As a married male retiree with successful career behind me and 3 grown up children, I am not in the male grievance group described. Nor is my marriage economically traditional since my feminist minded wife has an ongoing successful career and independent economic security.
This article can be summed up as saying to young men, "get your act together losers."
What it completely fails to capture is nearly every significant change in the labour market (other than gender participation) that has taken place since 1980. So it misses deindustrialisation and the move to service economies, the decline of trade unions, stagnant wage rates, massive and growing inequality, technological advance, the capture of government policy by financial interests, the lack (in the US - until Biden's IRA) of regeneration policies, and above all the unsustainability of the present economic system leading to ecological breakdown.
This analysis casts womens increased economic power in personalised terms as a revolt against patriarchy. It ignores the changes brought about by the combination of birth control, the export of industrial jobs to developing countries and the rise of the service economy which made the sort of work women are content to do, much more available.
The article is a good example of the condemnatory media environment that boys face dominated by feminised agendas, a schooling system run by women with political and behavioural values that favour girls, fatherlessness caused as much as anything, by the economic pressure in men's traditional fields of employment described above, the widespread economic pressure on families generally and the prevalence of drugs and alcohol abuse.
What is feminism? We are told it is a drive for equality. But the feminism of this article is a kind of neo-liberal female triumphalism born of a individualised girl boss outlook devoid of any real sociological insight whose moral
The world has changed. Men don’t provide much anymore that women can’t provide for themselves, and men come home from the same 9-5 white collar or service work their female partners do, expecting special privileges that they don’t earn anymore.
Women were convinced for most of human history that there was a massive potential gap between them and men, but I can tell you, that was always a lie. Now we know- most jobs men can do, women genuinely can do just as well.
That cat isn’t going back in the bag- men need to change their model of marriage or theyre going to end up alone, because women have no reason to want them.
This is simply a fact now. Please adapt accordingly or perish- no amount of chest thumping MRA raving or pathetic whining is going to turn the USA into Saudi Arabia. That age of men is over. And if you want it back? You’re just proving us right about you.
Men do this, men do that. All men? Some men? How would you know? How many men have you observed? A whole lot of generalization going on without a wit of evidence. Made up narrative to sooth the soul. What I have seen throughout my long working life and marriage is a complete change from an entrenched patriarchal system to a fully balanced one. I'm sure the patriarchy persists somewhere in the West but I do not see it in my social or business circles. There is no more privileged group today than [upper middle class / professional] women.
Upper middle class / professional women have more privilege than their male counterparts, especially with respect to the workplace, but also around several other societal issues.
Because I'm not agreeing with you? You assume too much and are wrong. Firstly I'm not a dude whatever that is. And what's delusional is thinking that upper middle class / professional women are oppressed by a patriarchy. When I was young that was the case. I knew capable women in my cohort who looked at management and thought there was no point in pursuing it because they would never be allowed to achieve it. Some perservered and made it but many gave up (and having children didn't help). Contrast that to the past decade (or two - depends on the industry) where many women, including those who were less capable, have been thrust into management positions. Privileging people who have not been discrimated against, at the expense of those who have not been privileged, is wrong. Merit is a thing.
Successful families are made from two people who are prepared work hard at it, who have a certain moral quality and live in a generally supportive political and economic community. If as a society you systematically degrade the economic basis of community life, which is what the modern capitalist model has done, none of this will work.
So the problem isn’t feminism, it’s capitalism. Even if you changed the economic system now, the technological advances that freed women wouldn’t go away- fundamentally men would still need to change in order to actually offer something as partners. Why should that be so devastating to you? It’s not like you were happy before. Ballanchain amirite bois? 🤪
I agree that the problem is capitalism and for all the reasons pointed out in the post and in your comments, men and women are now pitched against each other as threats. Naturally that's going to create change and conflict and naturally some men won't like that.
I will also say that your replies are pretty rude and antagonistic. Some men are struggling and your response lacks any sympathy whatsoever and amounts to little more than "suck it." That is certainly your prerogative. You are under no obligation to have sympathy or to be empathetic or nice now that men are getting a tiny taste of the struggle women endured. But it's not exactly shocking that some subset of men respond with resentment and anger. Also not shocking they blame feminism as a convenient bogeyman. Feminism doesn't tell women to not care about men or to hate men and mostly I think the blame should be on capitalism and the individual. The main problem with Andrew Tate is not that he's a man nor is it the patriarchy. The main problem is that he's an awful person and that capitalism rewards him for being an awful person.
To be even handed with some criticism, I would also point out that some of Austin's comments are true, but I disagree with several of his comments particularly to the extent it blames feminism for a variety of ills, particularly fatherlessness.
I don’t have sympathy for male or female self pity, to be honest. Some people have real problems. All you’re being asked to do is not treat your partner like shit and do stuff around the house without complaining and the very thought of it is turning some of you feral. You’re right- it makes me hate some of you, honestly and deeply- but how am I supposed to help it, when people like Andrew Tate become mascots for your movement? It’s vile, and by association I’m afraid I must assume that many of you are vile, and without innate decency.
Well, I appreciate your honesty! I suspect some self-pity is a reflection of real problems so you seem to be creating a false dichotomy there.
I certainly empathize with the inclination to want to hate the Andrew Tate's of the world. I think that is incredibly counterproductive though.
I don't know what you mean by "your movement" but I loathe Andrew Tate. I think the fact you might assume I am vile because Andrew Tate and I are both male is really, really bad!
The problem you’re going to run into is that women have self respect too now. So unless uoure willing to give respect in return, only the most broken and damaged women are going to settle for your shit. 🤷♀️
You could try being nice lol I don’t know why that idea is so unthinkable to you. Good luck, anyway.
A pile of garbage. Women do less work in every single job than their male equivalent. That's the real gender pay gap. It's intersectional feminism where they ally themselves with violent misogynistic cultures that sees them making gains. And of course the daddy's little girl being pampered and protected from it's very first breath like Taylor Swift.
There's potential for those type of males to exist in workplaces for sure but they're far more likely to be called out or just turfed out unlike women that are brought into a previously majority male workplace.
You know nothing about history. Women enter the workplace during the second world war when men were out at war and it was up to women to build the machinery to keep the war going. Ever heard of Rosie the riveter. When men came back, it was clear that women could step up and get the job done and started to do so in record numbers. As prices increased over time, it took two people to sustain a household plus women enjoyed working outside of the home and found work they enjoyed or just needed to work in order to generate more income for the family. So before you open your mouth, look at a little history and see if you can get beyond your myopic vision.
Watch a couple of Judge Judy episodes where you see broke ass men taking advantage of hard working women. I've worked alongside men and worked hard enough to get promoted above them. Your position is unsustainable and foolish and to talk about Taylor Swift as daddy's little girl just smells of envy. She got where she is cause she's smart and talented and of course beautiful. Stop hating her for it.
Also I find it hilarious that in your worldview men throwing a tantrum about being expected to do some of the domestic labour is like, a legitimate reason to let civilisation collapse. So… so incredibly *weak*. Your forefathers died in trenches and you can’t put COD down long enough to dry a dish.
To continue to increase the population and overburden the resources that this wonderful earth has to offer is an unsustainable idea. It's time to wind down. And women are not here just to produce more babies. We finally figured it out and there's no going back.
You people are always so fucking hysterical, that’s the irony. Alright chicken little, our current populations are too large for the countries we live in but a 0.5% year on year drop in the fertility rate is the herald of the apocalypse. Counterpoint: actually global population decline would be a good thing for the long term sustainability of mankind and the west will be fine.
I have absolutely no qualms about doing domestic labour, at all. My problem is that, even as I have a decent job, a little apartment of my own, I land absolutely ZERO first dates. I never get a foot in the door, so to speak. I dress well, I am in decent shape, but when I try to ask women out, they all reject me. They reject me on tinder and they reject me if they are an acqaintance. The common denominator is me, whatever women want, I ain't it, God knows I've tried.
I have no idea if society will actually collapse or not, but I am 31 and ill be dangling from the ceiling way long before Ill find out.
I feel for your situation, but the real problem is that for the first time in history you can go online and have hundreds of women to choose from. And only one of them will be right for you. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. You have to endure a lot of no's. Also, are you trying to ask women out who are the most beautiful like most men do. Those women are looking for rich and successful men because that's the market they're in. And if you are rich and successful, then it's got to be your approach.That's just reality. Otherwise. there are many women who are not gorgeous maybe plain looking, or shy that would make wonderful partners and love being asked out. You have to look at your own approach if you have really had zero dates.
I dunno -- women seem to pile-up in certain departments at these white collar companies, so I don't think they're the "same 9-5 white collar jobs". This is old but I doubt its changed too much https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2007/06/art2full.pdf
No, I don't. What I see now doesn't really disprove anything stated by the table in that paper.
I mean, not that you're really saying anything either. You're speaking out of your ass in order to demonize our fathers, let alone demonize men today as being people that women don't inherently want. You strike me as person who would scream "misogyny" at any man telling you that you're acting like a cunt
My father was an excellent man who saw my excellent mother as a partner and an equal, who never once moaned about having to do things around the house and never once undermined my mother socially or in terms of her career.
You could learn a lot from him! He’s still married at 68, living extremely well on the proceeds of their combined pensions that both got through full time work at high levels.
