Ball Busting Alpha Women Should Marry Gentle Beta Men, Says Book

I don’t really understand what introverts and extroverts or alphas or betas are, but evidently if you are an Alpha Woman (Strong Female) you should be trying to settle down with a nice Beta Man because you won’t be settling if you do so – you’ll find true happiness.

Dr. Sonya Rhodes and Susan Schneider have written a book called The Alpha Woman Meets Her Match: How Today’s Strong Women Can Find Love and Happiness without Settling. What a promise! (Full disclosure: I’m fairly sure we probably got a copy of this one sent to the office that I looked at before then immediately putting it in the give away pile without realizing what a gold mine of advice I was missing out on):

In the twenty-first century, women are outpacing men in education and career advancement. Yet amazingly, successful women constantly hear that their professional achievements doom their chances of marriage and family.

Don’t believe the alarmist hype, advises top relationship therapist Dr. Sonya Rhodes. Today’s Alpha women—ambitious, self-assured, and hardworking— aren’t going to end up lonely spinsters. They don’t have to settle for Mr. Good Enough. Echoing Sheryl Sandberg’s powerful message, The Alpha Woman Meets Her Match shares the secret necessary to triumph in love and work: find the right partner. It can be done—and Dr. Rhodes has the tools to help.

Going beyond value judgments associated with the terms Alpha and Beta, she advises women to look past the overly competitive, domineering Alpha male for a man who’s in touch with his inner Beta qualities—someone who is communicative, responsible, thoughtful, and collaborative. Demonstrating that most people are a combination of both sets of qualities, she includes a revealing test to help readers define where they (and their partners) are on the Alpha-Beta spectrum.

This sounds…complicated. And after taking the free quiz available on the book’s website, it wasn’t much more clear to me about what kind of alpha and beta are right for each other. After clicking/not clicking yes to statements like “Sometimes it is hard to not make a snarky comment” and “I take pride in being a caring lover,” I was labeled Purple (my favorite color at the age of seven) and 16% Low Alpha/34% Mid Beta. The explanation of my dating life sounds about right in the way that your horoscope sounds about right (i.e. wrong):

As an emotional person you value your relationships a lot, but you lack self-confidence and find it difficult to sound your own horn. Although you have strong opinions, you are uncomfortable fighting for what you believe in. You might be drawn to partners with High Alpha (Yellow or Red), which puts you at risk of being bullied. Because you do not like confrontations and seek compatibility, you need to learn not to back away from challenges. You would do best with a partner similar to you (Purple or Pink) or a Mid Alpha (Blue or Lime Green).

According to this magical color chart, basically no one should match with a high alpha unless they themselves are a high alpha. Everyone else should, I don’t know, make their partner take this quiz on the first date and then figure out whether their colors are compatible? Sounds slightly less fun than experimenting with the healing power of crystals but more fun than the usual first date banter.

It appears that as much as Rhodes is marketing her book as the anti-settling advice book, it’s basically
a you-should-settle rebrand
.

“The Beta male is a ‘catch’ because he is programmed for partnership” Dr. Rhodes told the Sydney Morning Herald. “He is highly desirable to women who want to share the responsibilities of having a family and working with a supportive, caring man. The Beta male is so secure he is not threatened by the Alpha woman. He will support and respect his partner and care about what is important to her. I think this is pretty terrific.”

Settling books are all about this picking of “the nice guy.” In Rhodes’ guide, someone with supportive, caring personality is who almost every other person with any kind of personality type should match with. Which sucks for alpha men, is great for beta men and is the same kind of advice that all other advice books give: reevaluate your life to see what’s sitting right in front of you.