13 ms·

I've started some treatment recently, and for some reason I immediately started dating and looking for mates again. I quickly realized how difficult it is. You

by jokoon 10y ago

I've started some treatment recently, and for some reason I immediately started dating and looking for mates again. I quickly realized how difficult it is. You can't find women unless you have a job, while women have made outstanding progress in education and the workforce, and for some reason they have a hard time dating people who have a less comfortable situation than themselves. I don't want to ride the whole mensright bandwagon or to criticize feminism, but it can be a difficult source of unhappiness for some. I dated this young mother of two who managed to be a teacher for kids, she got help from her middle class parents, I can really say that when you feel the class struggle seeping into your love life, it is a very weird feeling. Of course it's not the only reason, I'm not saying it, but it can the source of other problems. One generation behind us, women still sort of relied on men, and now that the tables have turned, women might need to make a compromise. Not to mention the whole tinder generation which is making things a little weirder. EDIT: This comment is full of personal opinion, so take it with a big grain of salt.

swiley 10y ago
I'm really not sure how having a job helps you find women; being trapped in a box segregated far away from them for most of the day just seems counter productive in that respect. You have the weekends but so does everyone else. I really think something has changed about how people socialize and it's simply become harder to meet like minded people; It's harder to network professionally, it's harder to find fabricators, workers, mates etc. Fundamentally, that's the problem that needs to be solved. EDIT: I've misinterpreted this.
- jimhefferon 10y ago
  You don't think having a job helps you when the person you are interested in is deciding whether they are interested back?
  - ams6110 10y ago
    Particularly women evaluating men. In general, women see the ability to protect and provide as desireable qualities in a mate.
  - kstoneman 10y ago
    I'm past dating age (and anyway I have a relationship that has survived 20 years), but when I was younger, I never considered what the woman would bring to the relationship financially. I'm very traditional, though, so perhaps this attitude is no longer as common as it was when I was younger.
    - jimhefferon 10y ago
      In popular American culture in our time, there is not an emphasis on what the partner brings to the relationship financially. I also did not think much about my wife's earning power (or at least, not explicitly, although we met in college so there is some same-class-ness happening there). But I think that is not typical of cultures across space and time. Just ask Jane Austen. :-)
- colmvp 10y ago
  Well let's be honest, job status, not unlike height/ethnicity/appearance is one of the many discriminating characteristics used in dating.
  - owebmaster 10y ago
    Let keep it honest, job status is directly related to ethnicity/appearance.
    - awg789 10y ago
      Directly related how? (serious question, no trying to insult you)
- NikolaeVarius 10y ago
  I disagree. I don't think its harder to meet like minded people. Meetup and Facebook solved that issue, I think the issue is that it's SO EASY to find people that there is very little incentive to actually care about a specific group more than any other. Its like criticisms of modern dating. The ocean is so large and easy to navigate that there is no incentive to get anything to actually work. Just moving on is easier.
- mos_basik 10y ago
  I think you might have misread GP's post a bit; I didn't understand him to be saying "Without a job, there are fewer opportunities to meet eligible women." Rather, I think he was saying "Without a job, fewer women will consider you eligible. (Contrasting with last generation where employed men were fine with dating unemployed women, this generation of employed women are not as fine with dating unemployed men.)"
codingdave 10y ago
Your edit is right... your view on this is clearly heavy with your personal situation. But the bigger perspective is that for a relationship to work, both sides need to contribute. Whether the old-fashioned way where the man works while the wife take care of kids, or both work, or the wife works while the man take care of kids, or something completely different... the point is that both sides need to contribute. Take gender out of it, and then look again -- it is just two people, together. They both should add value to the relationship. So lets look at a single person without a job in that context: On day one when two people meet, when both are single, if one of them doesn't have a job, it is a red flag that the person without a job might not be willing or able to contribute in the future. The relationship starts without a shared home, so just one person spending all the money. It isn't balanced. So when you get down to it, it isn't a gender thing. It is a money thing.
- pm90 10y ago
  Well, a few generations ago, Men were OK with being in that kind of relationships. In fact, it was a culturally enforced value that the "Man should pay for everything" and it seemed to work fine. I agree with your premise that unequal incomes (especially if they are glaring) can be a significant barrier to relationships. But what if e.g. the woman makes enough for the both of them, and all she is looking for in a partner is emotional well being, someone to talk/share activities etc. So its not just a money thing IMO. It seems like the US culture has still not adopted to the economic realities of today. And it hurts everyone: a woman may know that she doesn't care about income differences and wants a partner for other reasons, but she will be dissuaded from pursuing such relationships by her friends/family etc.
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    > and it seemed to work fine It worked well unless you were a woman with ambitions outside of the kitchen and bedroom. In that case, it was living hell and maybe you'd get luck with a world war. Slavery worked fine too, unless you were a slave.
    - 10y ago
parhurs 10y ago
On the other hand, the traditional role of the man as the provider for the family causes some men anxiety if they can't fulfill that role, leading to family trouble. Either way, reducing equality in the work force is not the solution, but a fairer economy.
20160226 10y ago
