5 ms·

Cheer up. Contrary to what many believe, men's chances in life have never been better than now. Life used to be rough and unfair for most us men. Maybe the old

by flexie 10y ago

Cheer up. Contrary to what many believe, men's chances in life have never been better than now. Life used to be rough and unfair for most us men. Maybe the oldest son had a chance to inherit the farm or shop of his father so he could provide for a wife and family. Many men, however, had no such luck and went through life without marrying, many without ever dating or being with a woman. Western women don't need men to provide an income to the same extent as before, and that opens up a lot of other possibilities for us men. Guys can actually get married although they only earn enough to support half a family or 40% of a family. I even know several guys that makes less than 10% of the family income (and that's through welfare). What chance would a stay home dad have had in 1920? What chance would an unemployed guy have had? And equally important, we can date women without providing them anything else than a bit of romance. It has still only been a couple of generations in which a majority of us dated for years without having to marry. Some women still look at earning ability but many women also look at other traits nowadays. Looks, intellect, humour, family skills, interests etc. Work on that and be grateful you weren't born at any point in human history before the 1950s.

belorn 10y ago
While there exist women that don't look at earning ability of men, and there exist men who don't look at the age and appearance of women, both of those seems to be depressingly small minority when ever I see studies on it. I recall a poll from example china where 80% of women answered that they could never date a man who earned less than a set amount (which is above average pay), and a majority who considered that a man should not even be allowed outside if they didn't earn that much. They should be inside studying or working. Why is post-1950 men better off in this regard than pre-1950?
- andai 10y ago
  Source? I would like to verify these depressing findings.
  - belorn 10y ago
    When it come to vague recollections, source is not that easy to bring. I don't write down what I see, so sometimes you got to take it for what it is. Through after some searching, I did find today what I looked at several years ago and they seems very similar to what I recalled. "The survey shows that about 80% of the single women interviewed think that it's reasonable for men to only consider a relationship if they receive a monthly income of above 4,000 yuan (US$635)", which was above the average income in 2011 when the study was done. - (http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/136873-1.htm http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/136873-1...) For the even more depressing parts, okcupid blog from 2009 shared some data. For how men view of women: (https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0f1561e#.49oxh5d0s https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0...). To quote: "This graph also dramatically illustrates just how much more important a woman’s looks are than a guy’s." For how women view of men: (https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-online-dating-a9e3990d6ae2#.i789kfbzy https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-onli...). To quote: "if you’re a young guy and don’t make much money, cool. If you’re 23 or older and don’t make much money, go die in a fire."
    - song 10y ago
      This is based on dating websites where people need to make a quick decision based on a relatively limited set of information. I don't know how much this skews the data but it wouldn't surprise me that on a dating website, people make more decisions based on superficial data (earnings, look) than in real life. That said, in real life, there's not necessarily a lot of social mixity so people will tend to meet people who earn about the same as they do. Slightly out of topic, funnily enough when I used such a website, I lowballed my earnings because I didn't want to meet women for whom that was an important factor.
- song 10y ago
  The context in China is widely different from developed countries like the US or European countries. China is a country that underwent a massive change in their economic system and a massive growth in the past 20 years, that completely changes people's expectation. I mean just when I lived in Shanghai from 2009 to 2013, the cost of a cleaning lady went from 10 RMB/per hour to 25 RMB/hour. Anecdotally, I've heard quite a few Chinese woman tell me that they wanted to marry someone who was rich only to end up marrying a few years later someone who earned about as much as they did. I don't have statistics for countries that have been developed for some time like US and Europe but, in my experience, flexie is absolutely correct. It's not that difficult to find women who don't really care about the earning ability of their mate.
