The sexual economy of the time was barter-based. It was understood that women traded sexual access for economic advancement.
Women couldn't even have their own credit cards. They had to be married and co-signed.
In that context Feynman's chapter isn't a "pick up artist" narrative at all. It's empowering.
It presents the possibility that a woman might just want to have sex, and that not trying to buy her with gifts might be a welcome reprieve from constantly having to negotiate.
The only "pickup artist" trick in the book is that he stops trying to offer women drinks as a social opener. He stops thinking that buying a woman a drink is an exchange that contributes to his chance of bedding her.
This is creepy? Not offering to intoxicate a woman in order to sleep with her is the problem?
At the end of the chapter he says something like "I never tried that again, but it certainly was interesting."
That always struck me as sad. He'd taken a step out into the world where women had agency and he gave in to the cultural pressure to step back.
I'm only addressing the book here. These other questions of behaving well with respect to students or anger are beyond my knowledge.
Feynman inspired me as a kid to study physics but I can't help but imagine that if he overlapped with Jeff Epstein that he would have been sucked into Epstein's orbit.
It presents the possibility that a woman might just want to have sex, and that not trying to buy her with gifts might be a welcome reprieve from constantly having to negotiate.
The only "pickup artist" trick in the book is that he stops trying to offer women drinks as a social opener. He stops thinking that buying a woman a drink is an exchange that contributes to his chance of bedding her.
This is creepy? Not offering to intoxicate a woman in order to sleep with her is the problem?
At the end of the chapter he says something like "I never tried that again, but it certainly was interesting."
That always struck me as sad. He'd taken a step out into the world where women had agency and he gave in to the cultural pressure to step back.
I'm only addressing the book here. These other questions of behaving well with respect to students or anger are beyond my knowledge.