You can't fight biology. Women are hardwired to look for men with resources or the ability to get them. It comes down to whether a man can provide the woman with a safe and clean place to have her babies. In the past, this signal has taken the form of physical strength, number of slaves, land, goats, whatever. Today, it's jobs and/or money. Then add a layer of the instinctive hunger for status within any social species. For a given batch of economically successful women, most would rather share a successful man or stay single rather than compromise and mate with a low-status man with no resources. Can't blame women for looking for these things the same way men can't be blamed for looking for youth and fertility in a woman.
- pharrington 10y ago
  People are hardwired to prefer partners they find attractive. Beyond a well documented bias towards symmetry in and a certain range of ratios of physical features, attempts to find some sort of innately desirable traits that are not confounded by the incredible strong signals sent in a given culture & generation's media always fail. When you say, "Women are hardwired to look for men with resources or the ability to get them. It comes down to whether a man can provide the woman with a safe and clean place to have her babies," it's quite peculiar how societies with more of the first have a massive decline in the second. The snarky way to reply to this is, if you're so smart, why can't you get laid? edit: are not confounded by. Also, if you're downvoting in response to something other than the useless snark at the end of my post, please comment.
  - ivrrimum 10y ago
    What has beeing smart to do with having money/social status? Nerds have always been a subject to ridicule. Regarding the original statement - I agree on both sides. I agree that women(same as men) have some biological broad idea of partner they would WANT to reproduce with. But with time and more experience in relationships, they might compromise.
- PKop 10y ago
  Not sure why getting downvoted. To dismiss out of hand thousands of years of evolution and think the last 50+ years of modern societal change can completely counteract biological forces is.. wishful thinking? I mean, this explanation is at least as good as any other speculation in this thread.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
bobbytherobot 10y ago
> One generation behind us, women still sort of relied on men, and now that the tables have turned, women might need to make a compromise. You mean the system was heavily stacked to make women reliant on men. I won't call that a compromise. The tables haven't turned, the game changed. We have drastically removed many of the forces meant to keep women as dependents of men. If the tables had turned, then men would be systematically be kept out of jobs, particularly high paying careers. They most certainly are not being kept out of those jobs.
- Frondo 10y ago
  Yes, this, a thousand times this. People look at stuff like alimony or whatever and think "oh women just get all the breaks". When really, stuff like that exists because women were expected to forego career for marriage, etc., essentially shackled to a man for life. Women being independent, expecting a guy to have his shit together? I think that's great. I say bring it on. Independent women are far more interesting to talk to, and if I have to have a good job lined up, well, that's how you play the game. Now...if society is breaking in a way that it's tough for men to get good jobs, then let's look at that. Women aren't to blame for that, though. Let's look at what's really going on.
  - J-dawg 10y ago
    So what do you do when there simply aren't enough jobs for most men to "have their shit together"? What are all those men going to do when they have both no stake in the economy, and little or no chance of finding a woman to love them? What percentage of men like this can society handle before some sort of tipping point is reached? I refer you to this comment from "wingless" from another discussion currently on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13795855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13795855 I'm always aware of this whenever the usual stuff about the "gender pay gap" gets trotted out by the media. Men and men women are playing entirely different games in the employment market. A woman is working for the money and whatever satisfaction she derives from the job itself. A man is working for his ability to attract a girlfriend, his status in society, his entire sense of "value". It's hardly surprising that men are motivated to choose riskier and higher earning careers.
pharrington 10y ago
Try making her laugh. Try listening to her. Be honest. Don't open by trying to fuck.# Yes, it's a skill that like any other, requires deliberate practice. The skill, however, is being a generally enjoyable person to be around. #(If it seems like the last point contradicts the honesty, don't go around making sex your goal. Most humans are horny, it ain't anything you really need to draw attention to.) edit: downvote with comments e2: A known effect of attacking (without confronting the core of the problem), or suppressing, or dismissing parties expressing certain beliefs or engaging in particular behaviors is that the opposing party reaffirms their actions or beliefs. Two-way intelligent and earnest discussion makes both sides amenable to the reasonable positions of the other.
- klodolph 10y ago
  > A known effect of attacking (without confronting the core of the problem), or suppressing, or dismissing parties expressing certain beliefs or engaging in particular behaviors is that the opposing party reaffirms their actions or beliefs. Two-way intelligent and earnest discussion makes both sides amenable to the reasonable positions of the other. The downvotes are here not because people disagree with you, but because the comment doesn't confront the core of the problem and doesn't contribute to the discussion in a productive way. It can be hard not to take downvotes personally and get defensive, but the comment in question is not defensible.
  - pharrington 10y ago
    Maybe I misunderstand the parent? He says "You can't find women unless you have a job, while women have made outstanding progress in education and the workforce, and for some reason they have a hard time dating people who have a less comfortable situation than themselves" - I'm interpreting the core of his argument as "men have an inordinately difficult time finding a mate if they are significantly lacking in social status." I disagree with this fundamentally - my assertion is that the most reliable and broadly applicable way of attracting women is to be charismatic, and that charisma is a trainable skill. Does this clarify things, or am I still offbase? e: a broader point that I touch on in other comments is that the bar to having a partner in general is low-to-nonexistent. However, doing the above opens up the most options. e2: Yes, having status also expands options. However, it's neither broadly applicable nor helps maintain the long term emotional bond. Parent expressed frustration at the economic tension involved in middle class relationships. The answer to this is emphatically not wealth or status, as relationship-wise, that only trades one class of stressors for another.
