No, the top 10% of men don’t take all the women at the expense of the other 90%. It’s time we stop repeating this flagrantly untrue trope and kill it where it stands.
One of the most prominent divisive figures to arise out of the social media era is undoubtedly Jordan Peterson.
His unorthodox views on relationships resonate with millions of single men out there. Peterson has a very diverse group of followers, but it’s inarguable that his message has been stitched together in such a way as to appeal to single or frustrated men.
He’s become widely popular as an anti-woke hero and self-help author.
And it’s no wonder why.
He speaks with unshakable confidence. He’s an academic sticking up for the uneducated poor and middle classes. He stands up for forgotten men at a time when society has turned a blind eye to their pain.
As a former professor, people readily assume he enters into his debates with figures, percentages, and data points to back up his convictions. He’s viewed as a guru and an intellectual powerhouse.
And yet, he’s almost always wrong — at least when he speaks about the human sexes, sex itself, and human relationships. Let me explain.
A View of Human Relationships
Jordan Peterson talks a lot about relationships. He’ll tell you casual sex is destroying the world. He says or implies that feminism is to blame for offsetting the “natural” power balance between men and women, giving women all the power while most men have none.
The cherry on top is the idea that if women are given the power to choose whomever they want, and monogamy is not strictly enforced, the top 10% of most desirable men take all the women, leaving the other 90% of men single, lonely, and frustrated.
Eventually, these men will turn violent.
The Pareto Principle
It’s an adaptation of the Pareto Principle that says that 80% of the consequences come from 20% of the causes.
When investing, 20% of your investments will pay big, and 80% will fail.
In business, 20% of your employees will drive your business and profits, while 80% will be dead weight.
Pro-tip: whenever you hear obviously neatly rounded numbers like this, it’s a huge red flag. People who really know what they’re talking about can give you exact numbers and specific details.
Socially Enforced Monogamy
To remedy this, Peterson is an adamant proponent of socially enforced monogamy. He believes straying from strict monogamy will lead to social decline, destruction, misery, and ultimately “ultra-violence” (his words, not mine).
He often frames casual sex and relationships outside the bonds of long-term commitment or marriage as deviant and decadent.
He portrays any sex that isn’t the “escalator relationship” that leads to marriage, children, and a typical suburban life as being devoid of connection and any sense of responsibility.
He says it makes men violent and women unhappy.
He never explains to us how these things happen besides offering us the cherry on top: that 10% of men will steal all the women.
Let’s Talk Tinder
I’ll give Jordan credit where credit is due. There’s one place where his 10% rule applies — Tinder.
On Tinder, studies have shown that men swipe right on more than 60% of the women’s profiles they encounter. Women swipe right on 4% of the profiles they encounter. Huge disparity.
But Tinder is an unnatural environment. The scales are artificially tipped in women’s favor by exploiting a basic function of biology — on a whole, women are more choosy, and men are more eager to date and mate.
By design, Tinder incentivizes women’s willingness to forgo dating someone they aren’t super interested in, and it exacerbates men’s eagerness. When the next person is just a swipe away, women conserve time and effort, and men splurge in hopes of hitting the jackpot.
That’s why Tinder is a heavily biased sample.
Tinder appeals to certain people looking for specific things. All dating sites do. They cater to certain crowds, just like SUVs and subcompact electric cars cater to different drivers.
When we step out of the world of Tinder, Jordan’s idea falls apart.
Let’s Talk Numbers
The idea that 10% of men take all the women is easily disproved with statistics. Only 31% of the adult American population is single, according to Pew Research data.
Let that sink in for a minute…
If 10% of the men took all the women, you’d expect roughly 90% of men to be single.
Surprisingly, singlehood is divided equally between the sexes.
31% of men are single
31% of women are single
The difference?
51% of men under 30 are single. This is the largest age group for single men. For women, it’s the older crowd who are most often single. 49% of women over 65 are single. Younger men and older women tend to be single.
The explanation you’ll get from Peterson’s supporters, and possibly Peterson himself, goes something like this:
Women chase resources, men chase healthy, good-looking, fertile women, so women date older rich men leaving younger men single. Older men date hot, young women until they get older, then trade them in for younger models.
Not true.
Two factors explain why older women and younger men are single:
The fact that women live longer than men means older women are more likely to be widowed.
The fact that men marry later than women — whether they’re single or sleeping around, men tend to marry older, and women tend to marry younger.
This is nothing new. It has nothing to do with the sexual revolution.
Since 1890, men have married older and women younger. This is because women have always been more likely to assume the role of housekeeper while men pursued careers and postponed marriage.
In fact, the gap has narrowed as women have entered the workforce.
Now, here comes the kicker.
What truly destroys the idea that younger women chase older, wealthier men, and vice versa, is the simple fact that the 2nd largest age bracket of single women is women under 30.
If the top 10% of wealthy, older men were stealing all the young, “fertile” women, you’d expect to see women all the women under 30 taken. But it’s the second-largest age bracket of single women.
A full 32% of women under 30 are single.
31% of ALL American men are single.
There’s no shortage of single women under 30.
INCELs, people in the Manosphere (a sexist, hypermasculine part of the internet that worships Jordan Peterson like a god), and other disgruntled lads will tell you that men can’t get dates because women aren’t being forced into marriage anymore.
But there are more single women under 30 than the American average.
There’s an abundance of single women under 30 — they just don’t want to date angry, entitled jerks.
Let’s Talk Desire
One last piece of data truly deals the death blow to Peterson’s warped views of sex and dating.
How many people want to be single?
The same Pew Research shows that a full half of single people, both men, and women, don’t want to date anyone.
They have other priorities. This is why it’s so hard for single people to find a date. Most people are taken — but they’re not by the top 10% of men.
They’re taken by the other 69% of non-single people.
Only 15.5% of people in America are single and looking for a partner.
This is far from the “casual sex is taking over” panic it’s been portrayed as. There are so many settled people that it’s hard to find other single people.
And the “top 10% of men steal all the hot women” jargon is unscientific, discredited nonsense. It’s time we stop saying it.
No, the Top 10% of Men Don't Take All the Women. Stop Saying This.