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> Degrees don't make you marriage material. This gets said so much on fora with men who regard themselves as “redpilled”, but it makes no sense to me personall

> Degrees don't make you marriage material. This gets said so much on fora with men who regard themselves as “redpilled”, but it makes no sense to me personally. As a bookish and arts-inclined person, so much of my worldview, the things that occupy my thoughts during the day, has been formed by the canon of literature, music, films. No woman would seem dating and marriage material to me if she weren’t similarly erudite and we would have some common ground in that respect. It has been the number-one factor driving all my relationships over my life. Often the man claiming that men don’t care about a woman’s education, goes on to say that what matters is that the woman knows, for example, how to cook. That, too, has never made sense to me. I live in a country where for the childless, eating out good healthy food is not appreciably more expensive than cooking at home, and a woman who chooses to take advantage of that and use her valuable time for other pursuits, would seem more attractive.

deleted 5y ago
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username90 5y ago
You studying social subjects that almost only women study is the exception, you can afford to be picky about this. Lots of guys would love to have a woman who shares their interest, but since so few women study technical topics they have to settle with women they have little in common with. And at that point whether they studied some social topic or no topic and did other stuff isn't high up on the list.
- Mediterraneo10 5y ago
  Thanks, that is some insight into why men who are primarily concerned with technical subjects would be unsatisfied with the dating market. However, I wouldn't claim that "almost only women" are concerned with the humanities subjects I mentioned above. Film criticism and scholarship on many branches of literature and music are still fields that draw either predominantly men, or have a pretty even gender balance.
  - username90 5y ago
    If you take the subject and the adjacent subjects you get mostly women though, even if specific courses are more balanced. It is the same in technical courses, some of them like chemistry and biology have more even balance but overall there aren't a lot of women.
    - majormajor 5y ago
      You seem to have this assumption that the only expression and development of interests comes through taking courses. I have a degree in CS, yet care much more that my partner shares my non-technical interests than my technical ones, cause I can talk shop all day long at work already...
      - username90 5y ago
        I responded to a guy who argued that he wouldn't date a girl without a similar degree to his own, I am arguing against that position not for it.
        majormajor 5y ago
        Well, no, they said "No woman would seem dating and marriage material to me if she weren’t similarly erudite and we would have some common ground in that respect" but being erudite in no way requires or is the same as having a degree. That's just one way of many to get exposed to things.
        Mediterraneo10 5y ago
        I didn’t actually argue that. The erudition I have always sought in dating or marriage material does not depend on the degree I have, and in fact my own degree is in a field different than the canon of art to which I mentioned above. But sure, having a degree of some sort does greatly boost the chances that one will have had access to an academic library (or awareness of alternatives like LibGen), and potentially made use of it for subjects beyond one’s own degree programme.
- NortySpock 5y ago
  "so few women study technical topics" I don't even know what to say to this. Is [picks from list] speech pathologist, dental hygienist, nurse, payroll clerk or hairdresser NOT a job that involves a fair amount of knowledge, training, and skill? Just because it's not EE or CS doesn't mean there isn't a wealth of technical and scientific understanding (or even just an understanding of the legal environment) going on behind the scenes of a profession. So you're probably not going to find a girl who has exactly the same job as you and wants to date you -- but if you ask them to explain their profession to you, you might just learn there's a lot going on under the hood. "they have to settle with women they have little in common with" Again, this is just a lack of imagination. I studied a bit of chemistry, my wife studied a lot of chemistry, we appreciate that chemistry is cool. Just because I went with computers and she went with medicine doesn't mean we have "little in common"; we just find other topics to geek-out about. "Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't." ― Bill Nye [1] list was https://fourpillarfreedom.com/visualizing-u-s-occupational-employment-by-gender/ https://fourpillarfreedom.com/visualizing-u-s-occupational-e...
  - throwaway33432 5y ago
    debt is likely acquired with the degree; fields that skew female are also low-paying. that's basically it: debt is not attractive.
ravenstine 5y ago
> Often the man claiming that men don’t care about a woman’s education, goes on to say that what matters is that the woman knows, for example, how to cook. That, too, has never made sense to me. I live in a country where for the childless, eating out good healthy food is not appreciably more expensive than cooking at home, and a woman who chooses to take advantage of that and use her valuable time for other pursuits, would seem more attractive. If a woman is basically the mirror image of a man (degree, high paying job, spends most of the day at an office), then what exactly is a man buying into with a relationship with said woman? Maybe intimacy, but that feeling will wear off after a few years. A vagina? Well, that's kind of depressing on its own. Expecting men to love and accept women who serve the exact same role they do in life is like wondering why companies aren't run entirely by managers, or entirely by assembly line workers. Men can already make a bunch of money and find intellectual stimulation from other men, and a woman has to compete with that. So what does a woman necessarily provide a man in that case? Related to that, an intellectual woman probably isn't going to have a lot of time for anything outside of a few hours of eating food, watching Netflix, and maybe sex. That's all fine and good, except there's a kind of relationship that already fulfills those things, and it's called friends with benefits. Why make a contract with the state that gives half your possessions to the opposite party if things go wrong when you can get the benefits without any of that baggage? No offense, but it can be really astounding how people simply can't understand that the programming they received about college degrees can be wrong. Man spent millions of years mating with women who didn't have a college degree (and vise versa!). A woman with a college degree does little more than what the man already can do with his own college degree. It's just like the field of software engineering. No one really wants to work with a jerk with credentials. They want someone with good qualities that they can get along with.
- majormajor 5y ago
  You think a better relationship would be built on a "cook and clean and take care of kids for me" role? I can pay to have that done for me these days!
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    If that's what someone is looking for in another person, then yes. But the concept of "better" is purely contextual. What seems to be better for marriages, or any team of people, is when the participants bring fulfill different roles that serve the shared mission. Two people doing fundamentally the same thing isn't necessarily helpful, although some people may thrive together that way.
zdragnar 5y ago
I knew a few women who went to college specifically for the purpose of finding a man to marry, with their goal being a stay at home mother and wife to a lawyer or doctor or something wealthy sounding. They were as physically attractive as they were emotionally shallow. There is much much more to a person than an education.
fighterpilot 5y ago
Would a 21 year old woman with a high school education who is extremely attractive be more sought after by more men than a 40 year old woman of average attractiveness who has a PhD? I'd guess yes, and I don't think it'd be a close contest. I'd guess about 90 percent of men would go with the former if they had a real choice between the two. It's not that the PhD doesn't add to the attractiveness. It's just not the most important variable for most men. You might differ, but unusually intellectually curious men on HN aren't really representative. Most people have very little intellectual curiosity.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  Some of that has to do with evolution. At 40 a woman has almost passed her child bearing age. Evolutionary this match has low advantage. For a life partner i would and did pick the PhD tho