WhitneyLand 10y ago
Dove anyone have real data on what's nature vs. nurture? So many people make arguments on this important topic that depend on huge assumptions. For example someone below said women won't mind dating men with less status once our culture evolves. Are we so sure of that? This is not a criticism of females. I doubt any gender can be cultured out preference for physical attributes. We can support equal rights and still acknowledge innate differences right?
- 77pt77 10y ago
  >I doubt any gender can be cultured out preference for physical attributes. These are evolutionary traits and will most likely not change at least at the time scale of a few generations. >We can support equal rights and still acknowledge innate differences right? That's the idea. Law and human rights are deeply "contra natura" by definition. Ignoring nature to the extent we are doing as a species will not end well as far as having a just society.
  - pharrington 10y ago
    I replied to another commenter expressing your same view here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13798051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13798051. My comment asserts your core view is inconsistent both with apparent human sexual activity and how evolutionary pressures work.
    - 77pt77 10y ago
      > Assuming most humans having sex is not a recent development, any evolutionary pressures... Here I think your assumption is factually wrong. DNA testing shows that it is relatively recent (very few thousands of years)
      - pharrington 10y ago
        Can you link to some studies? I'm having trouble Google'ing for anything relevant :\
freshflowers 10y ago
> now that the tables have turned, women might need to make a compromise Most of us here on HN work in the tech industry, with its notorious sexism and underrepresentation problems. So let's get real here. To claim that the tables have turned reeks of the same claim to victimhood that the straight white christian men that voted for Trump use to justify their crap. You claim you don't want to right the "whole mensright bandwagon", but you're already on it. The tables aren't even close to having been turned, the disappearance of many jobs that men continued to claim for themselves until they stopped existing is just a coincidence.
- dukeluke 10y ago
  I'm in the US. Women have every incentive to get a STEM degree, given the fact that nearly every major tech company has an affirmative action hiring process. But guess what? Women are choosing to get other degrees. It's not sexist to have some differences between the sexes as long as there's an equal opportunity.
55555 10y ago
> some treatment Can I ask what this refers to? SSRI?
abandonliberty 10y ago
>have a hard time dating people who have a less comfortable situation than themselves. This may be evolutionary wired, but forget about it. That mental model has no potential to help. Effective relationships must provide value to both parties. So demonstrate value. "Comfortable situation" is one shortcut to measure value. "Great father", "good listener", "considerate", "sane", "stable" are all incredibly valuable and crazy hard to measure. The dirty truth: Many men don't provide value.
- jokoon 10y ago
  Well, a man with a less comfortable situation might have some self esteem issue that can potentially cause trouble in a relationship. So it is not a direct cause, but it can be a cause. > "Great father", "good listener", "considerate", "sane", "stable" are all incredibly valuable and crazy hard to measure. Well only women can really evaluate and "feel" those qualities.
jelliclesfarm 10y ago
Evolutionarily speaking here: Pregnancy and child rearing is expensive for females (of any species). Men have a far greater store of sperm than females who have limited eggs available during her reproductive time window. This means that a male can father many more offsprings than a female can in her lifetime. Even though monogamy..as a modern concept..is more prevalent, it is more often than not, serial monogamy. But. Because. Evolutionary hardwiring. Women want males to be providers because males can impregnate multiple females at the same time. Without being a bonded pair, or the resource costly job of raising offsprings would not be a shared endeavor. Bringing forth children takes a physical toll on a woman in more ways than one. It doesn't cost men anything other than ejaculation to create offspring. So women give birth. Men provide. Of course, society has changed so much since cave men days, but our wiring probably hasn't.. Tying back to original topic...when women provide for themselves, what is the role of men? Perhaps our free floating relationship matrix without the need to be bonded pairs to bring forth offsprings is the reason. Birds spend a lot of energy while flying..they have hollow bones and have a high metabolism. They expend a lot of energy just to exist. They migrate. Mammals hibernate. They know how to conserve and regulate metabolism. Their energy needs are less expensive. Maybe that's why birds are monogamous and many mammals have harems. As mammals, the human animal is already living within a moral but artificial construct of monogamy. Female apes share responsibilities to raise their young communally. Monogamy is an evolutionary disadvantage. It conserves energy and resources. It promotes kinship. Human apes don't. Right or wrong, that's different. But we don't. If women can provide for themselves and have control over their reproductive freedoms, why do they need free range men anyways? The Y chromosome is supposedly composed of junk DNA. This is bit of a ramble, but I would like to think it made at least some go 'a-ha'!
- jokoon 10y ago
  You're very right, but > why do they need free range men anyways? Because people need affection and to have fun, even isolated mothers. When you start to put socio-economical criterias into your love life, some people will get frustrated. That's the whole point of tinder, so that people get out more and just spend some good time for their well being. You said that we are wired, and this is true, so when civilized society start to meddle with this wiring, it can be a weird feeling.

