I See Cartel, Not Competition

Usually, it is said that women are very competitive with each other.  Women would prefer NOT to have women bosses in that there is competition.  Women are always competing with each other for men.  Heck, if you ask why women dress the way they do, it's not even for men - it's to compete against other women. 

But while i'm sure there are strains of competition among the fairer sex, I unfortunately see more cartel-like behavior than competition.

For those of you who don't know a "cartel" is a group of companies that act like a monopoly.  For example OPEC is a cartel of different countries that produce oil.  Their intention in forming the cartel is to maximize profits.  They do this by acting as a team, and not competing against each other.  You can also see this when Lucky Luciano formed "organized crime."  Beforehand the various crime families were fighting each other for territory.  Luciano realized working together the different crime families would not only have lower deaths, but increased profits. 

Regardless, cartels are deemed "bad" because they invariably result in higher prices for the consumer.  This is why we have trust-busting and anti-trust legislation and usually break up monopolies - so many companies are competing against each other constantly improving quality and lowering prices.

I don't see that however in the "highly competitive" arena of women.

One chart if you will:

Admittedly both sexes are just as guilty, but what this chart shows me is that there is definitely no competition going on between women in the pursuit of men.  If there was the pink line would be trending downward, not upwards. Further cementing my case women are cartelling and not competing is when you combine this with their prohibitive attitudes towards dating, courtship, and marriage, not to mention their insanely long and unattainable "requirement lists" of men. Women, unconsciously or not, are keeping the supply artificially low in order to command the highest price.  No man is good enough for them, despite clamoring for "why can't I find a good man" and "where have all the good men gone?"

However, there's a funny little thing about cartels.

Sometimes a member of the cartel will "cheat."  Meaning they will break away from the group and act in their own best interests.  An example would be the oil embargoes of the 70's.  OPEC managed to drive gas prices sky high in severely limiting the supply of oil.  Prices got so high, however, members of the cartel were VERY tempted to produce a "little more" oil than they were supposed to, thus netting them significantly increased profits.

I ask the question, "why aren't some women doing the same thing?"

The reason I ask was I was discussing with a friend of mine about how simple it would be for women to snatch a man today.  All they have to do is:

1.  Be in shape.
2.  Be nice
3.  Be kind
4.  Be reasonably intelligent
5.  Be responsible/adult/mature

That's it.  That's how low of a quality product the cartel has made.  All an individual girl has to do is these five basic things and she will pretty much blow away all of her cartel sisters.  She can snatch a man, just like that.  It would be like being asking an adult to compete against 1st graders in a 2 mile run and the prize would be $5,000.  HOW CAN'T YOU COMPETE???

This is not a question about, "how come you don't want super awesome guys like us?"  It's more of a question of why, with it being so easy to compete, don't you?  If "finding a man" means that much, how hard is it to hit the treadmill, lose 10 pounds, show up on time, not play mind games, and just follow those five commonsensical rules?

Alas, I'm an economist.  Not a social-pscyhologist.  And thus, I'll just sit here bemused wondering why OPEC isn't selling more oil at $450 a barrel.