What is the ‘particular fascination that certain young men seem to have with self-destructive, doomed, talented young women?’
As the news broke of singer Amy Winehouse’s tragic death on Saturday, my Facebook and Twitter feeds exploded with expressions of shock, sadness, and bewilderment. Mixed with the words of grief and simple “RIP”s were the inevitable signs that in her passing, Winehouse had now taken on an iconic status that had eluded her before. “She was the greatest singer of our time,” one of my former students posted in a gesture of familiar hyperbole. “RIP Amy,” another wrote, “like an angel, you were too fragile for this cold harsh world.”
I noted without surprise that, at least in my social network feeds, the greatest expressions of grief and post-mortem fandom came from young males. While Winehouse had devoted fans of both sexes, there’s a particular fascination that certain young men seem to have with self-destructive, doomed, talented young women. It’s part of the “white knight” phenomenon: the longing so many guys have to “rescue” troubled, depressed, sometimes suicidal “damsels in distress.”
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I first noticed this in my Women in American Society course nearly 20 years ago. One of the requirements of the class is to do a research paper on the life of a dead American woman whom the student regards as particularly significant. When I first started teaching the course, there were no limits on whom the students could pick as long as the subjects were dead and had lived the bulk of their lives in the United States.
But what I noticed those first few semesters was that the most popular choices read like a Who’s Who of the beautiful, the talented, and the hopelessly self-destructive: Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Janis Joplin, Judy Garland, Billie Holliday and so forth. Far more students seemed interested in writing about those who had lived short and tragic lives than in those who had had longer and happier careers. I was stunned.
Though the majority of my students were women, it was the male students who were especially likely to pick one of these doomed celebrities over a happier, longer-lived historical figure. It wasn’t just laziness either. For every paper on Eleanor Roosevelt, I got two on the suicidal Sylvia Plath, though in the pre-Google age, it was easier to find information on the former at the local library.
What was going on, I realized, was the academic equivalent of White Knight Syndrome. White Knight Syndrome (WKS) is the male heterosexual equivalent of Bad Boy Syndrome, and in my experience, it’s every bit as common – thought much less frequently discussed. “Nice guys” often complain, loudly, that women are attracted to self-destructive, self-obsessed “bad boys” who don’t treat them well. But the masculine corollary gets much less attention, even if it’s at least as common.
Guys with White Knight Syndrome don’t just fall in love with drug-addicted superstars (or self-absorbed and vulnerable femme fatales like Casey Anthony). WKS manifests itself most commonly in the romantic choices these men make, as they choose to pursue (and attempt to rescue) troubled and unhappy young women.
Many men in our culture find themselves drawn to the role of the White Knight. With almost military precision, they seek out young women who are emotionally vulnerable and wounded, frequently with backgrounds of sexual abuse. These rescuers are often eager to protect women whom they imagine are desperately in need of protection. They are outraged at what other men have done (and may still be doing) to the women they love.
White Knights almost always imagine themselves to be different from every other man. While other men (fathers, brothers, exes, strangers) have neglected, betrayed, and taken advantage of “his girl,” the White Knight believes that he is radically different.
In his own mind, the guy with WKS doesn’t want to exploit the troubled young women he pursues (or in the case of celebrity obsessions, admires from afar). He wants to save them. They are his noble cause; loving them (despite their often erratic and self-destructive behavior) helps him to maintain a heroic self-image. Only a very valiant man would put up with what he puts up with! Only a truly rare guy could endure the heartache that he does, all for the sake of saving a young woman whom he imagines is incapable of saving herself.
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Guys with WKS have a variety of motivations. Some grew up in families with self-destructive mothers, aunts or sisters whom they were unable to save from addiction. Now that they themselves are adults, White Knights hope that romantic devotion will be the “missing piece” that will turn them from ineffectual, heartbroken bystanders into heroes.
Other White Knights are guys who adopt rescuing as a kind of competition strategy. As one of my students once told me, “I knew I’d never be the best-looking or the most athletic. But I figured I could love harder and stronger than any other man out there.” This becomes less about the rescue of a flesh-and-blood woman and more about proving that the White Knight is “not like the other guys.” Men with WKS like to think of themselves as rare exceptions in a world filled with abusive or emotionally toxic men.