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username90 5y ago

You studying social subjects that almost only women study is the exception, you can afford to be picky about this. Lots of guys would love to have a woman who shares their interest, but since so few women study technical topics they have to settle with women they have little in common with. And at that point whether they studied some social topic or no topic and did other stuff isn't high up on the list.

Mediterraneo10 5y ago
Thanks, that is some insight into why men who are primarily concerned with technical subjects would be unsatisfied with the dating market. However, I wouldn't claim that "almost only women" are concerned with the humanities subjects I mentioned above. Film criticism and scholarship on many branches of literature and music are still fields that draw either predominantly men, or have a pretty even gender balance.
- username90 5y ago
  If you take the subject and the adjacent subjects you get mostly women though, even if specific courses are more balanced. It is the same in technical courses, some of them like chemistry and biology have more even balance but overall there aren't a lot of women.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    You seem to have this assumption that the only expression and development of interests comes through taking courses. I have a degree in CS, yet care much more that my partner shares my non-technical interests than my technical ones, cause I can talk shop all day long at work already...
    - username90 5y ago
      I responded to a guy who argued that he wouldn't date a girl without a similar degree to his own, I am arguing against that position not for it.
      - majormajor 5y ago
        Well, no, they said "No woman would seem dating and marriage material to me if she weren’t similarly erudite and we would have some common ground in that respect" but being erudite in no way requires or is the same as having a degree. That's just one way of many to get exposed to things.
      - Mediterraneo10 5y ago
        I didn’t actually argue that. The erudition I have always sought in dating or marriage material does not depend on the degree I have, and in fact my own degree is in a field different than the canon of art to which I mentioned above. But sure, having a degree of some sort does greatly boost the chances that one will have had access to an academic library (or awareness of alternatives like LibGen), and potentially made use of it for subjects beyond one’s own degree programme.
NortySpock 5y ago
"so few women study technical topics" I don't even know what to say to this. Is [picks from list] speech pathologist, dental hygienist, nurse, payroll clerk or hairdresser NOT a job that involves a fair amount of knowledge, training, and skill? Just because it's not EE or CS doesn't mean there isn't a wealth of technical and scientific understanding (or even just an understanding of the legal environment) going on behind the scenes of a profession. So you're probably not going to find a girl who has exactly the same job as you and wants to date you -- but if you ask them to explain their profession to you, you might just learn there's a lot going on under the hood. "they have to settle with women they have little in common with" Again, this is just a lack of imagination. I studied a bit of chemistry, my wife studied a lot of chemistry, we appreciate that chemistry is cool. Just because I went with computers and she went with medicine doesn't mean we have "little in common"; we just find other topics to geek-out about. "Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't." ― Bill Nye [1] list was https://fourpillarfreedom.com/visualizing-u-s-occupational-employment-by-gender/ https://fourpillarfreedom.com/visualizing-u-s-occupational-e...
- throwaway33432 5y ago
  debt is likely acquired with the degree; fields that skew female are also low-paying. that's basically it: debt is not attractive.

