The devil's greatest trick was to convince the world he didn't exist

Found on a bulletin board, posted with the permission of the author:

The stereotype most damaging to men?

That women are helpless, innocent victims.

Why is this damaging to men? Well, read some evolutionary theory. A large fraction of evolutionary adaptation for many species is geared towards the detection of "cheats", that is those members of the species which will take advantage of altruistic tendencies in others. This, of course, extends into inter-species interaction as well but that is more to do with detecting and avoiding predators and fighting off disease. Within a species, especially one in which altruism and cooperation are well established, it is important to detect those that take but do not give.

Consider our aversion to thieves and conmen, especially the latter. A conman works by making you believe that things are a certain way, which they are not, in order to extract cooperation from you in various forms (e.g. money). To do this, they try to engage your sympathy through a feigned illness or other disadvantage of their own or they may try to offer you something you want or need but which they have no intention of delivering.

Now, there are plenty of people out there with real disadvantages who need your help and plenty with something to offer and with whom it is certainly advantageous to both to cooperate. Consider the hurricane and tsunami victims, or someone near to you who has been raped or another robbed of his children. As for people to cooperate with, that is the stuff of everyday life.

What the conman wants, therefore, is to appear to be like these people. To do that, they will take on the appearance of these people. They will find or manufacture a commonality with them and present it to you as a means to motivate you to help them. And remember, there's nothing about the word "conman" besides etymology which specifies gender.

To the point: we all want, or should want, to help a victim of an injustice. This will be reinforced by the appearance of their own innocence and helplessness. These are very powerful motivators, especially to men brought up in the time-honored, if not biologically driven, atmosphere of chivalry that even now pervades western society. What better camouflage for a predatory woman than a cultural presumption of innocence, victimhood and helplessness? Moreover, the system and society are geared completely towards supporting their cause through the incitement of bad behaviour in the guise of "empowerment" and their protection when they get into trouble or cry "wolf!" Conversely, the system and society do nothing at all towards protecting the hapless male caught up in their machinations, rather it uses him for entertainment or, as others have pointed out, a scapegoat, more often than not.

This stereotype has seriously handicapped some of our most important evolutionary faculties towards the detection of unfair advantage-taking by fully one half of the population. True feminists should be up in arms over it - the only long term consequence will be to their own discredit as they become identified with the predators (the ifeminists, at least insofar as I can tell from this site, are at least partially on board).

"Damaging"? It's murderous, literally, because it defines what can be gotten away with.