But the biggest emotional payoff of WKS isn’t the fantasy of being the one to rescue the self-destructive damsel. Rather, by devoting single-minded attention to those whom they imagine to be so much worse off than themselves, White Knights get to avoid taking a hard look inwards. Whether it’s focusing on a drunk and addicted pop star or a suicidal girlfriend, rescuers dodge the often painful and challenging inner work that they need to do so badly.
Many men tried to rescue Amy Winehouse from her disease; in the end, they failed. These guys – and the millions of men who imagine they would have done better in their place – need reminding that chemical dependency is often stronger than love. Without losing all compassion for the victims of addictions, White Knights need to stop falling in love with vulnerability and weakness. And they need to start falling in love with strength, stability, and the will to live.
—Photo fyunkie/Flickr
About Hugo Schwyzer
Interesting!
We always talk so much about women who chase after the wrong guy, or how we stick with the wrong guy for too long – hoping to “change” him. It’s also a *CLASSIC* theme in the rom-com genre. Very little do we see the other side of the coin – even though they’re very similar. I’ve noticed it myself, the fact that guys say they don’t want “any drama” and then can’t stay away from the girl who is always causing it, or whose life is a mess. I had coined it the Wounded Dove.
Pretty much the male equivalent of women that want to “change a man” or “save him” or etc…
There are people out there that have that need to fix “damaged” people. (A good example of this is the character James Wilson from the show House.)
And bear in mind that’s what people are socialized to do.
Men are socialized to be the White Knight that saves the damsel from danger and women are socialized to be the nurturing souls that heal damaged men.
“Some grew up in families with self-destructive mothers, aunts or sisters whom they were unable to save from addiction. Now that they themselves are adults, White Knights hope that romantic devotion will be the “missing piece” that will turn them from ineffectual, heartbroken bystanders into heroes.”
Tell me Dr Freud, if (as you hinted in your fourth paragraph) white knighting is an extremely common phenomenon, why do you think it is caused by a relatively rare phenomenon? Do you seriously believe the majority of “white knights” grew up in dysfunctional households? Or this just a drive-by accusation you have no intention of defending?
he said “some”. his wording doesn’t imply a majority.
It is not surprising that you read all the “game” blogs – and are appropriating their terms like “White Knight Syndrome” – but your description is tellingly wrong.
WKS is a form of ‘cockblocking’. It is where one guy tries to get a woman’s attention by calling attention to another guy’s bad behavior. It is a generally un-successful obsequious behavior that women loathe. You’re absolutely right – they are attracted to ‘bad boys’ – and not because they are ‘self destructive’, but rather because they display that they are desirable enough, or high status enough that they don’t have to try hard.
Briefly ‘white knighting’ is a display of desperation and low value, and repels women, being ‘bad boy’ or an ‘asshole’ is more about showing that your interest level is low – which is a display of high value – which attracts women.
This quote “I knew I’d never be the best-looking or the most athletic. But I figured I could love harder and stronger than any other man out there.”, is telling – a perfect example of a celibate ‘white knight’ beta. This guy is almost certainly always in the ‘friend zone’ helping his female friends move heavy boxes every weekend, while they bone bikers.
Your students wrote papers about famous Marilyn Monroe instead of about Eleanor Roosevelt – because Monroe is hotter. It has nothing to do with her drug overdose.
Most people – neither men or women are attracted to people who are ‘self destructive’ – but especially not men. But there are men who prowl for troubled women with whom they can have easy sex. But you’d know all about that.
I don’t know if White Knight as a term originated from PUA nor if their definition of it is in any way preferable to the common understanding of the term.
Parts of what Hugo is talking about is sometimes called Broken Doll Syndrome. That’s when men feel that they can get a higher status woman by finding one who is somehow unhappy and faulted in a way that they feel they can fix. The remaining parts of what he’s talking about, I guess the PUA term for it would be Nice Guy syndrome. That’s when guys think that they are doing everything right that society expects from them and feel slighted when higher status woman pick men who don’t seem to be coloring within the lines.
A White Knight is generally a chivalrous or traditionalist man who puts women up on a pedestal while shaming other men. It’s usually someone who projects of his own personal faults onto other men and goes on campaigns to shame others in order to improve his own image. Hugo is himself a great example of a White Knight. It’s a man who argues that men should hold doors and pay for dates, that men have no right to voice an opinion on women’s issues, and generally the sort of person who would let women get away with murder if it came down to it. It’s a man who has crossed a lot of lines himself, but he’s the first in line to enact vigilante justice on some other fellow who had been accused of rape. It’s the kind of man who is generally anti-sex and doesn’t recognize women’s own agency because he sees them as being exploited at every turn for other men’s profit. It’s every overprotective father who is always suspicious of his daughter’s boyfriend. It’s the reason why women are half as likely to go to jail after committing the same crimes as men, including murder. It’s the reason why guys like Hugo disparage the MRA movement. Those are White Knights, always coming to the rescue of poor defenseless women. And they can be quite successful at it.