ravenstine 5y ago

> Often the man claiming that men don’t care about a woman’s education, goes on to say that what matters is that the woman knows, for example, how to cook. That, too, has never made sense to me. I live in a country where for the childless, eating out good healthy food is not appreciably more expensive than cooking at home, and a woman who chooses to take advantage of that and use her valuable time for other pursuits, would seem more attractive. If a woman is basically the mirror image of a man (degree, high paying job, spends most of the day at an office), then what exactly is a man buying into with a relationship with said woman? Maybe intimacy, but that feeling will wear off after a few years. A vagina? Well, that's kind of depressing on its own. Expecting men to love and accept women who serve the exact same role they do in life is like wondering why companies aren't run entirely by managers, or entirely by assembly line workers. Men can already make a bunch of money and find intellectual stimulation from other men, and a woman has to compete with that. So what does a woman necessarily provide a man in that case? Related to that, an intellectual woman probably isn't going to have a lot of time for anything outside of a few hours of eating food, watching Netflix, and maybe sex. That's all fine and good, except there's a kind of relationship that already fulfills those things, and it's called friends with benefits. Why make a contract with the state that gives half your possessions to the opposite party if things go wrong when you can get the benefits without any of that baggage? No offense, but it can be really astounding how people simply can't understand that the programming they received about college degrees can be wrong. Man spent millions of years mating with women who didn't have a college degree (and vise versa!). A woman with a college degree does little more than what the man already can do with his own college degree. It's just like the field of software engineering. No one really wants to work with a jerk with credentials. They want someone with good qualities that they can get along with.

majormajor 5y ago
You think a better relationship would be built on a "cook and clean and take care of kids for me" role? I can pay to have that done for me these days!
- ravenstine 5y ago
  If that's what someone is looking for in another person, then yes. But the concept of "better" is purely contextual. What seems to be better for marriages, or any team of people, is when the participants bring fulfill different roles that serve the shared mission. Two people doing fundamentally the same thing isn't necessarily helpful, although some people may thrive together that way.

zdragnar 5y ago

I knew a few women who went to college specifically for the purpose of finding a man to marry, with their goal being a stay at home mother and wife to a lawyer or doctor or something wealthy sounding. They were as physically attractive as they were emotionally shallow. There is much much more to a person than an education.

fighterpilot 5y ago

Would a 21 year old woman with a high school education who is extremely attractive be more sought after by more men than a 40 year old woman of average attractiveness who has a PhD? I'd guess yes, and I don't think it'd be a close contest. I'd guess about 90 percent of men would go with the former if they had a real choice between the two. It's not that the PhD doesn't add to the attractiveness. It's just not the most important variable for most men. You might differ, but unusually intellectually curious men on HN aren't really representative. Most people have very little intellectual curiosity.

rdtwo 5y ago
Some of that has to do with evolution. At 40 a woman has almost passed her child bearing age. Evolutionary this match has low advantage. For a life partner i would and did pick the PhD tho