In the previous article I wrote something that sounds counter-intuitive at first: that women don’t cooperate. I probably wasn’t clear enough: yes, women seem to cooperate, they do things together, they function in groups, but there’s one important distinction: it’s not free. A woman will do something for you, but it will cost you. She will go see a movie with her best friend, but that best friend will have to go shopping for a handbag with her, later.

Nothing about what women do is free, everything about them has some kind of a price tag, and that’s the main reason why they have a hissy fit when men whistle and catcall them on the street: they interacted with them for free, instead of going through an elaborate ritual in which a woman can say no to them at every turn. They think they are the princess of the universe and if you communicate with them without explicit invitation from her divine grace, you need to be punished, because you took something from her for free: the permission to approach her exalted highness. They actually mindfuck themselves into a place where they are actually that cool and important, just because they have something everyone wants: a vagina. Vagina makes her royalty, and if you want her royal grace to acknowledge your humble presence or even bestow her divine countenance upon you, you’ll need a better reason than just be there and have a problem, or simply catcall. You need to enter into an elaborate social play in which a contract will be made to put you in her debt.

That’s why a woman won’t back down to make it easier for another driver: because she won’t ever meet that other driver again and he or she won’t be able to reciprocate, so why would she do social favors for free? It’s just me me me, want want want, now now now. If you want something, she will want something in return.

Sure, men won’t work for free either, but we’re not talking about real favors or real work. It’s the little things that people do – hold doors for someone who’s carrying big boxes, don’t park behind someone’s car and just leave, notice that someone needs something and make it easier for that person if it’s not that much of a big deal for you. Sure, there are men who behave like women and just do their own thing, not giving a fuck about anyone else if there’s nothing in it for them.

But there’s one important distinction. We call those men “assholes”. We do so because we expect each other to show a certain degree of empathy and acknowledgement of other. It’s a genetic thing. Women expect the world to revolve around their vaginae, and men expect other men to cooperate in a group, in varying levels of involvement, from not behaving like assholes in traffic, to joining them on the barricades with a rifle in case of serious trouble. It’s expected, and is done for free, as part of some implicit social contract that is seldom verbalized, but offenders are immediately noticed and frowned upon. Men cooperate, because that’s what men do in a society. They protect the tribe, they feed and protect the females and the children, and they work together to minimize potential for conflict and increase effectiveness of their collective efforts. It’s interesting how men separate things into those that will cost you, and those that are done for free – for instance, if you want a man do dig a hole in your garden, you need to pay him. This falls outside of the implicit constraints of the social contract men work within. However, assisting someone in performing a traffic maneuver won’t cost you a thing. Men do that for free, and feel good about it, because it’s a contribution to the welfare of the community. At first it seems to be graded by the level of difficulty – they’ll do the little things for free, but the bigger ones will cost you; not true. The biggest things are also free – like joining other men with a gun on the barricades, or carrying a wounded man to safety and taking a bullet yourself in the process. It’s not about the size of the favor, it’s about whether it’s a part of the social contract that’s genetic, or whether it’s something else, that falls into another category, that of trade. If women acted as they do, and had a man’s body, they would suffer such a horrible backlash for being assholes, they’d probably go kill themselves, because men really don’t tolerate assholes, unless they are female. Then it’s another matter entirely, because an asshole with a vagina is the lady queen of the universe.