- rbg246 10y ago
  Do you want to marry someone who filters based on earning ability? Those are the types I try and avoid! Post-1950 man has so many more freedoms and opportunities and ways to live life, sure it is probably harder if you want to live your imagined 1950s lifestyle but now you don't have to live that 1950s lifestyle. I am sure a huge number of men were chain ganged into living that way during the 1950s which made life a lot worse than now. But I guess with choice and freedom brings anxiety and fear of choosing incorrectly.
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    I think there's a lot of men who'll do anything to have a regular sex partner and a sense of purpose. Unfortunately, the sense of purpose society prescribes men is that of sole provider for a woman and 2-3 kids. Men are as much a victim of the societal power structures that pressure us all as women in this sense - an assertion that masculinity is intrinsically linked to this rather oppressive structure causes issues for men who don't fit into the structure.
  - dripton 10y ago
    I married a woman who definitely filtered based on earning ability. Not in terms of "must be a millionaire" but in terms of "must have some evidence that he will be able to hold down a steady job." I'm pretty sure that if at some point in our relationship before we got married I had decided to permanently quit working and play video games all day, she would have broken up with me. I think the majority of rational women who are not independently wealthy do this. In fairness, she also imposed these rules on herself, so that she could take care of herself and any children in the event something happened to me. (She works part-time in a highly paid field. Partly because it interests her to work, and partly as an economic hedge -- we don't really need her income now, but if something happened to me, she could switch to full time and support the family.) It's economically rational to want a spouse who can earn money. It's not necessarily gold digging.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Life used to be rough and unfair for most us men. Maybe the oldest son had a chance to inherit the farm or shop of his father so he could provide for a wife and family. Many men, however, had no such luck and went through life without marrying, many without ever dating or being with a woman. Citation needed. This has absolutely not been the case in most of recorded history and in most of the known world.
pessimizer 10y ago
> Cheer up. Contrary to what many believe, men's chances in life have never been better than now. Not for men without college degrees.
- flexie 10y ago
  Yes, also for men without college degrees. Even most welfare clients are better off than an average man in 1776, 1861, 1914, 1940 etc. and they in turn had way better lives than men in the stone, bronze, or iron ages and men in the Medieval period. I wouldn't even want to change for a successful young, white American male in the 1960s or whenever America was at its industrial peak. Look, we are so lucky at this point in time in the Western world. Far from everything is great, but we live long lives in comfort, mostly painless, mostly without death or disease or hunger, mostly without war, we date around for fun during a decade or two, travel as we like, wherever we like, get entertainment on demand, chose our own profession, before we marry out of love when we are in our 30s or even 40s. Kings would envy our comfortable lives and I bet even Cary Grant would envy the dating life of a regular young man armed with Tinder.
  - 0x445442 10y ago
    I disagree. My wife's grandfather, who I'd consider typical, bought a house and provided for a family of four in Palo Alto while working at a local Safeway. A job that required no college degree but only the willingness to show up and take some pride in his work. It was a modest yet peaceful and satisfying existence. As far as comfort, I'd don't accept the premise our lives are more comfortable now than in 1955. My guess is most young men would gladly trade the latest dating app and the interwebs for the conditions of the typical 1955 US male.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      >As far as comfort, I'd don't accept the premise our lives are more comfortable now than in 1955. My guess is most young men would gladly trade the latest dating app and the interwebs for the conditions of the typical 1955 US male. Does that include being drafted into the Korean War? The Vietnam War? The Suez Canal Crisis?

