[HN Gopher] Dating, education, and sex ratios
___________________________________________________________________
Dating, education, and sex ratios
Author : Melchizedek
Score : 142 points
Date : 2023-06-13 17:32 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.robkhenderson.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.robkhenderson.com)
| imtringued wrote:
| This makes me wonder if Karl Marx' analysis of Capitalism is all
| wrong and not because of economic reasons but rather because men
| feel compelled to climb the hierarchy, even if it means turning
| into "exploitative capitalists", to impress women.
| politician wrote:
| Towards the end, the article posits that the reason men fail to
| attain higher levels of education is video games.
|
| I would be curious to see how the effect of video games stacks up
| against the effect of the significant support industry
| established for helping girls succeed in STEM while comparable
| support for boys is nonexistent.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Stuff like this is actually researched. It would be better to
| first look at the research before comparing anecdotal
| hypotheses.
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/08/whats-beh...
|
| > Men are more likely than women to point to factors that have
| more to do with personal choice. Roughly a third (34%) of men
| without a bachelor's degree say a major reason they didn't
| complete college is that they just didn't want to. Only one-in-
| four women say the same. Non-college-educated men are also more
| likely than their female counterparts to say a major reason
| they don't have a four-year degree is that they didn't need
| more education for the job or career they wanted (26% of men
| say this vs. 20% of women).
|
| > Women (44%) are more likely than men (39%) to say not being
| able to afford college is a major reason they don't have a
| bachelor's degree. Men and women are about equally likely to
| say needing to work to help support their family was a major
| impediment.
|
| > In some instances, the gender gaps in the reasons for not
| completing college are more pronounced among White adults than
| among Black or Hispanic adults. About four-in-ten White men who
| didn't complete four years of college (39%) say a major reason
| for this is that they just didn't want to. This compares with
| 27% of White women without a degree. Views on this don't differ
| significantly by gender for Black or Hispanic adults.
|
| https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2022/mar/why-women...
|
| > In this blog post, we argue against these explanations,
| showing it is unlikely that the gender gap in college
| attendance reflects some sort of failure on the part of
| educators or college admissions officers. A more likely
| explanation is that the labor markets reward women with
| relatively higher financial returns to college enrollment.
| somebody78978 wrote:
| Well, maybe the reason why those men didn't want to complete
| college is _because_ they don 't have the same support that
| women do (or at least, that's what they percieve).
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| In part, lack of support (other than financial) is a reason
| it took me so long to complete college. But anecdata can't
| be relied on for population studies. These questions need
| to be asked, sure.
|
| Based on the chart in the St. Louis Fed link, in the US
| women have outnumbered men since 1980 (shortly after the
| Vietnam draft ended). While the ratio has been increasing
| the only real visually noticeable upticks in the data were
| around 1993 for 4+ year colleges and 2001 for 2-year
| colleges. I wonder if some men who might have gone to a
| 2-year school instead enlisted following 9/11.
|
| I don't think there was any particular STEM support for
| women in 1980 and into the early 1990s, at least. But maybe
| something did happen in 1993 (and possibly something
| additional to 9/11 in 2001). Are these additional women
| going into STEM majors?
| monksy wrote:
| Another strong reason is that the work they're willing to
| take doesn't require a college deplomia. (On top of that a
| university degree not demonstrating the value to the
| struggle it took to get it)
| AS37 wrote:
| IMHO it's more likely because the education system from age 5+
| is biased against boys and for girls.
| Conscat wrote:
| I doubt that matters. There were barely any women in my classes
| at a school with a mostly female student body. Now that I work
| in software, at a company which requires at least bachelor's
| degree, there are still very few women developers employed
| here.
| imtringued wrote:
| I had like six girls in my classes at school. Less than a
| third.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| For my case at least I'd agree that video games, and the
| increased amount of entertainment more generally, are the
| biggest reasons I'm not very interested in a relationship. I
| did succeed at attaining higher education and a white collar
| job though. I just don't mind spending tons of time alone.
| churchill wrote:
| [flagged]
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Too emotional of a topic.
| sproketboy wrote:
| [dead]
| xpe wrote:
| We can't discuss emotions? We do, quite frequently, just
| under the guise of other topics. What I mean is that
| discussing even "purely technological" news has deep
| emotional connections -- not least of which is survival. Many
| or most of us work in/around the software industry. We aren't
| really neutral; valuing software is pretty deeply connected
| to how we e.g. make money and/or enjoy spending free time.
|
| Now, do we discuss emotions well? It seems to me that the
| U.S. population in general doesn't. But I admit this claim is
| quite vague, undefined, and hard to measure. The population
| with higher education probably does somewhat better? (I'd be
| interested to see what measurable metrics would best
| correlate.)
|
| Anyhow, it seems to me that most people have an inherent
| drive for close interpersonal relationships, of which dating
| is one.
|
| My opinion: Hacker News, as a forum, isn't really properly
| designed for it (even though it has people who are capable of
| being articulate and decent to each other). Even if HN was
| well-designed for emotionally-charged topics, the subset of
| people here might not be the best choice of a community for
| learning about romantic relationships with people who are
| often outside that community. :)
| salmonfamine wrote:
| I think this is a conversation worth having, but this is a tech
| news board. This isn't exactly on topic, and is guaranteed to
| be inflammatory.
| xpe wrote:
| > is guaranteed to be inflammatory.
|
| This is your prediction. It seems overconfident to me.
| OJFord wrote:
| Non-tech is explicitly _not_ off-topic, even if most (it 's
| certainly not all!) of us have a tech background/current job.
|
| Quoting from the guidelines linked in the footer:
|
| > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find
| interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If
| you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be:
| anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
| dang wrote:
| HN isn't a tech news board - the site guidelines explicitly
| differentiate from that in the first paragraph:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| This article suffers from a baity title and sensational
| opening but then gets pretty substantive and, I think many
| readers would say, interesting.
|
| Topics like this have always appeared on HN and as long as
| (1) they don't come up so often as to feel repetitive and (b)
| the article is substantive, I think it's ok.
| salmonfamine wrote:
| Fair points --- I agree that the article is actually quite
| well researched and to-the-point, once you get past the
| title.
|
| I guess I just see this exact argument being made all over
| the place, so I'm a little weary of it. But this article is
| one of the best iterations of it that I've seen.
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| I read the whole thing, and it really isn't relevant to this
| particular forum.
| dahwolf wrote:
| This problem seems statistically unsolvable unless people make
| vast behavioral changes.
|
| The education gap will not be closed, it might even grow further
| apart. A significant amount of men will continue to work in blue
| collar jobs and thus will never meet the standards of being
| highly educated and/or wealthy. There's exceptions, some are
| making a killing, but on average not really. To make matters
| worse, there's a growing political gap between blue collar men
| and white collar women.
|
| Another portion of "lost" men are described in the article as the
| unemployed gamers. A portion of them might be incels. The main
| thing to understand about this group is that even if they do
| better themselves, it's still not going to be a match. Because
| quite likely they're socially awkward and physically
| unattractive, struggle to socialize and make friends.
|
| Bottom line, the popular phrase "men should step up" isn't going
| to work out. You're waiting for something that simply isn't going
| to happen. You can make of that situation what you want: opt-out
| and don't compromise on your standards, or deal with the cards
| given.
|
| My advise: look for character in a person. The obsession with
| status, education and wealth is inhumane, superficial and greatly
| self-limiting. Character lasts. If a person is structurally kind,
| responsible, reliable and has a steady job, who gives a shit
| about anything else? Combined with your own "educated" income, it
| would be plenty to run a family. Why price yourself out of the
| market with steep financial demands? For additional luxury? A
| bigger house? One you never attend as you're always at work? Get
| real.
| mediaserf wrote:
| https://archive.ph/0L9ng
| inconceivable wrote:
| it seems like society has engineered itself into a real pickle as
| evidenced by all the hand-wringing articles on this topic.
|
| personally i find serious relationships to be a giant waste of
| time, probably because i'm no good at maintaining them or i just
| don't check all the boxes, or whatever. i like dating and
| commitment-free sex, so i really don't have much incentive to
| improve. i'm basically financially independent so i don't really
| care about paying for things most people would split. in the few
| instances i've sincerely tried to keep it going, it ended after
| no particular incident/fight/whatever. just fizzled out, or a
| non-dramatic breakup over text message, which doesn't really
| bother me. these things come and go and i have no real hangups
| about attachment or have any dependence issues.
|
| personally i think there is no "fixing" this, at least for 20 or
| 30 years until a brand new generational cohort come into their
| 20s and 30s. non-immigrants are simply just going to get married
| less and have less children than were historically 'normal'.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| I like that you put "fixing" in quotes. People are of two
| minds. They think they want some things while their revealed
| preferences are different. Id vs. ego, maybe. There's good
| things about relationships, but I don't think anyone ever got
| into committed relationships for fun; I think they were forced
| into them by their environment (finances, family). It's good
| not to be forced into them, but then you lose the good things
| to be found in them. But people want to have their cake and eat
| it, which doesn't make sense. So it's not a black and white
| thing; even to a singular person, the "fix" or the "problem"
| may seem both good and bad.
|
| I'm skeptical about future generations though. If you frame
| "not having kids/serious relationships" as "bad", then I think
| things will continue to get "worse". :p There's nothing for
| future people to figure out; the incentives that were once in
| play will continue to erode. It's like expecting war deaths to
| decrease as weapons continue to grow in power.
|
| UNLESS you're talking about the state growing people in pods.
| And generally going transhuman/posthuman (and
| post-"relationship" and post-"two people fucking"). I think
| that's the ultimate future, and it's way better than the setup
| we've had traditionally in all but romance and current Overton
| window.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| While the article offers nothing of value outside of its
| provocative title (but I clicked so I guess it works), I'm
| genuinely fascinated by why every article about dating here leads
| to such a slew of poor comments. I mean the discussion is full of
| entitlement, misogyny, cynicism or a mix of the three.
|
| A casual reading lends me to think that this is because this
| place skews rather young.
| lacker wrote:
| The nature of dating is that the people who have a good
| experience dating get married, and so they stop dating. People
| who have only bad experiences keep dating. So the people who
| are eternally struggling have much more experience at it and
| have far more to say about dating.
|
| It's kind of like job interviewing. If you do five job
| interviews, get three offers, are happy at the job you take and
| stay there for five years, then you're averaging one interview
| per year. If you're struggling to find a good job you can do
| ten interviews per week forever. So the people who are
| eternally struggling at the job interview process have much
| more experience at it and have far more to say about it.
| hn_thrwn wrote:
| The second woman I dated I married. It's been 20 years so
| far. This is the opposite or what anyone tells you to do.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > The nature of dating is that the people who have a good
| experience dating get married, and so they stop dating.
| People who have only bad experiences keep dating. So the
| people who are eternally struggling have much more experience
| at it and have far more to say about dating.
|
| It's kind of untrue nowadays. Married people get divorced.
| People split. Plenty are not interested in marriage.
|
| As a data point, I am a currently single average looking and
| averagely successful guy with no intention of ever getting
| married (I will probably settle into a long term relationship
| at some point but I'm not planning to in the near term) and
| who has dates (as much as such a thing exists here) semi-
| regularly when I feel like it. I have nothing particularly
| bad to say about the experience. At its heart, it's just
| meeting someone new. It's not particularly complicated or
| difficult hence my puzzlement.
