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Great Male Renunciation

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Re: Great Male Renunciation

#71

Post by nequo »

Jensson wrote: post #37

Bright colors used to be a sign of quality, everything expensive had tons of colors. Industrial revolution changed that, now bright colors are associated with cheap toys instead because they are used to cover deficiencies in the production process. So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things.

> So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things.

Women’s clothing is more colorful today. I don’t think it is because women care less about quality than men.

Re: Great Male Renunciation

#72

Post by hermitcrab »

When I travelled around, India some 30 years ago, it very noticeable that the women nearly all wore colourful saris and the men nearly all wore drab coloured clothing. The opposite of much of the animal kingdom.

Re: Great Male Renunciation

#73

Post by marginalia_nu »

ben_w wrote: post #56
marginalia_nu wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars were an arguably overvalued novelty at the time. The more fundamental question should be something like, do you need to work to put food on your table. If yes, then you are not wealthy.

Here in Berlin, we have a "pfand" (deposit) on various bottles. At a summer barbecue you sometimes get people asking to take your bottles away, so they can collect that deposit themselves. For the larger bottles, just four per day would equal the income of a pre-industrial farmhand.

..., ignoring inflation.

Re: Great Male Renunciation

#74

Post by Jensson »

kixiQu wrote: post #55
Jensson wrote: post #37

Bright colors used to be a sign of quality, everything expensive had tons of colors. Industrial revolution changed that, now bright colors are associated with cheap toys instead because they are used to cover deficiencies in the production process. So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things.

This is a kind of theory that would apply equally to social signaling for both men and women. The linked article is talking about how there was an interesting phenomenon shifting men's clothing, but not women's.

All you need is that men didn't change, men had the same things in mind when choosing clothes hundreds of years ago as today. We see toady most men chooses clothes based on quality and utility. Why do you think men didn't do it back then? The main thing that changed was that back then high quality clothes were gaudy and colored, now they aren't.

Re: Great Male Renunciation

#75

Post by PeterisP »

dudul wrote: post #35
orwin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was notables and nobles clothing, so 10%? plus military. Plus all the textile workers where tint was available, so I guess quite a lot.

10% of the population was notables and nobles?? I'm gonna need to see some links/data here.

To put some numbers to it, if we look at pre-revolution France then nobles constitute https://www.thoughtco.com/french-revolution-pre-revolutionar...) of population, the 'first estate' i.e. clergy another 0.4-0.5%, the bourgeoisie (which would match the professions that we'd consider "middle class" nowadays") would grow from 3% to 7% over 18th century, and 90%+ people would be in the lower class.

In essence, if we want some sweeping generalizations and be generous, then assuming 1%/9%/90% for upper/middle/lower class is roughly in the ballpark for most societies until the 20th century.

So while the noble families are nowhere near 10%, it's not entirely wrong to assert that the top 10% including all the non-noble bourgeoisie, the merchants, doctors, lawyers, officers, etc, would have the means and desire to care about fashion.

Re: Great Male Renunciation

#76

Post by Aaargh20318 »

nequo wrote: post #71
Jensson wrote: post #37

Bright colors used to be a sign of quality, everything expensive had tons of colors. Industrial revolution changed that, now bright colors are associated with cheap toys instead because they are used to cover deficiencies in the production process. So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things.

> So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things. Women’s clothing is more colorful today. I don’t think it is because women care less about quality than men.

Isn’t women’s clothing notoriously low-quality due to the whole ‘fast fashion’ phenomenon?

Re: Great Male Renunciation

#77

Post by Jensson »

nequo wrote: post #71
Jensson wrote: post #37

Bright colors used to be a sign of quality, everything expensive had tons of colors. Industrial revolution changed that, now bright colors are associated with cheap toys instead because they are used to cover deficiencies in the production process. So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things.

> So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things. Women’s clothing is more colorful today. I don’t think it is because women care less about quality than men.

Men wouldn't buy pants without good pockets, yet women prefers them so much that it is hard to find pants with good pockets for women. Only reason to have shitty pockets is that it makes the pants look a tiny bit better from the outside, but that tiny improvement in looks was enough to make women buy it instead.

So yeah, I'd argue that women and men do look at significantly different things when they make purchases.

Re: Great Male Renunciation

#78

Post by debacle »

nequo wrote: post #71
Jensson wrote: post #37

Bright colors used to be a sign of quality, everything expensive had tons of colors. Industrial revolution changed that, now bright colors are associated with cheap toys instead because they are used to cover deficiencies in the production process. So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things.

> So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things. Women’s clothing is more colorful today. I don’t think it is because women care less about quality than men.

What men and women find attractive are wildly different, especially when it comes to first impressions.

Re: Great Male Renunciation

#79

Post by gwenzek »

dudul wrote: post #35
orwin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was notables and nobles clothing, so 10%? plus military. Plus all the textile workers where tint was available, so I guess quite a lot.

10% of the population was notables and nobles?? I'm gonna need to see some links/data here.

Graphic 5.2 in http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Piketty2019GraphiquesTableau...

In France it was down to less than 1% at the time of Revolution, but some countries like Spain that had centuries long wars, was closer to 6-8% range.

Re: Great Male Renunciation

#80

Post by DFHippie »

Jensson wrote: post #77
nequo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So it makes sense that people who care about quality moved away from colorful things. Women’s clothing is more colorful today. I don’t think it is because women care less about quality than men.

Men wouldn't buy pants without good pockets, yet women prefers them so much that it is hard to find pants with good pockets for women. Only reason to have shitty pockets is that it makes the pants look a tiny bit better from the outside, but that tiny improvement in looks was enough to make women buy it instead. So yeah, I'd argue that women and men do look at significantly different things when they make purchases.

Plenty of women complain about the lack of pockets in women's pants. I think women feel others' judgment about their clothing choices more sharply than men do. This isn't a personality quirk. The condemnation comes down harder on them. Look at what is happening in Iran. Women are being killed for how they choose to dress. So if women make different choices, don't ascribe this entirely to differences in their personality. They face different constraints.
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