by flexie 10y ago

belorn 10y ago

While there exist women that don't look at earning ability of men, and there exist men who don't look at the age and appearance of women, both of those seems to be depressingly small minority when ever I see studies on it. I recall a poll from example china where 80% of women answered that they could never date a man who earned less than a set amount (which is above average pay), and a majority who considered that a man should not even be allowed outside if they didn't earn that much. They should be inside studying or working. Why is post-1950 men better off in this regard than pre-1950?

andai 10y ago
Source? I would like to verify these depressing findings.
- belorn 10y ago
  When it come to vague recollections, source is not that easy to bring. I don't write down what I see, so sometimes you got to take it for what it is. Through after some searching, I did find today what I looked at several years ago and they seems very similar to what I recalled. "The survey shows that about 80% of the single women interviewed think that it's reasonable for men to only consider a relationship if they receive a monthly income of above 4,000 yuan (US$635)", which was above the average income in 2011 when the study was done. - (http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/136873-1.htm http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/136873-1...) For the even more depressing parts, okcupid blog from 2009 shared some data. For how men view of women: (https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0f1561e#.49oxh5d0s https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0...). To quote: "This graph also dramatically illustrates just how much more important a woman’s looks are than a guy’s." For how women view of men: (https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-online-dating-a9e3990d6ae2#.i789kfbzy https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-onli...). To quote: "if you’re a young guy and don’t make much money, cool. If you’re 23 or older and don’t make much money, go die in a fire."
  - song 10y ago
    This is based on dating websites where people need to make a quick decision based on a relatively limited set of information. I don't know how much this skews the data but it wouldn't surprise me that on a dating website, people make more decisions based on superficial data (earnings, look) than in real life. That said, in real life, there's not necessarily a lot of social mixity so people will tend to meet people who earn about the same as they do. Slightly out of topic, funnily enough when I used such a website, I lowballed my earnings because I didn't want to meet women for whom that was an important factor.
song 10y ago
The context in China is widely different from developed countries like the US or European countries. China is a country that underwent a massive change in their economic system and a massive growth in the past 20 years, that completely changes people's expectation. I mean just when I lived in Shanghai from 2009 to 2013, the cost of a cleaning lady went from 10 RMB/per hour to 25 RMB/hour. Anecdotally, I've heard quite a few Chinese woman tell me that they wanted to marry someone who was rich only to end up marrying a few years later someone who earned about as much as they did. I don't have statistics for countries that have been developed for some time like US and Europe but, in my experience, flexie is absolutely correct. It's not that difficult to find women who don't really care about the earning ability of their mate.
rbg246 10y ago
Do you want to marry someone who filters based on earning ability? Those are the types I try and avoid! Post-1950 man has so many more freedoms and opportunities and ways to live life, sure it is probably harder if you want to live your imagined 1950s lifestyle but now you don't have to live that 1950s lifestyle. I am sure a huge number of men were chain ganged into living that way during the 1950s which made life a lot worse than now. But I guess with choice and freedom brings anxiety and fear of choosing incorrectly.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  I think there's a lot of men who'll do anything to have a regular sex partner and a sense of purpose. Unfortunately, the sense of purpose society prescribes men is that of sole provider for a woman and 2-3 kids. Men are as much a victim of the societal power structures that pressure us all as women in this sense - an assertion that masculinity is intrinsically linked to this rather oppressive structure causes issues for men who don't fit into the structure.
- dripton 10y ago
  I married a woman who definitely filtered based on earning ability. Not in terms of "must be a millionaire" but in terms of "must have some evidence that he will be able to hold down a steady job." I'm pretty sure that if at some point in our relationship before we got married I had decided to permanently quit working and play video games all day, she would have broken up with me. I think the majority of rational women who are not independently wealthy do this. In fairness, she also imposed these rules on herself, so that she could take care of herself and any children in the event something happened to me. (She works part-time in a highly paid field. Partly because it interests her to work, and partly as an economic hedge -- we don't really need her income now, but if something happened to me, she could switch to full time and support the family.) It's economically rational to want a spouse who can earn money. It's not necessarily gold digging.
coldtea 10y ago
>Life used to be rough and unfair for most us men. Maybe the oldest son had a chance to inherit the farm or shop of his father so he could provide for a wife and family. Many men, however, had no such luck and went through life without marrying, many without ever dating or being with a woman. Citation needed. This has absolutely not been the case in most of recorded history and in most of the known world.

pessimizer 10y ago

> Cheer up. Contrary to what many believe, men's chances in life have never been better than now. Not for men without college degrees.

flexie 10y ago
Yes, also for men without college degrees. Even most welfare clients are better off than an average man in 1776, 1861, 1914, 1940 etc. and they in turn had way better lives than men in the stone, bronze, or iron ages and men in the Medieval period. I wouldn't even want to change for a successful young, white American male in the 1960s or whenever America was at its industrial peak. Look, we are so lucky at this point in time in the Western world. Far from everything is great, but we live long lives in comfort, mostly painless, mostly without death or disease or hunger, mostly without war, we date around for fun during a decade or two, travel as we like, wherever we like, get entertainment on demand, chose our own profession, before we marry out of love when we are in our 30s or even 40s. Kings would envy our comfortable lives and I bet even Cary Grant would envy the dating life of a regular young man armed with Tinder.
- 0x445442 10y ago
  I disagree. My wife's grandfather, who I'd consider typical, bought a house and provided for a family of four in Palo Alto while working at a local Safeway. A job that required no college degree but only the willingness to show up and take some pride in his work. It was a modest yet peaceful and satisfying existence. As far as comfort, I'd don't accept the premise our lives are more comfortable now than in 1955. My guess is most young men would gladly trade the latest dating app and the interwebs for the conditions of the typical 1955 US male.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    >As far as comfort, I'd don't accept the premise our lives are more comfortable now than in 1955. My guess is most young men would gladly trade the latest dating app and the interwebs for the conditions of the typical 1955 US male. Does that include being drafted into the Korean War? The Vietnam War? The Suez Canal Crisis?