| watwut wrote:
| My guess was always that HN has a lot of men who moved to
| Silicon Valley that has more men then women or work long hours
| in male only jobs. So, there is a lot of resentment over
| unsolvable situation.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Off-topic, but on article, this starts to be the ratio at which
| disparate impact laws come in to effect (when it comes to hiring
| criteria, for instance):
|
| > Broken down by degree type across all ages in the U.S., for
| every 100 men with bachelor's degrees, there are 130 women. For
| those with master's degrees, for every 100 men there are 134
| women.
| rngname22 wrote:
| Conversations about high income as a factor in attracting women
| often seem to neglect to mention that it's not enough to have a
| high income if you don't use it to signal wealth or to provide
| luxury experiences to women. Telling women you want to put your
| high income to work in enabling you to retire early but live a
| modest life and use that freedom to pursue creative pursuits
| doesn't have the same effect as taking them to the luxury
| apartment you rent or inviting them to join you on a romantic,
| paid for, tropical getaway.
| tennisflyi wrote:
| Absolutely. You have to flex or be willing to "spoil" in some
| manner/degree.
|
| Edit: Or, most great products still need to advertise.
| grepLeigh wrote:
| I'm not trying to poke the bear by saying this, but I wonder if
| you'd still believe this after speaking to 100 women from
| different cities, backgrounds, and walks of life. Women aren't
| a monoculture.
| hammock wrote:
| > it's not enough to have a high income if you don't use it to
| signal wealth or to provide luxury experiences to women
|
| Put another way, women aren't attracted by men who earn a lot,
| but by men who spend a lot
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| It's not hard to find "Why is my boyfriend/husband so cheap?"
| as a recurring question in advice columns.
|
| There's definitely a sense among many women that men should
| be demonstrably spendy - even flamboyant. Presumably because
| it confers competitive status.
|
| I used to have a friend who used to do factory work. She said
| that whenever any of the women had a new boyfriend one of the
| first questions was always "What kind of car does he drive?"
|
| Likewise many dating profiles say "I want a man who will
| spoil me."
|
| Of course it's not all women, but it's certainly a
| significant number.
| monksy wrote:
| Lets not forget the: "My money is my money, his money is
| our money."
| imtringued wrote:
| Or "Give me love and money"
| majormajor wrote:
| Are you actually offering people romantic paid for tropical
| getaways early on in dating to try to attract them? And does it
| work?
|
| Cause that sounds more like some kind of old Hollywood romcom
| cliche than something a lot of women really want to have thrown
| at them to 'win them' in the past decade. But hey, I haven't
| tried it!
| sho_hn wrote:
| This doesn't match my experience at all. In my experience, in
| most adult heterosexual long-term relationships it's usually
| the female partner who is insisting on long-term planning,
| financial planning, avoiding frivolous purchases, etc. and are
| happy if men don't start conflicts over this. Your exaggerated
| example basically screams "husband material".
| dahwolf wrote:
| Women are the largest spenders by far, the ultimate
| consumers.
| scarmig wrote:
| Like most traits, I think men have a higher variance in focus
| on long-term planning than women do. Men are
| disproportionately both people who don't plan for the next
| paycheck and FIRE-enthusiasts.
|
| If you look at FIRE-oriented online groups, men significantly
| outnumber women. I think that's what the parent is referring
| to. And there are fewer women (relative to men) who are
| willing to take a significant drop in consumption in order to
| e.g. max a mega Roth backdoor.
|
| So a man who saves 20% of his take home income is husband
| material. A man who saves 80% of his take home income is a
| weirdo man child who needs to grow up and act like a "normal"
| person.
|
| Every female partner I've had (except my current one) has
| pushed me to scale up our consumption and save less.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Women who do this have told me it can sometimes be about
| 'trying to live life before it is too late'.
| scarmig wrote:
| Sure. But I'd argue that's an overly narrow view of
| trying to live life: living life is about being present
| in shared experiences with your friends and loved ones,
| not status-focused consumption. Otherwise non-rich people
| would be doomed to misery, which isn't the case.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Not my experience. Maybe you're just talking to the wrong
| people? I find it easy enough to find people who aren't
| interested in materialism/rat race culture but are interested
| in ambitious, educated people.
| ctvo wrote:
| I can only assume, because it was unstated, and I didn't dive
| into the citations, but it looked like successful, educated
| women's preferences orbited around stability, and long term
| potential, rather than access to luxurious things or free
| trips.
| Abekkus wrote:
| I would think a high maintenance partner would be a turn-off
| for anyone chasing FIRE, anyways?
| Galaxeblaffer wrote:
| Depends on the woman and MANY would be attracted to the former.
| I'm pretty sure most would be better off with the kind of woman
| who is attracted to the former and that you should stay way
| clear women who values the latter.
| drooby wrote:
| Ding ding ding.... It's not about education... or income, it's
| about STATUS.
| ctvo wrote:
| Maybe?
|
| I know a lot of highly educated, successful women who
| wouldn't date Kevin Durant, for example. The idea of a rich
| man child trolling on burner accounts regardless of their
| high profile doesn't exactly drive them crazy. Replace Kevin
| Durant with Elon Musk if you're not a sports fan.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Bad examples, these 2 have fame in addition to status,
| which changes the game.
| Dudester230602 wrote:
| Well, perhaps those celebs want "young sexy and easy-going"
| and not "highly educated, successful"? So it's a win-win?
| drooby wrote:
| Status is subjective depending on your social circles.
| breischl wrote:
| You attract what you advertise for.
|
| If you're advertising flashy, high-spending lifestyle, that's
| who you'll attract. But the women who are looking for long-term
| stability will stay away. And vice versa.
|
| Of course, if you want the not-high-spending women, you need to
| have something other than money and flashy lifestyle to offer.
| I think some guys get hung up there.
| scarmig wrote:
| It's interesting that future security, free time to spend
| with your partner and do housework, and hobbies don't count
| as something to offer (at least relative to a flashy
| lifestyle). But, yes, a guy needs to find an effective angle
| that's in demand on the relationship market.
| dingnuts wrote:
| Maybe y'all just need to appreciate the value of working
| class women? I married a child of immigrants who is
| thrifty, values experiences over things, works hard, and
| appreciates that we want to live modestly so we can be free
| to retire as soon as possible!
|
| Together seven years, married for three. Maybe when I was
| dating I was passed over by materialistic women because I
| drove an old car and don't wear fancy clothes, but I see
| that as an absolute win!
|
| She teased me a little at first about how she "thought I
| was poor" because she didn't know how much an SWE makes and
| I was raised to find conspicuous consumption gauche. I just
| feel comfort knowing she chose me for me, not for my money.
|
| But I'm extremely lucky, and blessed. Maybe I'm an absolute
| outlier. There are no rules in the game of love
| scarmig wrote:
| There's lots of luck involved, which is always missing
| from these conversations. I've taken a similar route to
| you, and it's working out spectacularly, but, damn, it
| took a long while.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Women don't want a guy that is always broke. And they don't
| want a miser either.
|
| You want a signal that women will pick up on? Buy nice good
| quality shoes.
| john009 wrote:
| The word is foundering not floundering.
| [deleted]
| neonate wrote:
| Both work.
| [deleted]
| justsocrateasin wrote:
| foundering = fail or break down floundering = struggle or
| stagger helplessly.
|
| both work! I actually think `floundering` works better in
| context - "men breaking down" versus "men struggling".
| hkt wrote:
| A very longwinded essay whose obvious conclusion - that values
| will change in response to circumstances - is entirely missed,
| presumably to make problematising educated women the tacit point
| instead.
|
| People learn and change: increasing numbers of women in education
| now will mean more relationships where expectations have changed
| in the future. This is likely to mean that, actually, some men
| with lower incomes than their partners stay at home to look after
| the kids. It is a natural consequence of an unequal society with
| greater parity of educational access. That's all.
|
| It might suck for people who can't get over it, but on the whole,
| it'll improve society no end to see more fathers being full time
| carers for their children.
|
| In all likelihood, we'll see a change of attitudes so that women
| will look for different things: domesticity seems the obvious
| choice. And frankly, it'll be nice to live in a world where doing
| the dishes is a personal characteristic that someone might value
| equally with income.
|
| ---
|
| Not too related to the above, but the measurements of what women
| value is very likely to be WEIRD - Western, Educated,
| Industrialised, and the other two I forget. Economists have a
| hammer, so everything looks like a nail ($).
| yardie wrote:
| Hear me out. But maybe guys have discovered what women haven't.
| That higher education isn't the be all and end all to social
| status except to others who seek or have it. I have many friends
| who started working right out of high school in the trades. Now
| we have MOOCs, bootcamps, trades, and certifications. And the
| value of locking yourself out of the job market for 4 years while
| and paying 100s of thousands of dollars just doesn't feel as
| smart financially as it used to.
| dahwolf wrote:
| I don't think that's the reason why guys are falling behind in
| education but I do agree that a career-focused lifestyle isn't
| exactly the paradise some people think it is.
| kholdstayr wrote:
| Programmers don't have time for love.
|
| /s
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| More like most women don't find men who program
| interesting/fun.
|
| or
|
| Most men who program aren't "good with socializing" let alone
| "good with socializing with women".
| sho_hn wrote:
| > More like most women don't find men who program
| interesting/fun.
|
| I hear a lot of heterosexual male SW engineers lament this,
| but I find it not true in practice. We live in a world
| dominated (and even inundated) by messaging that navigating
| technology is a recipe for success. It usually pays decently
| to well. Programmers don't have dating problems from their
| profession.
| seniorThrowaway wrote:
| The issue is that the personality traits that tend to
| correlate with good programming and software engineering -
| logic, reasoning, detachment, analysis, thinking outside
| the box - don't tend to correlate well with interpersonal
| and especially romantic interpersonal relationships. In
| order to be successful in relationships, those types of
| minds have to consistently and constantly do things they
| consider completely irrational and uncomfortable, which is
| difficult to maintain.
| Kazrath wrote:
| Your statement even downplays the negative reception
| thinkers like these receive when they share their
| observations. One "tactful" lapse and that first
| impression is set. It is a serious uphill battle from
| that point on.
| sho_hn wrote:
| All these things have their own kind of logic to them.
| It's possible to learn/train people/empathy. There's a
| lot of people who can't get themselves to believe that
| it's worth investing, in though. But people skills do
| come in handy, also when solving non-romantic problems at
| scale.
| Kazrath wrote:
| It has little to do with lack of empathy. I've found the
| problem is far more to do with oversharing conclusions
| based on observations. Empathy is typically in hindsight.
| You expect the other person to be intelligent, observant,
| reasonable, and logical. What you did say is not
| something that would have offended yourself or other
| like-minded individuals. So when it does offend, the
| empathy kicks in and you realize your mistake. Which is
| often just over-estimating the other person.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Empathy as a skill is relevant in adapting the way you
| assert the same logical points toward a person, e.g. by
| taking their state of mind into account when it comes to
| phrasing, pacing, how much context to include. On the
| fly, with course-corrections.
|
| If you want an engineering analogy, it's a bit like
| adding a suspension system to a wheel to improve
| traction.
|
| It's very practical!
| r0ze-at-hn wrote:
| or
|
| many men who program have an avoidant attachment style?
| aidenn0 wrote:
| N=1, but...
|
| I'm a male who programs and have an avoidant attachment
| style. I haven't struggled to find a date since 11th grade
| or so.
