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I like the suggestion that we concern ourselvrs more with the quality of men's internal lives, but I do worry we're still objectifying men as 'the problem'.
It'll stop once it stops being a problem. FTA:
He had recently read about a high school creative writing assignment in which boys and girls were asked to imagine a day from the perspective of the opposite sex. While girls wrote detailed essays showing they had already spent significant time thinking about the subject, many boys simply refused to do the exercise or did so resentfully.
I mean, we're not just talking about the ability to communicate (which is important), but the basic ability to empathize. If men (in general) are unwilling to even consider the female point of view, is it any wonder why women have a difficult time dating? This isn't happening in a vacuum; there are real reasons why this is happening.
Boys refusing to do an exercise about imagining a day as the other gender represents a social problem, not a men problem. High school boys who refuse to imagine themselves as someone else were taught to be resistant to that idea, and not only by men but society as a whole.
You couldn't be more in your own echo chamber. If other men are telling you woman also act the same way as some men and also have issues and you refuse to see another position or point of view you are the problem.
Think of the structural issues which have caused this to be the case. Blaming men for not achieving an externally defined target isn't going to help anyone.
Hate the game, not the player.
I would hesitate to draw conclusions from something like that. Both me and a lot of the other men I know just flat out skipped basically every assignment like that if it didn't give enough points to be worth the effort, from middle school up through college.
Beyond that, it just seems like a shitty assignment as a whole. Because either a) it's done under an assumption that their day as the opposite sex would be spontaneous, and thus would have very few relevant differences from their normal days (and we can easily guess those differences) or b) it's done under an assumption of having always been the opposite sex, in which case it would just be an exercise in the butterfly effect, since huge amounts of things would be different, to the point that any generic hypothetical day would work.
All this is to say, it's a prime assignment for skipping
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Navigating interpersonal relationships in a time of evolving gender norms and expectations “requires a level of emotional sensitivity that I think some men probably just lack, or they don’t have the experience,” he added.
I like the quote above about this topic but it does still seem like men are the problem. The problem is that we as a society haven't taught those skills and worse yet reinforce the opposite. We should be concerned with men's internal lives and mold them to fit into modern society
Seriously. We can't just call men "the problem". We have to address the problems men are having in their social lives and in dating. Men are not being given a fair shot to bring their best selves.
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A big part is diminishing religiosity. There is little point in getting married if you aren't religious. Thanks to progress made by LGBT couples, most of the legal benefits of marriage are shared by domestic partnerships. Traditionalists on the left and the right make a big deal of this, but it is of negligible factual importance.
I don't think most people who get married do it for religious reasons or even to start a family in the US anymore. People do it since they see it a formal a commitment and want to announce their love in public.
That only covers one angle, if people do it for religious reasons, not if they don't do it because of religion. I'm not getting married, and the religious connotations of even a secular wedding is a significant chunk of why.
There's also a million legal reasons to get married... If there weren't, same sex marriage would probably have never made it to the Supreme Court. Everything from insurance coverage, employment benefits, credit rating, child custody, transfer of property following death, medical decisions, and a bunch of other very secular, very important benefits are conferred via legal marriage.
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I'm pretty sure it's pretty clear that the slight increase in domestic partnerships over marriage does not shore up the declining marriage rates.
“Ask women what dating is like”. Good idea if you want a biased one sided opinion.
This article is vomit.
Biggest issue with the article. NO male voices, and it's repeating the same lines I have heard since the mid 00's.
Now I acknowledge that there hasn't been much movement on the dating front, but men are only half the problem, as they are only half the population.
They would change in a hurry as a group if they needed to, but men aren't a monolith and neither are women.
You want men to be better, be better yourself. The article is garbage by saying men need to step up while not talking to them about the issues they face in the dating world. ESPECIALLY if they aren't Hetronormative.
So, men are only a problem because...women are the problem?
Wow.
Fuck's sake, worry about yourself. You want better? Deserve it. Or not, and settle for less. Whatever.
An article that wonders why people aren't getting married says they went out and only asked one side what the problem was. 🤔
Doesn't even seem balanced....
Edit: as a romance favourable aroace, the dating world was a nightmare, even if you do everything "right". Which is why I no longer look to find companionship.
Do better or not, there are garbage people in all genders and the prevailing "men bad" when it comes to dating is just as toxic as what the men are doing.
The article also doesn't suggest any possible solutions.
Ask a woman what dating is like. You, personally. I dare you.
Only issue is, clearly you won't listen to their answer.
Well, considering dating takes at least 2 people (depending on how you live your life, and yes non-monagamy and polyamory are vaild), asking only one group is incredibly biased.
Odd take. You do realize that a relationship is about TWO people right? It’s not all about you. Shocker right?