Funny, I'm a pushing-50 married Dad of 4 kids, and I thought the article didn't go far enough in laying blame at the feet of men. Men are the problem (particularly younger ones). Now I think this means they need help as much as they need to get their shit together.
But come on. Deindustrialization affected women just as much as men, and you can't blame economic shifts for everything. Bascially, the problem boils down to laziness and narcissism driven by online culture. Young men masturbate all day to increasingly depraved porn genres when they are not playing video games for hours on end.
How could such a kid ever develop the skills to compete with go-getter girls in the career marketplace? How could he ever develop the charm and sophistication needed to entice a girl into a relationship?
He can't! It's the fricking internet AND lack of male guidance and mentoring. We need to get our boys off the internet/video game consoles and also to create mentoring programs for them in addition to encourging more paternal interaction.
Also, if economic conditions were to shift and start disproportionately and negatively affecting women - say, if fields that are predominantly female were to suffer layoffs from large-scale automation, for example - would the author take that into account or would they just insinuate that women are somehow to be blamed for that predicament?
what bothers me so much is that you can write a book an explain why men are so unmarriable, but heavens forbid if you say slightest negative thing against any cohort of women.
I love your work, and think your analysis is pretty right, but all the data you show regarding who gets to partner suggests that money remains a serious motive for women. Do unpartnered men have lower education and income because they are unpartnered, or are they unpartnered because they lack education and (therefore) money? Or does education and money somehow increase a man's entertainment qualifications? When a woman advertises that she's looking for a man in finance, is she looking for charm? Having been around men in finance for much of my life, I can't say she'd be sure to find it there in abundance.
I just listened to a podcast the other day where Richard Reeves claimed that when he has talked to women, they say that their preference for men with higher earnings is more about being with a man who has his stuff together than it is about the money. They want someone who is going to be a good partner, and someone who has a good career usually is also someone who will do the dishes, cook, get up with the kids at night, etc. Granted that this was in the context of the US and the UK, so it may not hold for East Asia.
There are loads of men who would be willing to do the dishes, cook, get up with the kids at night etc, who do not have a "good" career in the monetary sense. There may be some women who will accept these men, but imo many require the money as well.
I used to not have my stuff together around money until I realize that it was a big problem so I went into programs to help me get organized around finances. Since taking that program seriously, I've had two successful businesses one of which I currently still have and I love. I really couldn't handle being with a man who was in debt and didn't know how to manage his finances and generate a good income. I'm not talking about Rich but enough money to take care of himself and have some left over for fun and savings. Is that too much to ask?
Basically, his earnings have to be high enough that they are better than marrying the government.
Marrying the government can come directly in the form of benefits (single mother household is guaranteed around 50-60k in consumption + 17k per kid in K-12) or employment (a job working in Eds and meds, HR, etc).
Sometimes money is money, sometimes money is a proxy for power or for general human capital.
What I think absolutely kills a man’s marriage prospect is when women know or think he’s a net negative on the family budget either due to salary or other behavior (gambling, not being a reliable person). What is the incentive to stay together then?
At least for the purposes of a more normative analysis (which to be fair may not be your intention with this piece), it does seem relevant to distinguish between reasonable and sympathetic forms of selectivity, such as women rejecting men who are unfaithful, lazy, or uncomfortable with gender equality, and childish/superficial forms of selectivity, such as rejecting men who aren’t tall enough or don’t have a sufficiently impressive sounding job title. The former would be an unambiguously positive outcome of female empowerment. The latter, less so.
The lies women tell themselves. I grew up in West Africa and was raised by strong men and women but the women took the lead in raising us. I didn't know women were these weak things that hated the men around them until I moved to the United States. I'm close to 40 years old, 2 kids and a fantastic wife. The best lesson I've learned about is from my 106 years old grandmother 'dont trust what a women, trust in what she does/her action. The majority of women in the west marry for money and will tell you it's about love.
A lot is missing here, eg in your interviews did you interview men too? Why the assumption that the entire shift is down to change in women’s choices?
Also, im curious if you’re planning a follow up namely: are women happier with being single and Childless more frequently? How does this trend relate to the epidemic of loneliness?
Finally, are things like demanding an entertaining opener in a dating up genuinely being more selective or rather effectively so? Where does the shift in the means of dating come in? To what extent changes in standards are exacerbated by worse methods to find a good match (ie how much is it fewer men considered good enough, how much is it that men are actually getting worse and how much is it that they are simply harder to find ? You seem to only consider the first of the three?)
Rejecting men who make less, and expecting men to still pay the check on dates when she has her own career is a major limiting factor.
This is one of the main topics of conversation on the RedPill podcasts. That women making a lot more than the average national salary are still looking for a man who makes more than her, but can't find that man because he's not looking for a woman who will put her career first.
The mismatch where attempts at equality have tried to equalize all the benefits accrued to men by patriarchy while still holding onto the benefits accrued to women from patriarchy.
Every man who makes a lot of money dates down economically. Women who make a lot of money don't want to date down, and thus struggle to find a match because their male peers are dating poorer hotter women.
I’d put it differently. I’d say there are still plenty of men and women who at a subconscious gut level still look to conform to expectations of patriarchal inequality, hence women who look for a man who is “above them” (in height of course but also money) and men who look for a woman “below” in the same ways. It’s unfortunate and one wonders if it’s slowly changing for both genders as equality is internalized.
People can be exploitative jerks, and that’s true for all genders, even if the opportunities vary. But it’s also the case that at other times certain expectations come from a deeper place. Men who feel they need a sense of “conquest” and won’t want a woman who explicitly ask them out, or proposes marriage. And vise versa for women’s traditionalist outlook. Ditto for money. And -notoriously- men’s continued reluctance to be equal partners in house chores and responsibilities for the kids (sometimes facilitated by women’s attitude). Needless to say there are many exceptions, but the all too frequent mismatch between progress towards equality and lingering inegalitarian expectations creates societal growing pains so to speak.
I don't think that's quite it. When a woman has a baby she is vulnerable -- physically and economically. So, even a woman who is strong and independent and doesn't need a man will still desire a man who can take care of her when they start a family. Because she will bearing the larger cost. If two people are dating for a childless union then she should 100% pay her way.
This is really not a thing. If you look at the marriage stats, they go up with income. People do their dating in college or in upper class mixers. The people who aren't getting married are the low-income ones. Where the woman can replace a deadbeat with any other sperm donor and fail to see a loss in her life.
I think you could argue that having kids is a little like going to the gym or quitting smoking: there's a lot of medium-term effort and sacrifice before you get to see your entire life story improve.
Humans have a natural bias towards under-performing those activities, but when there was strong social pressure for marriage and parenthood it overcame that bias. The trick would be finding some other way to overcome it, while still retaining freedom of choice.
(I say it's enormous cash child benefits, but that's me being a reductive econ major)
As far as I've read: it's been really hard to generate good, long term data on sperm counts in men. This it's been hard to meaningful test different hypothesis about sperm counts.
However, there is a really good long-term dataset from the UK on breeding dog sperm counts . It has shown consistent decline over many decades.
So it's likely that we have an environmental (not cultural!) interference in male fertility in mammals.
This is really fascinating stuff - you convinced me!! But as someone who was one of the oft-ghosted men not all that long ago (until I met my current, wonderful girlfriend), I would have appreciated if the article had used more neutral language.
The article’s language seems to insinuate that it’s men’s fault that they aren’t getting dates - they aren’t charming enough, aren’t desirable enough partners, etc. - and that any negative feelings created by that are ultimately rooted in misogynistic expectations. I doubt this is the full story. For example, is it possible that (for cultural or biological reasons) the demand for sex/relationships is higher for men than for women? (With some of the reasons for the drop in demand from women being those your article discusses) If so, this could drive a lot of dissatisfaction with dating - no failing on men’s part required. Another possibility is that while gendered expectations for women have weakened, gendered expectations for men have remained strong, creating an unfair playing field wherein men have to prove their worth to a greater degree.
Edit:
Your dismissal of men’s complaints about gendered expectations (having to pay for stuff) was surprising to me too. I’ve followed your writing for long enough to doubt that you’d similarly dismiss gendered expectations for women.
I like this article as an example of "the medium is the message", and will be bookmarking it as such. The content of the article says "men are being left behind by women's advancement in representation in the institutions" while the diction says "...and that's a good thing".
I don’t think this is fair. While it seems to me that Alice is blaming the problem on men, it doesn’t seem to me that she thinks it’s not a problem (or at least, it doesn’t seem that she thinks it’s thing to be celebrated).
Also not sure what the McLuhan quote has to do with any of this - I don’t think the language I’m referring to would say anything different if this was a book, TV show, or podcast
I'm taking the "medium" to be the diction and not necessarily the physical media. Perhaps a bit abstract and if I'm using that incorrectly I stand to be corrected. "Content and character of the message", after all.
All of the references to women are bent positively while those toward men are bent negatively. This is best encapsulated in the following: "Young women are no longer entering offices as junior secretaries, ready to answer men’s beck and call". To make this even slightly more neutral would be to replace "men" with "the boss" and it would still paint women as a tenacious underdog under the tyranny of some boss.
