Handbook Posts: Women have the trump card, and men know it

WARNING: These are HANDBOOK POSTS -- WRITTEN A LONG TIME AGO by some great women with great thoughts and deemed as handbook worthy by FDS mods for a reason. If you feel triggered or disagree with something -- THE SMART THING TO DO IS TO MOVE ON. Agree to disagree and go on your merry way. Stop trying to start bullsh*t in the comment section because I have no patience to deal with you.

Originally posted in FDS subreddit. All rights reserved to the original writer.

This is an infamous quote from the 1983 cold war science fiction film "War Games"

It refers to the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), a military strategy made possible by the invention of nuclear weapons. In essence, nuclear weapons are so extremely destructive that any full-scale nuclear conflict would cause the complete annihilation of all humanity. As soon as one nuclear power attacks another, the other will counter-strike, each of their respective allies get involved, and everyone and everything is destroyed.

There is no "winning strategy" in nuclear war. Everyone loses.

I'd like to apply a similar game theory to relationships.

Experience has taught me that when in conflict with men, there is no clear way for me to come out on top except to not engage.

This is because when a woman interacts with a man, he wants to dominate her, even if neither are consciously aware of it. The woman will start out by attempting to communicate in a peaceful and respectful manner. The man, not wanting to have any influence exerted upon him by someone he considers inferior, resorts to a variety of tactics to assert his dominance.

He may use immature bully tactics such as name-calling, mockery, and degradation, or he might be intentionally obtuse and willfully misinterpret her, or he may simply dismiss and ignore her altogether.

If he's a bit more sophisticated, he might try flipping the script with DARVO (Deny the abuse, Attack the victim, Reverse Victim and Offender), he might just straight-up lie to her and attempt to manipulate her, or he may even pretend to agree with her and make a half-assed attempt to do what she wants before giving up completely.

Often, he will take preventative measures such as emotionally punishing her, or being passive aggressive, in order to deter her from challenging him in the future. Yes, ALL MEN use at least one of these tactics, even supposedly non-abusive men.

Meanwhile, the woman's head is spinning. When she entered the conversation, her goal was to arrive at some sort of agreement, solution, or mutual understanding. She does not understand why he would react like that, because she does not live her life constantly attempting to dominate others.

Unfortunately, it is quite literally impossible to achieve a fair compromise when interacting with an enemy whose only goal is winning no matter what: she ends up being like Neville Chamberlain trying to appease Hitler, and we all know how that turned out!

Many women in this situation blame themselves and make concessions without receiving anything in return, and the man continues to push her until he gets her complete submission, at which point he no longer has a shred of interest or respect for her. She loses.

Some women who are more dominant, who refuse to submit, may choose to go on the offensive. She fights back, gets angry, yells at him, etc. She may even resort to some abusive strategies herself, to "use his own tactics against him" and "give him a taste of his own medicine".

Although this might feel more satisfying, unfortunately this is not a winning strategy either, because men do not fear female anger in the same way that women fear male anger. In fact, they seem to enjoy it. He will smirk condescendingly, pleased at himself for provoking such a reaction in her.

Meanwhile, she is the one who has degraded herself by losing self control. She becomes one of his "crazy ex girlfriend" stories that he will gleefully tell others in the future. She still loses.

When you engage in conflict with men, whether you choose to escalate or attempt to de-escalate, no matter which strategies you use, the woman loses. This is why most women who have been hurt by men eventually come to the conclusion that they want absolutely nothing to do with them.

The only winning strategy is to not play at all.

Men don't like this: they want women to continue engaging with them because they need to have someone to dominate. A lot of women don't like this strategy, either: it doesn't feel very satisfying, and it requires a certain degree of self discipline. Also, a lot of women have a hard time letting go of their romantic fantasies about men.

However, I'd like to point out a crucial difference between male-female relationships and nuclear war:

As women, the source of our power is that we don't really need or want men, whereas men actually do need and want what women have to offer.

Think about it: what do women want from men? We want a provider, love, and emotional/physical intimacy. With women working and earning our own money nowadays, having an additional "provider" is redundant.

Besides, most men use their money to control and dominate their spouses: depending on a man financially can ruin a woman. What about love? Let's be real: most men are too self-absorbed and greedy to be good lovers, both emotionally and sexually.

Anything that a man can do for us can be replaced with 1) a job for money 2) a dog or cat for companionship, and 3) a vibrator for sexual satisfaction. Even if a woman wants kids, she is better off going to a sperm bank than having to put up with the 90% of men who are low value.

To summarize, the vast majority of men are incapable of providing us with the things we want, and anything we could possibly want from a man can be replaced with something that is lower risk, and has a greater payoff.

Whereas men literally do need women a hell of a lot more than women want men. Studies show that married men live longer than unmarried men, probably because married men are less isolated, have a better overall quality of life, and because we ladies force them to go to the doctor when they are sick.

I mean sure, men are certainly capable of learning to cook, clean and perform emotional labor, but they don't want to, so they often live in filth, develop nutritional deficiencies, and become depressed without a woman to take care of him.

In their mind, men need female servitude, because a king without a kingdom is a nobody. Their perceived self worth is based on their ability to dominate others, so a man without a woman to dominate has no value (in his mind).

This is why incels/MGTOW/redpillers are so angry, because they know that they are worthless.

Whereas a woman without a man is usually doing quite well for herself because she is free from control, abuse, and exploitation. She is better off devoting her creative energies to herself rather than being under the heel of someone who wants to take advantage of her.

Men need sex (I mean, they don't actually need it but they sure as hell act like they do). Sure, they can watch porn and masturbate daily, and many of them do, but this causes a decrease in grey matter and quite literally ruins their brain. Men who have sex with real human women report greater life satisfaction than men who only watch porn (no surprises there).

Moreover, if a man wants to become a father and pass on his genes, thereby fulfilling his evolutionary and biological imperative, he needs a woman to do that. He can't simply go to an egg bank. Instead, he must convince a woman to 1) have sex with him, 2) carry his child for 9 months, and 3) successfully raise his child for 18+ years.

Women are the gatekeepers of the next generation. If all women collectively went on strike, we have the power to literally end humanity in one generation.

In fact, this is a global trend that has been underway for decades. More and more women are choosing to either 1) limit the number of children and just have one or two kids, or 2) staying away from men and not marrying or having any children at all.

As a result, the fertility rate (average number of children per woman) has halved in the past 50 years and is rapidly decreasing (currently 2.5 globally). In most industrialized nations, the fertility rate is below replacement level (2.1) necessary to keep populations stable.

Already, this is having disastrous effects. A shrinking population results in economic recession, labor shortages, smaller tax base to fund costly geriatric healthcare, lower productivity, etc. Countries that do not allow the level of immigration necessary to keep the population stable (Japan) are having an especially hard time. The current trend in all countries, even the least industrialized ones, is a steadily decreasing fertility rate.

In short, women all over the world are realizing that getting married and having kids with men who refuse to compromise is a raw deal for us. So, we are choosing to live our best lives by avoiding men altogether.

Ladies, never forget that women have the Trump Card. Men need us far more than we need them. As soon as you catch a whiff of bad behavior from a man, cut him off. He won't change unless he wants to, and he doesn't want to, so he won't. The only strategy where you win and they lose is to not engage at all.

The handbook posts project.