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Dating, education, and sex ratios

robkhenderson.com

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Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#391

Post by sneed_chucker »

dahwolf wrote: post #252
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #200

While the article offers nothing of value outside of its provocative title (but I clicked so I guess it works), I’m genuinely fascinated by why every article about dating here leads to such a slew of poor comments. I mean the discussion is full of entitlement, misogyny, cynicism or a mix of the three. A casual reading lends me to think that this is because this place skews rather young.

What misogyny? Women are not above criticism and most of the comments dropped here can easily be backed up by data.

In modern western culture, women as a group are indeed above criticism.

If you were to make the same sorts of broad generalizations and value judgements that are made towards men as a group every day in major news outlets and universities against women, it would be derided as misogyny.

Any sort of statement about women as a group that could be perceived as negative must be predicted on the assertion that the potentially negative trait is due to society, patriarchy, or men.

These are my personal perceptions based on observing how discourse on sex and gender has been conducted over the last decade or so.

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#392

Post by soylentcola »

ragequittah wrote: post #373
jhanschoo wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Men and women deal with and express emotions in radically different ways With this statement, I think you are coming from a place of cultural bias. I find that men and women are more alike than "radically different" with emotions, with similar emotional needs and wants (perhaps to different degrees, but there is much variation within gender, I feel). However, in some societies, how they are allowed to recognize, va…

I feel like this idea of emotional intelligence is impossible to achieve without first having a partner to develop it along side . And given the surprising amount of men who never have a partner these days, to expect them to come factory installed with these settings seems like expecting a 3 year old not to spill juice on their shirt. I wouldn't expect a 25 year old woman who has never been on a date to understand th…

Very good point. I'm a straight man in my mid 40s. Had two long-term relationships over the past 20 years that eventually ended. Mostly had shorter ones and one longer one in my teens/20s.

I've been seeing someone now for just shy of 2 years and I've really noticed how much differently I approach things now. Obviously not perfect, but things I simply didn't understand or know how to deal with constructively in the past seem at least familiar now. Essentially, I have a clue now.

This isn't an "end state" but rather a process of learning and developing that continues - but has gotten to a point where I feel like a much better partner than I probably was in the past. I didn't have terribly great role models to emulate in this regard and I wasn't born knowing how to participate in a romantic relationship. But I've at least had some experience in what can work, what doesn't work well, and where I need to focus to avoid mistakes I've made or others could've handled better.

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#393

Post by OrvalWintermute »

itishappy wrote: post #297
dahwolf wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's insulting in the sense that the stoicism of many men is considered unintelligent, primitive, underdeveloped. You can frame it how you want. It can also be projected as a strength (emotional control). Or men simply being less interested in exchanging emotions intensely as it's just not that important to them.

Emotional intelligence and emotional control are different. They're separate concepts, though I'd bet they correlate a bit. It's possible to be emotional and out of touch. It's possible to be stoic and receptive.

My cute toddler mini-me has a high amount of emotional intelligence and intuitively understands other people's emotions, and will reflect other people's emotions.

She also has no emotional control and is likely to bite you, or bawl on the floor crying when she doesn't get her way.

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#394

Post by testacct22 »

dnissley wrote: post #174
keiferski wrote: post #52

I read a book awhile ago called Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? , which basically argues that cultures which strongly promote traditional values, having children, etc. will evolutionarily outcompete groups that don’t. It made me think that there must be a kind of cycle in human societies, where certain social values (like the ones mentioned in the article) are able to become popular for a short period of time…

I'm starting to view the relationship between the religious part of our society and the secular as being symbiotic in a sense. What makes people defect from religious communities on the border to secular centers? Some combination of money, freedom, and power (to participate in shaping the wider society at scale). The cost of that defection is an uprooting and disconnection from "traditional values". I'm not as certai…

> What makes people defect from the secular centers back to religious communities on the border? Just the opposite trade off -- less money, freedom, power. But you'll be more grounded and connected to a community, which can be immensely satisfying. And it's easier to raise kids

I feel like this is a more recent trend than vice versa

Another thing that the "religious" parts provide is population, some of which will flow to urban centers. Which will probably be exacerbated in the US in coming decades because of growing cultural divide between different states

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#395

Post by [deleted] »

monksy wrote: post #199
Volundr wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've had one organization call the "confederate flag" a form of racism. Claiming it's not is not the hill I'd choose to die on. Modern display of what most call the "confederate flag" (it isn't) rose to prominence in response to the civil rights movement. It was a perfect example of hiding behind the thinnest veneer of legitimacy while attacking someone. I don't doubt that many in the modern day display it out of i…

> Claiming it's not is not the hill I'd choose to die on. Me either, also I'm for banning all flags in the workplace. But people who vastly generalize large swaths of the population in a negative light in an inaccurate manner is as bad. > Modern display of what most call the "confederate flag" (it isn't) rose to prominence in response to the civil rights movement. Growing up in the south the flag is used as an region…

[deleted]

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#396

Post by testacct22 »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #271
politician wrote: post #25

Towards the end, the article posits that the reason men fail to attain higher levels of education is video games. I would be curious to see how the effect of video games stacks up against the effect of the significant support industry established for helping girls succeed in STEM while comparable support for boys is nonexistent.

