another toy or whatever (sadly they are about to find out though).
I know some here will say that the same concepts can be interpreted in a "fds" way, but I disagree. It's a total slippery slope. The moment you start to reason within that conceptual matrix, it's just a matter of time before you go trad, or develop internalized hate for your "unfeminine" traits, and blame yourself for male shittiness ("I'm too independent so I attract lvm"), which is basically typical MRA reasoning ("women aren't feminine and submissive enough nowadays").
It's a sexist new age subculture meant to generate profit for a bunch of influencers who willfully ignore feminist history and theory. Their content is not developed with female liberation in mind. It's about a passive income career as a "coach" or whatever, and the ego high of "leading the masses".
To the young ladies here I say, read feminist theory because the women who developed it were authentically on a path of self reflection and not trying to profit off your stressful female life.
Thank you so much. "Feminine energy" content grinds my gears for that exact reason. Yes, in a good relationship, we want to relax into being able to receive and not feel guilty about it as we're conditioned to do, but so much of this content basically encourages plain old sugar babying / trophy wife lifestyle. This is about as anti-feminist as it gets. Glad to see someone call out the BS, because sometimes I see stuff like this on FDS too.
To a certain extent, I can see why some women find the whole "Trad Wife" thing attractive. Being an independent adult is hard. Holding down a job is hard. Paying bills is hard. I can see why some women might think that if they could just find a wealthy man to take care of them, their life would be so much easier. The problem is that it's not a realistic goal. Firstly because there are lots of men out there who are happy to string along women for years without ever marrying them. Some men will even live with a woman and have children with her and still not marry her. (Modern men have no shame, I swear!). Secondly because even if you do marry a wealthy man, your situation is still very precarious. What if he turns out to be abusive? It's almost impossible to leave an abusive relationship without any money of your own. There's also the possibility that he could leave you. You could spend years satsifying his every whim and one day, he tells you he's leaving you for another woman and everything you've worked for it gone.
Bit off topic but this whole "Trad Wife" thing reminds me of a quote from The Forsyte Saga: "When you marry for money, you earn every penny".
This is a truly excellent post and timely reminder to women here that we MUST be financially independent. I've noticed some odd posts/comments by women lately bragging about their HVM who 'earns 6 figures' or 'pays for everything'. I understand a HVM as being high value because of his provider mindset, not because he's incredibly wealthy. 50-50 is a stingy mindset, and we shouldn't go near men with this attitude, but to go the other extreme and expect to be fully taken care of financially is incredibly dangerous for women. We women need to have careers that allow us to support ourselves and prepare ourselves for retirement. Older women are often the poorest people in a society because women relinquish their earning power to men. Don't do it ladies, don't stop earning money because your man has tonnes of it. It doesn't matter how much he earns or how lovely he is, always earn money and always make sure you're ready financially for being alone.
Your former friend got her just desserts and I have little sympathy for her. She's providing a terrible example to younger women and appears to have little dignity or self-respect.
Yeah, I have friends who rely entirely on a man’s income & it never turns out well. They’re trapped and they never admit it until something goes very wrong. And I’ve never seen a time where something didn’t go very wrong. All this *~feminine energy~* bullshit is just rebranded misogyny. What’s now called feminine energy used to be called keeping sweet, obedient, etc.
She sounds really, really boring. I wonder how much more it will take for her to look around and realize that existence on this planet consists of more than a man and duck lipped selfies.
I've seen this terminology (feminine energy, masculina) used here, though the accompanying advice wasn't to completely rely on someone else for money.
Graciously receive gifts and offers to pay for things, sure. Rely on that to live, no.
It always struck me as not very fitting to characterize these things in terms of "femininity" and "masculinity", though. Most men leech off hard-working women. Been like that throughout history.
I don't want to be like my grandmother - my grandfather was the one with the money, she's the one who worked like a dog to keep his approval. Even she knew it was a raw deal. After he died, one of my cousins said to grandmother that she should get herself another man, and she was like "Another man to serve? That's the last thing I need!" She was a happy widow. 😆
Being in a strategically sound position means squirreling away our own money. That's the main reason to let men pay for things and don't allow men to drain us financially. The other reason is it's just tiresome to be with a man who wants to nickle and dime you to death.
Wow thank you for sharing i was wondering about FDS's stance on this feminity/hypergamy movement bc I know a lot of women are going to use it as a way to cater to men and let them use them.
Yes, get a provider HVM but always have your own savings or something going on. A savings account he doesnt even know about is good.
My old coworkers friend was dumped on the streets by her provider boyfriend of many years when he got bored. Now she's homeless and forced to sell all the designer bags he got her. Yikes.
These men who refuse to marry you know what they're doing
this is reminding me of the book Venus and Mars Go On a Date, which was recommended to me to read by an acquaintance. one of the chapters is called--get this--Men Love Women With a Smile. vomit. who TF cares? the whole premise of the book is basically that women should never say anything negative, never offer advice...basically they should just smile and fluff around like pretty jellyfish, waiting for the man to propose marriage. no thanks. i have knowledge and power and i'm not going to pretend i don't because it makes a dude feel insecure.
Oof, that is bleak. I'd feel sorry for the girl, but she has some nerve to beg the "masculina" women that she criticized for having jobs for money when her LVM ghosted her.
I think the best way to protect the younger generation from such influencers is to teach them to think critically. Nothing wrong with liking a particular aesthetic, but make sure they know the difference between an ad (which is what instagram pages are) and real life. Gabby Petito's life looked happy on her instagram page, too. Would a genuinely happy person need to create an instagram page where she constantly puts down women who have made life choices different than hers, and painting herself as superior? Or is that a sign of insecurity?
Young girls need to learn to not believe everything they see, and to automatically think "how might this person be bullshitting me?" whenever someone tries to sell them on something.
Sounds like the trad wife movement...
There's 'feminine energy', and then there's Feminine Energy.
The first is bs and the latter is the real deal.
The first infantilises and objectifies, the 2nd does the total opposite.
Susan B. Anthony is rolling in her grave.