Security, Status, Escape.

Summary: (TL;DR) The key to understanding women is to understand the filter by which they, by way of both biology and society, view the world. To summarize a very complicated subject into a single sentence;

“A woman seeks to consistently improve her feeling of security, her perceived status, and her ability to escape the demands and restrictions of her life.”

Security, Status and Escape are the key motivators for women, and a good lens with which to understand their behavior.

Disclosure: This is not my own work – it is advice that I have received from a counselor in my continuing quest to make sense out of the conflicting messages and information in my world. I am sharing it with permission, but keeping the name of the counselor confidential at his request. He is a Redditor though, so if he’s reading this, please feel free to correct or better explain my interpretation of the information I've interpreted here.

A Consideration of the Motivations of North American Women

When we talk about the trinity of motivations, it’s tempting to think of them as a sort of a twin to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – that a woman first seeks to be safe, then to advance herself to a level of satisfaction with her status, then having achieved all this, seek escape for entertainment.

This is a dangerous assumption, because it is just not true.

Women individually have a different priority for each of the main “agendas”, which varies from woman to woman, and even within a woman from day to day. A woman will sacrifice her safety in order to achieve escape or increase her status if that is her value at the time. She will sacrifice status for safety. She will sacrifice everything for escape.

If a woman’s prime motivators are not on the increase, she's not happy.

Every problem she has will be traced back to a decline or failure to advance in one or more of these three items. Every choice a woman makes is to advance one of these agendas. Her motivations lie on increasing the priority that is of her greatest interest at that moment.

Security:

A woman needs to feel safe that her situation will not substantially change, that her body, her children, her living arrangements, her access to resources will not change. If you are the man devoted to her, who listens to what she says, and provides the resources that she and her kids need, you are providing for her security.

When she complains about things being unpredictable, unstable, or crazy, complains about not having enough (without comparison to others) or how she feels uneasy, she is referencing her need for Security.

Status:

A woman needs to feel that she has control over her surroundings, her sexuality, her attractiveness, and that she is perceived by her identified peers as in a superior position to others in her peer group. If a woman is with you because you are handsome and successful, if you are providing her with economic prosperity in a visible way, you are providing her an increased status.

If she complains that things are shabby, that her friends are doing better, that she is unappreciated, or underpaid, that she works harder than others and gets less, that other women are bitchy and gossipy and that she does more than her share of work around the house these - are all complaints about status.

Escape:

A woman will create an existence that serves the previous 2 needs, and will be confined by the restrictions of the arrangements meant to serve them. Women need to feel that they have an opportunity to escape the prison of their own making, acting impulsively, to feel a sense of freedom from obligation, custom and restriction. There is no way to predict what the relative value for each of the motivations will be at any given time, though listening to what she is saying and interpreting it within her context will allow you to understand which motivation she is serving at the time.

When a woman drinks, vacations, dances, goes out with the girls or "just buys the shoes" she is looking for an escape from the confines of her world. If your desire is to be the sex and fun only relationship that takes her out of her world it is in your interest to separate yourself from being part of the security and status that she is attempting to escape from.

When a woman complains that she’s bored, that she never gets out of the house, that you never have fun anymore, she wants to feel like you are dating again, that she needs a vacation or to take a class - she is looking for escape.

Applying the Factors

Example: Your LTR says to you, “I need a new car.” You respond neutrally, “What are you thinking about that?” She provides the context.

If her situation is such that she has a ’92 sundance and it broke down making her late for work, this is a Security issue. Her access to reliable transportation is threatened, and needs, in her mind, to be addressed.

If her situation is that she has a 2009 Lexus Hybrid, and she says that “My friend just got a 2015 Porsche SUV, which is so much more comfortable and practical for carrying around the kids things…” her motivation is status. She now feels that her status has been diminished within her perceived peer group, that she is perceived as less successful due to her dated car, and is seeking to reclaim that status through conspicuous consumption.

If her situation is that she drives a minivan, and she says, “I just want to drive something fun again, like I did back when we met. Remember the little Miata I used to have before we got married?” She is looking for escape from her life and the confines of her arrangement.

Rarely are things so clear, or cut and dried - but the example stands – generally a woman’s desires and perceived needs are tied to a specific one of the three motivations, or some combination of them, and to deal with it (or make a choice not to deal with it) you need to understand which motivation is at play - Making an appeal to the wrong motivation will often be worse than doing nothing at all.

Interchangeability

The best thing about a motivation centered understanding of women is that, in general, the specific factors within a motivation are interchangeable. If a woman has an issue with security, anything that improves her security will help her to feel better, not just the issue that is currently at hand. The same goes for status and escape.