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| All the data is good, but the way it is framed is a bit
| misleading.
|
| First, lets get one thing straight: dysfunction in the dating
| world negatively affects both men and women. So framing it as
| "men floundering, women most affected" is disingenuous. What is
| it about the prospects a man has that he has no desire to become
| desirable? If men's lives are less rewarding wouldn't it be them,
| not the women, that are the most affected? We are talking about
| these mens lives after all.
|
| "They just want to play videogames" come on. This has got to be
| the most surface level trope quality take I've seen. Maybe men
| use porn and play videogames not because they'd rather have that
| than a real relationship, but because modern relationships don't
| offer much more than that. Maybe men prefer casual sex because
| that's about the best they can hope for in today's world. Maybe
| with the divorce rate what it is, the birth rate low, and the
| social stigma against division of labor to maintain a household,
| it's not worth it to meet anyone's expectations anymore. Maybe
| men do desire more and maybe women aren't interested in
| satisfying those desires either.
| chad1n wrote:
| Men suffer from "their own success" and are probably more
| romantic than women are overall and expect their relationships
| to be like dreams, hence they really can't put too much in a
| relationship that might fail, considering that the "market" is
| huge and it's hard to trust most people. It was way easier
| before to get laid, wasn't it?
| monksy wrote:
| > he has no desire to become desirable?
|
| Funny thing about that, it's women (for hetros) that are the
| determination of what is 'desirable'. As a man, I agree with a
| lot of those who are discouraged with dating and running
| through the unwinnable rat race.
| timeagain wrote:
| > So framing it as "men floundering, women most affected" is
| disingenuous.
|
| My 2c as a gay man that has many women as friends. They aren't
| looking for "status" they are looking for someone who is
| emotionally intelligent. And thinking that gaining status is
| how to gain women is pretty much the opposite of that.
|
| Patriarchy hurts both sexes. By thinking of status and power as
| avenues to sex you stunt your ability to connect with others.
| And it sets up a negative dynamic because if gaining power is
| the goal then having an egalitarian relationship with your
| lover is not possible.
|
| > Maybe men use porn and play videogames not because they'd
| rather have that than a real relationship, but because modern
| relationships don't offer much more than that.
|
| If you think that lowly of women, why would they spend any time
| with you at all?
| scarmig wrote:
| As a bi man, the dynamics of dating men and women are _very_
| different. It ranges from the very explicit (you must plan
| the date; you must pay for the date) to the comparatively
| subtle (you must be emotionally stoic and not show too much
| vulnerability; you must have a stable, well-paying job; you
| must be "confident"). These things aren't standards you
| would be subject to in a purely platonic relationship. It's
| not even so much those things making you "hot" but those
| being prerequisites to being considered a potential partner.
|
| Gay men are much less strict about demanding a performance of
| the male gender role (except for those elements of it
| relating to physique).
| timeagain wrote:
| That's true I might be biased by hanging with women who
| hang with gay men. It is also true that women perpetuate
| these dumb stereotypes of masculinity as well.
|
| The kicker for me is how these dynamics ruin the ability
| for men and women to become friends. Like you say, these
| wouldn't be issues in a platonic relationship. But this
| cloud of expectation looms over any straight-platonic
| friendship between men and women. How the relationship
| would have to change if it became romantic.
|
| Makes me glad I'm gay.
| scarmig wrote:
| Straight folk have lots to learn from gay folk. Probably
| starting with how to do marriage right[0].
|
| [0] https://www.advocate.com/people/2020/2/13/study-gay-
| people-h...
| lostmsu wrote:
| The study can not be accessed without payment, but if
| they did not correctly control for kids, it is useless.
| scarmig wrote:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6731029/
|
| > Covariates. We control for covariates that are likely
| associated with both psychological distress and marital
| strain including respondent age, education, and
| employment status (Mirowsky & Ross, 2003), spouse health
| status (Kiecolt-Glaser & Wilson, 2017), relationship
| duration (Proulx et al., 2007), and children in household
| (Mirowsky & Schieman, 2008).
|
| So at least they attempted to account for obvious
| covariates.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| This is my favorite kind of scientific criticism. People
| who can't even access a paper just saying "well I bet
| they didn't control for obvious thing X" and then moving
| on.
| monksy wrote:
| > It is also true that women perpetuate these dumb
| stereotypes of masculinity as well.
|
| The ones who are complaining that men lack emotional
| maturity or inteligence are the same ones that will post
| on 2xc and say: "Am I a bad person for dumping a guy
| because I saw him crying and I'm no longer attracted to
| him?"
| jiggawatts wrote:
| > They aren't looking for "status" they are looking for
| someone who is emotionally intelligent.
|
| That's what they _say_ , and that's what women's magazines
| have told them. Reality is the opposite, and has been
| demonstrated over and over both a scientifically and
| informally.
|
| Or to put it another way: the reason even the hottest 1% of
| women complain about men's poor EQ is because they're not
| _optimising for it_ when choosing a partner. They're
| partnering with the matching top 1% of men based on social
| status and wealth, and every attribute _unimportant_ to women
| has a random value. That's why even attractive women with
| their pick of partners will complain about men's EQ. They
| don't care enough to choose a man with high EQ, but they care
| just enough to complain about it.
|
| It's like someone buying a Tesla and then bitching about
| minor quibbles. If they cared about those issues they would
| have bought a Toyota.
| dahwolf wrote:
| Not to mention that emotionally intelligent is somewhat of
| an insulting term. Men and women deal with and express
| emotions in radically different ways, that doesn't make one
| way more mature or intelligent.
| itishappy wrote:
| Some people recognize that fact, some don't. Surely that
| disparity is itself an aspect of emotional intelligence?
|
| I'm not sure I follow how that's insulting.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| >They aren't looking for "status"
|
| Are you sure? Because multiple studies contradict that claim.
| I will point out that status can mean different things
| depending on the (sub)culture and context. Perhaps in some
| social circles, high EQ is high status.
|
| >and it sets up a negative dynamic because if gaining power
| is the goal then having an egalitarian relationship with your
| lover is not possible.
|
| Status is multifaceted. Women are attracted to status, but
| that doesn't mean women can't be high status as well. High
| status could be anything from being good at some niche hobby
| to making lots of money to being athletic.
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| I said nothing "lowly" about women. I happen to have a very
| rewarding, honest and low stress relationship. It took me
| years to find anyone that I was willing to give my life to
| because, frankly, our culture nowadays is one where people
| want what they want but are willing only to give what they
| want to. This goes for both men and women. The give and take
| goes both ways, I self reflected for a long time and
| determined that I was willing to give of myself, and I expect
| the same from a partner, and people that have that insight
| are few and far between.
| dahwolf wrote:
| "They aren't looking for "status" they are looking for
| someone who is emotionally intelligent."
|
| False. A lowly educated low earner male that is emotionally
| intelligent will not get selected. Every dating/marriage
| statistic confirms that women refuse to marry down. So they
| want both status/wealth and emotional intelligence.
| visihuge wrote:
| Many of these kinds of articles are always seem to be slanted
| in how it negatively affects women. Women desiring more
| successful partners, yet men aren't keeping up. I'd be
| interested if there was any good article broaching that subject
| more, instead of remarkably pithy answers like "it's those damn
| video games."
| chad1n wrote:
| I agree, I believe that this high difference between women
| and men in higher education comes from men being sufficient
| with a "physical" job that pays almost as a "mental" one.
| Women just can't these jobs and they have to choose between
| working at McDonald's or trying to find a job using a
| Bachelor's degree. Men have many more alternatives, hence the
| "unequal" pay.
| monksy wrote:
| People are afraid to be direct and call the
| article/researchers sexist in their framing of the situation.
| Animats wrote:
| This could be framed as female incels insisting they have a
| right to a man who will support them.
| dahwolf wrote:
| You're right, it's a play on the meme: "man dead, woman most
| affected".
|
| Popular culture has become structurally anti-male. The ease at
| which we're described as simplistic, violent, sexual addicts
| doesn't seem to surprise anyone anymore.
|
| This article almost makes a humanitarian problem out of a
| luxury problem: highly educated women unable to find somebody
| even richer than them.
| duxup wrote:
| > come on. This has got to be the most surface level trope
| quality take I've seen
|
| Is it a trope?
|
| The article goes on to explain that they found men less willing
| to exchange leisure time for other activities.
|
| It's not just a one off line with no explanation.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| [dead]
| chrisco255 wrote:
| There's also no fault attributed to modern university culture.
| Is there something about the way they teach that alienates men?
| Perhaps it's just a reflection of the job market and the fact
| that a university education doesn't buy much these days.
| hfhdjdks wrote:
| I take it that your expectation is that a woman takes more care
| of the house?
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| Not really, my expectation is more general. I expect a give
| and a take, a natural process of finding roles, I expect a
| _partner_ to do what it takes to keep a household going, you
| know, a partnership. I expect two people to find their
| strengths and act accordingly for the benefit of the family.
| What I think is too common is that any mention of housework
| has a stigma attached to it for women now and what you wind
| up with is a situation where men have to fit the gender role
| of being a successful breadwinner and still do their own
| laundry. This is not a give and take, and this is unappealing
| to most men. I personally don 't care what the distribution
| of responsibilities is, so long as it's according to each
| person's strengths and is for the benefit of the household
| with no consideration of external social expectation. I
| happen to have a relationship like this, and I still do
| laundry when I need to. It's great.
| nokeya wrote:
| Remember Japan. People just don't need each other anymore. They
| are good alone - in gaming, leisure or travelling. More and more
| businesses are switching to single-oriented service.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Hard agree, I have no intentions of marrying let alone having
| children.
|
| I'm perfectly happy living my life going my way and my way
| alone as I see fit. Most human relations are straight bullshit
| and just aren't worth my time and energy in an age when there's
| so much to do, so much to see, and so little time.
|
| The people moaning about marriage and birth rates can go pound
| sand.
| lolsal wrote:
| As food for thought: relationships are often greater than the
| sum of their parts.
|
| My tribe/community/circle enriches my life well beyond the
| experiences I could have by myself.
| politician wrote:
| I respect your individual right to this attitude, but
| consider that the wonders you enjoy today are sustained by a
| population of a particular size. As populations contract, the
| number of places that support the activities and adventures
| you want to have will necessarily contract as well. Imagine a
| campfire, throughout the night you'll have to move the
| dwindling coals closer together if you can't add more wood.
|
| So, on an individual basis, this "alone and my way" approach
| is valid, but if adopted at scale it begins to look
| parasitic.
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| What I find interesting and I am curious if these conversations
| can happen anymore.
|
| I no longer discuss anything related to gender, relationships, or
| personal life dynamics with anyone outside of my bubble. I would
| enjoy the conversation, learning about another's ideas and
| understanding although despite assurances of maturity and
| openness conversation ends due to their inflammatory
| pronouncements.
|
| I do not believe ideas and ideals can be discussed with the
| general public.
| [deleted]
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| I also avoid these types of conversations for the same reason.
| Even with people I know and have friendships with, I tend to be
| very cautious when approaching those topics. There's definitely
| a sense of "walking on eggshells", especially with the younger
| or more progressive crowd (note: I'm mostly progressive as
| well). I am nearly 40 and living in the West Coast of the US,
| so that may play a part.
| akomtu wrote:
| What does it mean to be progressive w.r.t. dating these days?
| majormajor wrote:
| When you say the "general public" do you mean the general
| _online /Twitter_ public or, say, an acquaintance from a hobby?