by jokoon 10y ago

swiley 10y ago

I'm really not sure how having a job helps you find women; being trapped in a box segregated far away from them for most of the day just seems counter productive in that respect. You have the weekends but so does everyone else. I really think something has changed about how people socialize and it's simply become harder to meet like minded people; It's harder to network professionally, it's harder to find fabricators, workers, mates etc. Fundamentally, that's the problem that needs to be solved. EDIT: I've misinterpreted this.

jimhefferon 10y ago
You don't think having a job helps you when the person you are interested in is deciding whether they are interested back?
- ams6110 10y ago
  Particularly women evaluating men. In general, women see the ability to protect and provide as desireable qualities in a mate.
- kstoneman 10y ago
  I'm past dating age (and anyway I have a relationship that has survived 20 years), but when I was younger, I never considered what the woman would bring to the relationship financially. I'm very traditional, though, so perhaps this attitude is no longer as common as it was when I was younger.
  - jimhefferon 10y ago
    In popular American culture in our time, there is not an emphasis on what the partner brings to the relationship financially. I also did not think much about my wife's earning power (or at least, not explicitly, although we met in college so there is some same-class-ness happening there). But I think that is not typical of cultures across space and time. Just ask Jane Austen. :-)
colmvp 10y ago
Well let's be honest, job status, not unlike height/ethnicity/appearance is one of the many discriminating characteristics used in dating.
- owebmaster 10y ago
  Let keep it honest, job status is directly related to ethnicity/appearance.
  - awg789 10y ago
    Directly related how? (serious question, no trying to insult you)
NikolaeVarius 10y ago
I disagree. I don't think its harder to meet like minded people. Meetup and Facebook solved that issue, I think the issue is that it's SO EASY to find people that there is very little incentive to actually care about a specific group more than any other. Its like criticisms of modern dating. The ocean is so large and easy to navigate that there is no incentive to get anything to actually work. Just moving on is easier.
mos_basik 10y ago
I think you might have misread GP's post a bit; I didn't understand him to be saying "Without a job, there are fewer opportunities to meet eligible women." Rather, I think he was saying "Without a job, fewer women will consider you eligible. (Contrasting with last generation where employed men were fine with dating unemployed women, this generation of employed women are not as fine with dating unemployed men.)"