That specific quote you pulled out seems unobjectionable to me. Women did in fact used to be secretaries, answering men’s beck and call. Now, thankfully, we’re moving away from that norm
Most men were not bosses ever. Most men toiled under the same tyrrany under which women toiled. Most men did not have any woman at their beck and call. To represent all men by the bosses is misleading, inflamatory and offensive. This is a problem with many feminist articles and a problem with feminist arguments in general. "Men" is not a monolith. How can any of us discuss these issues when the language is fundamentally unsuited to capture reality.
Sure, it would portray the past norm less negatively. But I don’t have an issue with portraying the past norm negatively - I believe in gender equality. What I have an issue with is portraying men’s current frustration with dating norms as their own fault, and/or a result of their misogynistic expectations. That quote doesn’t have anything to do with that.
This is a frankly, pretty poorly conceived of post IMO, and deeply frustrating to me how much of it comes across as vapid and without solid grounding in facts, or seriously considers alternative explanations, or the degree to which the author is clearly dismissive and confrontational (team feminism [good] vs team anti-feminism [evil]).
If I had to highlight one part that I think encapsulates this, it is the paying for dates:
> A prime example is the ongoing debate over who should pay for dates. "If women want equality, they can share the tab!" is a refrain I hear repeatedly from young men. As a dispassionate observer, I view this as a matter of personal preference - some individuals enjoy traditional gender roles, and the dating market allows for self-selection. However, on male-dominated filter bubbles this is hyped into another instance of sexist discrimination, where yet again men are disadvantaged.
First, you're clearly not a dispassionate observer here. You have an obvious ideological stake in this.
Second, this isn't just a matter of "self-selection", plenty of guys are pretty open about paying due to social pressure to do so, or the understanding that they will be basically shut out of a very high percentage of dates if they don't.
Third, why do you get to determine this isn't a big deal? You're not the one expected to do this, shouldn't we listen to the people (men) who deal with this expectation, or who object to being put in this position, rather than to you? If you can say that other people's concerns are unimportant, than which of your concerns are you willing to have other people say are unimportant?
She's correct though, in that this particular issue is one that's based more of people's preference for traditional v. egalitarian dating/relationships, not gender. There's been plenty of research into this, and there are not more women than men that expect/want men to pay. Instead, there's just a big discrepancy where roughly half of each group have expectations one way or the other. Some women are bothered by men who insist on paying, some are bothered by men who don't offer to pay, and the same goes the other way around, too. So if some men are bothered by this -- which I can fully understand why they would be, if they're expecting more egalitarianism on a date -- it's more a matter that they're dating the wrong group of women, with a mis-matched preference on this measure.
I'm not sure I totally understand this argument. It seems like the point might be something like, "if there are roughly equally sized populations X and X', such that whatever trait you're looking for has at least someone of the opposite sex that is willing to provide it, then really all you have to do is date around and find that person, but you don't have to actually get upset at the opposite sex, since you just have to sort through everyone to find someone in X'".
Assuming this is an accurate understanding (a big assumption), then I don't think this is a good basis for expecting/justifying grievance against the opposite gender. If the "excess" Korean women who wanted a non-traditionalist lifestyle suddenly switched to being traditionalist, do you think the remainder would suddenly not be aggrieved with the large number of traditionalist men, and dealing with having them in the dating pool? I would suspect not. (To support this, think about the rhetoric around say, abortion, which has inspired a lot of grief to be thrown at men, despite men and women generally having had generally similar overall views).
I also have looked through the polling data, and don't think your description really captures the situation very accurately, especially with regards to women who think "the asker should pay" (which they then influence by not asking men out nearly as often as vise versa), men responding to surveys/being willing to pay on the basis of what gets them laid (interpretation of "should"), women sending dishonest signals (offering to pay when they want the man to pay), exploiting the situation for free meals when they're uninterested .etc.
As a man who only ever split the bill edit: *except* on his first first date, it really isn't remotely as simple as this, and women's behavior and preferences are a non-trivial factor.
Well if you've only ever split the bill, then what's the problem? I see no problem. I have also only ever split bills (or just paid them myself bc this seems like a non-issue to me, and I've never had any man have a problem with it other than like maybe 10% or less who strongly wanted to pay, which I thought was a little weird and those dates never ended up going anywhere bc probably we weren't on the same page anyway. It just seems to me that when there are literally millions of singles to choose from, and plenty on both sides, I don't see why this would be a big issue. If a guy does not want to pay (which I can fully understand), there are thousands of potential dates who wouldn't expect him to. To me it just seems like there are plenty of wayyyyy more skewed situations where someone truly has only a very tiny pool of potential options to fish in, and this isn't really one of them. But also I would expect that one's stance towards this topic reflects other general stances, so it's probably something people should TRY to match on. If you're looking for a relationship with old fashioned gender roles around money, it's probably a waste of time dating someone who has a more egalitarian view, and vice versa. If anything it's a good right-out-of-the-gate signal, so people don't waste time on someone who is likely not a good match.
That I got away with it doesn't mean it isn't a problem. I was in the American South and it was not subtle that as a man you were trading a non-trivial amount of options and success if you didn't want to pay. There is intrasex competition and if a woman has only one Friday night, and one man is paying for dinner and the other isn't, who do you think she is going to spend it with?
I think you would be shocked at the number of generally liberal or left-of-center women who still expect men to pay. Even women who are openly feminists make arguments in favor of the man paying (or "the asker" [read: the man] paying). I don't think it tracks nearly as cleanly as you are suggesting with general views on traditionalism (although there is some correlation), and thus isn't a good filtering condition. There are plenty of women you could have a great relationship with if you just get through those first X dates of paying for everything.
You're also missing that this isn't something that, as a man, I can easily just filter based on. Leading with "oh and we're going Dutch", isn't a winner even among sympathetic women (kills the vibe), and actually going on a bunch of first dates doesn't fix things. Simply having to navigate and deal with this (and the inevitable fallout of a few of these conversations), is annoying, and the alternative comes at direct cost. If you don't want to deal with this, you could just let the guy pay when he insists and come out ahead, if I don't want to deal with this, I end up behind.
That there exist worse situations in be in that limit your options more doesn't negate the fact that this is a popularly socially accepted way in which women are directly advantaged at the cost to men, and that as a man you have to trade really quite basic equal treatment against dating success. It is, to me, a gross practice, that, were it truly banished to obscure traditionalist corners, I'd agree with you, but it is really rather endemic to dating as a whole, even now.
I also don't see how your arguments here don't equally apply to these Korean women who want to be non-traditional wives. Unlike with paying on the date, it is a lot easier to bring up and discuss explicitly earlier, and if it isn't well desired then, just like with paying on the date, you need to accept that it'll hurt your dating prospects and try to compensate in other ways to get the type of partner you want. That's the whole point of "dating market" dynamics. Just because women want something, doesn't really mean much, they have to either deal with men, who also have their own wants and desires, or they have to not deal at all.
It's not just about paying for dates. It's just one example of a whole suite of social norms set up under the assumption that men are privileged in society. Genuine feminism entails both removing male privileges and the social norms built around the assumption of male privilege. Unfortunately, a lot of self-described feminists are much more enthusiastic about the former than the latter.
I don’t know that I’d agree that the premise is male privilege, so much as it is the premise that women are more in demand than men and men are competing for them. Even under a system where women don’t work, it could still be an expectation that her father paid (for someone to court his daughter / take her off his hands) ala dowry systems.
It's interesting how you mention the lack of stigma associated with female singledom. Seems like perhaps the trajectory has gone in the opposite direction for male singledom. I remember when I was in high school during the 2000s, the feminist perspective of the time was something like: "Patriarchical norms mean women are shamed for having too much sex, and men are shamed for having too little. That's silly! The amount of sex you have is your business!" I took that to heart, and prioritized other pursuit over finding a girlfriend. Now I wake up in the 2020s and find that "incel" has become an all-purpose insult that feminists use for men they don't like. There's definitely a sense of betrayal there.
If you chose not to have a girlfriend, then you're not an incel. The 'in' stands for 'involuntary'.
I am not certain that 'incel' is a word feminists use to insult men, but if you're not one, then I wouldn't worry about it. A better question would be to ask yourself why feminists would want to insult you?
It seems hard to deny that using the term “incel” as an insult stigmatizes partnerlessness for men. This isn’t something I’ve experienced myself, but I see it frequently.
The blog post mentions female success as a driver of male resentment. But I think there’s an alternative explanation here, which is that callousness towards men has become incredibly normalized. Imagine a woman received an insult, and someone else commented by saying: “a good question would be to ask yourself why that person wanted to insult you”.
“Incel” is a term that originated as an online self description for men who were involuntarily celibate. It’s become synonymous with the online sphere where these men congregate and the culture that exists within it. At this point, calling someone an incel is more about branding them with the belonging to the subculture of resentful, low status men.
Well sure, another way of putting it is that the term "incel" creates an association in the public mind between male singledom and resentful low status. So it has the net effect of stigmatizing singledom for men.
Almost no one is careful to differentiate between the celibacy sense of the term and the online-subculture sense of the term. Feminists become less principled in their advocacy with every passing year, so at this point "not upholding patriarchical gender norms" takes a backseat to delivering putdowns.
Factually, it may be true that successful, powerful men are more likely to be single. See this video for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z62YOHP1uc One could argue that to find a girlfriend, it helps to be a loser with nothing better to do than spend hours and hours swiping on dating apps.
