The Pill, the Provider and the Alpha Male

Over the last forty years, birth control has removed the practical reasons for a woman to choose a provider male. Women unafraid of pregnancy can have sex with the sexiest men and fulfill their instinctual desires without apparent consequence. They can “follow their hearts,” even when the emotions they perceive as love or passion are irrational vestiges from the evolutionary past.

Providers are also devalued because financially self-sufficient women no longer need a man to provide resources for them.

Because women no longer put a high value on providers, the social position of those men has fallen while the player/type has begun to dominate society and culture. As women encourage more “bad boy” behavior by their sexual choices, men and society are becoming less considerate, less cooperative and less civilized.

Today, the nice provider personality has become decidedly unpopular, while the aggressive alpha male personality types are celebrated and envied. Professional athletes, rock bands, and hip hop musicians have eclipsed doctors, lawyers and engineers in social status. “Players” who take advantage of the weaknesses in women’s sexual instincts are celebrated while faithful providers are not.

Mary Challender in 2003 reported on how oral contraceptives can influence women’s choice of long-term partners. In her article titled: she writes:

The birth control pill can do more, it seems, than prevent babies.

According to a recent study by researchers at two Scottish universities, the oral contraceptive also appears to change women’s taste in men.

Psychologists at St. Andrews and Stirling universities presented women with images of different types of men, and asked them to pick out potential long-term partners.

They found women who were taking the pill tended to favor macho types with strong jaw lines and prominent cheekbones.

Women not on the contraceptive, on the other hand, tended to choose men with softer, more feminine, facial features.

The study, to be published later this year, follows previous research indicating women subconsciously choose more sensitive-looking men for long-term partners because they believe they will be more trustworthy and faithful.

This means using the pill may actually influence women interested in marriage to have relationships with inappropriate men, researchers concluded.

The psychologists theorize that it has something to do with the fact that taking the pill disrupts the natural process of ovulation.

Since the body is incapable of becoming pregnant, the brain subconsciously stops looking for long-term mate material.

“Where a woman chooses her partner while she is on the pill, and then comes off it to have a child, she may find she is married to the wrong man,” lead researcher Anthony Little said.

Not only did women on the pill make poor choices for marriage, they also seemed a bit mixed up when it came to finding a guy to hook up with short-term.

This is when they should have been going for the Russell Crowe-types, researchers said.

Instead they tended to select men who looked like Edward Norton.