9 ms·

My pet theory is that the developed or post-industrialized world is becoming increasingly two-classed. I have had the privilege of having a decent job (being so

My pet theory is that the developed or post-industrialized world is becoming increasingly two-classed. I have had the privilege of having a decent job (being so-called "economically desirable") and decent education and was able to find someone who I think loves me for who I am, for some definition of "I am". That being said, the "incel" problem concerns me. I think the existence of this entire class of individuals shows that the ideals of equity in gender relations, just like the ideal of equity in relations across economic classes (i.e., being equal before the law, regardless of how much money you have) is obviously a grand ideal that we cannot live up to. I once tried talking to my girlfriend about it when the topic came up. I brought up the usual statistics that show that men graduate from college at a lesser rate than women, nowawdays. That they are more likely to die in violence or from drugs. That this compounds with the fact that the status of women in the world has generally raised (a _good_ thing!) and that the average woman wants someone who is above them on the social or economic ladder. Her response was that they had so much "male privilege" and that they have no excuse for underperforming. That, thus, they should still be _ahead_ of women, presumably, despite the goal being that they... shouldn't be. They need to pull themselves up from their bootstraps, and "man up", but we also must remember that "man up" is a problematic term that is part of "toxic masculinity". Of course, all of this was foreseen by French novelist Houellebecq. Economic liberalization has lead to social/sexual liberation. After a period of free love things settle down and here we are. Just as most of the new income generated by later periods of economic liberalization go to the top 20%, so it is with the sexual market. I've tried to stop moralizing it for my own mental health. Like the author, I just try to look at it with a degree of sympathy. It's complex, and it's kinda fucked up. For myself, these hard statistical realities have increasingly robbed me of the romantic impulse. Marriage to me now seems absurd. An empty, pyrrhic victory.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
> Just as most of the new income generated by later periods of economic liberalization go to the top 20%, so it is with the sexual market. I don't even know what this means. What is "the new income" in "the sexual market"? What is "the top 20%" ? How does "income" "go to" any particular percentile in "the sexual market" ?
- volkk 5y ago
  OP means that the top 20% of men are getting all of the attention in the dating market. it's a well known fact at this point. i think the numbers largely come from dating apps but they reflect real life pretty well (from my anecdotal experience)
  - at_a_remove 5y ago
    OKCupid used to have a post of sort of barebones statistical analysis of what men considered "average" versus women's outlook. It was ... enlightening.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - imbnwa 5y ago
      That's a classic post from their defunct blog. Another one is Black women and Asian men are the least messaged.
  - standardUser 5y ago
    This would imply that the "bottom" 80% of men are not finding partners. When we look around at the world, either anecdotally or statistically, do we see 80% of men without partners? Not even close.
    - letonmorri 5y ago
      It seems about right if you are talking about dating apps. - https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/18/okcupid-inbox-attractive/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/18/okcupid-inbox-attractive/ - https://quillette.com/2019/03/12/attraction-inequality-and-the-dating-economy/ https://quillette.com/2019/03/12/attraction-inequality-and-t...
      - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
        I would suggest that just as we shouldn’t consider Twitter or Facebook as representative of the real world, the same should be applied to dating apps.
dudul 5y ago
> Her response was that they had so much "male privilege" and that they have no excuse for underperforming. That, thus, they should still be _ahead_ of women, presumably, despite the goal being that they... shouldn't be. I genuinely don't understand how someone can reconcile these in their head.
- slg 5y ago
  They aren't contradictory. One is an assessment of the currently perceived reality and one is a stated goal. The mindset is simply that we haven't reached the goal yet.
  - dudul 5y ago
    But the "currently perceived reality" (eg the fact that men are now behind in terms of college graduation) is exactly what you would see once you've reached the goal. By saying "well, they were so far ahead they have no excuse to not be better anyway" you're basically saying that you will reject potential evidence that the goal has been reached. Maybe I misunderstood the GF's point, but it just sounds like such a lack of empathy for people who face hardship for reasons that are specific to their individuality. It's like saying "poor men are too stupid to not be poor, they have no excuse to be poor".
    - slg 5y ago
      You are making a different argument now that her perceived reality is not actual reality. You originally asked how someone could reconcile the two quoted ideas as if they were contradictory. I pointed out how they could coexist. Regarding her perceived reality, we really need more information than college graduation rates, violent deaths, or any of the stats mentioned by OP. For example if every woman is graduating with an English degree and every man is graduating with a nuclear engineering degree, more women can be graduating and men can still have a much higher mean income among post college age people. Whether the goal has been reached is clearly a matter of debate. It isn't unreasonable for some people to think we haven't reached it yet.
aeturnum 5y ago
> these hard statistical realities have increasingly robbed me of the romantic impulse I think you should reflect on how sensible it is to apply population-wide statistical trends to your personal situation (which is not statistical at all). If you follow the statistics you should not start a business or go to college[1]. I really urge you to take seriously that your own personal experience is more valid than statistical instruments and that, even if by some measurement you are "below average" (whatever that means) you can still be happy and healthy. I agree that men are doing "worse" than they have been and I do think your girlfriend's attitude towards men who are struggling is not in line with egalitarian principals. I also think that you're promoting a view of society where winners taking all is expected, and in that kind of society, you would expect men to be distributed away from the "middle" of society. After all, if you imagine it's a zero sum competition, then the winning men would push the losing men towards the bottom of society as much as possible to protect their gains. I think this is worth pointing out because I do not think we need to follow that model of society. Humans will secure the resources they can in situations where zero-sum resource distribution is enforced, but altruism and reciprocity are also possible if we build systems which allow them. If you live life like you either win it all or your life is a waste, then it will almost certainly feel like a waste[2]. You do not have to do that. [1] https://erikrood.com/Posts/college_roi_.html https://erikrood.com/Posts/college_roi_.html [2] This doesn't ignore the many people who are at various kinds of social and material disadvantage. The statistics are real, they just don't mean that men are disadvantaged as a whole.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  >If you follow the statistics you should not start a business or go to college[1]. Some statistics only talk about the average subject. If you assume you are not average, there might be a different statistically optimal path.