All I'm claiming is that singledom is considered more empowering for women than for men -- and that we'd be better of if that weren't the case. We'd have greater gender equality, less misogyny, less violence against women, better men's mental health, and less pointless social stigma. The way it's currently set up, a 19 year old man who wants a gf goes online, reads all the brutally cruel things women have to say about "incels", and runs straight into the arms of the red pill manosphere where he's offered a shred of compassion, respect, and empathy. Really seems like a never-ending cycle.
I think it's more the case that being celibate has a poor effect on the human brain. Sometimes it drives people to do crazy but productive things, and sometimes the opposite. Unfortunately, in many cases it causes people to rage against the opposite sex for depriving them of the sex they need. Therefore, involuntary celibates of both the male and female persuasion are quite toxic and probably driving the gender wars more than they ought to.
Even so, is having trouble finding a girlfriend something that should be made fun of? I guess they'll say that they're using it for misogynists, but then it draws an association with having trouble finding a girlfriend with misogyny. I'm not sure if that association is at all real - plenty of misogynists have no trouble attracting women, while there are objectively less misogynistic men who struggle to do the same.
"Incel" Is for men who complain about not having girlfriends on the internet. It can also be used for other behaviors associated with the "terminally online and complaining." I do not think it get used much by offline people complaining about offline male behaviors.
Why is it considered a man's job to be interesting? Do women ever realize how uninteresting they can be? Perhaps we should stop viewing everything solely through the lens of patriarchy and instead consider the balance of power and the roles of genders as a component.
This is precisely a problem that feminists agree is a problem. Men often have no issue with dating and even marrying women they find uninsteresting. This leads to plenty of men still agreeing to put up with a women as long as they gain access to sex and get children they are not forced to care for on their own. A woman can do all the aforementioned on her own. Sure, she needs a man in order to procreate, but if she doesn't feel like putting up with his ways (inconsideration, lack of respect, the simple brained mode of life), then if she doesn't also *want* the man, she often finds no motivation to have those children to raise on her own, plus a man who doesn't like her on top of it. Feminists agree it'd be easier if men did the same.
I don't think so. The sheer number of single mothers says that a lot of sock-breeding is going on. Men ejaculate into women they don't really care about, and the women jettison them for that reason.
I would want to agree, but I can also easily imagine a woman in the right situation would prefer to be a single mother by choice (I work with three SMBCs, and the number is growing) and the number seems to growing. I'm also impressed at all the 20-something women I work with exploring that as a viable choice. That said, my company is one of the few that has amazing benefits for parents, so I'm not sure if that can be said for all single mothers. Still, if financially viable, I would not doubt that women might choose that route over having to date, marry, and breed with a man.
Once women got the vote, they started voting themselves male incomes. Life of Julia doesn’t have a man in it, but it has a lot of government checks paid for by men.
You’ve heard of “why buy the cow if you get the milk for free”. Well, why marry the man when you can get his income for free.
Even when employed, women are mostly in government and government adjacent jobs. Eds and Meds, HR and bureaucracy. Nobody can measure any kind of value add in this stuff but it keeps growing as a % of gdp because the government mandates it. its welfare for the professional (female) class.
I don’t see this changing anytime soon. As more women and single and the population ages, the dependency ratio will get worse and the dependents will vote for more. Men and women will opt out of being providers or taking on additional financial burdens (children).
It seems as if almost everything about the drop in fertility is positive: fewer children born to women who didn't want children, fewer children born to very young women, fewer children born to women in unhappy partnerships, fewer children born to women who didn't have other sources of meaning in their lives.
The only problem is how to keep it from resulting in the disappearance of humanity.
Disagree. There are low marriage rates at the bottom of society but still plenty of children being born. They're just being born out of wedlock to overwhelmed mothers who can't possibly do a good job raising them.
The people not having children are the middle and upper class who have the money but prefer to use it elsewhere.
From what I can see, humanity can do some disappearing. There are so many many many people who should not be having children. The fact that just anybody can have a child is a pretty serious problem.
It's not that women are ghosting the patriarchy. They're ghosting men that *aren't* part of the patriarchy (high status, wealthy, and otherwise influential men). The patriarchy is still doing fine with women, it's men who fail to join that segment of society who are failing to find partners.
Ironically it's the same conclusion as much of the manosphere, just articulated in a less overtly sexist tone: women are mostly interested in men that outearn them, so the consequences of pushing for equity is that there aren't enough marriageable men to go around.
To what extent are we perhaps encountering a vicious cycle for men, eg that female dominance in teaching relates to worsening academic performance by boys (even as academic excellence itself shifts in terms of gender expectations from being male coded to female coded)? Ditto for academia, publishing and hence reading (women in the aggregate more likely to write books appealing to women)? In other words we are shifting in some fields from systemic biases in favor of men to systemic biases in favor of women, having failed to “pause” at the theoretical point of minimal bias and equality ?
Not sure about women being great, but yeah, a lot of men are actually pretty shit. Men are way more likely to cheat, be violent with their partner, have a drinking problem, gamble away the family's money, shirk on household duties, avoid childcare, and even be more likely to be overweight or obese.
Even on the less serious stuff, take behaviour on dates, I've only got personal anecdotes and experience here, but the man is way more likely to talk over the women, talk about themselves the whole time, drone on about a topic without the women showing the slightest sign of interest...
Obviously this is not nearly all men, and women can definitely be assholes as well, but the numbers we see above are in my view pretty well explained by there being a bottom quarter or so of very low quality men who don't bring much to the table, literally or figuratively.
Men I know with their shit together and who clearly indicate they're willing to contribute equally are not having problems dating outside of early twenties.
It's so telling that the claim that men are more likely to cheat is still being presented as fact 😂. Every male/female sexual encounter registers as a 1:1.So the asymmetry in those totals are explained by any or all of 1)throwing in an assumption that the males used hookers,2)the males in relationships are hooking up with(being targetted by?) single women 3)females exaggerating the cheating, or 4) a cohort of males don't know that they're being cheated on too!
That element is contained in the 2nd category. And whatever level of that clear hypergamy there is creates a distinct" doping" effect in the younger generation
I think your unified theory of marriage may be biased towards the female perspective. For men I would say that some primary reasons would be children, care work, and sex. I don't think these are the only drivers and I think they could be argued to fall under the posited reasons of love, money, and respect but I think they are distinct factors.
Getting married isn't the only way to have children but it is the most sure fire way to get there. You could say that the drive to have children is driven by someone's love for children and to be loved by them, by their need for their legacy to be respected, or for their need for their children to care for them when they are older but I think it should stand alone as a category.
Money is mentioned as a driver but traditionally men weren't and arguably still aren't worried about a woman's income so long as she can cook, clean, and take care of their kids. The unfair trade of men's financial support for the family in exchange for women's unpaid care work has broken down and both are now expected to contribute in equal share to care work and finance but many men seem not to have gotten this message.
The people I know who have gone from dating to married the quickest are those with backgrounds that greatly stigmatize premarital sex. Additionally the association for men that do engage in premarital sex that marriage = more sex for less work than before should not be discounted. The proliferation of endless and easy to access internet porn could be a driver of declining marriage rates. Because why do all this work to get married for sex when I have this facsimile of sex here at home at my beck and call.
I get you, but I think marriage, understood in a western-centric sense, as a long-term investment is a single nuclear family unit, is not necessary for reproduction. What you are after is "parental investment in offspring".
As a married male retiree with successful career behind me and 3 grown up children, I am not in the male grievance group described. Nor is my marriage economically traditional since my feminist minded wife has an ongoing successful career and independent economic security.
This article can be summed up as saying to young men, "get your act together losers."
What it completely fails to capture is nearly every significant change in the labour market (other than gender participation) that has taken place since 1980. So it misses deindustrialisation and the move to service economies, the decline of trade unions, stagnant wage rates, massive and growing inequality, technological advance, the capture of government policy by financial interests, the lack (in the US - until Biden's IRA) of regeneration policies, and above all the unsustainability of the present economic system leading to ecological breakdown.
This analysis casts womens increased economic power in personalised terms as a revolt against patriarchy. It ignores the changes brought about by the combination of birth control, the export of industrial jobs to developing countries and the rise of the service economy which made the sort of work women are content to do, much more available.
The article is a good example of the condemnatory media environment that boys face dominated by feminised agendas, a schooling system run by women with political and behavioural values that favour girls, fatherlessness caused as much as anything, by the economic pressure in men's traditional fields of employment described above, the widespread economic pressure on families generally and the prevalence of drugs and alcohol abuse.
What is feminism? We are told it is a drive for equality. But the feminism of this article is a kind of neo-liberal female triumphalism born of a individualised girl boss outlook devoid of any real sociological insight whose moral
outlook is "I'm alright Jack."
The world has changed. Men don’t provide much anymore that women can’t provide for themselves, and men come home from the same 9-5 white collar or service work their female partners do, expecting special privileges that they don’t earn anymore.
Women were convinced for most of human history that there was a massive potential gap between them and men, but I can tell you, that was always a lie. Now we know- most jobs men can do, women genuinely can do just as well.
That cat isn’t going back in the bag- men need to change their model of marriage or theyre going to end up alone, because women have no reason to want them.
This is simply a fact now. Please adapt accordingly or perish- no amount of chest thumping MRA raving or pathetic whining is going to turn the USA into Saudi Arabia. That age of men is over. And if you want it back? You’re just proving us right about you.