A woman’s level of satisfaction on any factor is the sum total of that factor rather than individual items within that factor. In our example, a woman feels a decrease in her relative status due to a friend getting a new car. She is disappointed because her success is challenged. You respond, “I wonder why she’d bother replacing her old car with that gas guzzler rather than going on a vacation like we did. I don’t understand her priorities. Maybe she’s just showing off?”

This will likely make her feel better because it shows that by another relative comparison measure (vacations) her status is better and it indirectly challenges the value of the comparison itself (bad for the environment, conspicuous consumption). Her status is preserved as superior because cars don’t matter and vacations do, and the new purchase actually diminishes the status of the friend.

Her need for a perceived increase in status is satisfied, even though she doesn’t get the car she overtly is asking for.

Constant Improvement

The other key to understand is that women need a constant level of perceived improvement. A woman receiving a 25% raise last year, and a 0% raise this year will be much less happy that a woman than a woman that receives a 10% raise last year and a 12% raise this year. The total money itself is immaterial - it’s about the feeling that things are trending better rather than worse. As long as the amount meets a minimum threshold for perceived improvement, it’s usually good enough. And if for any reason the trend were to reverse itself, however minor the change, a woman will be unhappy.

To best utilize this, do not make large improvements in any of a woman’s prime motivators. Instead, opt for small and continuous improvements to the items that she cares about, so that she perceives improvement over time.

Example: A woman says, “This relationship is going nowhere. I’m wasting my time. If we’re not getting married, we should break up.” You respond, “I don’t even know how to buy a good engagement ring.” She is likely to be happy with this response because it shows a general trend in the desired direction (to improve her security and status) rather than a decrease. Rather than giving in on a major demand, give in on a series of minor concessions, even if you don’t object to giving in on the major demand.

By lengthening the period of general improvement, you increase the chances of a woman feeling more happy for a longer period than you would by just acceding to her demand. A woman getting a spike of success in a particular factor, followed by a period of perceived downtrending in her factors of interest will be completely miserable despite her initial success.

Rationalization to Achieve Goals

Women have been in a socially and physically diminished state since the beginning of recorded time. They are not stronger, or faster, or in many cases smarter than men, so to make up for that they have to be more committed and mentally flexible to achieve what they want. Women will do the thing that needs to be done to advance their agenda without hesitation and be perfectly fine with it afterwards. As a response to many factors that make it more difficult to satisfy their motivations women have developed the ability to rationalize any action that advances these agendas.

North American men can and do learn this (in some cultures Men practice this sort of flexibility exclusively), but for women it's a part of an innate survival mechanism. It's a powerful skill not to be underestimated (even if you hear "hamster wheel" a lot here.) A dog may die waiting at his dead masters side, but a cat will eat your eyes if you die and don't fill the dish anymore. Amorally, which is the stronger survival plan?

Remember that this is an ability and not a weakness - and it doesn’t make women crazy and deluded to practice it. Rather, it’s a compartmentalization of contradictory motivations that is very similar to a man’s ability to compartmentalize feelings or contradictory ideas in order to get a task accomplished. Women can focus in on a single motivation at the expense of the others, and not question the need to do so, or feel that doing so compromises her commitment to the other motivations.

A woman tokes a joint at a party, then comes home and lectures her children about not using drugs. The Joint fulfilled her need for escape, and the lecture fulfilled her need for security. Each individual act fulfilled the need of the motivation that she had at the time. There is no contradiction or hypocrisy perceived because the compartmentalization of these two acts is complete. She perceives herself as a “fun girl” and a “responsible mother” because she has satisfied both of her motivations.

The Filter

If you run everything a woman says through the trinity filter of security, status and escape, you won't likely find much that doesn't fit these motivations. And remember that many things will advance a combination of the motivations, not just one of them - women can be efficient like that.

Before you respond to a woman’s concerns, demands or worries, it’s best to understand which of the motivations she is currently advancing, so that you are in the right frame to address it. Do not call her out about the hypocrisy of her actions when advancing different motivations – this won’t do anything good, and can’t really be perceived anyway. Ensure that when you do decide to engage, you are engaging on the correct motivation, and are offering only small and continuous improvements.

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I was lucky enough to fall in with a RP oriented counselor (though he never said the words RP, and didn't use RP words.) and he told me about the trinity of needs, the rationalization as a survival mechanism and the interchangeability of improvement within a motivation. I now apply the filter in even normal conversation with women, and it hasn't failed me yet.