” ‘Nice guys’ often complain, loudly, that women are attracted to self-destructive, self-obsessed “bad boys” who don’t treat them well. But the masculine corollary gets much less attention, even if it’s at least as common.”
For anyone who might be unaware, Professor Schwyzer put the term “Nice Guys” into quotation marks, and capitalized it, to demonstrate that he does not feel anyone making this observation about women’s preferences is justified in doing so (that he describes their complaints as “loud” makes this more obvious).
Indeed, Professor Schwyser has made it quite clear that, in his opinion, anyone making this complaint is not a Good Man at all. Rather, according to his blog posts, he believes that anyone in this category is actually an insidious manipulator that is looking for a way to legitimize the mistreatment of women.
(He puts the argument forward here:
http://hugoschwyzer.net/2010/06/14/id-be-more-nurturing-if-i-though-it-would-get-me-laid-how-the-straitjacket-of-masculinity-is-reframed-as-womens-fault/
and states explicitly that this applies to “Nice Guys” here:
http://hugoschwyzer.net/2011/03/05/nice-guys-redux/ )
He offers no evidence backing his theories, simply arguing that the anecdotes and observations of the men involved are unreliable due to the potential presence of ulterior motives.
Now, in this piece, he would like us to accept an argument based on nothing stronger than his own personal observations and anecdotes: the very sort of evidence he callously disregarded when it was offered by other men. And his conclusion? That while “Nice Guys” are actually lying and terrible people, if women make the exact same complaints they are un-terrible and telling the truth.
To be clear: this is unhelpful.
When I first heard about the Good Men Project, I was excited by its truly game-changing potential. I am tired of seeing my closest friends turn to the PUA and MRA communities merely because these are the only groups that will acknowledge their experiences, and their emotions, as real. I am tired of trying to be the lone voice of reason when faced with the dishonesty and misogyny that my friends inadvertantly pick up when travelling in these circles.
Men have real experiences. Men have real emotions. Men face real challenges.
Professor Schwyzer would do better if he remembered these basic facts in the future. Men do not always make the best choices, but their poor choices do not always reflect a made-up pathology such as “White Knight Syndrome” or being a “Nice Guy.” Instead, their choices relfect their humanity: individuals trying to do their best when time, energy, and the willpower to reason through your emotions, are all limited resources.
A white knight is not defined as a man who wants to “save” a self-destructive or as you put it ” troubled, depressed, sometimes suicidal “damsels in distress.””. A white knight comes to the defence of a woman when no defence is required and even when said woman can defence herself. He comes to rescue women when they don’t need rescuing, often at the expense of either himself or of his gender. Above all else, a white knight seeks the approval of a woman, even if self-deprecating behaviour is required to achieve this.
If anything negative is ever said about a woman or women in general that is actually truthful, like “there are more women who murder children than men”, out come the white knights to cry “misogyny! patriarchy! evil men do these things, not women!” without even taking a second to take a look at the evidence or facts.
That my friend, is what makes a guy a white knight.
Damn gang. Little bit of protesting too muc
I think that most of you are confusing what the author is calling WSK for the old “Captain Save-a-hoe” meme of the 90s. That’s why you keep thinking it’s all about weakness and deference.
This isn’t a new idea, and it clearly hit a bit of a nerve. I see a lot of former Nice Guys in the house trying to distance themselves from embarrassments of the past. Been there, and it blows, but you can go ahead and get over it without the invective. You are over it, right? Right?
I have no problem admitting that I, personally, go through this myself…and I did, in fact, have an alcoholic mother, which led me to being largely raised by my sister, who then went through a long, destructive drug phase herself. I’d never made the connection before. My current girlfriend of 6 years was a strung out tweeker/bar girl when I met her. It’s awful to say, and it’s not something I get into consciously, but I tend to think that alcoholic and tweeker women are hot. It’s kind of awful, but it exists. That’s also an anecdotal reference, but I don’t recall this article or this comment being submitted for scholarly publication.