codingdave 10y ago

Your edit is right... your view on this is clearly heavy with your personal situation. But the bigger perspective is that for a relationship to work, both sides need to contribute. Whether the old-fashioned way where the man works while the wife take care of kids, or both work, or the wife works while the man take care of kids, or something completely different... the point is that both sides need to contribute. Take gender out of it, and then look again -- it is just two people, together. They both should add value to the relationship. So lets look at a single person without a job in that context: On day one when two people meet, when both are single, if one of them doesn't have a job, it is a red flag that the person without a job might not be willing or able to contribute in the future. The relationship starts without a shared home, so just one person spending all the money. It isn't balanced. So when you get down to it, it isn't a gender thing. It is a money thing.

pm90 10y ago
Well, a few generations ago, Men were OK with being in that kind of relationships. In fact, it was a culturally enforced value that the "Man should pay for everything" and it seemed to work fine. I agree with your premise that unequal incomes (especially if they are glaring) can be a significant barrier to relationships. But what if e.g. the woman makes enough for the both of them, and all she is looking for in a partner is emotional well being, someone to talk/share activities etc. So its not just a money thing IMO. It seems like the US culture has still not adopted to the economic realities of today. And it hurts everyone: a woman may know that she doesn't care about income differences and wants a partner for other reasons, but she will be dissuaded from pursuing such relationships by her friends/family etc.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  > and it seemed to work fine It worked well unless you were a woman with ambitions outside of the kitchen and bedroom. In that case, it was living hell and maybe you'd get luck with a world war. Slavery worked fine too, unless you were a slave.
  - 10y ago

parhurs 10y ago

On the other hand, the traditional role of the man as the provider for the family causes some men anxiety if they can't fulfill that role, leading to family trouble. Either way, reducing equality in the work force is not the solution, but a fairer economy.

20160226 10y ago

You can't fight biology. Women are hardwired to look for men with resources or the ability to get them. It comes down to whether a man can provide the woman with a safe and clean place to have her babies. In the past, this signal has taken the form of physical strength, number of slaves, land, goats, whatever. Today, it's jobs and/or money. Then add a layer of the instinctive hunger for status within any social species. For a given batch of economically successful women, most would rather share a successful man or stay single rather than compromise and mate with a low-status man with no resources. Can't blame women for looking for these things the same way men can't be blamed for looking for youth and fertility in a woman.

pharrington 10y ago
People are hardwired to prefer partners they find attractive. Beyond a well documented bias towards symmetry in and a certain range of ratios of physical features, attempts to find some sort of innately desirable traits that are not confounded by the incredible strong signals sent in a given culture & generation's media always fail. When you say, "Women are hardwired to look for men with resources or the ability to get them. It comes down to whether a man can provide the woman with a safe and clean place to have her babies," it's quite peculiar how societies with more of the first have a massive decline in the second. The snarky way to reply to this is, if you're so smart, why can't you get laid? edit: are not confounded by. Also, if you're downvoting in response to something other than the useless snark at the end of my post, please comment.
- ivrrimum 10y ago
  What has beeing smart to do with having money/social status? Nerds have always been a subject to ridicule. Regarding the original statement - I agree on both sides. I agree that women(same as men) have some biological broad idea of partner they would WANT to reproduce with. But with time and more experience in relationships, they might compromise.
PKop 10y ago
Not sure why getting downvoted. To dismiss out of hand thousands of years of evolution and think the last 50+ years of modern societal change can completely counteract biological forces is.. wishful thinking? I mean, this explanation is at least as good as any other speculation in this thread.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

bobbytherobot 10y ago

> One generation behind us, women still sort of relied on men, and now that the tables have turned, women might need to make a compromise. You mean the system was heavily stacked to make women reliant on men. I won't call that a compromise. The tables haven't turned, the game changed. We have drastically removed many of the forces meant to keep women as dependents of men. If the tables had turned, then men would be systematically be kept out of jobs, particularly high paying careers. They most certainly are not being kept out of those jobs.

