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I have no idea why whether men's preferences are biological or not matters to my point (leaving aside the fact that women are also driven by biology, and this also leads to positive downstream effects for their children).
I agree that one can frame success in evolutionary terms, but I don't know why one would since virtually nobody actually pursues this. It's even less relevant when you're arguing women should "try to look pretty" since the quality of your make up has virtually nothing to do with fertility or genetic fitness.
It feels like you are trying to reframe my comment into some sort of familiar, pro-woman/woke argument. Let me make my point again, hopefully more clearly:
Men face social incentives that encourage them to develop their human capital and productivity. This is good for the men themselves, irrespective of their romantic success, as well as their wife's children (and, incidentally, good for society (at least modern society)).
Women face social incentives that encourage them to look pretty. This has far less value for them, does nothing for their husband's children (since make up and working out does not improve genetic fitness and actively detracts for familial resources), and, incidentally, is not pro-social (since beautify is ultimately zero-sum).
I'm not claiming men are evil for caring how good a woman looks. I'm not claiming that women are angelic for having socially-aligned preferences. A justification or explanation of their preferences seems largely irrelevant to me.
I am claiming that saying "women have it easier, since they don't have as much pressure to build human capital" is a very incomplete analysis.
I don't know how in the heck you're defining 'value' if you're ignoring that a pretty woman is able to gain access to a successful man's wealth by looking pretty.
Like, yeah, women don't directly build up wealth and capital. Because there's literally never been a point in history where they've had to do so. Different incentives. Yes. Of course.
Because they've got an easier path to it. They can acquire value from a man, without the effort. Whatever value a man builds, a woman can access, for virtually any definition of 'value' you point to.
How in the world does this end up looking like a negative on the balance sheet for being female?
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