Just cool out.
Just a jew white-knighting for a jewess, nothing of substance to see here.
The fact that this gets a thumbs up from someone disheartens me. And people wonder why I tend not to spend too much time in most comments sections.
Cherry pick much?
I don’t see how its “cherry picking” when someone makes such a racist comment.
It’s “Cherry Picking” because Professor Schwyzer purposefully chose the most offensive comment to respond to, ignoring all of the popular and well reasoned ones.
Well when you skip the first 8 or so comments that were mostly upvoted to go after one that’s been upvoted twice versus eight downvotes….
Of course this person is racist scum. But that doesn’t address the question of why you rarely respond to criticisms that are more sensible and reasoned, or why you’re so quick to use the banhammer on your own blog in response to differing opinions (only keeping around the dumbest MRA trolls like Hector as an obvious bad example). Why not just ignore the Phallusters of the world and respond to rebuttals that are actually intellectually respectable?
There are men and women both who exhibit a pattern of getting involved with people who have some serious issues and go into the whole thing figuring they can fix them, save them, improve them, whatever. Problem is 95% of the time they can’t, especially of the subject of their attention does not want saving. Humans are humans, not projects, and folk who have the white knight thing going on are better off buying a damn dog- something they CAN love, train, and will stay loyal. Getting involved with people who you see as a project or a cause is asinine, and can lead itself real easy to the WKs of the world getting hurt in a whole lot of ways. The attraction to is easy enought to understand: they are wounded and edgy and interesting or whatever, but the folk who jump in determined to save something are better off saving themselves.
Interesting piece Hugo.
I fall into this category. At first it was because I found it was difficult getting an attractive girl, but an attractive girl with self-esteem issues? Brand new ball game! I’m not proud of that, but it was certainly my m.o.
And I married a woman who is…challenging, to say the least. But I didn’t marry her because I wanted to save her. I pledged to be with her because I love her and she’s worth saving, when she needs it. You can’t totally discount the guys who are with “troubled” women because they’re genuinely in love with them. And having an overwhelming desire to take care of a woman is not a bad thing. It’s something worth of celebration. Just as she takes care of me when I’m having tough times.
Good one, Hugo! And older men do this too. (I’m using your definition rather than Linguist’s.) I had a brilliant, alcoholic mom, who died early. I was her major intellectual companion after my Dad’s death, and she was a talented, very nice looking woman, too. My head was probably screwed with on a deep level. Because I have an addictive personaiity, I tended to get with bright OCD women, rather than chemically dependent ones, with one notable exception. My current wife does not fit this pattern, however.
Linguist’s post is a good way to speak to how motivation affects perception. Hugo’s guilty of a little of that here, too. One doesn’t need to buy the idea that these guys are as pure as driven snow (I don’t) to see that avoidance of introspection may not be what these guys are trying to achieve. But seeing as a these men this way speaks to a motivation on Hugo’s part to show that, after all these years, he’s one of those guys who’ll mentor women—as if they necessarily need it and as if he’s the one for the job—until they indicate they want otherwise.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3414106/willie_nelson_shes_not_for_you/
Willie Nelson: She’s Not For You Lyrics
Songwriters: Willie Nelson
Pay no mind to her, she only wants to play
But she’s not for you, she’s not for you
And I’m the only one who would let her act this way
But she’s not for you, she’s not for you
So she told you she found heaven in your eyes
Well, I think it’s only fair to warn you that sometimes she lies.
But it’s your heart, I can’t tell you what to do
But she’s not for you, she’s not for you
She just looks for greener pastures now and then
And when she grows tired, she knows Old Faithful
Will just take her back again
So just leave her her, I’m used to feeling blue
She’s not for you, she’s not for you.
She’s not for you, she’s not for you.
One thing I find ironic about this article is that Hugo himself is the quintessential White Knight in at least one particular: his obsessive harping on the presumed crime of older men/younger women relationships. Every time Hugo tediously pontificates on this subject, which is frequently, he offers the same narrative: young women are doe-eyed, sweet innocent Little Red Riding Hoods who need protection from all those predatory Big Bad Wolves out there — and lo and behold, if it isn’t “safe” and “noble” male feminist paladins like himself (especially those still working through guilt over a history of trading sex for grades on their office desks) who are best suited to be those protectors!
Really dude. Physician, heal thyself.