Commoditizing Kindness
Normalizing Negative Reinforcement in Heteronormative Interactions
Kindness is a precious commodity.
Let's talk about the phenomenon of withholding kindness & compliments from another human. Many of my male friends tell me they withhold compliments & affection from women they are pursuing and/or interested in.
Their reasoning: "everyone compliments women, it holds no weight, you get more attention if you don't give them what they want."
This is behavioral conditioning, aka negative reinforcement. Women want respect and equality. Instead, our consolation prize is psychological manipulation?
The logic behind the phenomenon is that women can be conditioned to have desired responses if you reverse engineer their reward system. This logic operates off the assumption that a woman’s primary validation system is external versus internal. Think of the derogatory cliche, “treat them like dirt, they stick like glue.” I hoped this was only a sexist sentiment and not a tactic or systematic approach to dating. The pitfalls of using this ‘tactic’ include:
1. This Pavlovian tactic insults her intellectual capacity by effectively rendering her equal to that of animals.
2. The operating assumption is predatory & coercive.
3. This behavior is insidiously sexist & misogynistic.
Not all women need or desire external validation. However, all humans are communal creatures. Preying upon the security we receive from communal acceptance (the evolutionary argument behind external validation) is traumatizing! This turns communication into hostility. Ostracize her to get a response? That's extreme & extremely sociopathic.
By withholding 'affection' or 'rewards,' you're stating that a woman's worth can be quantified. If a man respected a woman's humanity, he wouldn't be dependent on manipulation to engage with her. This type of behavior indicates a dishonest & self-serving prerogative. Her desire & consent are of no importance. She is a means to an end, a vessel for male consumption. By compartmentalizing her psychology from her physiology, her humanity has been stripped. Women are literally quartered into desirable & undesirable parts that said men get to partition off as they please.
Why might a person exploit another's psychology like this? Insecurity and fear of rejection. Instead of facing the possibility of rejection, he's hedged his bets by exploiting her with a cortisol-inducing, emotionally triggering ploy to ensure he can 'get it in' regardless of if her interest is mutual or not. Most men aren't even conscious they are using coercion and negative reinforcement.
Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash
If men grew up in an environment that fostered these tactics, even peddled them as preferable due to efficiency, where the harmful implications were never discussed, where they were never challenged and only rewarded for their behavior (i.e., received sex and attention), where all the checks and balances failed, (i.e., parental guidance, men policing men, and inclusive sex education), then why would their belief system reflect anything akin to human decency?
The aforementioned is symptomatic of the gender inequality that is born from living in a patriarchy. It is also indicative of our society’s mental health crisis and lack of inclusive sex education. Thankfully, old paradigms are shifting. Men are more willing to listen and women are more empowered to speak out.
The world is volatile enough. Kindness shouldn't be a rare commodity. Be humane.