Men do this, men do that. All men? Some men? How would you know? How many men have you observed? A whole lot of generalization going on without a wit of evidence. Made up narrative to sooth the soul. What I have seen throughout my long working life and marriage is a complete change from an entrenched patriarchal system to a fully balanced one. I'm sure the patriarchy persists somewhere in the West but I do not see it in my social or business circles. There is no more privileged group today than [upper middle class / professional] women.
Sure sure, “not all men” 🙄
As for upper middle class women having privilege- you’re saying the men don’t? Or that that’s a big enough part of the population to matter to me?
Upper middle class / professional women have more privilege than their male counterparts, especially with respect to the workplace, but also around several other societal issues.
I think this is delusional, honestly. You, my dude, are not upper middle class and it shows.
Because I'm not agreeing with you? You assume too much and are wrong. Firstly I'm not a dude whatever that is. And what's delusional is thinking that upper middle class / professional women are oppressed by a patriarchy. When I was young that was the case. I knew capable women in my cohort who looked at management and thought there was no point in pursuing it because they would never be allowed to achieve it. Some perservered and made it but many gave up (and having children didn't help). Contrast that to the past decade (or two - depends on the industry) where many women, including those who were less capable, have been thrust into management positions. Privileging people who have not been discrimated against, at the expense of those who have not been privileged, is wrong. Merit is a thing.
Successful families are made from two people who are prepared work hard at it, who have a certain moral quality and live in a generally supportive political and economic community. If as a society you systematically degrade the economic basis of community life, which is what the modern capitalist model has done, none of this will work.
So the problem isn’t feminism, it’s capitalism. Even if you changed the economic system now, the technological advances that freed women wouldn’t go away- fundamentally men would still need to change in order to actually offer something as partners. Why should that be so devastating to you? It’s not like you were happy before. Ballanchain amirite bois? 🤪
I agree that the problem is capitalism and for all the reasons pointed out in the post and in your comments, men and women are now pitched against each other as threats. Naturally that's going to create change and conflict and naturally some men won't like that.
I will also say that your replies are pretty rude and antagonistic. Some men are struggling and your response lacks any sympathy whatsoever and amounts to little more than "suck it." That is certainly your prerogative. You are under no obligation to have sympathy or to be empathetic or nice now that men are getting a tiny taste of the struggle women endured. But it's not exactly shocking that some subset of men respond with resentment and anger. Also not shocking they blame feminism as a convenient bogeyman. Feminism doesn't tell women to not care about men or to hate men and mostly I think the blame should be on capitalism and the individual. The main problem with Andrew Tate is not that he's a man nor is it the patriarchy. The main problem is that he's an awful person and that capitalism rewards him for being an awful person.
To be even handed with some criticism, I would also point out that some of Austin's comments are true, but I disagree with several of his comments particularly to the extent it blames feminism for a variety of ills, particularly fatherlessness.
I don’t have sympathy for male or female self pity, to be honest. Some people have real problems. All you’re being asked to do is not treat your partner like shit and do stuff around the house without complaining and the very thought of it is turning some of you feral. You’re right- it makes me hate some of you, honestly and deeply- but how am I supposed to help it, when people like Andrew Tate become mascots for your movement? It’s vile, and by association I’m afraid I must assume that many of you are vile, and without innate decency.
Well, I appreciate your honesty! I suspect some self-pity is a reflection of real problems so you seem to be creating a false dichotomy there.
I certainly empathize with the inclination to want to hate the Andrew Tate's of the world. I think that is incredibly counterproductive though.
I don't know what you mean by "your movement" but I loathe Andrew Tate. I think the fact you might assume I am vile because Andrew Tate and I are both male is really, really bad!
You're privileged in every single second of your existence and your prejudice won't let you see it
And why would any man with the teeniest modicum of self-respect have any interest in a woman with the attitude espoused here?
The problem you’re going to run into is that women have self respect too now. So unless uoure willing to give respect in return, only the most broken and damaged women are going to settle for your shit. 🤷♀️
You could try being nice lol I don’t know why that idea is so unthinkable to you. Good luck, anyway.
Indeed. I’d prefer to be with someone who doesn’t view the relationship as transactional. I suspect most women feel the same way.
What transaction are you opposing here?
A pile of garbage. Women do less work in every single job than their male equivalent. That's the real gender pay gap. It's intersectional feminism where they ally themselves with violent misogynistic cultures that sees them making gains. And of course the daddy's little girl being pampered and protected from it's very first breath like Taylor Swift.
You mean there are no male bludgers / goldbricks? Go on.
There's potential for those type of males to exist in workplaces for sure but they're far more likely to be called out or just turfed out unlike women that are brought into a previously majority male workplace.
You know nothing about history. Women enter the workplace during the second world war when men were out at war and it was up to women to build the machinery to keep the war going. Ever heard of Rosie the riveter. When men came back, it was clear that women could step up and get the job done and started to do so in record numbers. As prices increased over time, it took two people to sustain a household plus women enjoyed working outside of the home and found work they enjoyed or just needed to work in order to generate more income for the family. So before you open your mouth, look at a little history and see if you can get beyond your myopic vision.
Watch a couple of Judge Judy episodes where you see broke ass men taking advantage of hard working women. I've worked alongside men and worked hard enough to get promoted above them. Your position is unsustainable and foolish and to talk about Taylor Swift as daddy's little girl just smells of envy. She got where she is cause she's smart and talented and of course beautiful. Stop hating her for it.
Men won't adap,t fertily, rate will continue to plummet, and western civilization will end. Enjoy the matriarchy while you still can.
Also I find it hilarious that in your worldview men throwing a tantrum about being expected to do some of the domestic labour is like, a legitimate reason to let civilisation collapse. So… so incredibly *weak*. Your forefathers died in trenches and you can’t put COD down long enough to dry a dish.
To continue to increase the population and overburden the resources that this wonderful earth has to offer is an unsustainable idea. It's time to wind down. And women are not here just to produce more babies. We finally figured it out and there's no going back.
You people are always so fucking hysterical, that’s the irony. Alright chicken little, our current populations are too large for the countries we live in but a 0.5% year on year drop in the fertility rate is the herald of the apocalypse. Counterpoint: actually global population decline would be a good thing for the long term sustainability of mankind and the west will be fine.
I have absolutely no qualms about doing domestic labour, at all. My problem is that, even as I have a decent job, a little apartment of my own, I land absolutely ZERO first dates. I never get a foot in the door, so to speak. I dress well, I am in decent shape, but when I try to ask women out, they all reject me. They reject me on tinder and they reject me if they are an acqaintance. The common denominator is me, whatever women want, I ain't it, God knows I've tried.
I have no idea if society will actually collapse or not, but I am 31 and ill be dangling from the ceiling way long before Ill find out.
I feel for your situation, but the real problem is that for the first time in history you can go online and have hundreds of women to choose from. And only one of them will be right for you. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. You have to endure a lot of no's. Also, are you trying to ask women out who are the most beautiful like most men do. Those women are looking for rich and successful men because that's the market they're in. And if you are rich and successful, then it's got to be your approach.That's just reality. Otherwise. there are many women who are not gorgeous maybe plain looking, or shy that would make wonderful partners and love being asked out. You have to look at your own approach if you have really had zero dates.
Mate, do you think your dim view of the prospect for the future of the world might just be a bit tinged by your own depression? Just a bit? 🤏
Maybe focus less on the world and figure out what you like to do that makes you happy. Stop mythologising your own struggles. You can get past them.
> no amount of chest thumping is going to turn the USA into Saudi Arabia
Let's hope you're right, but the historical success of chest thumping is surprising
This is quite unresponsive to the substance of what he's saying.
A little counterpoint: Notice who just won the US Presidential election.
I dunno -- women seem to pile-up in certain departments at these white collar companies, so I don't think they're the "same 9-5 white collar jobs". This is old but I doubt its changed too much https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2007/06/art2full.pdf
You don’t think the workplace has changed since 2007? Uh… is that when you retired?
No, I don't. What I see now doesn't really disprove anything stated by the table in that paper.
I mean, not that you're really saying anything either. You're speaking out of your ass in order to demonize our fathers, let alone demonize men today as being people that women don't inherently want. You strike me as person who would scream "misogyny" at any man telling you that you're acting like a cunt
My father was an excellent man who saw my excellent mother as a partner and an equal, who never once moaned about having to do things around the house and never once undermined my mother socially or in terms of her career.
You could learn a lot from him! He’s still married at 68, living extremely well on the proceeds of their combined pensions that both got through full time work at high levels.
The problem with having an excellent father, is how poorly the vast majority of men hold up lol
Daddy's little girl. Paying off all your debts.
I've made reference to "sins of the father"; it sounds like you want yours to commit incest 🤔
And for what it’s worth my mother was a privation officer in an extremely dangerous time and place… is that your “typical woman’s work”?
Funny, I'm a pushing-50 married Dad of 4 kids, and I thought the article didn't go far enough in laying blame at the feet of men. Men are the problem (particularly younger ones). Now I think this means they need help as much as they need to get their shit together.
But come on. Deindustrialization affected women just as much as men, and you can't blame economic shifts for everything. Bascially, the problem boils down to laziness and narcissism driven by online culture. Young men masturbate all day to increasingly depraved porn genres when they are not playing video games for hours on end.
