Monday, September 21, 2015

More on toxic "dating coach" huckster Evan Marc Katz

Once you've demonstrated that someone is actively encouraging women to date men who are statistically more likely to abuse them, as Evan Marc Katz does, there's not much else to say about them.

But I can't help but say a few more things about Evan Marc Katz and his exchange with a dissatisfied customer.

In addition to Katz's usual slipperiness in failing to own the regressive advice he gives women, the article demonstrates that even women who are inclined to be skeptical about the benefits of reverting to traditional gender roles have drunk hearty draughts of Katz's misogyny Kool-aid. Customer says:
But I also feel like I’ve learned a lot of stuff that just feels almost insurmountable taken in total, and also… a huge amount of effort that will yield… what, I’m not sure.
To wit (and hear this not as angry, but just incredibly overwhelmed):
She then goes on to list what she considers Katz's objectionable advice.

She then says:
I’m not sure I can actually do all these things.
It looks exhausting, and no fun. What is the upside, besides getting laid, since I earn my own living? 
The fact that she thinks that there actually is an upside - "getting laid" - to Evan Marc Katz's advice that women submit to traditional gender roles in order to catch a manly-man indicates that she's already in the land of cognitive dissonance. Because in fact if all you want to do is get laid, why would you have to become passive? Contrary to Evan Marc Katz's claim, men in fact do like it when women initiate sex, and not only insecure clueless men. Now the traditional-gender-role-loving men that Evan Marc Katz is promoting as real men may not want to marry a woman who actively pursues sex, on the basis of the traditional gender role phenomenon known as the madonna/whore complex. But they will certainly have sex with you and if getting laid is what you want, then it's a win-win. 

And of course there are some men who are sufficiently "masculine" and yet do not buy into rigid gender roles. I know such men. But naturally they are very popular with women and tend to already be in relationships, usually long-term relationships, so if that was the type of man Evan Marc Katz was selling, his success rate would take a big hit - there are just not enough of that kind of man for all the women who want them. But the supply of single traditional-gender-role assholes is huge, and so it's just that much more efficient for Katz to make a buck convincing women that those are the men they really want. Or at least convince them that there are no other alternatives, because "men" are likely to feel emasculated at the tiniest non-passive action on the part of women.

Notice too that the dissatisfied customer said: What is the upside, besides getting laid, since I earn my own living? 

"Since I earn my own living" - she is not looking for a man to be her meal-ticket. 

Now of course economic inequality is the basis of traditional gender roles. The reason men made all the moves in courtship with women was because they had all the power and all the money. Men bought women - not the other way around. Rarely as obviously as when slavers bought slaves, it was more of a barter system than a cash-and-carry. But the power dynamic was just as real.

The main motivation for getting married for a woman was economic - if she didn't find a man who could support her financially, she would either have to live with relatives or earn her own living at a time when it was perfectly legal to bar women from many kinds of high-paying jobs. And the jobs that were open to women were low-paying, usually because they were considered women's jobs. And of course she would not be allowed to have sex lest she be considered a worthless slut - only men had the option of socially-accepted extra-marital sex until very, very recently. So the only option for a woman who didn't want to be a celibate burden to her family (or a celibate poorly-paid worker) was to get married.

Evan Marc Katz prefers to believe that gender roles are biological - like his favorite writer Sam Harris (Harris is a New Atheist and evolutionary psychology is their religion) and so of course he ignores the economic social reality. He prefers to tell women that male dominance is just the way of the world, men are never going to change, and there is nothing to be done about it except resign yourself to being the passive receptacle of male approval. Or live a lonely, sexless life.

It used to be that dating hucksters didn't have to work so hard to push women into the passive role - the entire socio-economic system was designed to force women into that role. Marriage was very common because women had a compelling financial interest to get married. 

But since Katz's clients earn their own living, they tend to believe they don't have to settle for any man with a good job. But a woman being "picky" lowers Katz's success rate, so he is very much focused on claiming women expect too much from men. 

And then when he is called on it by someone he can't ignore, a client, he gaslights her and pretends that he's a huge egalitarian who never told women they had to be passive.

I was amused to see how Katz referred to his critics:
 I’ve seen criticism of my views from anonymous strangers before, but I’d never before had a client who expressed such great displeasure with her perception of my coaching philosophies.
As anybody who has read this blog knows, there are many Katz critics, including myself, who are not anonymous. And Katz knows it too - he reads this blog. It was easy enough to figure that out when I noticed in my blog analytics that someone from his town in California was regularly visiting this site. 

Naturally he won't discuss critics by name, any more than he will name feminists he makes claims about - because it's much easier to argue with straw-women, or clients who have already drunk his Kool-aid. 

Katz may be toxic for women as individuals and for the progress towards an egalitarian society as a whole, but he sure knows how to take care of the financial progress of Evan Marc Katz.

More on the toxic Weltanshauung of Evan Marc Katz.

Fortunately some men are helping to promote an egalitarian society: