relied on, in principle, in a crisis. When they quit school, they went to work
as rig roughnecks when it was forty bloody degrees below zero. It wasn’t
weakness that propelled so many out of the classroom, where a better future
arguably awaited. It was strength.
If they’re healthy, women don’t want boys. They want men. They want
someone to contend with; someone to grapple with. If they’re tough, they
want someone tougher. If they’re smart, they want someone smarter. They
desire someone who brings to the table something they can’t already provide.
This often makes it hard for tough, smart, attractive women to find mates:
there just aren’t that many men around who can outclass them enough to be
considered desirable (who are higher, as one research publication put it, in
“income, education, self-confidence, intelligence, dominance and social
position”).^207 The spirit that interferes when boys are trying to become men
is, therefore, no more friend to woman than it is to man. It will object, just as
vociferously and self-righteously (“you can’t do it, it’s too dangerous”) when
little girls try to stand on their own two feet. It negates consciousness. It’s
antihuman, desirous of failure, jealous, resentful and destructive. No one
truly on the side of humanity would ally him or herself with such a thing. No
one aiming at moving up would allow him or herself to become possessed by
such a thing. And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see
what weak men are capable of.
Leave children alone when they are skateboarding.