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| People, not in my circles, who "touch grass" or are not
| entirely online.
| hkt wrote:
| You _are_ the general public!
| maxsilver wrote:
| > conversation ends due to their inflammatory pronouncements.
|
| Where are you? In the US, most of us still have these
| conversations about gender, relationships, and life dynamics
| all the time. (If anything, this is arguably 70%+ of everything
| we talk about, among friends and acquaintances in the
| community).
|
| > although despite assurances of maturity and openness
| conversation ends due to their inflammatory pronouncements.
|
| Is there a common thread here? Can you imagine what might
| prompt such a response?
| dnissley wrote:
| > Is there a common thread here? Can you imagine what might
| prompt such a response?
|
| What tends to prompt such responses in my experience is
| saying anything along the lines of "In my experience, I've
| noticed there is a tendency for (insert gender) to..."
|
| Actually, in hindsight, the inflammatory responses mostly
| only happen when the inserted gender is women.
| ryanwaggoner wrote:
| I'm sometimes the one firing off the "inflammatory
| response", and it's usually in a group of men where someone
| says something blatantly misogynistic, not just
| stereotypical.
| dnissley wrote:
| Is your response coming from a kind of guttural, purely
| emotional place of having your values trampled on? Or is
| it meant to serve a purpose?
|
| In these situations my default is to just observe as
| dispassionately as possible. If I'm in a cheeky mood
| maybe I'll troll a bit or try to find a humorous way to
| point out how the shoe could be on the other foot. And
| sometimes, although very rarely, the mood is just right
| that I feel safe enough to be earnest.
|
| If I got all up in arms every time someone says something
| misogynistic or misandrist, I think I would end up being
| a very lonely person. I've seen a lot of these people.
| They either end up brainwashed on one end of the gender
| war spectrum (and usually just so angry and spiteful --
| this is the polarized archetype), or get cast out of all
| possible ingroups if they make the mistake of attempting
| to be too consistent with their criticism (nerdy and
| socially unaware archetype).
| chongli wrote:
| What's the average age of people in your social group? I'm
| guessing over 35. It's a very different story if you try
| talking to people in their 20's or younger.
| maxsilver wrote:
| We're "millenial-ish" (in that, we're all between 25 to
| 40yrs old). I myself am not over 35 just yet.
|
| > It's a very different story if you try talking to people
| in their 20's or younger.
|
| Is it? We're old enough that half of us have kids, and some
| of us have teenaged kids (13-19yrs old), and they also have
| friends and such. It doesn't seem that different to me.
| (They're less willing to tolerate arbitrary BS, but
| otherwise, don't seem wildly different than we were at
| those ages)
| chongli wrote:
| Teenagers who haven't gone to college yet won't be that
| different. When they move out and live among peers and
| take courses from professors with views very different
| from home, you'll see how things change!
| maxsilver wrote:
| > When they move out and live among peers and take
| courses from professors with views very different from
| home,
|
| Why would professors have "views" all that different from
| home? Professors are regular people too.
|
| (Two of us in our friend group / community, _are_
| literally employed college professors, others are
| elementary teachers, software developers, IT folks, one
| designer, one electrical engineer, two in marketing, one
| who is in HR, one is a city bus driver, one who works in
| an automotive parts plant, one is a nurse, etc)
|
| You guys like, _have friends_ , right? Like, people who
| you see semi-regularly and are from your community, but
| who aren't necessarily from your employer or in your
| career / direct field-of-work? Friends that aren't also
| LinkedIn contacts?
| queuebert wrote:
| Professors are on average much more progressive and
| liberal than the average person and have a high amount of
| comfort and consequent belief privilege, so no I wouldn't
| say they're regular people. (Source: I'm a professor.)
| sangnoir wrote:
| IIRC, there is a strong correlation with higher education
| (rather than the job itself) - it's just that most
| professors have PhDs.
| chongli wrote:
| I have lots of friends, of different ages! I'm in my late
| 30's and a mature (undergrad) student at my local
| university. I am telling you from first hand experience
| that the views of my classmates (all in their 20's) are
| very different from those of my age group (in their
| 30's).
| Conscat wrote:
| I think 70%+ might not be the right proportion for all or
| most people in the US. It's hard for me to estimate, but irl
| conversations I've had mostly skew towards media, computers,
| and gossip. Gender dynamics is in there for sure, but I don't
| think it's what most people I've met want to talk about most
| of the time. It's kind of a depressing subject.
| maxsilver wrote:
| > , but irl conversations I've had mostly skew towards
| media, computers, and gossip.
|
| Same, but like, how do you talk about any of that stuff,
| without also touching on "gender, relationships, and life
| dynamics".
|
| Like, I have no idea how a group of friends would talk
| about, say _" that cool new Spider-Man movie"_ without also
| talking about gender / race / life dynamics / etc. Those
| topics are so fundamental, they're a part of almost
| everything.
| coeneedell wrote:
| For me that movie was mainly about how creative the
| effects artists were honestly.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Huh.
|
| Over here in Europe, we have these discussions all the time.
| They do get opinionated, of course. But it's not yet taboo.
| Tagbert wrote:
| It's not in the US, but it seems some people have become
| socially fearful. I think that there is an artificial sense
| of risk possibly driving by 24x7 news and social media that
| prey on people's fears and anxieties.
| monksy wrote:
| It's not artificial. You can and will be isolated,
| excommunicated, wrong think, and separated based on your
| acceptance of new language definitions and sensibilities.
| There have been groups out there that have enforced this
| via "Code of Conduct" agreements in organizations.
| flippinburgers wrote:
| I have a younger sibling who is much younger than me. I
| would have to disagree and say that they are hypersensitive
| about conflicting opinions to the point that it could
| destroy a relationship to have an argument about the wrong
| subject.
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| I would not say artificial. An individual with whom I work
| spoke a common word, with respect, and despite being a
| respectable term for another person, a term agreed by all
| parties as acceptable except the offended party, the
| accused was contacted by HR and advised to no longer use
| that term.
|
| There are other anecdotes of course but this is one example
| that even the best intentions the accuser is never told
| their position is untenable.
| comfypotato wrote:
| What was the term?
| Volundr wrote:
| This anecdote is not only unverifiable (as most are), but
| vague to the point of uselessness. I don't doubt that
| there are all sorts of overzealous HR departments out
| there, but I can also think of all sorts of ways of using
| "respectable terms for another person" in disrespectful
| ways, and have met plenty of people far more creative
| than I am at doing so. And invariably these people will
| hide behind "I totally meant it respectfully" because
| frankly that's the game. A subtle jibe with just enough
| wiggle room to hide behind.
|
| Which is the case here? Who knows? The description of
| events as written works just as well for both.
| ryanwaggoner wrote:
| In either case, it feels a little overly dramatic to
| worry too much about a scenario where HR asks you to not
| use a word anymore. Is this what people mean when they
| worry about people being cancelled?
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| Not cancelled per se, at least for me, but just the PITA
| equation of dealing with getting fired, having to find a
| new job, or having my language policed. Maybe that is
| being dramatic or pragmatic.
|
| When it comes to my professional work - if apologizes are
| not accepted I will not work at the company. If there are
| words that I cannot say - I request a list. Thankfully my
| current company is great.
| monksy wrote:
| Is it overly dramatic to have HR dictate formally non-
| offensive speach? (I'm talking about non-derogatory and
| non-slur based language)
|
| Right now there is a wave of people that are upset over
| "violent language" (https://hopeandsafety.org/learn-
| more/violent-language/) If push comes to shove.. they'd
| lose their marbles over that.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _Right now there is a wave of people that are upset
| over "violent language"_
|
| There's absolutely nothing on that page to indicate
| they're upset about violent language
|
| > _If push comes to shove.. they 'd lose their marbles
| over that._
|
| There's even less indication of that.
|
| If the goal is for fewer people to overreact, why are we
| inventing boogeymen to overreact about?
| monksy wrote:
| That page is there making a statement of examples of "bad
| language". It's an organization shooting it's shot on
| language change.
|
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11714189/Latest-
| phr... (DailyMail.. yuck yes)
|
| https://www.fastcompany.com/90865534/its-time-stop-using-
| vio...
|
| https://elizabethgrim.com/adopting-inclusive-and-non-
| violent...
| magicalist wrote:
| lol, again it's the dailymail article that's trembling
| with terror at imagined grievances, while the non-violent
| language advocates are like, "hey, kind of weird these
| phrases are about shooting people, here's some
| alternatives if you want them."
|
| > _The guide is for those who would like to replace
| mostly violently framed idioms with more positive and
| inclusive language_
|
| Clearly this is a dog whistle and they're coming for me
| and my guns(-related words)
| Volundr wrote:
| > Is it overly dramatic to have HR dictate formally non-
| offensive speach? (I'm talking about non-derogatory and
| non-slur based language)
|
| Your question is phrased in such a way that I honestly
| can't figure out how to answer it, but non-derogatory and
| non-slur based does not mean non-offensive and never has.
| As I previously mentioned people are plenty creative at
| hiding insults in "respectful" words.
|
| See also: the many nuances of "bless your heart"
| monksy wrote:
| I've been in multiple organizations now that have the
| redefinition of whats appropriate. Many times there is
| training sourced from a third party company that does
| this.
|
| I've had one organization call the "confederate flag" a
| form of racism. (For those who haven't been in the US
| South for a long time, those who display it aren't
| racist, but many are)
| Volundr wrote:
| > I've had one organization call the "confederate flag" a
| form of racism.
|
| Claiming it's not is not the hill I'd choose to die on.
| Modern display of what most call the "confederate flag"
| (it isn't) rose to prominence in response to the civil
| rights movement. It was a perfect example of hiding
| behind the thinnest veneer of legitimacy while attacking
| someone.
|
| I don't doubt that many in the modern day display it out
| of ignorance, not understanding what it actually is and
| how it became a symbol of their culture, but it's
| definitely something HR shouldn't allow in the workplace.
| monksy wrote:
| > Claiming it's not is not the hill I'd choose to die on.
|
| Me either, also I'm for banning all flags in the
| workplace.
|
| But people who vastly generalize large swaths of the
| population in a negative light in an inaccurate manner is
| as bad.
|
| > Modern display of what most call the "confederate flag"
| (it isn't) rose to prominence in response to the civil
| rights movement.
|
| Growing up in the south the flag is used as an regional
| identification and lifestyle pride. (Mostly that you're a
| redneck, rebelious, you're going to own a pickup truck,
| like the idea of hardwork/farming, country music, etc).
| Making a claim that a race hate group has taken over the
| flag is pretty laughable. (About as much as the ok hand
| symbol being a "white nationalist flagging signal")
|
| My concern with your statement is that you're making
| claims here and I'm not seeing a lot of evidence from a
| sociological point of view to back them up.
|
| > many in the modern day display it out of ignorance,
|
| Ask them why they choose to display it, and what it means
| to them. You made a judgement call to say what it is and
| that they're ignorant for doing so.
| Volundr wrote:
| > Growing up in the south the flag is used as an regional
| identification and lifestyle pride.