mrweasel 5y ago
There was an excellent interview in Danish radio with male/couples therapist, his take was really interesting. There are three groups of men, in his view. The lower class, being uneducated and poor, the upper class, being extremely successful. Both of these group have no problem with the changing male roles or feminism, they just ignore it or it doesn't affect them. They just continue as always and it works for them. Then there is the largest group of men, the middle class. They're told that the male role has to change, or is changing, and they do as they always do, they adapt. The kicker in this thesis is that they're then told that everything is still wrong. That is confusing, angering and leave a large number of men in a state where they no longer care or they develop an anger towards modern society and women. The solution, again according to this theory, is not to redefine the male role in society, because that was never going to work. Instead we should return to the traditional male ideals, without the negative aspects. In essence to bring back the gentlemen. Personally I like this theory, because it has practicality, something that is lacking in the idea that men need to evolve, adapt or "find their place in modern society".
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > Both of these group have no problem with the changing male roles or feminism, they just ignore it or it doesn't affect them. That's also true for a growing number of women, especially above a certain age. They feel completely alienated by the current 'feminist' movement and don't identify with it. Wonder if the younger generation might not do the same.
- crocsarecool 5y ago
  Please bring back the gentleman! I feel like men and women’s roles have taken a left turn from becoming equals in society to striving for sameness.
  - medicineman 5y ago
    Do it. Less competition for my sons.
  - mrweasel 5y ago
    > roles have taken a left turn from becoming equals in society to striving for sameness. That was actually also part of this interview. They had the therapist with this thesis and another sexual/couples therapist, and the general consensus between them was that "sameness" kills sexual tensions in a relationship. This results in less sex, which in turn, for most people, means a less happy relationship. There is an expectation men and women should be the same, expect in the bedroom, where the man should return to some classic or traditional role. That just doesn't work, that duality isn't something most people are able to deal with mentally.
908B64B197 5y ago
> Her response was that they had so much "male privilege" and that they have no excuse for underperforming. That, thus, they should still be _ahead_ of women, presumably, despite the goal being that they... shouldn't be. They need to pull themselves up from their bootstraps, and "man up", but we also must remember that "man up" is a problematic term that is part of "toxic masculinity". That made absolutely no sense.
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  I just read it as "you need to break up with this woman yesterday."
- fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
  My reading of it is that the commenter is interspersing things his partner said during that discussion with conflicting opinions that she expressed at other times. It’s unlikely that she stated all of these things in sequence. I think it’s normal for people to hold some contradictory views. Our web of mental concepts may have a lot of nodes in it that resemble one another, but with different neighbors, that developed at different times in different contexts. Duplicate records lead to poor consistency! It seems like the commenter, upon reflection, noticed this inconsistency and was bothered by it. But he has the EQ to realize that starting an argument over it is unproductive, so posted here under a throwaway to get some catharsis.
indigochill 5y ago
> For myself, these hard statistical realities have increasingly robbed me of the romantic impulse. Marriage to me now seems absurd. An empty, pyrrhic victory. I don't follow why that is. Just because the world's fucked up doesn't mean exclusive devotion to another person doesn't have its romantic appeal. There was some philosopher I was reading about the other day who posited that the "free love" crowd weren't really free because they were slaves to whims and circumstance. A truly free person, as I gather, is one who decides and acts independently of personal feelings and circumstance. Ergo, if you don't want to give yourself to your partner, do it anyway. Not out of external obligation, but out of the commitment you decided to make to them. In that perspective, committing to lifelong unconditional love is one of the few victories we have over being mechanical cogs in a sensational machine. What makes this even better, though, is when you're loving someone unconditionally, it's usually hard for them not to return some of that love sooner or later. So you build a gradual virtuous cycle. Someone's just gotta make the first move.
snarf21 5y ago
It is very complicated. My experience in dating post divorce is that men feel like they are in a no win situation. A lot of women still want prince charming and chivalry but they also want independence. They want a man who will take care of them but still want to have the freedom to do what they want. They want to be wanted but give only when it suits them. They want a sensitive man with high EQ but also one that will get in a fight for them at a bar. That being said, I don't blame them. Why not want it all? A lot of this is cultural. They grow up with Cinderella but very few will get to play that role. They grow up thinking that motherhood is a must but a lot don't really want that life. They work hard and rightly feel desire to have what they want. You mix all these things together and it is no wonder there is confusion. Another take is one from Billy Crystal in City Slickers, "Women need a reason to have sex, men just need a place." This difference greatly captures a lot of people's approach to sex.
- newsclues 5y ago
  Why not want it all? Because perfect is the enemy of good and you end up bitter, old and alone