I'll probably be downvoted to hell for this but here goes... The state of the current education system is outright hostility towards boys. feminists (specifically third wave) long ago, infiltrated k-12 and shove their ideology down little boys throats at every level. any overt show of masculinity is treated as toxic. I don't think a lot of this pride stuff being pushed by the mainstream media right now is about accep…

> Since there are few male teachers, the boys without a strong father figure at home never get taught how to channel their masculine energy in a healthy way

I'll give an alternative perspective: people who talk this way try to shame men into traditional "masculine" roles

I'm not just talking about hetero vs queer either. More like, pressuring men to "care about" the marriage -> kids -> nuclear family life track. Or pressuring men to (implicitly) see women as sex objects

Something I've realized: whenever someone talks about this "crisis", they're always making some implicit demand on how other people should live

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#397

Post by LorenPechtel »

antisthenes wrote: post #307
dahwolf wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, it's a play on the meme: "man dead, woman most affected". Popular culture has become structurally anti-male. The ease at which we're described as simplistic, violent, sexual addicts doesn't seem to surprise anyone anymore. This article almost makes a humanitarian problem out of a luxury problem: highly educated women unable to find somebody even richer than them.

Also women with impossible standards (e.g. 6'+, $200k+/yearly, loves dogs, wants (or doesn't) kids, is single, from a good family, won't cheat, owns his own house, blue eyes, etc.) refusing to lower them in search of a partner well into their 30s, then wondering "where all the good men are".

Fundamentally, it's that women typically want a partner that's above them--but with society being basically equal now there is a dearth of such men. It's going to take a while to adjust to having to settle for someone who is simply your equal.

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#398

Post by testacct22 »

Every time I see one of these threads, there's always a bunch of baggage in the comments. There's also a bunch of stereotyping I see, e.g. men "preferring" hookup culture

Also on top of this, whenever there's talk about a so called "masculinity crisis", there's a bunch of tacit demands on how other people should live. This is regardless of whichever political camp the talk originates from

It's gotten to a point that whenever I figure out a discussion or article is "directed" at men, I stop reading because I already know it's going to start telling me what I "need" to care about as a man

I'm honestly fed up with it at this point. If someone has something to say to me as a person, go ahead. But if someone has something to say to me as a man, I'd prefer it if they'd take their bullshit elsewhere

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#399

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

timeagain wrote: post #206
friend_and_foe wrote: post #161

All the data is good, but the way it is framed is a bit misleading. First, lets get one thing straight: dysfunction in the dating world negatively affects both men and women. So framing it as "men floundering, women most affected" is disingenuous. What is it about the prospects a man has that he has no desire to become desirable? If men's lives are less rewarding wouldn't it be them, not the women, that are the most…

> So framing it as "men floundering, women most affected" is disingenuous. My 2c as a gay man that has many women as friends. They aren’t looking for “status” they are looking for someone who is emotionally intelligent. And thinking that gaining status is how to gain women is pretty much the opposite of that. Patriarchy hurts both sexes. By thinking of status and power as avenues to sex you stunt your ability to conn…

What patriachy?

The idea only makes sense if you believe a matriarchy would be better. There has never been any anthropological record of a matriarchy, that is to say that any society that had a matriarchal structure was quickly overrun by those that didn’t. Some fate.

Men and women are different, and what you call a patriachy is just the natural order of things, some variation between individuals not withstanding.

Re: Dating, education, and sex ratios

#400

Post by strikelaserclaw »

chad1n wrote: post #178
visihuge wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of these kinds of articles are always seem to be slanted in how it negatively affects women. Women desiring more successful partners, yet men aren't keeping up. I'd be interested if there was any good article broaching that subject more, instead of remarkably pithy answers like "it's those damn video games."

I agree, I believe that this high difference between women and men in higher education comes from men being sufficient with a "physical" job that pays almost as a "mental" one. Women just can't these jobs and they have to choose between working at McDonald's or trying to find a job using a Bachelor's degree. Men have many more alternatives, hence the "unequal" pay.

I've also met many women with low abilities who will themselves to get degrees (barely) where as a man who feels he is not suited for higher education, usually chooses the trade routes. So even these two people are equal in ability, the woman would generally not go for the man who chose to drop out because "i am better educated." I've also noticed woman have a far better control of their impulses where as men would just give in (more emotionally intelligent on average).
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