|
| I'm sure plenty of people believe this and it's why they
| choose to display it. It remains true it's display
| dramatically increased in response to the civil rights
| movement. It also remains true that the symbol they have
| chosen as a symbol of their "regional identification and
| lifestyle pride" is directly lifted from a group that
| fought a war of rebellion in order to continue their
| traditions of racism and slavery. That's a simple
| historical fact. The flag wasn't "taken over" by a race
| hate group. It was CREATED by a race hate group. Some may
| wish to take it back and use it for non-hateful purposes,
| but that's not an easy thing to do, and they have yet to
| succeed in divorcing it from it's original meaning.
| zilti wrote:
| "Not yet" is the right way to say it. But there are more and
| more people who just totally love being in their self-
| reinforced victim narrative and throw a tantrum like a
| toddler whom you took his candy away if you disagree with
| them.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > I no longer discuss anything related to gender,
| relationships, or personal life dynamics with anyone outside of
| my bubble.
|
| It's also pointless to discuss them. People say all sorts of
| things, but then act completely differently!
| aaomidi wrote:
| > I do not believe ideas and ideals can be discussed with the
| general public.
|
| On the contrary, I love having these discussions.
| redmerchant2 wrote:
| This is a known issue but the down stream effect won't be felt
| for a while.
|
| Let's be clear we're talking about general behavioral trend, not
| trying to police an individual, which is the crux of contention
| for these topics.
|
| Many women still hold on to the idea of finding a partner that is
| wealthier and more educated. This is due to the past
| (over)reliance of their partners for stability. But this is no
| longer true.
|
| The education gap between men and women are growing. More women
| enroll and graduate from college then men. Many young men, mostly
| lower-middle class, (whether fairly or not) feel like the
| education system does not work for them.
|
| Society and companies are reconciling the barriers for women's
| advancement and we're only observing this initial gap. That is
| well and good. But in 10-20 years women will out number men in
| many fields requiring higher education.
|
| The real problem arises when that clashes with traditional
| expectations. The women in the article is a successful Yale grad
| who wants a partner with better pedigree. If you include looks
| and height requirements her dating pool is like <0.01% of the
| population. As that cascades to women in general with college
| education refusing to consider men in trade, that mismatch grows
| wider.
|
| The implication of the dating "market" not being able to match
| buyers and sellers would have some interesting dynamics.
| joker99 wrote:
| > Many women still hold on to the idea of finding a partner
| that is wealthier and more educated. This is due to the past
| (over)reliance of their partners for stability. But this is no
| longer true.
|
| I'm not sure this is absolutely true - at least for Germany.
| Here the figures show, that women and men, ceteris paribus,
| earn pretty much the same (+-3%). Until... children come into
| the mix. The lack of child care and societies view on parental
| leave (for men at least) means, that generally speaking the
| woman stays home to take care of the child and later on moves
| on to a part time position thus earning less and having to rely
| on the partners income again.
| redmerchant2 wrote:
| I think that's a good point but the idea your (male) partner
| has to make more seems silly.
|
| The core idea of finding a partner that is strictly better is
| the concern the article raises. If she makes 300k a year and
| he makes 150k a year, the studies suggest women would refuse
| to take that.
|
| But if we suppose they get together, even with the haircut in
| wages from taking time for childcare, they will still have a
| great standard of living.
| ryanwaggoner wrote:
| I'm skeptical that the studies cover income that far above
| the median actually.
| chongli wrote:
| I think it'll sort itself out fairly quickly. Women who refuse
| to "date down" will find themselves getting older and lonelier.
| They'll open themselves up to more potential partners because
| long term loneliness is much worse than status anxiety (and
| people tend to lose their status anxiety as they get older).
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I am not optimistic that it'll sort itself out. In my
| experience spinsters get more radical and less agreeable, in
| effect double down on their beliefs. It's like watching a
| train wreck that takes 30 years.
|
| I've seen both women and men become embittered over time and
| I don't think any of them will recover.
| [deleted]
| dahwolf wrote:
| I don't think so. My anecdotal experience in life is that
| people tend to settle in their beliefs somewhere in their
| 30s, and will stick to it even if it's a type of self harm.
|
| Both men and women will turn bitter and simply opt-out for
| life. Not all, but many. Women that do this tend to be better
| off than men, as they have a type of alternative support
| network whilst many men do not.
| dahwolf wrote:
| "Many women still hold on to the idea of finding a partner that
| is wealthier and more educated. This is due to the past
| (over)reliance of their partners for stability. But this is no
| longer true."
|
| This independence remains to be seen. The assumption is that a
| higher education for women will structurally lead to complete
| financial independence across their life's path but I believe
| this to be a rosy view.
|
| First, for all but the top 10%, the cost of living is so high
| that it almost requires a partner. There goes your
| independence.
|
| Second, you have to make it to the end. Say you go at it alone,
| that means ~45 years of relentless full-time work, managing the
| 401K and nothing can happen under way, as there will be nobody
| to help. This is the existential stress that men have always
| faced in their provider role. The complete lack of optionality,
| zero tolerance for failure, and lack of any safety net. This is
| not to say that women can't handle this, I'm saying it remains
| to be seen.
|
| Third, whilst women may be highly educated, a huge portion of
| them work in administrative functions, NGOs, the like. Fields
| that are very exposed to the swings of the economy.
| dahwolf wrote:
| Added bonus of selecting for the 0.01% of men: if you're
| extraordinarily lucky to secure him, you have a new problem:
| the man has options.
| majormajor wrote:
| > The education gap between men and women are growing. More
| women enroll and graduate from college then men. Many young
| men, mostly lower-middle class, (whether fairly or not) feel
| like the education system does not work for them.
|
| So, like, isn't the question "why"?
|
| Why do boys, particularly lower- or lower-middle class, not
| believe in the education system as much as their sisters?
|
| School sucks, work sucks, then you die. But that's not new. And
| it's not stopping the girls/women. So why aren't the boys doing
| what previous generations did?
|
| I don't know the answer, but just saying "they don't like it"
| is hard to action on. Are parents too indulgent with boys in a
| way they aren't with girls? Is boy-oriented media setting up
| more unrealistic expectations relative to girl-oriented stuff?
| Are there just _that many_ boys who can 't deal with a world
| where uncontrolled aggression is less tolerated? I haven't seen
| a really good thorough investigation of this. (I've seen lots
| of bad-faith "this is what happens when you leave the Bible
| behind and women don't have to serve their men" ones...)
|
| I'm also not sure how much "we" as a society should care in the
| aggregate, vs having empathy for in the specific. Things never
| stay static, the system (institutions, culture, and
| individuals) will likely adjust. It's sad an overachieving
| woman reaches the top and can't find the ideal person she had
| built up in her head. It's sad a man doesn't apply himself in
| school or to building his social skills can't find dates. But
| it's also great that that woman was able to do all that. And
| there are still countless happy relationships and marriages
| happening - and many of them eventually separate, but overall,
| it seems like there is less violence and misery than in the
| past.
| matrix_overload wrote:
| From what I can see, women are statistically more OK to
| accept and fit in. Men are more likely to become the
| challengers and want to have their share of the pie.
|
| We didn't just create opportunities, we also stigmatized
| challenging the status quo and shifted the focus to complying
| and keeping the lights on. Many men would find this deal
| kinda empty, pointless and ultimately depressing.
| dahwolf wrote:
| "It's sad an overachieving woman reaches the top and can't
| find the ideal person she had built up in her head"
|
| If you're at the top, and select for men higher than that
| top, that's not sad. It's delusional. A 1%-er selecting for a
| 0.1%-er is the least of society's problems.
| blackbear_ wrote:
| A possible explanation is that most teachers in primary
| school are female, which creates an environment and
| behavioral expectations that favor girls, e.g.:
|
| - Teachers and the Gender Gaps in Student Achievement -
| https://jhr.uwpress.org/content/XLII/3/528
|
| - Gender differences in teachers' perceptions of students'
| temperament, educational competence, and teachability -
| https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8279.2010.02017.x
| majormajor wrote:
| That seems weird though, right? Cause in the US teachers,
| especially for early-childhood, have been predominantly
| female since before this gap.
| blackbear_ wrote:
| The world is much larger than the US ;)
|
| It could be that there were other external factors that
| used to counter-balance this effect, and are now being
| removed, such as, for example, the quest for increasing
| female participation in STEM no matter what, or general
| societal norms beyond school spurred by the rise of
| femminism.
|
| In any case, the academinc literature on this topic is
| vast (and not so clear cut), so if you really have not
| seen thorough investigations on the topic beyond "boys
| don't like it" or something from the Bible you can start
| by reading papers citing those I mentioned above:
|
| - https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=30487494968809
| 24830...
|
| - https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=83659055884403
| 04050...
| majormajor wrote:
| Let me rephrase my complain about what I've seen. There
| is a lot of academic work on this stuff, but I'd
| characterize it as very "leaf node" oriented on certain
| aspects. E.g., grabbing a few at random:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00
| 652... - boys may not have or get given the right sort of
| motivations
|
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/016237371771
| 405... - teacher demographic match affects student
| perceptions of abilities and confidence and such
|
| https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev
| .12... - young kids tend to believe boys do worse at
| school
|
| https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-
| abstract/129/3/1409/181... - boys being more competitive
| pushes them towards more prestigious fields but the
| genders show overall similar levels of ability
|
| That's just sort of how the modern academic system works.
| Specialization.
|
| There's nothing wrong with that, but where I live it
| isn't turning into serious policy conversations that look
| at thing more broadly and with a longer view. It might in
| other places, but I can't speak to those.
|
| I would love to see more of those serious conversations
| where I live. For instance, again specific to my
| experience in the US, it seems unlikely that "get more
| male teachers" would make a dent in a problem that
| started independently of primary teachers being
| overwhelmingly women.
| alcover wrote:
| In France, the female teacher ratio is 80+% in primary
| school and ~60% in secondary.
| randunel wrote:
| The article omits the male preference for younger women and that
| the majority of couples are of an older male and a younger
| female. This is extremely relevant to the analysis.
| lsy wrote:
| This article points out what is probably real friction from
| shifting mores but seems mainly preoccupied with implying that a
| return to more conservative values around women's role in society
| would be called for.
|
| What I feel is needed is to understand what the fundamentals are
| and how those things could be achieved in a society that is also
| compatible with human freedom. Most of the problems described in
| this article stem from a totally artificial "bundling" of
| companionship, sexual satisfaction, child-rearing, economic
| support, and intellectual stimulation into a singular person who
| not only is expected to satisfy these needs for you (and
| sometimes fails), but often prevents you from satisfying those
| needs with other people.
|
| So of course finding "Mr. or Mrs. Right" becomes existential, and
| of course we turn to dependable sources of entertainment as the
| anxiety of picking the "right" life mate prevents any of us from
| actually committing to anything. But with some creativity we can
| think of actual escape routes from this dynamic that don't
| require a return to treating women as property, like supporting
| single child-rearing, allowing people to form mutual support
| structures with friends or family, detaching self-worth from
| relationship status, a further liberalization of sexual mores,
| expanding economic safety nets, and so on and so forth.
| thowaway6060 wrote:
| I mean the research is nice, but I don't think that just a degree
| is going to up your chances. As someone who is using these apps
| constantly, I don't have any hope of finding a long term partner
| on there.
