As Max O’Rell noted in the year 1900, men tend to exert intersexual frame within a larger intersexual frame of gynocentrism of which they are unconscious, while deluding themselves that they are guiding the entire interaction.
“The best thing that can happen to a man is to be ruled by his wife; but she should rule him so discreetly, so diplomatically, that he could almost boast that it is he who rules her. At all events, he should remain very undecided which of the two it is that rules the other. And when a man is not quite sure that it is he who rules his wife, you may take it for granted that it is she who rules him.”
In this comment, O’Rell illustrates the opposite of Rollo Tomassi’s advice that men should ‘always control the Frame, but resist giving the impression that you are.’ In O’Rell’s view, it is women who actually rule over men while giving the impression that they do not.
This is a ‘frame within frame’ conundrum—who is really pulling the strings?
Even when applying frame, accepting any of the following clichés means you’re still operating inside the larger gynocentric frame that has taken shape over the past 150 years:
– Women are the hypergamous sex and men must adapt to that nature.
– Women are born valuable, and that men must create value.
– Women potentially fall pregnant, therefore we are a gynocentric species.
– Women are the evolutionary gatekeepers of sex.
The principles of gynocentrism, far from being an ‘evolutionary norm,’ function as a frame that men unwittingly step into—one so longstanding that it is no longer recognized as a frame at all. It’s a frame used by women and society to tame and exploit men. In this scenario men set up their own frame inside of the prevailing gynocentric frame, while not realizing they are doing that. They think their frame is dominant—when in truth, it’s nothing more than a little tent pitched inside a bigger tent.
The good news is that more men are waking up to the problem. As the two-frame issue gains cultural visibility, the moment may have arrived to break free from the gynocentric frame once and for all.