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

> Just as most of the new income generated by later periods of economic liberalization go to the top 20%, so it is with the sexual market. I don't even know what this means. What is "the new income" in "the sexual market"? What is "the top 20%" ? How does "income" "go to" any particular percentile in "the sexual market" ?

volkk 5y ago
OP means that the top 20% of men are getting all of the attention in the dating market. it's a well known fact at this point. i think the numbers largely come from dating apps but they reflect real life pretty well (from my anecdotal experience)
- at_a_remove 5y ago
  OKCupid used to have a post of sort of barebones statistical analysis of what men considered "average" versus women's outlook. It was ... enlightening.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - imbnwa 5y ago
    That's a classic post from their defunct blog. Another one is Black women and Asian men are the least messaged.
- standardUser 5y ago
  This would imply that the "bottom" 80% of men are not finding partners. When we look around at the world, either anecdotally or statistically, do we see 80% of men without partners? Not even close.
  - letonmorri 5y ago
    It seems about right if you are talking about dating apps. - https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/18/okcupid-inbox-attractive/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/18/okcupid-inbox-attractive/ - https://quillette.com/2019/03/12/attraction-inequality-and-the-dating-economy/ https://quillette.com/2019/03/12/attraction-inequality-and-t...
    - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
      I would suggest that just as we shouldn’t consider Twitter or Facebook as representative of the real world, the same should be applied to dating apps.