How could such a kid ever develop the skills to compete with go-getter girls in the career marketplace? How could he ever develop the charm and sophistication needed to entice a girl into a relationship?
He can't! It's the fricking internet AND lack of male guidance and mentoring. We need to get our boys off the internet/video game consoles and also to create mentoring programs for them in addition to encourging more paternal interaction.
Yes there is the whole issue of negative stereotyping and prejudice against boys and young men.
Great comment
Also, if economic conditions were to shift and start disproportionately and negatively affecting women - say, if fields that are predominantly female were to suffer layoffs from large-scale automation, for example - would the author take that into account or would they just insinuate that women are somehow to be blamed for that predicament?
what bothers me so much is that you can write a book an explain why men are so unmarriable, but heavens forbid if you say slightest negative thing against any cohort of women.
This is a very fair critique.
I love your work, and think your analysis is pretty right, but all the data you show regarding who gets to partner suggests that money remains a serious motive for women. Do unpartnered men have lower education and income because they are unpartnered, or are they unpartnered because they lack education and (therefore) money? Or does education and money somehow increase a man's entertainment qualifications? When a woman advertises that she's looking for a man in finance, is she looking for charm? Having been around men in finance for much of my life, I can't say she'd be sure to find it there in abundance.
Sure! Like I said at the beginning: the motives are love, money and respect. So if a man’s earnings are sufficiently high, he may be more attractive.
I just listened to a podcast the other day where Richard Reeves claimed that when he has talked to women, they say that their preference for men with higher earnings is more about being with a man who has his stuff together than it is about the money. They want someone who is going to be a good partner, and someone who has a good career usually is also someone who will do the dishes, cook, get up with the kids at night, etc. Granted that this was in the context of the US and the UK, so it may not hold for East Asia.
There are loads of men who would be willing to do the dishes, cook, get up with the kids at night etc, who do not have a "good" career in the monetary sense. There may be some women who will accept these men, but imo many require the money as well.
I used to not have my stuff together around money until I realize that it was a big problem so I went into programs to help me get organized around finances. Since taking that program seriously, I've had two successful businesses one of which I currently still have and I love. I really couldn't handle being with a man who was in debt and didn't know how to manage his finances and generate a good income. I'm not talking about Rich but enough money to take care of himself and have some left over for fun and savings. Is that too much to ask?
And you really really want to believe that don't you?!
Basically, his earnings have to be high enough that they are better than marrying the government.
Marrying the government can come directly in the form of benefits (single mother household is guaranteed around 50-60k in consumption + 17k per kid in K-12) or employment (a job working in Eds and meds, HR, etc).
Sometimes money is money, sometimes money is a proxy for power or for general human capital.
What I think absolutely kills a man’s marriage prospect is when women know or think he’s a net negative on the family budget either due to salary or other behavior (gambling, not being a reliable person). What is the incentive to stay together then?
At least for the purposes of a more normative analysis (which to be fair may not be your intention with this piece), it does seem relevant to distinguish between reasonable and sympathetic forms of selectivity, such as women rejecting men who are unfaithful, lazy, or uncomfortable with gender equality, and childish/superficial forms of selectivity, such as rejecting men who aren’t tall enough or don’t have a sufficiently impressive sounding job title. The former would be an unambiguously positive outcome of female empowerment. The latter, less so.
You're morally bankrupt!
Please lookup Gamma Bias. What you wrote is perfect description of the bias.
Yes, women dont marry down. The higher the average female income in a country, the fewer marriages you will have
The lies women tell themselves. I grew up in West Africa and was raised by strong men and women but the women took the lead in raising us. I didn't know women were these weak things that hated the men around them until I moved to the United States. I'm close to 40 years old, 2 kids and a fantastic wife. The best lesson I've learned about is from my 106 years old grandmother 'dont trust what a women, trust in what she does/her action. The majority of women in the west marry for money and will tell you it's about love.
A lot is missing here, eg in your interviews did you interview men too? Why the assumption that the entire shift is down to change in women’s choices?
Also, im curious if you’re planning a follow up namely: are women happier with being single and Childless more frequently? How does this trend relate to the epidemic of loneliness?
Finally, are things like demanding an entertaining opener in a dating up genuinely being more selective or rather effectively so? Where does the shift in the means of dating come in? To what extent changes in standards are exacerbated by worse methods to find a good match (ie how much is it fewer men considered good enough, how much is it that men are actually getting worse and how much is it that they are simply harder to find ? You seem to only consider the first of the three?)
Rejecting men who make less, and expecting men to still pay the check on dates when she has her own career is a major limiting factor.
This is one of the main topics of conversation on the RedPill podcasts. That women making a lot more than the average national salary are still looking for a man who makes more than her, but can't find that man because he's not looking for a woman who will put her career first.
The mismatch where attempts at equality have tried to equalize all the benefits accrued to men by patriarchy while still holding onto the benefits accrued to women from patriarchy.
Every man who makes a lot of money dates down economically. Women who make a lot of money don't want to date down, and thus struggle to find a match because their male peers are dating poorer hotter women.
I’d put it differently. I’d say there are still plenty of men and women who at a subconscious gut level still look to conform to expectations of patriarchal inequality, hence women who look for a man who is “above them” (in height of course but also money) and men who look for a woman “below” in the same ways. It’s unfortunate and one wonders if it’s slowly changing for both genders as equality is internalized.
I think wanting the man to pay when you have your own career is simple greed. People are always trying to optimize more for themselves.
People can be exploitative jerks, and that’s true for all genders, even if the opportunities vary. But it’s also the case that at other times certain expectations come from a deeper place. Men who feel they need a sense of “conquest” and won’t want a woman who explicitly ask them out, or proposes marriage. And vise versa for women’s traditionalist outlook. Ditto for money. And -notoriously- men’s continued reluctance to be equal partners in house chores and responsibilities for the kids (sometimes facilitated by women’s attitude). Needless to say there are many exceptions, but the all too frequent mismatch between progress towards equality and lingering inegalitarian expectations creates societal growing pains so to speak.
Try being a stay at home Dad when you're not extra soft and see how well you can assimilate into the culture of the SAHMs.
A big part of the problem as I see it is not wanting to rebalance the equation across the board.
This is not denying the good point you're making here. I think you're right that there is a deeper psychology at work and undoing it, is difficult.
I don't think that's quite it. When a woman has a baby she is vulnerable -- physically and economically. So, even a woman who is strong and independent and doesn't need a man will still desire a man who can take care of her when they start a family. Because she will bearing the larger cost. If two people are dating for a childless union then she should 100% pay her way.
For it to be a match, both parties must be flexible in the roles.
My wife makes more money than I do, and I cook more than she does. For instance.
For it to be a match, both parties must be flexible in the roles.
This is really not a thing. If you look at the marriage stats, they go up with income. People do their dating in college or in upper class mixers. The people who aren't getting married are the low-income ones. Where the woman can replace a deadbeat with any other sperm donor and fail to see a loss in her life.
I think you could argue that having kids is a little like going to the gym or quitting smoking: there's a lot of medium-term effort and sacrifice before you get to see your entire life story improve.
Humans have a natural bias towards under-performing those activities, but when there was strong social pressure for marriage and parenthood it overcame that bias. The trick would be finding some other way to overcome it, while still retaining freedom of choice.
(I say it's enormous cash child benefits, but that's me being a reductive econ major)
Isn’t one factor in reduced fertility later and fewer marriages (as well as perhaps on the margins the decline in sperm quality)?
I thought the sperm studies had, uh, failed to reproduce?
As far as I've read: it's been really hard to generate good, long term data on sperm counts in men. This it's been hard to meaningful test different hypothesis about sperm counts.
However, there is a really good long-term dataset from the UK on breeding dog sperm counts . It has shown consistent decline over many decades.
So it's likely that we have an environmental (not cultural!) interference in male fertility in mammals.
Same as always. Women are amazing, men are sh*t. let's wait for the next one.
This is really fascinating stuff - you convinced me!! But as someone who was one of the oft-ghosted men not all that long ago (until I met my current, wonderful girlfriend), I would have appreciated if the article had used more neutral language.
The article’s language seems to insinuate that it’s men’s fault that they aren’t getting dates - they aren’t charming enough, aren’t desirable enough partners, etc. - and that any negative feelings created by that are ultimately rooted in misogynistic expectations. I doubt this is the full story. For example, is it possible that (for cultural or biological reasons) the demand for sex/relationships is higher for men than for women? (With some of the reasons for the drop in demand from women being those your article discusses) If so, this could drive a lot of dissatisfaction with dating - no failing on men’s part required. Another possibility is that while gendered expectations for women have weakened, gendered expectations for men have remained strong, creating an unfair playing field wherein men have to prove their worth to a greater degree.
Edit:
Your dismissal of men’s complaints about gendered expectations (having to pay for stuff) was surprising to me too. I’ve followed your writing for long enough to doubt that you’d similarly dismiss gendered expectations for women.
I like this article as an example of "the medium is the message", and will be bookmarking it as such. The content of the article says "men are being left behind by women's advancement in representation in the institutions" while the diction says "...and that's a good thing".
I don’t think this is fair. While it seems to me that Alice is blaming the problem on men, it doesn’t seem to me that she thinks it’s not a problem (or at least, it doesn’t seem that she thinks it’s thing to be celebrated).
