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Lumifer comments on Open Thread, Jul. 13 - Jul. 19, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (297)
Many women are intensely status-driven (look at their shopping habits, etc.) and dominance is not uncommon, though usually in a "softer" way.
The stereotypical female shopping habits are high-quantity, mid-quality and low price i.e. hunting for discounts and sales. This is not really a status game. A guy is more likely to have status-oriented clothing habits i.e. have only 5 t-shirts but all of them have Armani Jeans written over them in big letters telegraphing the "I am rich, hate me" message :)
I think what you see as dominance amongst women is more often group acceptance / non-acceptance, i.e. popularity vs. marginalization e.g. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teenage+girl+syndrome
This is IMHO different. A dominant person wants to have a high rank and if he or she cannot have it then would much rather exit the group and lone-wolf it instead of being a low ranking member. A person who is more interested in group acceptance wants to be a member of the group at all costs and not excluded, not marginalized, does not want to lone-wolf it and accepts a lower rank as long as being accepted inside the group.
So in other words the dominant person will keep asking "Are you dissing me?!" and the group acceptance oriented person will keep asking "Are we still friends?" which is markedly different and the later seems to be more feminine to me.
Don't forget that status signals radically change between social classes.
Lower-middle females indeed shop for a lot of cheap items because the status signal is "I can afford new things" or maybe even "I can afford to buy things".
In the upper-middle class, it's rather about whether you can afford that bag with the magic words "Louis Vuitton" inscribed on it.
And in the upper classes you have to make agonizing decisions about whether to wear a McQueen or a Balenciaga to the Oscars (oh God, but what if there will be other McQueen dresses there?!?!!?)
Or you might go for countersignaling and just release a sex tape X-D
I see no reason to define dominance that way. A dominant person is just one for whom social dominance is a high value and who is willing to spend time, effort, and resources to achieve it. And, of course, it's not either alpha or omega, there is a whole Greek alphabet of ranks in between. Being a beta is fine if there are a lot of gammas, etc. around.
A dominant person doesn't ask questions like this to start with :-) It's a very submissive question.
Very funny. Women begin to compete for status and form alliances at age 4...
That may be more of a group acceptance thing: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/mgr/open_thread_jul_13_jul_19_2015/ckda