dudul 5y ago

> Her response was that they had so much "male privilege" and that they have no excuse for underperforming. That, thus, they should still be _ahead_ of women, presumably, despite the goal being that they... shouldn't be. I genuinely don't understand how someone can reconcile these in their head.

slg 5y ago
They aren't contradictory. One is an assessment of the currently perceived reality and one is a stated goal. The mindset is simply that we haven't reached the goal yet.
- dudul 5y ago
  But the "currently perceived reality" (eg the fact that men are now behind in terms of college graduation) is exactly what you would see once you've reached the goal. By saying "well, they were so far ahead they have no excuse to not be better anyway" you're basically saying that you will reject potential evidence that the goal has been reached. Maybe I misunderstood the GF's point, but it just sounds like such a lack of empathy for people who face hardship for reasons that are specific to their individuality. It's like saying "poor men are too stupid to not be poor, they have no excuse to be poor".
  - slg 5y ago
    You are making a different argument now that her perceived reality is not actual reality. You originally asked how someone could reconcile the two quoted ideas as if they were contradictory. I pointed out how they could coexist. Regarding her perceived reality, we really need more information than college graduation rates, violent deaths, or any of the stats mentioned by OP. For example if every woman is graduating with an English degree and every man is graduating with a nuclear engineering degree, more women can be graduating and men can still have a much higher mean income among post college age people. Whether the goal has been reached is clearly a matter of debate. It isn't unreasonable for some people to think we haven't reached it yet.

aeturnum 5y ago

> these hard statistical realities have increasingly robbed me of the romantic impulse I think you should reflect on how sensible it is to apply population-wide statistical trends to your personal situation (which is not statistical at all). If you follow the statistics you should not start a business or go to college[1]. I really urge you to take seriously that your own personal experience is more valid than statistical instruments and that, even if by some measurement you are "below average" (whatever that means) you can still be happy and healthy. I agree that men are doing "worse" than they have been and I do think your girlfriend's attitude towards men who are struggling is not in line with egalitarian principals. I also think that you're promoting a view of society where winners taking all is expected, and in that kind of society, you would expect men to be distributed away from the "middle" of society. After all, if you imagine it's a zero sum competition, then the winning men would push the losing men towards the bottom of society as much as possible to protect their gains. I think this is worth pointing out because I do not think we need to follow that model of society. Humans will secure the resources they can in situations where zero-sum resource distribution is enforced, but altruism and reciprocity are also possible if we build systems which allow them. If you live life like you either win it all or your life is a waste, then it will almost certainly feel like a waste[2]. You do not have to do that. [1] https://erikrood.com/Posts/college_roi_.html https://erikrood.com/Posts/college_roi_.html [2] This doesn't ignore the many people who are at various kinds of social and material disadvantage. The statistics are real, they just don't mean that men are disadvantaged as a whole.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
>If you follow the statistics you should not start a business or go to college[1]. Some statistics only talk about the average subject. If you assume you are not average, there might be a different statistically optimal path.

mrweasel 5y ago

There was an excellent interview in Danish radio with male/couples therapist, his take was really interesting. There are three groups of men, in his view. The lower class, being uneducated and poor, the upper class, being extremely successful. Both of these group have no problem with the changing male roles or feminism, they just ignore it or it doesn't affect them. They just continue as always and it works for them. Then there is the largest group of men, the middle class. They're told that the male role has to change, or is changing, and they do as they always do, they adapt. The kicker in this thesis is that they're then told that everything is still wrong. That is confusing, angering and leave a large number of men in a state where they no longer care or they develop an anger towards modern society and women. The solution, again according to this theory, is not to redefine the male role in society, because that was never going to work. Instead we should return to the traditional male ideals, without the negative aspects. In essence to bring back the gentlemen. Personally I like this theory, because it has practicality, something that is lacking in the idea that men need to evolve, adapt or "find their place in modern society".