Also not sure what the McLuhan quote has to do with any of this - I don’t think the language I’m referring to would say anything different if this was a book, TV show, or podcast
I'm taking the "medium" to be the diction and not necessarily the physical media. Perhaps a bit abstract and if I'm using that incorrectly I stand to be corrected. "Content and character of the message", after all.
All of the references to women are bent positively while those toward men are bent negatively. This is best encapsulated in the following: "Young women are no longer entering offices as junior secretaries, ready to answer men’s beck and call". To make this even slightly more neutral would be to replace "men" with "the boss" and it would still paint women as a tenacious underdog under the tyranny of some boss.
That specific quote you pulled out seems unobjectionable to me. Women did in fact used to be secretaries, answering men’s beck and call. Now, thankfully, we’re moving away from that norm
Most men were not bosses ever. Most men toiled under the same tyrrany under which women toiled. Most men did not have any woman at their beck and call. To represent all men by the bosses is misleading, inflamatory and offensive. This is a problem with many feminist articles and a problem with feminist arguments in general. "Men" is not a monolith. How can any of us discuss these issues when the language is fundamentally unsuited to capture reality.
I see nowhere that Alice claimed, or even insinuated, that most men used to be bosses.
If I were to take out "ready to answer men's beck and call" from that quote, would that change anything about the message?
Sure, it would portray the past norm less negatively. But I don’t have an issue with portraying the past norm negatively - I believe in gender equality. What I have an issue with is portraying men’s current frustration with dating norms as their own fault, and/or a result of their misogynistic expectations. That quote doesn’t have anything to do with that.
This is a frankly, pretty poorly conceived of post IMO, and deeply frustrating to me how much of it comes across as vapid and without solid grounding in facts, or seriously considers alternative explanations, or the degree to which the author is clearly dismissive and confrontational (team feminism [good] vs team anti-feminism [evil]).
If I had to highlight one part that I think encapsulates this, it is the paying for dates:
> A prime example is the ongoing debate over who should pay for dates. "If women want equality, they can share the tab!" is a refrain I hear repeatedly from young men. As a dispassionate observer, I view this as a matter of personal preference - some individuals enjoy traditional gender roles, and the dating market allows for self-selection. However, on male-dominated filter bubbles this is hyped into another instance of sexist discrimination, where yet again men are disadvantaged.
First, you're clearly not a dispassionate observer here. You have an obvious ideological stake in this.
Second, this isn't just a matter of "self-selection", plenty of guys are pretty open about paying due to social pressure to do so, or the understanding that they will be basically shut out of a very high percentage of dates if they don't.
Third, why do you get to determine this isn't a big deal? You're not the one expected to do this, shouldn't we listen to the people (men) who deal with this expectation, or who object to being put in this position, rather than to you? If you can say that other people's concerns are unimportant, than which of your concerns are you willing to have other people say are unimportant?
She's correct though, in that this particular issue is one that's based more of people's preference for traditional v. egalitarian dating/relationships, not gender. There's been plenty of research into this, and there are not more women than men that expect/want men to pay. Instead, there's just a big discrepancy where roughly half of each group have expectations one way or the other. Some women are bothered by men who insist on paying, some are bothered by men who don't offer to pay, and the same goes the other way around, too. So if some men are bothered by this -- which I can fully understand why they would be, if they're expecting more egalitarianism on a date -- it's more a matter that they're dating the wrong group of women, with a mis-matched preference on this measure.
I'm not sure I totally understand this argument. It seems like the point might be something like, "if there are roughly equally sized populations X and X', such that whatever trait you're looking for has at least someone of the opposite sex that is willing to provide it, then really all you have to do is date around and find that person, but you don't have to actually get upset at the opposite sex, since you just have to sort through everyone to find someone in X'".
Assuming this is an accurate understanding (a big assumption), then I don't think this is a good basis for expecting/justifying grievance against the opposite gender. If the "excess" Korean women who wanted a non-traditionalist lifestyle suddenly switched to being traditionalist, do you think the remainder would suddenly not be aggrieved with the large number of traditionalist men, and dealing with having them in the dating pool? I would suspect not. (To support this, think about the rhetoric around say, abortion, which has inspired a lot of grief to be thrown at men, despite men and women generally having had generally similar overall views).
I also have looked through the polling data, and don't think your description really captures the situation very accurately, especially with regards to women who think "the asker should pay" (which they then influence by not asking men out nearly as often as vise versa), men responding to surveys/being willing to pay on the basis of what gets them laid (interpretation of "should"), women sending dishonest signals (offering to pay when they want the man to pay), exploiting the situation for free meals when they're uninterested .etc.
As a man who only ever split the bill edit: *except* on his first first date, it really isn't remotely as simple as this, and women's behavior and preferences are a non-trivial factor.
Well if you've only ever split the bill, then what's the problem? I see no problem. I have also only ever split bills (or just paid them myself bc this seems like a non-issue to me, and I've never had any man have a problem with it other than like maybe 10% or less who strongly wanted to pay, which I thought was a little weird and those dates never ended up going anywhere bc probably we weren't on the same page anyway. It just seems to me that when there are literally millions of singles to choose from, and plenty on both sides, I don't see why this would be a big issue. If a guy does not want to pay (which I can fully understand), there are thousands of potential dates who wouldn't expect him to. To me it just seems like there are plenty of wayyyyy more skewed situations where someone truly has only a very tiny pool of potential options to fish in, and this isn't really one of them. But also I would expect that one's stance towards this topic reflects other general stances, so it's probably something people should TRY to match on. If you're looking for a relationship with old fashioned gender roles around money, it's probably a waste of time dating someone who has a more egalitarian view, and vice versa. If anything it's a good right-out-of-the-gate signal, so people don't waste time on someone who is likely not a good match.
That I got away with it doesn't mean it isn't a problem. I was in the American South and it was not subtle that as a man you were trading a non-trivial amount of options and success if you didn't want to pay. There is intrasex competition and if a woman has only one Friday night, and one man is paying for dinner and the other isn't, who do you think she is going to spend it with?
I think you would be shocked at the number of generally liberal or left-of-center women who still expect men to pay. Even women who are openly feminists make arguments in favor of the man paying (or "the asker" [read: the man] paying). I don't think it tracks nearly as cleanly as you are suggesting with general views on traditionalism (although there is some correlation), and thus isn't a good filtering condition. There are plenty of women you could have a great relationship with if you just get through those first X dates of paying for everything.
You're also missing that this isn't something that, as a man, I can easily just filter based on. Leading with "oh and we're going Dutch", isn't a winner even among sympathetic women (kills the vibe), and actually going on a bunch of first dates doesn't fix things. Simply having to navigate and deal with this (and the inevitable fallout of a few of these conversations), is annoying, and the alternative comes at direct cost. If you don't want to deal with this, you could just let the guy pay when he insists and come out ahead, if I don't want to deal with this, I end up behind.
That there exist worse situations in be in that limit your options more doesn't negate the fact that this is a popularly socially accepted way in which women are directly advantaged at the cost to men, and that as a man you have to trade really quite basic equal treatment against dating success. It is, to me, a gross practice, that, were it truly banished to obscure traditionalist corners, I'd agree with you, but it is really rather endemic to dating as a whole, even now.
I also don't see how your arguments here don't equally apply to these Korean women who want to be non-traditional wives. Unlike with paying on the date, it is a lot easier to bring up and discuss explicitly earlier, and if it isn't well desired then, just like with paying on the date, you need to accept that it'll hurt your dating prospects and try to compensate in other ways to get the type of partner you want. That's the whole point of "dating market" dynamics. Just because women want something, doesn't really mean much, they have to either deal with men, who also have their own wants and desires, or they have to not deal at all.
It's not just about paying for dates. It's just one example of a whole suite of social norms set up under the assumption that men are privileged in society. Genuine feminism entails both removing male privileges and the social norms built around the assumption of male privilege. Unfortunately, a lot of self-described feminists are much more enthusiastic about the former than the latter.
I don’t know that I’d agree that the premise is male privilege, so much as it is the premise that women are more in demand than men and men are competing for them. Even under a system where women don’t work, it could still be an expectation that her father paid (for someone to court his daughter / take her off his hands) ala dowry systems.
It's interesting how you mention the lack of stigma associated with female singledom. Seems like perhaps the trajectory has gone in the opposite direction for male singledom. I remember when I was in high school during the 2000s, the feminist perspective of the time was something like: "Patriarchical norms mean women are shamed for having too much sex, and men are shamed for having too little. That's silly! The amount of sex you have is your business!" I took that to heart, and prioritized other pursuit over finding a girlfriend. Now I wake up in the 2020s and find that "incel" has become an all-purpose insult that feminists use for men they don't like. There's definitely a sense of betrayal there.
If you chose not to have a girlfriend, then you're not an incel. The 'in' stands for 'involuntary'.
I am not certain that 'incel' is a word feminists use to insult men, but if you're not one, then I wouldn't worry about it. A better question would be to ask yourself why feminists would want to insult you?
I don’t consider myself an incel.
It seems hard to deny that using the term “incel” as an insult stigmatizes partnerlessness for men. This isn’t something I’ve experienced myself, but I see it frequently.