Yes and one of those ppl is statistically more likely to kill the other. How are u so dense u don't get his point.
Yes a relationship is 2 people. That's not relevant here. If one person is shit why do both people need to "work on things"
News flash... They don't.
So your argument is that men as a whole aren’t dateable because an extreme minority of them are unhinged and go on school shootings? Huh?
You hate men. We get it.
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There is a widespread, socially disruptive, and sometimes life threatening epidemic of unfuckable dudes.
There are challenges with expectations and entitlements on all sides, but the unfuckable dudes are not rising to meet the challenges.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
The most recent wave of commenters have tended to position themselves as iconoclasts speaking hard truths: Two-parent families often result in better outcomes for kids, writes Megan McArdle, in The Washington Post, but “for various reasons,” she goes on, this “is too often left unsaid” — even though policy wonks, and the pundits who trumpet their ideas, have been telling (straight) people to get married for the sake of their children for decades.
But harping on people to get married from high up in the ivory tower fails to engage with the reality on the ground that heterosexual women from many walks of life confront: that is, the state of men today.
Ms. Camino, for her part, has dabbled in dating since her partner left, but hasn’t yet met anyone who shares her values, someone who’s funny and — she hesitates to use the word “feminist” — but a man who won’t just roll his eyes and say something about being on her period whenever she voices an opinion.
The in-depth interviews, he said, “were even more dispiriting.” For a variety of reasons — mixed messages from the broader culture about toughness and vulnerability, the activity-oriented nature of male friendships — it seems that by the time men begin dating, they are relatively “limited in their ability and willingness to be fully emotionally present and available,” he said.
Navigating interpersonal relationships in a time of evolving gender norms and expectations “requires a level of emotional sensitivity that I think some men probably just lack, or they don’t have the experience,” he added.
The behaviors were ubiquitous enough that Ms. Inhorn compiled a sort of taxonomy of cads, such as the “Alpha males” who “want to be challenged by work, not by their partners” or the “Polyamorous men” who claim “that their multiple attachments to women are all ‘committed.’” Her breakdown — table 1.1 in the book — reads like a rigorous academic version of all the complaints you’ve ever heard from your single female friends.
The original article contains 1,877 words, the summary contains 335 words. Saved 82%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Or women could just lower their standards if they don't think anyone is good enough for them. That's basically what men have been told for ages, that women don't need to go about changing themselves to meet the standards of men. Surely the same operates in reverse, no? If women don't like their prospects, they can either lower their bar or stay single since men don't need to change themselves to please women?
The standard doesn't necessarily apply in reverse if you look at how the work is split between male and female partners in hetero relationships - it's often skewed that the woman does a lot more emotional work, household work, and childcare, on top of also having full time jobs. I think you're right though, if men aren't meeting women's standards, then women should either be content to be single, hook up with other women (for those who would prefer), or reexamine how important romantic relationships are for them.
if men aren’t meeting women’s standards, then women should either be content to be single, hook up with other women, or reexamine how important romantic relationships are for them.
I take issue with the part that is bold and italisied. Not sure what you are saying, but it seems like a gross misunderstanding how people work.
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The bar is already on the floor yet some men limbo below that.
And there are women who still choose those men.
I mean, the point of the article is the women who are struggling to find suitable partners. The attitude that woman should just lower their standards (and yet again just accept higher workloads and lower efforts from their partners) is pretty antifeminist. The problem here isn't that they have unattainable standards, it's that a lot of men aren't putting in effort to meet those basic standards, for whatever reason.
Well, maybe they are looking in the wrong place. Or they just have unobtainable standards.
The article treats it like a onesided issue, which when you are dealing with people, it's not. There isn't an easy way of dealing with this issue and the 'men bad' vibe this article gives off isn't adding to the solution. It doesn't offer solutions, suggestions or even a second viewpoint.
The problem here isn't that they have unattainable standards, it's that a lot of men aren't putting in effort to meet those basic standards, for whatever reason.
Are men obligated to meet those standards if they have no interest in doing so? Men don't just exist for the sake of giving women someone to date, after all. And while the article was (I hesitate to say intentionally) vague about specifics, one thing it mentioned multiple times was holding a college degree. It's hardly what I'd call "basic standards", considering it takes a huge amount of time, and a fair deal of money to achieve. Of all the men I've talked with, myself included, that "standard" doesn't seem to be prevalent, with the closest thing being "I guess it would be cool".
At what point does the principle of "if everywhere you go smells like shit" start applying to these women who date but seem to never find a man that meet their standards? It only seems reasonable if nobody meets the standards, that the standards may be a major part of the issue.
And I don't mean to say that women should just settle for men they don't like, but "just stay single" is always an option, one men are told repeatedly whenever they struggle with relationships.
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this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
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