Frondo 10y ago
Yes, this, a thousand times this. People look at stuff like alimony or whatever and think "oh women just get all the breaks". When really, stuff like that exists because women were expected to forego career for marriage, etc., essentially shackled to a man for life. Women being independent, expecting a guy to have his shit together? I think that's great. I say bring it on. Independent women are far more interesting to talk to, and if I have to have a good job lined up, well, that's how you play the game. Now...if society is breaking in a way that it's tough for men to get good jobs, then let's look at that. Women aren't to blame for that, though. Let's look at what's really going on.
- J-dawg 10y ago
  So what do you do when there simply aren't enough jobs for most men to "have their shit together"? What are all those men going to do when they have both no stake in the economy, and little or no chance of finding a woman to love them? What percentage of men like this can society handle before some sort of tipping point is reached? I refer you to this comment from "wingless" from another discussion currently on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13795855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13795855 I'm always aware of this whenever the usual stuff about the "gender pay gap" gets trotted out by the media. Men and men women are playing entirely different games in the employment market. A woman is working for the money and whatever satisfaction she derives from the job itself. A man is working for his ability to attract a girlfriend, his status in society, his entire sense of "value". It's hardly surprising that men are motivated to choose riskier and higher earning careers.

pharrington 10y ago

Try making her laugh. Try listening to her. Be honest. Don't open by trying to fuck.# Yes, it's a skill that like any other, requires deliberate practice. The skill, however, is being a generally enjoyable person to be around. #(If it seems like the last point contradicts the honesty, don't go around making sex your goal. Most humans are horny, it ain't anything you really need to draw attention to.) edit: downvote with comments e2: A known effect of attacking (without confronting the core of the problem), or suppressing, or dismissing parties expressing certain beliefs or engaging in particular behaviors is that the opposing party reaffirms their actions or beliefs. Two-way intelligent and earnest discussion makes both sides amenable to the reasonable positions of the other.

klodolph 10y ago
> A known effect of attacking (without confronting the core of the problem), or suppressing, or dismissing parties expressing certain beliefs or engaging in particular behaviors is that the opposing party reaffirms their actions or beliefs. Two-way intelligent and earnest discussion makes both sides amenable to the reasonable positions of the other. The downvotes are here not because people disagree with you, but because the comment doesn't confront the core of the problem and doesn't contribute to the discussion in a productive way. It can be hard not to take downvotes personally and get defensive, but the comment in question is not defensible.
- pharrington 10y ago
  Maybe I misunderstand the parent? He says "You can't find women unless you have a job, while women have made outstanding progress in education and the workforce, and for some reason they have a hard time dating people who have a less comfortable situation than themselves" - I'm interpreting the core of his argument as "men have an inordinately difficult time finding a mate if they are significantly lacking in social status." I disagree with this fundamentally - my assertion is that the most reliable and broadly applicable way of attracting women is to be charismatic, and that charisma is a trainable skill. Does this clarify things, or am I still offbase? e: a broader point that I touch on in other comments is that the bar to having a partner in general is low-to-nonexistent. However, doing the above opens up the most options. e2: Yes, having status also expands options. However, it's neither broadly applicable nor helps maintain the long term emotional bond. Parent expressed frustration at the economic tension involved in middle class relationships. The answer to this is emphatically not wealth or status, as relationship-wise, that only trades one class of stressors for another.

WhitneyLand 10y ago

Dove anyone have real data on what's nature vs. nurture? So many people make arguments on this important topic that depend on huge assumptions. For example someone below said women won't mind dating men with less status once our culture evolves. Are we so sure of that? This is not a criticism of females. I doubt any gender can be cultured out preference for physical attributes. We can support equal rights and still acknowledge innate differences right?