The blog post mentions female success as a driver of male resentment. But I think there’s an alternative explanation here, which is that callousness towards men has become incredibly normalized. Imagine a woman received an insult, and someone else commented by saying: “a good question would be to ask yourself why that person wanted to insult you”.
“Incel” is a term that originated as an online self description for men who were involuntarily celibate. It’s become synonymous with the online sphere where these men congregate and the culture that exists within it. At this point, calling someone an incel is more about branding them with the belonging to the subculture of resentful, low status men.
Well sure, another way of putting it is that the term "incel" creates an association in the public mind between male singledom and resentful low status. So it has the net effect of stigmatizing singledom for men.
Almost no one is careful to differentiate between the celibacy sense of the term and the online-subculture sense of the term. Feminists become less principled in their advocacy with every passing year, so at this point "not upholding patriarchical gender norms" takes a backseat to delivering putdowns.
Factually, it may be true that successful, powerful men are more likely to be single. See this video for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z62YOHP1uc One could argue that to find a girlfriend, it helps to be a loser with nothing better to do than spend hours and hours swiping on dating apps.
All I'm claiming is that singledom is considered more empowering for women than for men -- and that we'd be better of if that weren't the case. We'd have greater gender equality, less misogyny, less violence against women, better men's mental health, and less pointless social stigma. The way it's currently set up, a 19 year old man who wants a gf goes online, reads all the brutally cruel things women have to say about "incels", and runs straight into the arms of the red pill manosphere where he's offered a shred of compassion, respect, and empathy. Really seems like a never-ending cycle.
I think it's more the case that being celibate has a poor effect on the human brain. Sometimes it drives people to do crazy but productive things, and sometimes the opposite. Unfortunately, in many cases it causes people to rage against the opposite sex for depriving them of the sex they need. Therefore, involuntary celibates of both the male and female persuasion are quite toxic and probably driving the gender wars more than they ought to.
Even so, is having trouble finding a girlfriend something that should be made fun of? I guess they'll say that they're using it for misogynists, but then it draws an association with having trouble finding a girlfriend with misogyny. I'm not sure if that association is at all real - plenty of misogynists have no trouble attracting women, while there are objectively less misogynistic men who struggle to do the same.
idk about you, but I've never made fun of a man or a boy for not having a girlfriend. Choosing to be single is valid.
I do however make fun of them (or chastise them) for chasing where their attention is unwanted.
Your mistake was believing what women say. Never take what women say at face value. There might be some truth there, or it might be a total lie.
I was a late bloomer and did not lose my virginity until age 23 (in 1979). I'm so glad the concept "INCEL" was not out then!
"Incel" Is for men who complain about not having girlfriends on the internet. It can also be used for other behaviors associated with the "terminally online and complaining." I do not think it get used much by offline people complaining about offline male behaviors.
Why is it considered a man's job to be interesting? Do women ever realize how uninteresting they can be? Perhaps we should stop viewing everything solely through the lens of patriarchy and instead consider the balance of power and the roles of genders as a component.
This is precisely a problem that feminists agree is a problem. Men often have no issue with dating and even marrying women they find uninsteresting. This leads to plenty of men still agreeing to put up with a women as long as they gain access to sex and get children they are not forced to care for on their own. A woman can do all the aforementioned on her own. Sure, she needs a man in order to procreate, but if she doesn't feel like putting up with his ways (inconsideration, lack of respect, the simple brained mode of life), then if she doesn't also *want* the man, she often finds no motivation to have those children to raise on her own, plus a man who doesn't like her on top of it. Feminists agree it'd be easier if men did the same.
Unfortunately a too large number of men are quite desperate and they would breed with a sock if it produced children and took care of them...
Much fewer "socks" out there these days - we might even say they are a little thin on the ground?
I don't think so. The sheer number of single mothers says that a lot of sock-breeding is going on. Men ejaculate into women they don't really care about, and the women jettison them for that reason.
I would want to agree, but I can also easily imagine a woman in the right situation would prefer to be a single mother by choice (I work with three SMBCs, and the number is growing) and the number seems to growing. I'm also impressed at all the 20-something women I work with exploring that as a viable choice. That said, my company is one of the few that has amazing benefits for parents, so I'm not sure if that can be said for all single mothers. Still, if financially viable, I would not doubt that women might choose that route over having to date, marry, and breed with a man.
Once women got the vote, they started voting themselves male incomes. Life of Julia doesn’t have a man in it, but it has a lot of government checks paid for by men.
You’ve heard of “why buy the cow if you get the milk for free”. Well, why marry the man when you can get his income for free.
Even when employed, women are mostly in government and government adjacent jobs. Eds and Meds, HR and bureaucracy. Nobody can measure any kind of value add in this stuff but it keeps growing as a % of gdp because the government mandates it. its welfare for the professional (female) class.
I don’t see this changing anytime soon. As more women and single and the population ages, the dependency ratio will get worse and the dependents will vote for more. Men and women will opt out of being providers or taking on additional financial burdens (children).
It seems as if almost everything about the drop in fertility is positive: fewer children born to women who didn't want children, fewer children born to very young women, fewer children born to women in unhappy partnerships, fewer children born to women who didn't have other sources of meaning in their lives.
The only problem is how to keep it from resulting in the disappearance of humanity.
“The only problem”…
Other than that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?
Disagree. There are low marriage rates at the bottom of society but still plenty of children being born. They're just being born out of wedlock to overwhelmed mothers who can't possibly do a good job raising them.
The people not having children are the middle and upper class who have the money but prefer to use it elsewhere.
From what I can see, humanity can do some disappearing. There are so many many many people who should not be having children. The fact that just anybody can have a child is a pretty serious problem.
The optimum age for having children is 22 with a 28 year old father. So on the current path humanity is going to become more stupid.
It's not that women are ghosting the patriarchy. They're ghosting men that *aren't* part of the patriarchy (high status, wealthy, and otherwise influential men). The patriarchy is still doing fine with women, it's men who fail to join that segment of society who are failing to find partners.
Ironically it's the same conclusion as much of the manosphere, just articulated in a less overtly sexist tone: women are mostly interested in men that outearn them, so the consequences of pushing for equity is that there aren't enough marriageable men to go around.
Spot on.
P.S.
To what extent are we perhaps encountering a vicious cycle for men, eg that female dominance in teaching relates to worsening academic performance by boys (even as academic excellence itself shifts in terms of gender expectations from being male coded to female coded)? Ditto for academia, publishing and hence reading (women in the aggregate more likely to write books appealing to women)? In other words we are shifting in some fields from systemic biases in favor of men to systemic biases in favor of women, having failed to “pause” at the theoretical point of minimal bias and equality ?
And yet, young women are less happy now than they were. Less happy than young men.
yeah. women are great and men are sh*t. same story as always. let's wait for the next one...
Not sure about women being great, but yeah, a lot of men are actually pretty shit. Men are way more likely to cheat, be violent with their partner, have a drinking problem, gamble away the family's money, shirk on household duties, avoid childcare, and even be more likely to be overweight or obese.
Even on the less serious stuff, take behaviour on dates, I've only got personal anecdotes and experience here, but the man is way more likely to talk over the women, talk about themselves the whole time, drone on about a topic without the women showing the slightest sign of interest...
Obviously this is not nearly all men, and women can definitely be assholes as well, but the numbers we see above are in my view pretty well explained by there being a bottom quarter or so of very low quality men who don't bring much to the table, literally or figuratively.
Men I know with their shit together and who clearly indicate they're willing to contribute equally are not having problems dating outside of early twenties.
It's so telling that the claim that men are more likely to cheat is still being presented as fact 😂. Every male/female sexual encounter registers as a 1:1.So the asymmetry in those totals are explained by any or all of 1)throwing in an assumption that the males used hookers,2)the males in relationships are hooking up with(being targetted by?) single women 3)females exaggerating the cheating, or 4) a cohort of males don't know that they're being cheated on too!
If older married men are cheating with younger unmarried women then that explains it, no?
That element is contained in the 2nd category. And whatever level of that clear hypergamy there is creates a distinct" doping" effect in the younger generation
I think your unified theory of marriage may be biased towards the female perspective. For men I would say that some primary reasons would be children, care work, and sex. I don't think these are the only drivers and I think they could be argued to fall under the posited reasons of love, money, and respect but I think they are distinct factors.
Getting married isn't the only way to have children but it is the most sure fire way to get there. You could say that the drive to have children is driven by someone's love for children and to be loved by them, by their need for their legacy to be respected, or for their need for their children to care for them when they are older but I think it should stand alone as a category.
Money is mentioned as a driver but traditionally men weren't and arguably still aren't worried about a woman's income so long as she can cook, clean, and take care of their kids. The unfair trade of men's financial support for the family in exchange for women's unpaid care work has broken down and both are now expected to contribute in equal share to care work and finance but many men seem not to have gotten this message.
The people I know who have gone from dating to married the quickest are those with backgrounds that greatly stigmatize premarital sex. Additionally the association for men that do engage in premarital sex that marriage = more sex for less work than before should not be discounted. The proliferation of endless and easy to access internet porn could be a driver of declining marriage rates. Because why do all this work to get married for sex when I have this facsimile of sex here at home at my beck and call.
I get you, but I think marriage, understood in a western-centric sense, as a long-term investment is a single nuclear family unit, is not necessary for reproduction. What you are after is "parental investment in offspring".