|
| I am on pretty much every app, except Tinder (Bumble, Hinge,
| okcupid, pof and even muzmatch (im south asian)). I have a
| bachelors, and I make good money. I've been told that I am a
| decent looking guy and I have quite a few hobbies. It's easy for
| me to make friends, so I don't think I fit the programmer
| stereotype.
|
| I am on these apps with the explicit intention of finding a long
| term partner and I've made it clear, but it seems that >95% of
| people are there for flings, fwb or casual hookups.
|
| I am starting to realize that dating apps are broken, if you are
| looking for a serious relationship - there's just no way you are
| going to find it on here.
|
| The focus of the study has been on guys with higher education,
| and from what I've seen girls here are not that well educated.
| Perhaps this is a small city phenomenon (pop. 1.5 mil), but it's
| quite shocking to see this disparity (That's another topic).
|
| Take this as you will, maybe it's just me venting or whatever,
| but it's tough out there and these apps are just not it.
| redmerchant2 wrote:
| This is mostly for large cities. As someone who's lived in many
| big cities like NYC and London, education and pedigree is
| extremely important.
|
| It's also about the illusion of choice and "settling" for
| worse. When you know there are attractive Harvard lawyers, why
| would you bother with some state school government worker? Now
| there's no guarantee these women can actually land the first
| group but why not try?
|
| As rational actors maximizing their utility, that's the right
| move. The real question is what utility entails for that
| individual. But the default norm is by school and job prestige
| alongside physical looks.
| dahwolf wrote:
| Chasing the top is not rational when considering the very
| rational fact that the top has options.
|
| I'm taken, but if were single, I'd rationally consider myself
| average-looking to decent. I would not find it rational at
| all for me to chase a supermodel (if beauty was the
| selector), I would in fact not try at all. Because
| rationally, some things are too good to be true.
| zilti wrote:
| These apps are broken no matter what you search, unless you are
| a somewhat attractive woman looking for quick hookups and don't
| care with whom.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _im south asian_
|
| Races tend to date within their own race. Really wish we could
| see your profile though to see if you're doing anything I
| perceive as wrong. I've seen guys with your exact description
| show me their profile and they have only one picture where it
| looks like they haven't showered in a month.
| mrj wrote:
| I'm getting married next month, a relationship started from a
| date found in possibly the worst of all the apps (Match, if you
| can believe it).
|
| I dated for a lot of years and, despite having some positives
| outlined by this article, I was also divorced and have a son.
| That made it massively more difficult to find a long term match
| given that many women flatly reject that combo.
|
| I learned though to be upfront. About your life. About what
| you're looking for. You're not looking for 95% of women to be
| attracted to you! You're looking for one. It sounds like you're
| optimizing the search already, so don't waste time worrying
| about 95%. People always say be yourself and I didn't
| appreciate what that meant until I started taking control of my
| dating journey.
|
| For example, I stopped tailoring dates around what they wanted
| to do. I planned stuff that I wanted to do and if somebody I
| was talking to wanted to come along, awesome. If not, I did it
| anyhow. I stopped hiding my love for Country music and went
| anyhow. My wife loves Country. :)
|
| Also, if you're honest in your profile and somebody wants to
| start casual.. consider it. People have a hard time in the
| dating scene and you can't fault them for not wanting to invest
| 100% right away. Have confidence in yourself and know the right
| one will stick around no matter what they said in the
| beginning. And if they don't, that's cool too. Hopefully you
| have some fun dates and life experience to make you a better
| date when the right one does show up. It does take practice.
|
| Much of a long term relationship starts when two people are at
| the right points in their lives. You can't really plan it, it
| just happens when it does and that's why people say they feel
| lucky. Much of it is luck. Leave space for that to happen too!
|
| Good luck to you.
| lolsal wrote:
| I was widowed after 15 years and I have been using dating
| apps for the last few years and in my experience you are
| absolutely correct on pretty much everything.
|
| I know who I am and what I like. I advertise that on my
| profile and I take folks on dates that I like to do by
| myself. I've had a lot of success with relationships of all
| different lengths and levels of casual-ness.
|
| If you are a dude in the dating pool and you are positioning
| yourself as what you think women want, you're doing yourself
| a disservice.
| bruceb wrote:
| As I mention every time dating comes up on HN, often men on HN
| live in areas that skew male. SV, Seattle, Bangalore, etc. If
| you live in say, San Jose, there are 130 men for every 100
| women. It not necessarily that apps don't work just the
| marketplace is not in balance in those cities. On the other
| hand a not insignificant portion of men send the dumbest msgs.
| Not that hard to write something better.
|
| Also some women might say that are not looking for something
| serious when they really mean just not interested in long term
| with the person asking. Sadly, men murder women, so women have
| to be careful about letting men down.
|
| Plenty of people have met their spouse on dating apps, so the
| idea "if you are looking for a serious relationship - there's
| just no way you are going to find it on here." just isn't
| accurate.
| doylio wrote:
| I got off all dating apps a couple years ago and I'm not going
| back. They're not optimized to help you find connection, but to
| extract value from you for shareholders through addiction and
| FOMO.
|
| I changed my focus to meeting people IRL and my dating life is
| better than ever!
| biohax2015 wrote:
| I've been to a few weddings now where the couple met on an app.
| Keep your chin up, king.
| grepLeigh wrote:
| Just came here to say don't give up, like you pointed out the
| current wave of dating apps aren't optimized for long-term
| relationships. VC-backed apps have to optimize for retention
| and revenue per user.
|
| I remember the previous era of dating sites (eHarmony) proudly
| published stats about committed relations + marriage.
|
| Anyway, have you gotten friends invested in your search? The
| first thing I would do is ask friends, their partners, and
| their partners' friends, and their partners' friends meddling
| aunties to set up a few blind dates. Mention that you're trying
| to meet "the one."
|
| Good luck out there, hope your story is different one year from
| now!
| alcover wrote:
| > the current wave of dating apps aren't optimized for long-
| term relationships
|
| That sentence...
|
| Nothing personal, you're obviously right. It's the sheer
| technicality of it. I wish young people would find love as
| they used to, at balls or smth..
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| "I am starting to realize that dating apps are broken, if you
| are looking for a serious relationship"
|
| Dating apps are optimized for usage, not success. If you find a
| serious relationship, you stop using the app (Hopefully).
|
| A dating app that helps you find a long term partner has failed
| to maximize your LTV
| Spoom wrote:
| I found my spouse on OkCupid but notably it was pre-Match
| buyout. Maybe try to find some non-Match sites / apps if
| you're looking for long-term.
| inconceivable wrote:
| part of the 'narrative' sold by society is that people fall in
| love while going through their casual dating 'phase'. nobody
| under the age of 30 (maybe 35) is going to be looking for a
| 'serious relationship'. if you explicitly state this in your
| profile or even on the first handful of dates nobody is going
| to respond well.
| JamesLeonis wrote:
| Counter-argument: _Pushing Boundaries: Female Sexuality From
| World War II to the Sexual Revolution_ [0]
|
| * Millions of eligible bachelors were shipped across the ocean,
| leaving a huge imbalance. And yet the sexual morals became _more_
| promiscuous.
|
| > Much of the literature surrounding women during World War II
| focuses on women in industry, family life, and military services
| and largely ignores those women who sought sexual liberation and
| freedom through promiscuity, casual sexual encounters, and a wide
| range of sexual interactions. These women faced a nearly
| impossible set of conflicting messages. For an odd slip of time,
| a vast majority of the female population was effectively single
| (Israel, 2002), and although they might not have directly
| challenged sexual mores, these young women left a legacy of
| "sexual self-assertion that would generate both conservative and
| liberal responses in the postwar years, inspiring calls for
| female autonomy during the 'sexual revolution' to come"
|
| * Around the same time "Calling" was replaced by "Dating", with a
| complete flip of gender expectations.
|
| > During the first several decades of the twentieth century,
| however, the calling system began to lose traction, as "courtship
| became more and more a private act conducted in public spheres.
| Dating had been established in urban, working-class youth in the
| first two decades of the twentieth century. By 1920, however,
| middle-class youth adopted the practice (Spurlock, 2016). The
| primary difference between the date and the call was where the
| event took place. The call always took place in the girl's home
| and almost always with some level of supervision from her
| parents. The central aspect of the date was that it took place in
| the public sphere, at such places as restaurants, theaters, or
| dance halls. Along with the shift in courting systems from
| calling to dating came a reverse in the roles for men and women.
| If a young woman wanted to date, she could no longer extend an
| invitation to her home or ask the young man to take her on a
| date. The control in the dating culture moved from the woman's
| sphere, the private sphere, into the man's sphere, the public
| sphere.
|
| * Dating in public became dominated by economics. With the
| flipped gender roles this economic burden fell on Men, while also
| introducing economic competition into the personal relationship.
|
| > "Dating also moved courtship into the economy" (Bailey, 1988,
| p. 21), which required money- men's money. Money became a
| fundamental part of the dating system, which led to increased
| competition in the American courtship system. The centrality of
| money in the dating system signified a system of exchange, with
| the woman contributing her company and the man contributing his
| company as well as his money. In economic terms, the woman was
| selling her company to the man (Bailey, 1988). Since the man was
| responsible for expenses, he decided when the dates would occur
| and with whom he wanted to spend his time. The culture of dating
| supported the economic system of scarcity and abundance, and thus
| created a culture of competition amongst America's youth for the
| greatest resources, or the most popular date.
|
| * With the competition there became a "rating" system (sound
| familiar?)
|
| > Under this complex, Waller theorized, college students used a
| system of rating and dating to place each other in a systematical
| hierarchy of eligibility based on traits they deemed desirable.
| Students, both men and women, who met certain criteria, were
| considered to be at the top of the social hierarchy: "they may be
| placed in a hypothetical Class A" (Waller, 1937, p. 730). For men
| to rate high they had to belong to one of the top fraternities on
| campus, be well-dressed, know how to dance, maintain a proper
| appearance, use good pick-up lines, have access to a car, and
| possess enough money to spend on dates. Women's guidelines were
| similar in regards to appearance, but it was also important that
| she be considered a sought-after date (Bogle, 2008; Waller,
| 1937).
|
| * Finally, "Going Steady" was a method women could use to
| _escape_ the sexual double-standard and have sex (and other fun
| sex-related activities)
|
| > These relationships brought new opportunities and meanings for
| sexual intimacy, and teenagers, especially females, had to
| navigate the complex and often ambiguous social rules set forth.
| Going steady offered teens a level of commitment that allowed for
| more sexual freedom and young men and women could more easily
| explore the erotic (D'Emilio & Freedman, 1988; Spurlock 2016).
|
| > any heterosexual teen couples that were engaging in sexual
| acts, including heavy petting and intercourse, were going steady
| and experimenting. These relationships allowed for young boys and
| girls to engage in sexual acts, basically hidden in plain sight.
| The level of commitment of these steady relationships "provided
| the context, setting, and rationale for widespread sexual
| experimentation among heterosexual teens and young adults in the
| 1950s" (Littauer, 2015, p. 118), which led to increased sexual
| intimacy for young people that were in these relationships.
| Engaging in intercourse while in committed, steady relationships
| allowed young girls the opportunity to explore the sexual
| minefield of contradictory beliefs. This "created a cultural
| middle ground between explicit sexual mores and tolerated sexual
| practices that would influence Americans' beliefs about sexual
| acceptability for decades" (Littauer, 2015, p. 113). Teenage
| girls and young women had the opportunity to experiment sexually
| due to the belief that their actions were justified because of
| the loving nature of their relationships.