77pt77 10y ago
>I doubt any gender can be cultured out preference for physical attributes. These are evolutionary traits and will most likely not change at least at the time scale of a few generations. >We can support equal rights and still acknowledge innate differences right? That's the idea. Law and human rights are deeply "contra natura" by definition. Ignoring nature to the extent we are doing as a species will not end well as far as having a just society.
- pharrington 10y ago
  I replied to another commenter expressing your same view here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13798051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13798051. My comment asserts your core view is inconsistent both with apparent human sexual activity and how evolutionary pressures work.
  - 77pt77 10y ago
    > Assuming most humans having sex is not a recent development, any evolutionary pressures... Here I think your assumption is factually wrong. DNA testing shows that it is relatively recent (very few thousands of years)
    - pharrington 10y ago
      Can you link to some studies? I'm having trouble Google'ing for anything relevant :\

freshflowers 10y ago

> now that the tables have turned, women might need to make a compromise Most of us here on HN work in the tech industry, with its notorious sexism and underrepresentation problems. So let's get real here. To claim that the tables have turned reeks of the same claim to victimhood that the straight white christian men that voted for Trump use to justify their crap. You claim you don't want to right the "whole mensright bandwagon", but you're already on it. The tables aren't even close to having been turned, the disappearance of many jobs that men continued to claim for themselves until they stopped existing is just a coincidence.

dukeluke 10y ago
I'm in the US. Women have every incentive to get a STEM degree, given the fact that nearly every major tech company has an affirmative action hiring process. But guess what? Women are choosing to get other degrees. It's not sexist to have some differences between the sexes as long as there's an equal opportunity.

55555 10y ago

> some treatment Can I ask what this refers to? SSRI?

abandonliberty 10y ago

>have a hard time dating people who have a less comfortable situation than themselves. This may be evolutionary wired, but forget about it. That mental model has no potential to help. Effective relationships must provide value to both parties. So demonstrate value. "Comfortable situation" is one shortcut to measure value. "Great father", "good listener", "considerate", "sane", "stable" are all incredibly valuable and crazy hard to measure. The dirty truth: Many men don't provide value.

jokoon 10y ago
Well, a man with a less comfortable situation might have some self esteem issue that can potentially cause trouble in a relationship. So it is not a direct cause, but it can be a cause. > "Great father", "good listener", "considerate", "sane", "stable" are all incredibly valuable and crazy hard to measure. Well only women can really evaluate and "feel" those qualities.

jelliclesfarm 10y ago

Evolutionarily speaking here: Pregnancy and child rearing is expensive for females (of any species). Men have a far greater store of sperm than females who have limited eggs available during her reproductive time window. This means that a male can father many more offsprings than a female can in her lifetime. Even though monogamy..as a modern concept..is more prevalent, it is more often than not, serial monogamy. But. Because. Evolutionary hardwiring. Women want males to be providers because males can impregnate multiple females at the same time. Without being a bonded pair, or the resource costly job of raising offsprings would not be a shared endeavor. Bringing forth children takes a physical toll on a woman in more ways than one. It doesn't cost men anything other than ejaculation to create offspring. So women give birth. Men provide. Of course, society has changed so much since cave men days, but our wiring probably hasn't.. Tying back to original topic...when women provide for themselves, what is the role of men? Perhaps our free floating relationship matrix without the need to be bonded pairs to bring forth offsprings is the reason. Birds spend a lot of energy while flying..they have hollow bones and have a high metabolism. They expend a lot of energy just to exist. They migrate. Mammals hibernate. They know how to conserve and regulate metabolism. Their energy needs are less expensive. Maybe that's why birds are monogamous and many mammals have harems. As mammals, the human animal is already living within a moral but artificial construct of monogamy. Female apes share responsibilities to raise their young communally. Monogamy is an evolutionary disadvantage. It conserves energy and resources. It promotes kinship. Human apes don't. Right or wrong, that's different. But we don't. If women can provide for themselves and have control over their reproductive freedoms, why do they need free range men anyways? The Y chromosome is supposedly composed of junk DNA. This is bit of a ramble, but I would like to think it made at least some go 'a-ha'!

jokoon 10y ago
You're very right, but > why do they need free range men anyways? Because people need affection and to have fun, even isolated mothers. When you start to put socio-economical criterias into your love life, some people will get frustrated. That's the whole point of tinder, so that people get out more and just spend some good time for their well being. You said that we are wired, and this is true, so when civilized society start to meddle with this wiring, it can be a weird feeling.