908B64B197 5y ago
> Both of these group have no problem with the changing male roles or feminism, they just ignore it or it doesn't affect them. That's also true for a growing number of women, especially above a certain age. They feel completely alienated by the current 'feminist' movement and don't identify with it. Wonder if the younger generation might not do the same.
crocsarecool 5y ago
Please bring back the gentleman! I feel like men and women’s roles have taken a left turn from becoming equals in society to striving for sameness.
- medicineman 5y ago
  Do it. Less competition for my sons.
- mrweasel 5y ago
  > roles have taken a left turn from becoming equals in society to striving for sameness. That was actually also part of this interview. They had the therapist with this thesis and another sexual/couples therapist, and the general consensus between them was that "sameness" kills sexual tensions in a relationship. This results in less sex, which in turn, for most people, means a less happy relationship. There is an expectation men and women should be the same, expect in the bedroom, where the man should return to some classic or traditional role. That just doesn't work, that duality isn't something most people are able to deal with mentally.

908B64B197 5y ago

> Her response was that they had so much "male privilege" and that they have no excuse for underperforming. That, thus, they should still be _ahead_ of women, presumably, despite the goal being that they... shouldn't be. They need to pull themselves up from their bootstraps, and "man up", but we also must remember that "man up" is a problematic term that is part of "toxic masculinity". That made absolutely no sense.

blacktriangle 5y ago
I just read it as "you need to break up with this woman yesterday."
fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
My reading of it is that the commenter is interspersing things his partner said during that discussion with conflicting opinions that she expressed at other times. It’s unlikely that she stated all of these things in sequence. I think it’s normal for people to hold some contradictory views. Our web of mental concepts may have a lot of nodes in it that resemble one another, but with different neighbors, that developed at different times in different contexts. Duplicate records lead to poor consistency! It seems like the commenter, upon reflection, noticed this inconsistency and was bothered by it. But he has the EQ to realize that starting an argument over it is unproductive, so posted here under a throwaway to get some catharsis.

indigochill 5y ago

> For myself, these hard statistical realities have increasingly robbed me of the romantic impulse. Marriage to me now seems absurd. An empty, pyrrhic victory. I don't follow why that is. Just because the world's fucked up doesn't mean exclusive devotion to another person doesn't have its romantic appeal. There was some philosopher I was reading about the other day who posited that the "free love" crowd weren't really free because they were slaves to whims and circumstance. A truly free person, as I gather, is one who decides and acts independently of personal feelings and circumstance. Ergo, if you don't want to give yourself to your partner, do it anyway. Not out of external obligation, but out of the commitment you decided to make to them. In that perspective, committing to lifelong unconditional love is one of the few victories we have over being mechanical cogs in a sensational machine. What makes this even better, though, is when you're loving someone unconditionally, it's usually hard for them not to return some of that love sooner or later. So you build a gradual virtuous cycle. Someone's just gotta make the first move.

snarf21 5y ago

It is very complicated. My experience in dating post divorce is that men feel like they are in a no win situation. A lot of women still want prince charming and chivalry but they also want independence. They want a man who will take care of them but still want to have the freedom to do what they want. They want to be wanted but give only when it suits them. They want a sensitive man with high EQ but also one that will get in a fight for them at a bar. That being said, I don't blame them. Why not want it all? A lot of this is cultural. They grow up with Cinderella but very few will get to play that role. They grow up thinking that motherhood is a must but a lot don't really want that life. They work hard and rightly feel desire to have what they want. You mix all these things together and it is no wonder there is confusion. Another take is one from Billy Crystal in City Slickers, "Women need a reason to have sex, men just need a place." This difference greatly captures a lot of people's approach to sex.

newsclues 5y ago
Why not want it all? Because perfect is the enemy of good and you end up bitter, old and alone