|
| * And yet the double-standard empowered boys and men, while only
| giving partial power to women.
|
| > Although going steady afforded opportunities for increased
| sexual intimacy, young women and teenage girls continued to live
| with the cultural expectation that sex only occurred within the
| confines of marriage. There was little acknowledgement from older
| adults, the media, or society that women had interest in and the
| desire for sex. Girls were expected to act as if they wanted sex,
| but not act upon their urges (Littauer, 2015). In contrast, to be
| popular, girls were expected to participate in a certain level of
| sexual experimentation, at the very least petting, but they could
| not go too far or risk a bad reputation. The double standard that
| developed during the early part of the twentieth century
| persisted through the 1950s. It was very clear to almost every
| young girl that a double standard existed, yet where the line was
| drawn between just enough and too much was very ambiguous. If a
| girl's sex life became a topic of gossip, she would be ostracized
| from the groups who were concerned over reputation, and to a vast
| majority of American, reputation was everything (Bailey, 1988;
| Bailey, 1999; Spurlock, 2016)
|
| > The sexual "double standard worked mainly to the benefit of
| boys," yet "enforcement came from the girls" (Spurlock, 2016, p.
| 93). Boys were free to express themselves sexually, while girls
| were expected to adhere to the confusing set of ideological
| standards. Since girls were expected to set the limits, if a
| couple went too far, it was the female's fault. Boys, however,
| pushed the limits and often crossed the line from subtle pressure
| to outright aggression (Bailey, 1999; D'Emilio & Freedman, 1988).
| Young men were even taught by their peers and professionals
| various techniques to coerce women who expressed sexual
| reticence. Sexual coercion and aggression were seldom categorized
| as assault or rape during this time period. It was seldom that
| women reported sexual assault.
|
| [0]:
| https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=189...
| EMCymatics wrote:
| Quotas in education is always a fun topic.
| extasia wrote:
| Tldr, get your degrees up fellas
| tester457 wrote:
| And a masters if you are interested in getting a almost 2x
| chance of getting swiped right on.
| [deleted]
| HaroldBolt78 wrote:
| [dead]
| someweirdperson wrote:
| > A study led by economics researcher Brecht Neyt of Ghent
| University found that, on Tinder, women were 91 percent more
| likely to "like" a man with a master's degree compared with a
| bachelor's degree. The researchers used the same male profiles,
| the only difference was level of education.
|
| No ethics board in the economics department?
| ayemel wrote:
| I'll bite, what's unethical here?
| [deleted]
| snowpid wrote:
| Im not sure given the information from (my non - American)
| environment.
|
| 1.) I sometimes talk with young woman about this topic. A few
| mentioned who are ambitious and do wish having kids start to
| think about getting a house man as a father. Also when I
| mentioned this studies some women complain that man prefer women
| with lower earnings... We know that prestige, earning much etc.
| is a big thing in US. These observations should be checked and I
| think, only one mentioned study did it.
|
| 2.) The explanation with video games is very narrow. We know,
| that school teachers in high developed countries tend to prefer
| girls.
|
| 3.) Well I see myself as counter example. Though high educated I
| do have a lack of money as a long term CS student (well, a thing
| in Germany :D ) Though I have "manly" hobbies (sailing, techno
| clubbing, networking in mainly manly enviroments) it is not I
| have lack of interested women. Maybe, because I dont live in
| America.
| snowpid wrote:
| Also incels movement are a thing and they cant be explained
| with the given text.
| GoodJokes wrote:
| [dead]
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| To speak frankly, what are women doing with all this supposed
| surplus of education? I don't exactly see turning tides in terms
| of women beginning to dominate markets or leadership positions
| because they're starting businesses and startups and taking over
| boards and middle management positions.
|
| Anecdotally, I've seen these single women, they're all waiting
| until they're past their 20s to find a partner and they expect
| them all to be complete people by the time they meet them.
|
| I don't see as much of a concept of growing up together off the
| foundations of who you are as a person today as I've heard it
| expressed from older colleagues I've worked with.
|
| Plainly, women are asking for too much, and too late in life.
| orwin wrote:
| > To speak frankly, what are women doing with all this supposed
| surplus of education?
|
| What's funny is that I talked about Bourdieu a whole afternoon
| during last week's strike, and today, two conversations where
| my 10 year old knowledge could be used.
|
| Women historically had low economic, symbolic and social
| capital, but could have high cultural one. They used this
| cultural capital to gain the others.
|
| But Bourdieu explain that capital structure is a chiasma, and
| that people with high economic capital will push to get their
| offspring to get cultural capital (or at least symbols, aka
| diploma), and people with high cultural capital will try to
| prevent it by creating other symbols (that was in the 70s, he
| basically predicted diploma inflation 40 years before it
| happened). In the meantime, people with high cultural capital
| will try to get high economic capital, and people with high
| economic capital will try to prevent that (basically having too
| much culture/knowledge is an hindrance to truly get on the
| highest march)
|
| And I realized I don't understand him well enough to correctly
| explain his theories, so I scraped my explanations and left the
| basic, you should read him, but basically, it's inconsious
| phenomenon that isn't really caused by inconsious sexism (it
| might but I don't think so) but by capital structure.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this.
| sho_hn wrote:
| > they're all waiting until they're past their 20s to find a
| partner and they expect them all to be complete people by the
| time they meet them
|
| I don't think this is female-specific. I see a lot of young men
| around me delaying "getting serious" into their mid-30s too,
| and have very high standards by that point.
|
| I'd include myself. I met my wife at 30, and by that time I was
| also looking for someone in a similar life stage to mine.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Yeah, I see the same problem with young men, too. People say
| the dating pool turns in their favor by the time they get to
| their 30s, but you've missed out on an entire possible era of
| your life together with someone at that point.
|
| And the dating pool absolutely does not look the same.
| sho_hn wrote:
| It's definitely true that my wife I say "I wish I had met
| you five years earlier" a lot, e.g. around things like
| starting a fam. There's something to what you say there, it
| gives you more runway in HN parlance.
| throw-ru-938 wrote:
| Then again, it's not guaranteed she would appreciate you-
| but-five-years-earlier, and vice versa. A person probably
| undergoes a bit more character development than a VC firm
| does.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Given that we're no longer with the people who we were
| seeing 5 years earlier ... yep.
| majormajor wrote:
| "More people are waiting until their 30s to settle down" is
| a wildly different claim than "women are asking too much."
|
| If the dating pool looks a lot different after that decade
| that also suggests that a lot of people are still "settling
| down" earlier, too.
|
| So is the claim that "women are asking for too much, and
| too late in life" based in 30something men who fucked
| around in their 20s not having grown up as much as the
| women during that decade or something?
|
| I met my wife in my 30s, on an app even, I also found I had
| lost patience for women who acted like they were in their
| early or mid 20s still.
| throw-ru-938 wrote:
| Yeah, that's possibly me in five years.
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| "what are women doing with all this supposed surplus of
| education?"
|
| Maybe a surplus of education just means...they spent more time
| and money on school?
|
| Dominating markets and leadership positions, building
| businesses...how much formal education you have rarely plays a
| big role in these endeavors...
|
| Just my personal experience.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. It's not a useful social
| signal: it just means you spent more time and money and
| incurred more debt than men without any additional context.
| analog31 wrote:
| Making more money in better jobs, in better towns, healthier,
| better lives.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't do gender flamewar on HN. "Women are asking for
| too much" is not going to end well, and the kind of thing we're
| trying to avoid here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| scarmig wrote:
| They are outcompeting men in their premarriage years; in the
| most significant metros, single women's income matches or
| exceeds single men's. And as of 2016 40% of managers are
| female.
|
| I agree that women tend to not be going for the riskiest jobs
| or those that require significant tradeoffs in work-life
| balance; for those, you need a supportive spouse, and there are
| both demand- and supply-side issues in pairings where males
| play the supportive role to a female primary earner.
| tester457 wrote:
| > I agree that women tend to not be going for the riskiest
| jobs or those that require significant tradeoffs in work-life
| balance; for those, you need a supportive spouse, and there
| are both demand- and supply-side issues in pairings where
| males play the supportive role to a female primary earner.
|
| Choosing more risky jobs may be male biology and the gender
| equality paradox.
|
| No increase in supply of supportive husbands would
| significantly increase the amount of women choosing riskier
| careers.
|
| > Iceland consistently ranks as the most gender-equal nation.
| It is also the nation where men and women are most likely to
| pursue sex-typical jobs.[1]
|
| Also does a person truly need a supportive spouse to
| undertake a risky career? My assumption is that people decide
| their career paths well before marriage, and some men choose
| their career to be a more attractive dating prospect.
|
| [1] https://bigthink.com/the-present/gender-equality-paradox/
| scarmig wrote:
| That was badly stated on my part, and I mostly agree with
| you on the risky-career part (though the work-life tradeoff
| is a separate axis and one where I think my point holds).
|
| Men probably do choose riskier careers early on in
| significant part because it increases payouts in the
| relationship market relative to women. Going from well-off
| to rich doesn't actually improve material well-being much
| for either men or women, but it does significantly improve
| relationship prospects for men in a way it doesn't for
| women. It becomes a matter of economics: the real payout
| (inclusive of non-monetary elements) for success in a risky
| bet is higher for men than women, and so men choose to take
| those risky bets more often.
| swozey wrote:
| > they're all waiting until they're past their 20s to find a
| partner and they expect them all to be complete people by the
| time they meet them.
|
| I'm in my 30s and never married. I fully expect someone to come
| as a full person with an education and career. I am _beyond_
| glad that I didn 't get married to my high school sweet heart
| or someone I dated in my early 20s when I was still a kid. I am
| nothing like I was when I was 20, or 25. Maybe even 30.
|
| I know way, way too many people who did that and are now
| divorced. And a lot of the women in those relationships had
| children very early and didn't have a chance to get an
| education or start a career so now that they're divorced and on
| their own they're having a very hard time securing good income.
|
| Women are definitely not "asking for too much." I would rather
| be happily single than compromise heavily on my expectations,
| and I'd wager the sort of women we're talking about feel the
| same.
| Multicomp wrote:
| > I know way, way too many people who did that and are now
| divorced. And a lot of the women in those relationships had
| children very early and didn't have a chance to get an
| education or start a career so now that they're divorced and
| on their own they're having a very hard time securing good
| income.
|
| My parents talked about how when they were married 'they were
| just kids' even though they married in their mid 20s.
|
| I wonder if this trend of marriages happening more into the
| late 20s to early 30s has a large source from the difficulty
| of obtaining financial stability, and additionally if it is
| part of the causes of the US low fertility rate.
|
| Would we still wait to mid/late 20s to get serious if all
| else were equal but the financial stability to buy a house
| etc. were there as easily as it was for previous generations?
| swozey wrote:
| I think a big part of it is a huge portion of millennials
| are the children of divorced families. I have zero desire
| or itch to be married. If a partner of mine really wanted
| to be married I'd be fine with it. I also have no desire to
| have children.
|
| The other poster mentioned that eventually I'll get married
| or "life will pass me by". At least that's how I'm reading
| it. I don't need a partner or to be married to enjoy life.
| I don't feel that I'm missing anything. I can do whatever I
| want.
| dauertewigkeit wrote:
| I think it is just your bubble. There is nobody who is
| divorced in my social bubble. Young and old, all manage
| it somehow. I am also a millennial.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| No one is. It doesn't make you unique or more true to
| yourself by waiting later in life. You'll get married and
| _still change._
|
| My point is that people are deluding themselves into this
| idea that you need to be a finished person before finding a
| partner.
|
| You will grow together and effect one another. And if you're
| a committed partner, you'll build each other up.
|
| If you think hard times are a limit for you personally and
| divorce is always an option in regular everyday struggles,
| you're going to face some real hard realities one day when
| you realize options that you had are no longer available
| while life passes you by.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| I think definitions of "a finished person" are being
| mismatched here. in my experience most people just want a
| partner that is a functional adult. Knows how to eat
| properly. Understands taxes. Can speak intelligently about
| cost of living topics like budgeting groceries and
| entertainment. Can drink moderately on a weeknight knowing
| they have to go to work the next day.
|
| Edited to add: In my experience, if you don't date someone
| who "can adult", you will have to parent your partner,
| which doesn't go all that well if you're not kinky like
| that.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Yeah, and all of that sounds totally reasonable until you
| have a working knowledge of lots of interactions between
| tons of real people you've actually spoken with and had
| connections with to learn how life actually works.
|
| Your requirements per a "functional adult" are an example
| of people asking for too much because they have no
| practical understanding of reality:
|
| Americans _don 't eat properly_. The average American is
| overweight.[1]
|
| Americans don't know anything about taxes.[2]
|
| Americans don't understand cost of living. Barely anyone
| knows what the CPI-W is or how it differs from the CPI-U.
|
| [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-
| measurements.htm
|
| [2]: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/americans-
| dont-know...
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| I wouldn't consider weight to be a good indicator of
| capacity to make meals. I know thin people who I wouldn't
| trust to make me a cup of water and I know fat people who
| can adhere to a strict diet for their children.
|
| I also wouldn't consider CPI-W and CPI-U to be cost-of-
| living concerns. I consider being able to say "hey,
| honey, we can't spend 500$ on your mobile game because
| eggs cost 7 for a dozen at the grocery store this week,
| we need to revise our budget" to be adult behavior.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Missing the forest for the trees.
|
| Fat people truly adhering to proper eating don't stay
| fat. Cost of living and budgets are two separate but
| related topics.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| I think you're kind of missing the point I'm trying to
| make. There's no point in someone who can define a term
| for broader trends if they cannot balance a personal
| budget. The capacity to define a broader trend can
| _inform_ budgets, but I wouldn 't date someone who is
| shocked when they have no money left for food because
| they spent it all on a shoe sale. I wouldn't consider
| that person a functional adult even if they happened to
| be thin and understood nuances between cost of living
| statistical measurements.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Personal swipes will get you banned here, so would you
| please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and make
| your substantive points without any of that?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| I never said people don't get budgets wrong. I merely
| said it's reasonable to try to prioritize dating people
| who can sensibly budget according to their income and
| their cost of goods and services in their area. It
| shouldn't be a consistent problem that you run out of
| rent money because you didn't budget for paying rent. I
| think you're misunderstanding my words because you're
| conflating these sets of preferences like some kind of
| demand for idealized humans. I think I'm pointing out
| that people's desires aren't unreasonable and
| exaggerating them is just strawman behavior.
|
| Savings rates being at all-time lows doesn't mean that
| people don't know how to budget. It might be that
| budgeting has become much harder. Similarly, I don't
| think someone being fat means they don't understand how
| to cook a healthy meal. It might be that keeping thin has
| become much harder.
| simonsarris wrote:
| > my early 20s when I was still a kid
|
| You were not a kid. There's an old lady on my road whose
| (late) husband built their house when he was 18. _Maybe_ he
| was still a kid.
|
| > I am nothing like I was when I was 20, or 25. Maybe even
| 30.
|
| It would be very weird if you did not change at all between
| 20 and 30 but nothing precludes doing that with someone else.
| 99% of modern relationship advice is bad because it tries to
| convince people that needing to show up to life with
| everything figured out is superior to figuring things out
| together. For almost everyone, the latter is a lot more
| workable. That doesn't mean it will be free from hardship,
| but it opens up enormous advantages. Time is not free.
| swozey wrote:
| I'm obviously not using "kid" in the legal sense. I cannot
| believe I'm having to write this. I'm referring to maturity
| and wisdom, experience.
|
| If I want to call my 20 year old self a kid, I'm going to
| do so without any concern for your input.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| I don't believe women past their 20s are "too late in life" to
| be seeking a partner.
|
| I for one would not want to have a long-term partner with
| someone below their 20's. They're too young, cannot even go for
| a casual heart-to-heart over beers/wine, and have no
| understanding of budgeting, tax analysis, healthcare planning,
| or any other number of basic adult administration. I'll have to
| parent them though this, which is supremely un-sexy.
| Dudester230602 wrote:
| If she wants kids and she is ~35 then one bad shot means
| missing out on kids.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| The poster above specifies <20, so I'm talking about <20
| year old women.
| Dudester230602 wrote:
| You said _" I don't believe women past their 20s are "too
| late in life" to be seeking a partner."_. That means 30s.
| It's not too late, but certain risks are much higher.
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| I didn't say there is no upper limit. I disagreed that
| the 20s is the upper limit.
| aaomidi wrote:
| > Plainly, women are asking for too much, and too late in life.
|
| Ah yes, the hive mind of women.
| Dudester230602 wrote:
| [flagged]
| keiferski wrote:
| I read a book awhile ago called _Shall the Religious Inherit the
| Earth?_ , which basically argues that cultures which strongly
| promote traditional values, having children, etc. will
| evolutionarily outcompete groups that don't.
|
| It made me think that there must be a kind of cycle in human
| societies, where certain social values (like the ones mentioned
| in the article) are able to become popular for a short period of
| time (which can be over a century long) but ultimately have no
| ability to sustain themselves and then are outcompeted. The
| amount of "defectors" isn't enough to sustain the population.
|
| Given how difficult it seems for any genuinely universal cultural
| movement to take off in the dating space, it seems to me like a
| similar thing will happen over the course of the 21st and 22nd
| centuries.
| ryanwaggoner wrote:
| I think fundamentalism is too brittle to persist like that over
| the long term.
|
| Yes, the most conservative religions usually have a lot of
| kids, but over the generations, many of those kids will leave
| the religion, or at least join a less fundamentalist strain and
| have fewer kids. Unless the culture is kept strictly separate
| (increasingly impossible), the quality of life that the
| surrounding secular culture offers is too alluring. So
| standards are relaxed, women get educated and start working,
| have fewer kids. And it ripples down the generations. It hasn't
| happened yet in some of the less developed parts of the world,
| but as they get richer, it will. It always does.
| analog31 wrote:
| This only makes sense if quantity of population matters more
| than quality.
| dahwolf wrote:
| No, it doesn't. That's exactly the problem. It seems the more
| "quality", whatever that means, the less people reproduce,
| thus society falls apart.
| paulddraper wrote:
| > Given how difficult it seems for any genuinely universal
| cultural movement to take off in the dating space
|
| ?????
|
| Dating culture is substantially different than a decade ago.
| keiferski wrote:
| I meant to take off deliberately with the aim of correcting
| the problem mentioned in the article. Western society seems
| too self-absorbed to me to ever move past selfish motives at
| this point.
|
| In other words, some kind of cultural movement that tells
| people to put their preferences aside "for the good of
| society" seems like it won't work anytime soon.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Oh okay I don't see that happening any sooner than the heat
| death of the universe.
| zilti wrote:
| Indeed, it, has become substantially worse, even though that
| seemed almost impossible.
| dnissley wrote:
| I'm starting to view the relationship between the religious
| part of our society and the secular as being symbiotic in a
| sense.
|
| What makes people defect from religious communities on the
| border to secular centers? Some combination of money, freedom,
| and power (to participate in shaping the wider society at
| scale). The cost of that defection is an uprooting and
| disconnection from "traditional values". I'm not as certain
| about this part, but part of it seems to be that it's easier to
| do the work of having and raising children on the border.
|
| What makes people defect from the secular centers back to
| religious communities on the border? Just the opposite trade
| off -- less money, freedom, power. But you'll be more grounded
| and connected to a community, which can be immensely
| satisfying. And it's easier to raise kids.
|
| Also I should note here that the borders and centers I'm
| talking about aren't necessarily physical -- in fact
| increasingly they are very much not, especially with the rise
| of remote work.
|
| People in the secular center are doing a tremendous amount of
| very valuable and high leverage technical work to make a scaled
| civilization like ours function on a day-to-day basis. That's
| super important stuff.
|
| People in religious (or cultural) communities at the border are
| doing a tremendous amount of cultural work to sustain a reserve
| of human values that can fuel those at the center when hard
| times come. Also super important stuff.
|
| A balance in the tradeoffs between these places and a
| continuous cycling of people between them seems healthy to me.
| ryanwaggoner wrote:
| I love this, but there's one thing I'd point out. With few
| exceptions, there's little defection from secular society
| into fundamentalist religious communities. Almost everyone in
| those communities was born there.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| I would take a look at the ideological allies of the idea you
| have explained:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_genocide_conspiracy_theo...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement
|
| The author of your book is fascist:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Kaufmann
|
| > Kaufmann identifies as a national conservative.[13] He has
| called "woke" ideas "a battle for the foundations of our
| civilisation" and has expressed support for Florida governor
| Ron DeSantis, arguing at the 2022 British Conservative Party
| conference that the party should follow DeSantis's lead.[14]
| For Kaufmann, although some of his educational policies "go too
| far", "DeSantis is the future of conservatism".[15]
| Animats wrote:
| > I read a book awhile ago called Shall the Religious Inherit
| the Earth?, which basically argues that cultures which strongly
| promote traditional values, having children, etc. will
| evolutionarily out-compete groups that don't.
|
| That's happening in Israel, as the haredi out-breed the reform
| Jews and the seculars.[1] Religious societies that oppress
| women, breed lots of kids, and are dominated by old men in
| black with beards are a thing. That exists in Jewish, Islamic,
| and Christian forms, so it's independent of the brand of
| religion.
|
| [1] https://www.jta.org/2021/03/10/israel/how-the-haredi-
| orthodo...
| akomtu wrote:
| Hinduist "four ugas" capture this idea very well: the golden
| age when strong and good create values, the silver age when
| weak and good uphold the values, the bronze age when weak with
| sloppy morals let the values decline, the iron age when strong
| and evil destroy the values.
|
| I doubt that the current situation with marriage institute is
| seen as a problem by those in power. As we're progressing
| towards the iron age, the culture of indiscriminate hookups
| will prevail and will be celebrated by governments, the only
| motive of short connections will be greed and lust, and the
| kids, occasionally born from such encounters will be raised in
| the gov kindergartens. And people will worship AI that, among
| other things, will match pairs on the dating market.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Woah. The Ancient Greeks did the metal thing too.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_Man
|
| Maybe it was an even earlier Proto-Indo-European meme that
| radiated out to everyone.
| epa wrote:
| I dont understand why they want me to login to read the article.
| I dont want an account, nor do i want to give you my email. I
| would rather leave the site than sign up. "Logins" are so
| antiquated.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-06-13 23:03 UTC)